My self-imposed challenge for 2024 was to read through all the unread books in my house in alphabetical order, without buying any new books. You can read all about my thought process behind that here. It’s been going well, though we’re almost a quarter of the way through the year and I’m still firmly in the ‘A’s. In fact, due to book club, and the length of ‘Albion’, I’ve actually only completed four books for this challenge so far.
Which is part of why I’ve decided early on to abandon Henry James’ The Ambassadors. I rarely DNF (did not finish) a book; I usually force myself to trudge through a book I’m not enjoying just so I can say I’ve finished it. But what’s the point of that? It’s part of why I have so many unread books in my house in the first place. And, really, it’s pride or snobbery or both. Reading is meant to be enjoyable. And while I enjoy challenging myself, and will push through something that’s not exactly to my taste, I’ve decided that I’m going to start DNF-ing books much sooner.
This year I’m attempting to tackle clutter, which is leading to me being more ruthless about throwing things away (donating, rehoming or outright binning) rather than holding onto them for six months before doing just that. And I think my reading life needs to be similar – give up on something sooner rather than later. That way I can have more space (read: reading time) for the things (books) I love.
Within the first page or two I suspected The Ambassadors was not for me. I read James’ The Turn of the Screw whilst at uni, and I’m sure I enjoyed that – I mean, it’s pretty Gothic, why wouldn’t I? But this… urgh. James’ sentences are so long and meandering, reading through one, for me, is like wading through knee-high snow. A lot of effort for little gain. I feel the same about most of Dickens, so it’ll be interesting if I DNF some of those this year too. I made it to half way through the second chapter, though — maybe an hour of reading time — before abandoning the book.
Perhaps reading this straight after finishing I Capture the Castle didn’t help, because that is a very tough act to follow, having received a rare (from me) five star rating. (Yes, I know that’s not in alphabetical order – it was for book club!)
I’ll admit, I did a quick browse of Goodreads to see if reviewers were promising it would pick up. Most were speaking of the maze-like quality of the book, the Rubiks Cube nature of each sentence. So… no. I’m giving up and moving on. Maybe at a different time of life I would be up for the challenge of puzzling it out, but right now I don’t fancy it, and that’s OK. Off it pops to the charity shop.
That said… if you’re a Henry James fan and feel I simply must plough through this, state your argument below!
Lose Yourself Books 
[…] only given this three stars, but I’m surprised how much I enjoyed this novella, given I DNF the last Henry James I tried to read. The plot is simple: a literary biographer weedles his way into the lives of two elderly (we […]