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I enjoy some Austen even without knowing that much about the Regency period. I mostly picked stuff up through context. Still no idea what the difference is between the various kinds of gig / barouche / whatever else but I don't find it really hinders my enjoyment. I'm also (apparently) the only person I know who quite likes Emma. Though watching Clueless afterwards was something of a revelation (the plot is nearly exactly the same). Even Sense and Sensibility, which is my least favourite of the ones I've read by a huge margin, got better every time I was forced to read it.
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Jul 26, 2012 16:43
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Honestly, the best thing to do is watch a lot of videos of Jane Austen novels; I recommend the BBC "Pride and Prejudice" miniseries especially. I watched that one, several times, before and after reading the novel. I think being twelve years old and seeing my mom swoon over Colin Firth kinda ruined it for me. I liked the 2008 BBC version of "Sense and Sensibility," which is why I wanted to read the book. I'll definitely give Northanger Abbey a try, thanks!
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Jul 26, 2012 18:05
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I loved the Silmarillian and really enjoyed Blood Meridian, but you can add me to the House of Leaves list. I've only ever given up on two books. House of Leaves is one. I found Johnny Truant's story boring and the back and forth from footnote to story very distracting. Maybe it's the lawyer in me that can't ignore a footnote, but I'm considering picking it back up and reading just the other parts. The only other book that I truly gave up on was Cryptonomicon. My college roommate let me borrow his copy over the summer break once and I gave up about 25 pages in. Though I may be adding Game of Thrones to that list. I've gotten several chapters in but set it aside in favor of some short fiction collections I just picked up and I'm not really feeling the desire to finish it.
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Jul 27, 2012 20:15
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I gave up on whatever the second GoT book is. I couldn't get into it and I was tired of the 'oh you like this character? Wait and see what terrible thing happens to them" theme I was getting. I'll ust follow the series on HBO.
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Jul 28, 2012 02:45
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Blog Free or Die posted:Pretty much everyone I know (myself included) that's read the entire trilogy gave up on the first attempt. Almost all in the first book, although usually at or around the Council of Elrond, so don't feel too bad. You can always try again; it really starts to pick up not long after there. I read it through the first time, in 8th grade 
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Jul 29, 2012 18:52
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Farecoal posted:I read it through the first time, in 8th grade Haha, I think I was on my third or fourth time through by then  .At any rate, I really can't think of a book that I couldn't get through. Mostly because if I put a book down for good, it's because I find it totally forgettable. If it's interesting, but sometimes too complicated, I'll put it down and come back to it (sometimes much) later, like The Silmarillion. For some reason I have a really high tolerance for bad writing, as long as the plot does something interesting, although I'll usually try to avoid it in the first place. Made it through the entire Sword of Truth series, off the recommendation of a coworker. Terrible, but there's a part where the protagonist plays evil football and wins through the power of libertarianism. Just recently I almost set down Red Mars, but luckily it picked up within a chapter or two. First time trying KSR, and god drat that's some hard SF. The whole first half of the book felt like a soap opera set in a chemistry class on Mars.
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Jul 30, 2012 06:28
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Farecoal posted:I read it through the first time, in 8th grade I'm trying,for the second time, to get through The Night Land by Mr. William Hodgson and it's tough going. I might have to keep renewing it from the library to finally finish the drat thing. It's an excellent story idea, I'm just having a hard time tolerating the language. Some days I'm up for "flowery" and some days I'm not.
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Jul 30, 2012 19:06
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Farecoal posted:I read it through the first time, in 8th grade Blog Free or Die posted:Haha, I think I was on my third or fourth time through by then xcheopis posted:Heh. My mom gave me the box-set edition for my 9th birthday. Took me a week to burn through all three and then I took it to Girl Scout Camp and read it again. I literally came out of my mothers womb and speed read it before they'd wiped off the meconium. CHECKMATE BITCHES
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Jul 30, 2012 23:56
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I'm giving up on Framing Class. I'm just not that into it and it has to go back to the library. It's not a bad or poor book, though. I don't seem to be in the right frame of mind for this sort of scholarly review.
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Jul 31, 2012 04:58
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My parents read LotR to me.
