books I've never finished

[John Minnich]

Well! 
I read GR about 3 times back in the first flush of excitement during the 70s, and since then I've been 
"coasting,"  not able to plough through the whole thing again linearly.  Yes, I made it all the way to "there 
is a hand to turn the time...."   (But then I also made it all the way through Spencer's _Faerie Queene_  
for perverse reasons that I can no longer quite remember.)   The interesting question is the list of books 
I haven't gotten through, so here goes:   Melville's _Mardi_(though I've read the first half twice), Gaddis' 
_Carpenter's Gothic_ and _The Recognitions_, Jim Dodge's _Stone Junction_ (too adolescent), 
Malcolm Lowry's _Dark as the Grave Wherein my Friend is Laid_, Rushdie's _Satanic Verses_, and 
somebody or other's _Finnegans Wake_. Then there's another list of books I've never even started 
which includes anything and everything by Anne Rice, Tom Clancy, Stephen King, and John Gresham.   
In between the two extremes there's a list that includes most everything else by Melville, all of Pynchon's 
novels, _Under the Volcano_, most of Jim Harrison's novels, and five times through Samuel Delany's 
_Dhalgren_(underrated in my HO).  

So---- what's the pint?  The point is that Pynchon is more readable and enjoyable than lots of other stuff 
that's gotten published.  GR is not an "unread" book by any means.  
                                                                                            -   jm