The obsession of the very long book is more comprehensive than the compulsive frenzy of the page-turner; less acute but longer-lived. It’s not that, having finished Don Quixote, you will forever be a person who has read Don Quixote. Don Quixote tried to wear you down with its spontaneous digressions and wretched violence, but you could not be beaten. Even by the standards of the very long book, The Man Without Qualities is unusually tough. But these comparisons don’t quite capture the essence of what it is to read a very long book.

Source: National Post May 23, 2019 16:14 UTC