Calling it quits with Lord Foul's Bane

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After two weeks of trying to make my way through Stephen Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane I've finally decided to give up. It's just not working out for me. I'm actually very disappointed because the book had seemed so promising, starting out.

A successful author with a beautiful wife and baby is suddenly stricken by leprosy and abandoned by everyone close to him- sounds intriguing, no? And then this character, Thomas Covenant, is hit by a car and ends up in an alternate world where everyone thinks he is the reincarnation of the hero Berek Halfhand and expects him to be capable of a special magic, involving his white gold ring, despite Thomas's continuous denial of any knowledge of magic.

And so Thomas sets out on a journey to the Council of Lords to pass on to them a message that was given to him, upon arrival in the land, by the evil Lord Foul. And this journey is very boring. Even though they do have some adventures along the way, it felt like the story was starting to drag, plus I was getting tired of Thomas's whining and self-pity. And after he committed a particularly despicable act, on page 91, I really couldn't stand him.

Thomas is then transported by boat, on his final leg of the journey, by a giant who likes to tell long rambling stories, and soon afterwards I gave up. I did make it to the end of the boat trip, which for some reason that I didn't quite get was very difficult and treacherous and nearly killed the giant. By now I was halfway through the book and thoroughly bored so I decided to just give up and skip to the end of the book (a decision not made lightly) to find out if Thomas goes back to his world fully healed and confronts his disloyal ex wife and gets back his kid.

Well.....I'm not telling. If you want to know what happens you'll have to either read the book or skip to the end yourself.