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Jul 31, 2012 05:50
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I'm saddened at this thread reminding me that I've dropped lots of books over this last year. The worst part is, it's mostly been with books I was enjoying; I just keep losing momentum as a result of trying to keep up with schoolwork and other hobbies (and this is especially pathetic considering that it was just a high school workload; can't imagine how I'll have time for anything else once I get to college in a few weeks) Among them is Blood Meridian, which I can see has been dropped by plenty of people. The prose was sublime, but I guess I felt too much like nothing was happening (and I apparently stopped right before the plot picks up). I really loved Paradise Lost as well, but I wasn't reading it fast enough and had an essay due soon, so I just skimmed the last fourth of it and powered through the essay. Haven't returned to it yet. Most recently was Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold, which was fairly entertaining; it just reached a sort of lull and I had other stuff that I ended up doing for a while. And then there are at least five other books that I recall dropping in spite of them being pretty good. On top of all this, I read through a lot more books two years ago, and I'm pretty sure half of it was poo poo (and I know that at least half of it was poo poo--Clan of the Cave Bear and The Deerslayer, both of which I only read because of booklist assignments, but both of which were offensively terrible). As for lovely books that I've dropped: -Plainsong, by Kent Haruf. I only attempted it in the first place because it was for my English class this year, and the teacher told us that there was a fair chance we'd eat it up. First of all, Haruf decided he was too good for punctuation, and he's far from McCarthy's skill level, so I couldn't quite let it go, and it continually bugged me. The story itself . . . well, the fact that this book was adapted into a Lifetime movie should say more than I ever could. Reading a certain chapter while listening to Lostprophets made it seem sort of cool, but Lostprophets makes everything better (or, at least, Start Something does). A bunch of other people in the class liked it, though. As did my cousin (who still has yet to read the copy of Watership Down I gave her for her birthday two years ago, but read The Da Vinci Code  ).-A Feast for Crows. All the characters I don't care about got the spotlight. GRRM's hack prose certainly didn't help, though (well, don't remember it being as bad as A Game of Thrones, but it was hardly on par with some of the literature I'd read near that point, and ideally wouldn't be acceptable in a work that's at the bestseller level). It's too bad, because I really liked the first three books in spite of said hack prose. -Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf. Also for this year's English class. Maybe I just didn't give it enough of a chance, but it was just slooooooow. If we're counting whole series, then I can add LotR. I got through Fellowship, but barely, and I really haven't felt like picking up Two Towers. Whether or not I ever do probably depends on whether or not there's any singing, and how much there is.
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Aug 1, 2012 04:40
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All Nines posted:
I recently read that one. It was a case where I appreciated what Woolf was trying to do more than the actual result. I love that era of literature, but the book was one where you had to identify to some degree with each character since so much of it takes place within their heads and I couldn't get interested in more than two or three of them. The last book I dropped was F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. For some reason, it just wasn't the right book at that time and I didn't feel compelled to finish it. I like Fitzgerald and plan on getting back to it eventually.
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Aug 1, 2012 07:09
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All Nines posted:I really loved Paradise Lost as well, but I wasn't reading it fast enough and had an essay due soon, so I just skimmed the last fourth of it and powered through the essay. Haven't returned to it yet. It took me a few tries to get through Paradise Lost. It's one of those books that you pretty much need to read slowly and attentively or you won't enjoy it. This applies to most poetry of that era. I can't imagine skimming it was much fun. Also, I'd advise going light on the footnotes unless you're totally lost. The first time I tried to read it, I had some "critical" edition and I tried to read all of the notes, thinking that would improve my understanding/appreciation/enjoyment. I gave up after the first book or two. Thesaurus fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Aug 2, 2012 |
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Aug 2, 2012 17:20
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rratnip posted:Though I may be adding Game of Thrones to that list. I've gotten several chapters in but set it aside in favor of some short fiction collections I just picked up and I'm not really feeling the desire to finish it. Game of Thrones starts out pretty slow, but once you get about 100 pages in it starts to get pretty good. It's definitely slow at the start though.
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Aug 3, 2012 00:14
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Vigilance posted:Game of Thrones starts out pretty slow, but once you get about 100 pages in it starts to get pretty good. It's definitely slow at the start though. I definitely recommend sticking through the first book, one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read. Democratic Pirate posted:I gave up on whatever the second GoT book is. I couldn't get into it and I was tired of the 'oh you like this character? Wait and see what terrible thing happens to them" theme I was getting. I'll ust follow the series on HBO. First book took me (I think) two days. Second book took me a year.
