Droppin' Like Flies

You can't read 'em all- and frankly, you probably don't want to.  That, at least, is my conclusion as I decided to chop seven books off my reading list.  I always hate doing that- I feel as though I'm reneging on a commitment- but in each case, I started the book but couldn't get into it enough for it to be worth continuing.
  While I no longer plan on reading them at this time, I think it is important for me to at least be aware of them, and have a summary in my mind.  After all, I put them on the list in the first place for a reason- they're viewed as classics in their respective genres, and some of them radically changed the world.  As I'm quickly finding out, though, just because they were earth-shaking doesn't mean they're page-turners, or even desirable reads in some cases.

That said, below I present the works I chopped off the list, a brief summary of each, and why they got the axe.

Literature
George Eliot: Silas Marner
A weaver learns that loving people is better than hording wealth when a single man finds a child left at his doorstep and raises her as his own.  The story itself seems good, but for whatever reason, I just couldn't get into Silas Marner.  Many find it (and other Eliot works) highly valuable, but not me.

Religion
John Bunyan: Pilgrim's Progress
John Milton: Paradise Lost
Two classics of old (published in the late 1600s), these were fabulously popular religious works in their time (and since).  Pilgrim's Progress is a Christian's journey through their walk with the Lord- through the highs and lows, the ups and downs.  Paradise Lost recounts (and expounds upon) the fall of man in Genesis.  I had the same problem with these two that I did with Shakespeare- I didn't want to invest the time to hack through ye olde English.  I tried- I really did- but I failed.  I may read a modern English translation of Bunyan's famed work at some point . . . but not now.

Science
Charles Darwin: On the Origin of Species
Isaac Newton: Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
These are perhaps the two most influential scientific works produced in Britain.  Darwin's account famously postulates ideas like natural selection and evolution, while Newton's classic sets forth calculus and other groundbreaking mathematical concepts.  For the former, I tried to read it, but lost interest.  Thankfully, the last 20-page chapter summarizes the entire book, so I'll read that and call it good.  For the latter, I may read it some day, but not now.  That's almost 1000 pages of mathematical proofs, etc, so it's not a quick or easy journey.


Fantasy
Mervyn Peake: The Ghormenghast Trilogy
Evangeline Walton: The Mabinogion Tetralogy
Peake's work has been called a fantasy of manners.  Set inside a huge castle, the Ghormenghast books focus largely on the interaction between the characters of differing social status.  Meh- I gave up after a chapter or two.  Walton's tetralogy is a re-telling of the Mabinogion- the famous Welsh mythological work.  She tries to bring the original tradition to life by fleshing out the prose.  The bit I read was okay, but just not for me.  In both cases, these authors are considered to rank with Tolkien in the fantasy realm, so some may really enjoy these.  Me, I'll stick with A Game of Thrones or The Wheel of Time series for my next fantasy selections.