...I borrowed the book Alastalon Salissa by Volter Kilpi. It has been compared to Proust and Joyce.

Once again I stopped in the middle and thought: Too boring, I don't need this! It was the second time that I tried to read that book.

It is very long, about 900 pages, and while I had to admit that he was a creative artist and writes very well, I found the story very boring. 70 pages spent on describing how someone gets up from his chair and walks to the mantelpiece and fills his pipe...

That book, I think, has not been translated into other languages.

The Google search immediately revealed that I was partly right; it has been translated into Swedish, but not into other languages:

https://theuntranslated.wordpress.com/2015/12/19/the-great-untranslated-volter-kilpis-alastalon-salissa/

Nowadays I read what I really want to read, not what I should read.