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Aug 3, 2012 05:35
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LordPants posted:First book took me (I think) two days. Second book took me a year. I'm plowing through them right now. Just finished the third book. However before I started reading any of them I had already seen the first two seasons of the HBO series, so I knew I'd like them because I love the show. Even having seen the show and knowing what was to come, I still found the first book slow at first, but like I said it gets so much better. Also watch the show if you at all like the books. It's amazing.
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Aug 3, 2012 05:54
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some books i use for inducing sleep. Finnegan's Wake is perfect- gorgeous yet utterly incomprehensible prose. working at it for twenty years now. better than Ambien. don't take any sylvan coynes. a book i *did* finish but wish i hadn't- the witches of Eastwick. estrogen-soaked porno hippie crap. that is the collection name it is stored under in my kindle. it is the only member. it made the kindle feel sticky. i washed it. zimboe fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Aug 3, 2012 |
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Aug 3, 2012 09:31
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Thesaurus posted:It took me a few tries to get through Paradise Lost. It's one of those books that you pretty much need to read slowly and attentively or you won't enjoy it. This applies to most poetry of that era. I can't imagine skimming it was much fun. No, skimming it really wasn't any fun, and I don't think I've actually retained anything from it. I also didn't use any footnotes whatsoever on my first attempt, but I think that might have helped my enjoyment of it, if not my understanding. LordPants posted:I definitely recommend sticking through the first book, one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read. I struggled through the third one, personally. Which is weird, because I thought it was a hell of a lot better than the second, and slightly better than the first. Took me most of junior year to get through it, as I recall.
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Aug 3, 2012 21:05
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zimboe posted:some books i use for inducing sleep. Swann's Way for me.
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Aug 3, 2012 21:20
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All Nines posted:I struggled through the third one, personally. Which is weird, because I thought it was a hell of a lot better than the second, and slightly better than the first. Took me most of junior year to get through it, as I recall. I really enjoyed the first chapter of the third book (and I found it funny that they had to put that at the end of season 2 of the TV show to actually give the TV show a half decent ending). I think the second last book is where fatigue really set in and I just gave up during the most recent one. Vigilance posted:Also watch the show if you at all like the books. It's amazing. After I read enough of the books, I started to hate them. Speaking of footnotes - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - I have never gotten through. I don't know why. Conceptually I dig. I enjoy the artwork, the footnotes (lawyer in me), but I've never finished it.
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Aug 4, 2012 03:15
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I like Burroughs but I couldn't make it more than halfway through Naked Lunch the first time I tried reading it. I'm not giving up though, I will finish it next attempt.
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Aug 5, 2012 16:27
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Jose' Saramago's Blindness has tripped me up twice now. I just can't quite get into the flow. A few friends have suggested it's his style of writing (long rambling sentences, lots of commas), but other author's use of this has never bothered me a bit. It just seems clunky to me for whatever reason. anyone read it all the way through? Is it worth giving it another crack?
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Aug 5, 2012 18:59
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thathonkey posted:I like Burroughs but I couldn't make it more than halfway through Naked Lunch the first time I tried reading it. I'm not giving up though, I will finish it next attempt. I managed to stomach N.L. on the first time through, and a lot of his other stuff, but every time I try to read The Place of Dead Roads I can't get past a segment where he tortures a dog. It seems a good book, and I've read much worse things done to people, but what can I say. I'm also considering shelving Exley's A Fan's Notes only 200 pages in. A lot of authors I liked raved about it.Hunter Thompson found it a hoot, William Gaddis thought it was important and David Foster Wallace thought it was entertaining if morally damaging. For me, it brings a flaw present in a lot of 60s male authors right to the forefront. A sort of shuffling swagger where the protagonist must be quite a man to have failed so hard for so long, and so intentionally. I like stories about men failing, but when you stud it with incidents where he confounds effete and stupid people, it loses all charm.
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Aug 5, 2012 19:41
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I see where you're coming from. I enjoyed A Fan's Notes, but I got quite the opposite out of it: I didn't think Exley was supposed to be admired, he was somebody who was smart and a decent writer, but self-destructive and kind of an rear end in a top hat to boot. As this review of Jonathan Yardley's biography of Exley says, he was alcoholic failure who "did more with less than any writer" but he never accomplished much of anything after A Fan's Notes.
