Project Ulysses

You like reading monstrously big books.

I have this theory that no book should be 250 to 600 pages long. The theory has holes in it--there are some great books that length--but it's at least usually true. Either a story is a sharp knife which should be ruthlessley edited down to sub-250, or it's a sprawling epic that should go on and on, and even after a thousand pages still leave the reader wanting more.

We'll save the discussion of novellas for another day and focus on the big boys today. Not every big book is great, of course. Ulysses is a tedious work of ego--an impressive thought experiment but an abject failure as a novel. But few reading experiences can compare with being halfway through War and Peace and realizing you still have hundreds and hundreds of wonderful pages left to read--yet even that won't be enough (yes, it's that good)! Then there's the soap opera brilliance of Gone with the Wind, House of Leaves's rare example of modernist genius, the episodic, entertaining sword epic Musashi, the vibrancy of The Stand, the crushing bleakness of The Terror. There are more, of course, some fiction and some not: Shogun, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Lonesome Dove, et cetera.

Be wary of naked emperors, however. The aforementioned Ulysses is at the top of the list. Then there are the long and impressive books that, while meritorious, don't quite live up to their reputations. Crime and Punishment and In Search of Lost Time fall into this category.

The cool thing about all of these tomes, though, is that even when you don't enjoy them you still feel the thrill of accomplishment when you finish reading them. Big books are projects; a hobby unto themselves. Any reader who hasn't ventured beyond 500 pages, then beyond 800, is missing something.