Books and skipping

[GabeZhul]

A question to all: do you skip paragraphs/chapters/volumes in novels/series when you like the content but dislike or get bored with only certain parts of it?

This question is entirely inspired by my first reading of the Wheel of Time (which I never read before because of the sheer length of the series was daunting.) The ones who already read the series probably know the reason, but for the uninitiated: Robert Jordan is a great writer when it comes to prose, world-building and action, but he happens to write some of the worst relationship writing in existence (90% of the couples are literally strangled by the red string, because the pattern/fate needs them to be together for it to work out) coupled with some of the most annoying one-note female characters ever written (all the female leads are either immature idiots or know-it-all smug-snakes, and they somehow manage to ALWAYS make situations worse), which is pretty bad when roughly 50% of the books are told from their perspective.

And here's the crux: Lately I have been following a pattern; I read all the chapters with the male perspective, then when it switches to one of the female leads, I hit up WoTwiki, read the synopsis of that chapter, and then if I find that interesting I grind my teeth through the actual part, while if not then I just skip to the next one. Admittedly this is a fairly unique situation, as not many books have synopses broken down by chapters freely available, but it works.

On a bigger scale though, I am probably going to do the same to the entire middle section of the series, which is the infamous five-book cluster where literally nothing happens, but plan on getting back to the last four books and read them in full afterwards.

So here's the question again: Have any of you guys done anything similar before, or just skipped large parts of a book or series in general? Please do share your experiences and opinions.

 

[Evonisia]

Not generally, no, just in case a scene contains something I might really like (even if it's just a line or two) I try to power on through it. I'm pretty sure that's why I desperately wanted to die while reading the 12 Years a Slave memoir (I know, not fiction, but I can't imagine you would change much to make it so).

But not for A Song of Ice and Fire, though. About half way through Clash of Kings I gave up on reading Jon Snow's chapters (thank God they're labelled as such). I never found his tale particularly interesting save for when he first leaves his home in the first book, but at least there was Samwell who could provide some entertainment. I felt like Samwell was getting less and less presence as I read on, so I couldn't bare reading those chapters when I could be reading about other, more interesting ones.

 

[TakerFoxx]

I admit: the first time I read Lord of the Rings, I looked up Gollum in the index and just read the chapters he was in. But in my defense, I was still in elementary school at the time and Riddles in the Dark was my favorite part of the Hobbit.

 

[Queen Michael]

No. Never even considered it. I'll give up on a book if it's bad, but I'll never skip any parts.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I'll skip paragraphs if its obvious whats happening and its just boring me, but in that case the story tends to be getting stale and I'll soon just stop reading altogether.

And I often skip sentences without noticing which leads to some confusion, especially when I miss something like the fact that the character is dreaming or "3 weeks later" or something.

 

[LostCrusader]

I'm way to much of a completionist to skip parts of a story. Even if a section is the most boring thing ever, I'll either tough it out or just let the series die. For example, I read a lot of the EU Star Wars books and nearly gave them up when I got to a book that was basically just Han and Leia traveling with their granddaughter. I just left that book aside until I saw something later that looked interesting, then tried to rush though the shitty book.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

I sometimes skim sentences when it's not particularly important, but other than that, no, I never skip sections. Any book where you can skip entire chapters or sections and not miss much is a book in dire need of an editor.

 

[MetalMagpie]

I sometimes skim to the next bit of dialogue if a writer has gone a bit overboard with his description.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Usually not, but sometimes when I re-read a book (which I do a lot), I might skip parts I didn't enjoy on my first read.

And yes, another one for A Song of Ice and Fire. When I read it a second time I might have skipped a quarter of A Dance with Dragons. I swear, some of those chapters go absolutely nowhere.

 

[happyninja42]

I gave up on Sansa chapters in Game Of Thrones. Just like I don't bother paying attention to her abysmal scenes in the show either.

Yeah, I did the same for the scenes with Cersei and Sansa. Both of their internal dialogue was so frustrating to read, that I had to skip it to preserve my own sanity. Cersei was just so batshit crazy, and Sansa was so fucking naive and stupid, I just couldn't stand it.