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Aug 5, 2012 21:02
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rratnip posted:I loved the Silmarillian and really enjoyed Blood Meridian, but you can add me to the House of Leaves list. I've only ever given up on two books. House of Leaves is one. I found Johnny Truant's story boring and the back and forth from footnote to story very distracting. Maybe it's the lawyer in me that can't ignore a footnote, but I'm considering picking it back up and reading just the other parts. I read House of Leaves during my high school government class. It was better then listening to the teacher try to get the class to shut up for an hour. I can't finish whatever book in the Malazan series I'm on, it's a fairly late one. I always get to a part where some guy is playing Warhammer or some poo poo with another guy and peter out. I think reading about the Tiste Andii makes their ennui rub off on me. Also, I couldn't finish Woman in the Dunes because I really hate sand. The book was just so gritty reading it made my goddamn skin crawl. When I was a suicidally depressed college student I was in a class where we read The Trial, The Stranger and The Road back to back. I got through those but then we were assigned The Bell Jar and I literally couldn't make it through the first page, it hit too close to home. I think that professor was trying to kill me.
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Aug 6, 2012 00:57
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I almost didn't finish The Day Of The Jackal. I expected it to be better than the move, have more action and have a faster pace. Nope.
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Aug 6, 2012 01:47
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The Company of the Dead by David Kowalski. I picked this up this spring because the ten year old inside me who was obsessed with the Titanic thought it looked cool, and the 25 year old real me has a soft spot for alt-hist. I couldn't make it more than about 60 pages in before I just gave up. The characters are flat, and the only enjoyment I got out of the story was the few paragraphs that actually took place in 1912. The contemporary chapters are a silly mishmash of "wait, what organization is that again? Who is this person talking?" I'll give it a shot some other day but yeah, I was disappointed in that Kindle purchase.
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Aug 6, 2012 21:13
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LordPants posted:After I read enough of the books, I started to hate them. This is me as well. The entire series seems to get worse and worse as later books flesh out parts that were best left to the imagination. I can't watch the show after reading the books either. It's a faithful adaptation (except for extra violence and nudity) but I can't get into it because the source material is so dire. In my opinion of course.
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Aug 6, 2012 23:13
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Glamorama26 posted:Jose' Saramago's Blindness has tripped me up twice now. I just can't quite get into the flow. A few friends have suggested it's his style of writing (long rambling sentences, lots of commas), but other author's use of this has never bothered me a bit. It just seems clunky to me for whatever reason. anyone read it all the way through? Is it worth giving it another crack? How far in did you get tripped up? It took me three tries to get past chapter 2 of Blindness, and I still haven't finished it because I got sidetracked and couldn't get back into it, but it's definitely one where you just need to get into the flow of the prose. The style is super frustrating but actually essential to the themes of the book, and once you get past it the book itself (or at least the 2/3rds that I've read) is really great. As a submission of my own, I'm flagging on Notes from Underground. I'm on part 2, and the narrator continues rubs me the wrong way in much the same manner as Holden Caulfield.
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Aug 8, 2012 04:09
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I decided to hang up The Hangman's Daughter. Got it (and the sequel) off the kindle daily deal for my fiancee since she's into that time period. It's really hard to put my finger on any one deal breaker, but between terrible dialogue, and a glacier pace, among other things, I couldn't force myself through it.
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Aug 8, 2012 16:05
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Stoner by John Williams. I had a co-worker raved about it for months and lent me his copy. I don't know if he set the bar too high or what but it's a chore to get through. He's just such a boring guy. Maybe it's the time period or something. It's too dreary.
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Aug 18, 2012 06:46
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Myrmidongs posted:I decided to hang up The Hangman's Daughter. Got it (and the sequel) off the kindle daily deal for my fiancee since she's into that time period. It's really hard to put my finger on any one deal breaker, but between terrible dialogue, and a glacier pace, among other things, I couldn't force myself through it. I liked the sequel better than the first. I read the first one in German and enjoyed it but I can't speak for the English translation of it. I read the second one in English and it moves a lot faster than the first. The first one had way too much exposition and could have stood to lose about a hundred pages if a good editor had gotten a hold of it. The second gets straight to the action and held my attention, whereas I found myself skimming through parts of the first one.
