During the few pages you manage to read before you get too sleepy the plot barely moves along. Happened to me the other night with John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. When I started, the core characters stood around a car needing repair talkin’ ‘bout things. When I put the book aside they were still talkin’ ’bout things, standing around a fireplace.
Also, “putting the book aside” is a more graceful euphemism for “arms got too tired to hold the book, fell on my face and almost knocked me out.” I think I could’ve sued myself for wreckless endangerment when I read the hardcover copy of Murakami’s underwhelming but long recent novel 1Q84.
Thoughts?