/lit/ - Literature

Welp, I'm probably going to drop this series. Maybe. I don't know.

The second book has not been very entertaining. The main character gets sidetracked endlessly, so he makes no advancement to a goal. Just hopping from one random scenario to the next.
I'm still only 3/4ths through this one. But I just finished what I assume is a super important chapter. Where Severian recounts the script of a play he was a part of. When he began, I thought it was going to be a short little recounting, that hinted at something in the lore of the world. But after 10 minutes of boring as fuck script reading, I check the time on my audio book. And discovered the chapter was 44 minutes in total. And the author really spend the entire 44 minutes going over this *super*boring script.

And I'm sure the play is supposed to be important to the lore. It's probably explaining all kinds of important events in the form of metaphor. And I'm sure it will make a whole lot of sense later, when revelations come. The play is just dripping with significance... However... I didn't absorb any of it. I just listened to the poor narrator try his best to sell this script. But it all sounded like static to my ears.

The problem being: I just plain don't enjoy when stories are inside of stories. I'm already reading a story. I don't then need there to be stories inside of the story I'm reading like some kind of russian doll. I can't completely blame the author for this. As it's probably just some weird psychological thing unique to me. But if any of you can understand what I mean about hating stories inside of stories, then let me know. It would be nice to have some support on this.

But anyway, I feel like I just zoned out during one of the most important chapters in the book, and I'm NOT going back to re-listen to it. I'm probably going to finish out this book, and then forget about reading the rest of the series. I don't know. Depends on how well it finishes off.