The Bookworm's Den

I'm marking this as read for the simple reason that I doubt I'll ever finish this book - and yet I think that having read three out of six parts of this qualifies as "read". (Seriously, try getting even that far ...)

It's not that this is a bad book, honestly - it's very funny and entertaining at times, and it certainly surprised me with its wit on a number of occasions. Also with how daring it is - there's this one scene which borders on being explicit, and I just think it's fascinating that it was okay to write scenes with an obvious sexual content in the 17th century.

The problem is that it's just too damn long for modern readers: There are whole chapters which serve no point in relation to the plot, and often there are sermons given by the characters on one moral point or other which run on for pages and pages. I understand that this was just how writing was done in the Baroque Period in Germany, so I know it's unfair to criticise this ... but I am a modern reader, and at least for me it's difficult to keep on reading a book which goes so much against what I consider suspenseful, exciting literature to be. So I have to give this three stars, just in terms of reading pleasure nowadays ... even though at the time, I think it would have been 10,000 stars.