I actually like the Sansa on the tv show a bit more. She seems less stupid and naive than portrayed in the book. Of course, that could simply be because I'm not hearing her thoughts, and maybe she is just as dumb, but it doesn't seem that way.

Beyond Game of Thrones, if I'm reading a book a second time, I'll skip sections that were slow or dull to me. I've done that with the Dresden Files on several occasions. The first time I read a book though, I read every page, except for the GoT stuff, as mentioned above.

 

[cleric of the order]

NO, why would you do that?
I either read through the book, put it down and try again later or stop reading it. and that last part is very uncommon.

 

[GabeZhul]

NO, why would you do that?

In the case of the WoT books, I think I have already shared my reasons, but just to reiterate: The chapters that follow the three male leads are good. Rand's struggle with his destiny and slow spiral into inevitable madness; Perrin's similar struggle with his wolfbrother abilities and being torn between longing for a simple life and his duties towards his friends and allies and Mat's... well, Mat is just generally awesome once he gets rid of his evil doom-dagger of doomy evilness.

The female characters, on the other hand, are all various degrees of annoying (save for Min, she is all right). Egwene, Elayne and Aviendha are practically the same character even though they are from completely different backgrounds, Nyneve would be interesting if she didn't get flanderized into being a perpetually-angry braid-tugger by the end of the third book, the Aes Sedai in general are all know-it-all bitches who love tormenting each other and any men they can get their hands upon for no other reason just to affirm their superiority while the entire White Tower could be renamed "Idiot Ball: The organization" with how much of the plot is driven by them stirring up shit and being too high and mighty to reflect on their mistakes and try to fix them... And then there is Faile, whom I actually liked at first (mostly because she was standing up to Moiraine) but then she became the single most grating character in the series.

In other words, one half of the series is really good, the other half is still good but filled with thoroughly unlikable characters that I couldn't care less about, and just to make it worse, apparently these character will all receive some character-development that would allegedly make them a lot less grating... about seven door-stopped books (roughly fifteen years of publication) down the line.

So yeah, skipping random chapters in random books would be a bad idea, but in this specific case I can actually support my decision to do so in a organized way.

 

[Ogoid]

I'll generally try to read parts that bore me with as much attention as I can muster (which I'll admit can sometimes border on skimming), but skipping them outright doesn't feel right for me. Guess I'm too much of a completist.

I can definitely understand where you're coming from, though, because I dropped Wheel of Time entirely - something else I try my best to avoid doing - just some 120 or so pages in.

 

[fenrizz]

Only if I've read the book before.

Like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the chapters about Arthur and Fenchurch.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Nope since I don't view a specific chapter to be filler until it's too late (read it all).

 

[Zhukov]

Nope. That's... that's sacrilege or something.

If a book is so bad that I want to skip bits of it and can still understand the overall plot while doing so then I'll likely just end up putting the book down.

Although I will admit to being temped to skip Sansa and Bran's chapters in Song of Ice and Fire. They were incredibly dull.

 

[sageoftruth]

I've done it before. I recall reading 40000 Leagues Under the Sea and skipping the part where the author was gushing over every minute detail of the submarine for several pages. I was like, "Yeah, I get it. The submarine's nice. Let's get back to the story."

 

[cleric of the order]

-snip-

That's an odd fum fix then, for I have to this date never encountered that in any of the segmented narratives I've had to read.
Heck all I can think of now Is I should go read working god's mischief, (the series being known for this sort of structure).
Even then I wonder what the gain is to read only half the novel, even the worst most boring segment has some merit but that's the Kater Murr in me.
I mean from what I got from you're response at the very least it is not uninteresting
Either-way it seems like a waste to me, of time, paper and ink.
Also will you ever know of the characters change, if the writer gets better at writing them or even come to appreciate the parts that don't suck more.
but I think this is a series specific problem, I again have never found a novel that worked like that.

 

[sky14kemea]

Yes, sometimes. Mostly I do it when I've read the book before and I get bored with one particular part or don't want to re-read it with my full attention.

I don't so much skip pages as just skim through them very very fast. That way I know when I can keep reading as normal.