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Aug 23, 2012 03:26
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Wraeththu. Several friends recommended it to me and I picked up the compilation with all the stories, but I just can't seem to work my way through it. The concepts and setting are interesting, but I practically get tired looking at it on my shelf. Has anyone else here enjoyed it or had trouble?
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Aug 25, 2012 13:05
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Zhaan posted:Wraeththu. Several friends recommended it to me and I picked up the compilation with all the stories, but I just can't seem to work my way through it. The concepts and setting are interesting, but I practically get tired looking at it on my shelf. Has anyone else here enjoyed it or had trouble? I got through the first book just fine (The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit) but when I started the second one, it seemed like it was just a repeat of the previous book. I spent a lot of time skimming through it, and the third book seemed like more of the same. Which is a shame because I really liked the first one. The setting and characters are so different and interesting, but there was something I've never been able to put my finger on that just started boring me to tears. It's too bad because they all have such great titles and the American cover for The Ghosts of Blood and Innocence is one of the most wicked covers for a book that I've ever seen:   I read this book even though I was less than impressed with the original trilogy because I thought, 'There's no way a book with such an awesome cover can be bad'. Boy was I wrong.  I was thinking about giving it another try in a few years to see if I liked it any better because I'm weird like that.
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Aug 25, 2012 14:53
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Wraeththu turns into weird fanfiction style hermaphrodite sex pretty quickly and gets boring/weird as the main character just goes around being ~*super beautiful*~ and having sex with everyone.
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Aug 26, 2012 07:10
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Farecoal posted:I read it through the first time, in 8th grade I read it through the first time (and then three more times) when I was 10 years old
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Aug 27, 2012 01:05
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I just tried to read Horns by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son). It starts off pretty interesting, but the entire middle of the book has no flow and loses focus from a story that could have been awesome. I think I got halfway through before giving up.
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Sep 2, 2012 11:07
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Glamorama26 posted:Jose' Saramago's Blindness has tripped me up twice now. I just can't quite get into the flow. A few friends have suggested it's his style of writing (long rambling sentences, lots of commas), but other author's use of this has never bothered me a bit. It just seems clunky to me for whatever reason. anyone read it all the way through? Is it worth giving it another crack? It's been almost a month and I'm guessing you've long since moved on, but I loved it. It does take time to get used to, but as the story progresses you get more and more into it, Saramago's idiosyncrasies and all. I read it in January and it's definitely one of my favorites. So much so that I've blind-bought several other of Saramago's works as I've come across them in thrift stores and used book stores since. I just can't get into Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun and have been unable to find a review or decent argument to convince me that it's worth my time. Most reviews and the general nerd consensus are that it's basically the best thing ever and the fact that Wolfe isn't mentioned alongside Tolkien is a shame. I know it isn't some airport fiction sci-fi/fantasy novel whose sole purpose is to entertain, but it isn't entertaining at all. Every page is literally a struggle, even more so when Wolfe tries to build his universe by doing things like writing out the entire play that Dr. Talos & co perform. I finished Shadow of the Torturer and am 30 pages from finishing Claw of the Conciliator, but I just can't muster the will to continue. It reminds me a lot of the only other book I've bailed on in the last year or so: Stanislaw Lem's Solaris. Everything in the novel feels like it just loving happens. I try to step back from things I don't like and realize that they're not for me, but this series is like unfrosted shredded wheat cereal: it's so bland and uninteresting that it becomes a struggle and I don't know how anyone enjoys it.
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Sep 4, 2012 03:14
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theradiostillsucks posted:I just can't get into Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun and have been unable to find a review or decent argument to convince me that it's worth my time. It's dense and weird- it's as much an experience as it is a story- and I can totally understand someone not enjoying it. Not going to try to convince you to like it, but I will say that most of the vague and/or what the hell? moments are eventually explained.
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Sep 4, 2012 03:25
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I know it may not count because I eventually got through it...but Stephen King's "The Gunslinger" took me a grand total of 6 tries to finish. The worst part is that it is a very short novel but I just could NOT get a grasp on the world and story. Now that I am through it, I am enjoying the rest of the series very much and am glad I started!
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Sep 4, 2012 04:01
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