Thank God.  I've just finished a book.  Reading it was like slogging through deep mud.  It took ages.  The writing was very good but it was soooo sloooooow and nothing ever really happened.  I kept expecting the story to pick up but by the time I realized it never would it was too late.  I was too far in and had too much invested.  I can't, with very few exceptions, not finish a book once I'm in it.  I can name the books I've never finished;  Michener's Poland, (I kept getting all the characters mixed up because they all had similar unpronounceable names), the Bible, (never got past Genesis), and a really, really badly written mystery novel by a local "writer", (who is I hope is a better a lawyer), that I was told I just had to read!  So I had to finish this one.  Even though the characters bugged the crap out of me and the dialogue was so vague I felt like I was reading in a second language.  I never felt as though I knew exactly what someone was saying.  So, if you're up for a challenge read Surface of the Earth by Reynolds Price  xxoo me