Reader discussion: Four days

Public reader discussion about Four days in the WeRead Catalog by Hetty Hemenway.

20 years later, I re-read "The Bridges of Madison County" and

By Sunny_Stone94

If people don’t know, this was a huge bestseller in the early 90s, and yeah, the Amazon page probably tells most of the plot already, but I guess I’ll still mention it because apparently that’s what you do. It takes place in the 1960s and it’s basically about a married farm wife in Madison County, Iowa who’s lonely and feels kind of numb with her life. She’s doing the usual farm-wife thing and feels ignored, like life is just passing her by, and she wants to feel alive again. Then her husband and kids leave for the county fair for a week with a steer they’re showing, and she’s alone on the farm when this photographer shows up because he can’t find the bridges he’s trying to shoot. She gives him directions, they flirt a bit, and then they end up having this 4-day affair. I read it in the late 90s, around 1999, when I was in college after my girlfriend at the time told me to give it a shot. Romance wasn’t really my thing as a guy, but I went in open-minded. Some thoughts then vs now: - I really liked the writing when I first read it, and honestly I still do. The style and pacing worked for me. - The older I got, and after getting married myself, the book felt different. Back then I just saw it as a romance. Now it feels more like an adult romantic fantasy. - It seems pretty tame now compared to how it must’ve hit when it first came out, so I doubt it has the same effect anymore. At the time, I think the target readers were probably around the same age as the kids who found their mom’s diary from the 60s. - I remember there being some debate when it came out about the ending and whether it was based on real people/events or just made up. - The dialogue felt kind of forced and not very believable. Spoiler stuff: The story opens with Francesca Johnson’s grown kids after her death finding an old diary about the affair with Robert Kincaid, this wandering photographer who travels all over. She was an Italian immigrant who married an American after WWII and ended up in a small Iowa town. She was educated, had taught at a local high school, but felt stuck in this simple life and didn’t get much intellectual stimulation. When Robert comes looking for bridge directions, the roads are hard to explain, so she rides with him and shows him where to go. She spends the day with him while he takes photos and talks about his travels, and it kind of wakes up that old longing for something bigger. He tells her he’s different from other men, a free spirit, artist, poet, vegetarian, all that. She gives in to feelings she’d had buried for years. The next day they realize they’re in love, so they let themselves go with it emotionally and physically, and it gets even deeper. Then real life catches up and she goes back to her family, partly to protect them from scandal and judgment, and he leaves her alone because he respects her. Years later, after Robert dies, his ashes are scattered at the bridge where she had left a note for him to meet her for dinner, and she wanted her own ashes scattered there too. The kids are upset because they wanted to bury her in the family plot next to their father. The movie does the bridge ashes thing, but I don’t think the book is as clear about whether they actually scatter hers there or not. My actual opinion: When I was in my 20s, this really got me emotionally. I read The Notebook right after Bridges and I thought Bridges was the better story, even though I liked the writing in The Notebook a little more. The sex is great, nobody messes up, and then they never really see each other again except for a few letters over the years. They barely knew each other, but they were supposedly in love. He loved her mind, she loved his masculinity. It was all kind of destined, like they were being pulled toward each other across their whole lives, maybe even past lives. Hard to beat that if that’s your thing. Back then I thought the worst feeling after heartbreak was that empty gross feeling after a meaningless one-night stand. Guys can feel that too. But now, as a married man, I think the worse thing is the kind of “one night” that makes the rest of your life feel dull and empty for decades. That’s the sad part here. These two had this intense connection, at least that’s the idea, and then spent the rest of their lives wanting each other. I think the author knew that too, since he later wrote a follow-up book about their loneliness after the affair, though I haven’t read it, just seen the Wikipedia page. Where it turns into fantasy for me is how fast they fall in love. In your 20s, sure, maybe you buy it. At 40, it feels like a nice fantasy, not real life. Lust, maybe. Or they loved the version of the other person they created in their heads. But four days is not enough to know someone and have that deep kind of love. Real love is the day-to-day stuff, the boring parts, the hard parts, the normal life problems. That instant-bake love is the fantasy. You can’t microwave it. The Bachelor and Bachelorette are right there too. One gripe I have is that we barely learn anything real about Francesca or her life beyond the basic setup. I get that it’s a diary and she wouldn’t write every detail, but it’s still a novel and I wanted more world-building around her. Robert feels fully drawn in terms of his work as a photographer, but Francesca on the farm is just kind of there. They had livestock because the husband and kids took a steer to the fair, so what else was on the farm? Did it smell like a farm all the time? Were there animals at night? Was there a garden she worked on? Who was doing chores while the husband and kids were gone? Did they have hired help or neighbors? Any dogs or cats? Coming from a farming area, that stuff always bugged me. And yeah, the author also kind of makes rural Americans sound dumb just because they don’t drink the right alcohol or read fancy poetry. I do think the book hit a fantasy a lot of middle-aged women have about being trapped in a plain life and taken for granted, and then some strong stranger comes along, sees the “real” them, falls instantly in love, and offers something more. That’s probably a big reason it blew up when it did. For me, as a guy, I could enjoy the fantasy part, but I think I liked it more when I was younger than I do now. Your mileage may vary.

How fast do you read? How long does it take you to get through 1,000 pages?

By coupletAmber

Pretty much what the title says. I used to wait till I was almost finished with one book before picking the next, but lately I’ve been backlogging a lot. I need a horror book lined up, a wizard series queued, and an “easy read” waiting too, which usually ends up being a Stephanie Plum book. On top of that I’ve got two mangas I’m reading now and my comic books. I don’t read a ton, but I do get through the easier stuff at a pretty steady clip. Still wish I was faster, though. How fast do you read, and about how long does it take you to finish 1,000 pages? Any tips for reading faster? Edit: I guess a better question would’ve been how long you read in one sitting, how many times a week you read, and then how many pages you get through each time? I forgot that typefaces, fonts, layouts, etc. are all different, so 1,000 pages isn’t really that accurate. :-)

I’m thinking of starting an online book club, HELP. Any tips?

By camera40

I just turned 17 like four days ago, yayyy! Lately I’ve been thinking about maybe starting an online book club. I’ve been around book stuff online for about two years now and I really love reading, plus I have a lot of reader friends on the internet too, so it seemed like a fun idea. I’d want it to be online since most of my friends are online anyway, with a couple real-life friends too too (so my mom doesn’t get suspicious lol). I’ve been looking around on Reddit and stuff trying to figure out how people even do this. Like how would it work online? How often would everyone meet each month? How do you keep people actually interested? Do you need age rules or like NSFW stuff? What if some people are really shy? And what if I get burnt out and stop caring about it?! Basically I’m just overthinking everything as usual lmao 😭 What do you think, any advice would be super appreciated :))

Ten minutes a day

By needle_cricket2

So the gist is: if you read like 10 minutes a day, you’ll end up reading more than most Americans, like Pew says (something like 5 books a year vs 4). A couple years ago I really wanted to get back into reading, but I hadn’t read in ages and I just didn’t have the patience for it. I’d heard that if you want a habit to stick, you have to start small and build slowly. Right now I’m doing about 1–2 hours a day, but it honestly took me around 3 years to get there. I started with just 10 minutes before bed. It feels kind of pointless at first, but if you’re only doing that for 10 minutes before bed, you’re still on track for around 5 books a year* (using an average book length of ~110k words / 250 pages), which seems like a solid step above the “typical” person.

What time of day do you read?

By paperback_drifts

I think when people read really depends on the person. For me it’s usually early in the morning, because that’s when I can actually focus and I’m not distracted by anything that happened later in the day. My brain feels kind of reset after sleep, like all the stuff from yesterday is gone. When do you all usually like to read?

How long does it take you to read a book?

By MugKind39

I really like reading, but I’m so busy that I’ll end up taking months to get through just one book—like Game of Thrones. Out of curiosity, how long does it usually take someone to finish a book that’s over 400 pages? Edit: Thanks for the replies. I’m actually asking because I want to read all the ASOIAF books before the sixth season of GoT, just because. Right now I’m on the second one.

Just finished War and Peace in 27 days. It is not as long-winded or tedious as I was told.

By quillwrites

Going into this, I honestly thought I’d have to pause between the four volumes. I’d heard people call Tolstoy’s thing a total slog—like, “it’s good, but only if you don’t mind endless pages about one little stalk of wheat.” I also kept hearing the same sort of Tolkien complaints (you know, too many pages about trees), and I’ve never really bought that. Some bits do drag a little, but I never felt like he was just rambling for the sake of it. War and Peace felt pretty similar in that way. My Penguin Classics paperback is 1,368 pages, but most chapters are only a few pages long. The frequent chapter breaks, plus the setup with four “books” in each volume, makes it feel like it keeps moving. There are also time jumps and constant new faces to follow, so it never really settles into one dead stretch. The only time I actually felt bored was during the Rostov hunting party in Volume 2—it’s definitely more “Peace” than “War.” Even then, the story is usually pushing you forward. The only other slowdown felt near the end, especially around the very dragged-out stuff in late 1812 into early 1813. What surprised me (and I’ll admit, sometimes annoyed me a bit) was how often Tolstoy just skips over events quickly without getting into every detail. Big things after Austerlitz, but also smaller moments like Pierre getting pulled into the freemasons. Still, for how long it is, it never really felt long-winded to me. I’m not sure if it’s helped by Anthony Briggs’ translation, but it reads really smoothly and easily—pretty prose without being hard work. Maybe older translations were worse, and I’ll probably try another one someday just to compare, since I enjoyed this one so much. Anyway: it was an incredible book, and way easier to read than I expected from something that gets labeled as the “War and Peace of fiction.” Next up: *Les Misérables* (Norman Denny translation).

What to do with unwanted books?

By curiousreads5100

I’m pretty sure most of us hate the idea of tossing books, but I’ve got a bunch of older ones I can’t really store anymore. Has anyone come up with any decent or creative ways to get rid of them? A lot of mine are older trade paperbacks that are in decent shape, just not great condition. I also have a stack of nursing textbooks that are probably older editions that nobody’s using now, so donating to a student doesn’t seem like it would help much.

What's your typical reading speed (per day/week/month)? Does it vary or are you pretty consistent?

By rhymeParcel1982

Curious how everyone measures their reading speed—like, do you go by pages per day, number of books per month, or something else? And does it change a lot depending on the genre? For me, I usually aim for around 100 pages a day, but I don’t always manage it. If I’m stuck with heavier stuff—slow classics, tough literary reads, or dense nonfiction—I might only get about half that. But if I’m reading something more fast-paced, like an airport thriller, or a super cinematic fantasy/sci-fi, I can jump to 200 pretty easily, especially on weekends. How about you?