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The only book I can ever remember starting and not finishing was Ulysses, but that might not count since I stopped before I finished the introduction. Which is why I now skip any introductions, just in case.
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May 28, 2008 04:46
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who was bored to tears by Blood Meridian. I found the prose just dry as hell and so tough to slog through; it didn't matter if he was talking about a four-day trudge through the desert or some random massacre of a village that the Glanton gang just decides to do on a whim, nothing ever really caught my interest besides the Judge. Once he became a more central character the book became a little more interesting, but I can definitely say McCarthy isn't for me.
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May 28, 2008 05:30
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Hate to admit it but God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - Vonnegut is collecting dust on the nightstand with a bookmark about 2/3 through it. I normally love Vonnegut but I just can't find anything enjoyable to grasp in this book. I kind of like the main character but I'm not really feeling motivated to finish it. It's like Vonnegut's typical rambling style without any fun in it. It's all serious and depressing, or so it seems. Maybe it gets fun at the end? I may never know.
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May 28, 2008 06:31
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Sirens of Titan _definitely_ has light at the end of the tunnel. First Vonnegut book I ever read and probably one of my favorites. LotR I bought the book that has all three. I think I got to somewhere in "The Two Towers" and then quit. House of Leaves I still plan on reading this, but drat it's hard. If you enjoy the literary criticism within the book you might enjoy Don Quixote as I did. I also read Battlefield Earth when I was 12! I read it twice in one summer! Although the movie is horrible I thought the novel was great. On the Road by Jack Kerouac. UGH. Truman Capote said of it, "that's not writing, that's typing!" 'nuff said.
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May 28, 2008 12:45
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I just put down Valis by Philip K Dick for the second time last night. It reads like a philosophy student trying to write a term paper in novel form after dropping acid. If I was more versed in PKD (something I hope to correct in the near future, I'm a fan of Man in the High Castle and the short stories of his I've read) or philosophy I suppose I'd get more out of it, but as it was I just found it unbearable.
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May 28, 2008 12:59
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Spoilers Below posted:I don't think I could have gotten through this if I hadn't read Anthony Burgess' introduction where he recalls a conversation he and Peake had about writing a novel that would be thousands of pages long and go literally nowhere, with the main character being only about a month old by the end of the first installment. With that mindset, I could just sit back and enjoy with description, knowing that I didn't have to worry too much about the plot advancing, save for in very broad strokes, rather like watching someone set up dominoes for an entire afternoon, then waiting another two days to set up a lot of other things to make the terrain look more interesting, before finally knocking them down. See, this changes things for me. I've been struggling to push on through that book, but once I got to around 150, I slowed down and stopped. It's like...it's hard to describe, it's written fantasticly but...there's no substance. It makes me think of a huge clockwork machine that slowly creaks and shudders as it's gears slowly do nothing on a very large scale. That said, there has to be SOMETHING there and the characters are interesting and the imagery is cool, but...god damnit, the loving pacing is like a dead snail. I'll try and force myself to finish this one.
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May 28, 2008 15:42
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Turtle Coffin posted:Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon. I've been trying to get through it for the lsat few months, but it's so hard to follow and so massive that I don't really think there's a point to finishing it. I'll probably try once I'm done with classes and have free time again. It's doable and worth it. I would have had a lot more trouble without my utterly boring job, but it was definitely worth it at least on the level that his prose is just so good. I haven't been able to finish Only Revolutions by Mark Danielewski. For those who don't know, each page of the book is split in two like so: http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/books/promos/a-plus/hailey.large.gif and you are supposed to read eight pages in each direction, alternating until you finish both stories. The wordplay is fun, but I just felt like I didn't "get" it  I may try again at a later date.
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May 28, 2008 19:10
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TheQat posted:[...] That looks intensely annoying to me. All the colors, the unnecessary stuff on the sides and reading half of eight pages and then having to flip over. That would just distract the crap out of me.
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May 28, 2008 21:50
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JackGeneric posted:That looks intensely annoying to me. All the colors, the unnecessary stuff on the sides and reading half of eight pages and then having to flip over. That would just distract the crap out of me. Actually, Danielewski's stuff is SO SO SO in depth and thought out; I don't personally find any of it "unnecessary" per se. I'll admit that it's a really hard book to read, and the "story", if you can call it that, is a bit lacking, but you have to admire the painstaking work that went into Only Revolutions and House of Leaves.
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May 28, 2008 22:03
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I've had problems getting through The Illuminatus! Trilogy. While it's really interesting, it's also weird with all the jumps in time and characters. Working on it for my third time now, and i've gotten further then before. Hopefully i can finish it this time.
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May 29, 2008 00:22
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I slugged through Anthem and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand but when I was halfway through Atlas Shrugged, I had to drop it. I couldn't take the writing style anymore. It's exactly like when you're at that dramatic point in a film where things slow down and everything gets all glittery and HDR, except that it never ends. All the main characters are demi-gods with pure intentions and unbending spirit. There are only so many 30 page speeches you can read. jvsclapius, I can only agree about Guns, Germs and Steel.
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May 29, 2008 00:25
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City of Golden Shadows (Otherland book 1) by Tad Williams I don't know why I can't finish this book. All of the storylines that I can remember sound interesting to me. The lady going into the virtual realty internet to find out what happened to her brother, the kid that sees something huge while playing in his vr mmorpg, some kind of secret society up to something, all of that interests me. Yet every time I pick up the book I get half way through and just lose interest. Also, add me to the list of people that can't finish Atlas Shrugged.
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May 29, 2008 03:50
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Sidmae posted:On the Road by Jack Kerouac. UGH. Truman Capote said of it, "that's not writing, that's typing!" 'nuff said. Maybe you're too familiar with how it was written before dismissing it. I always thought it flowed like a normal novel, and no more uneventful than The Sun Also Rises, for example.
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May 29, 2008 08:41
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I never finished Don Quixote. The book just plods along a bit too much.
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May 29, 2008 21:33
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Read the Hobbit, enjoyed it so I picked up Fellowship of the Rings. The breaking point? Three pages about the color of the loving leaves. gently caress this.
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May 30, 2008 00:21
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Garqi posted:Read the Hobbit, enjoyed it so I picked up Fellowship of the Rings. The breaking point? Three pages about the color of the loving leaves. gently caress this. Same here. I enjoyed The Hobbit and I picked up The Lord of the Rings in hopes of it being as good as its predecessor, but I didn't even get up to the part where they reach The Prancing Pony. It's pages and pages of "Then the hobbits ate and this is what it tasted like and then they sang a song and this is how the song went and then one of the hobbits told a joke and the hobbits laughed and then they worked the joke into the song and here is how the song went and then they met this guy and they went over to his place to eat and then they talked and then they sang and here is how the song went and..." Seriously, gently caress that poo poo. Tolkien knows how to come up with a great story, no doubt, but sometimes he just can't be bothered to just get on with it.
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May 30, 2008 01:57
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For modern reading the Soul Drinkers Omnibus (Warhammer 40k). No characters you can relate to. For not so modern reading The Man in the Iron Mask. Dumas wrote in the language of the day, and it can be hard to get through the entire book as I spent at least half of my time figuring out contemporary ways of telling the story in my head. It took over a week to get through the Three Musketeers do to this.
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May 30, 2008 02:25
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I had a hard time getting through Dune and have only read half of it. I think that I choose to read it at a bad time, I plan to finish it. It took me forever to finish Fellowship and Towers. I haven't finished Return yet. They bore me so much, I don't know why I can't get through the finale.
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May 30, 2008 02:30
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Perdido Street Station by China Miéville. I really wanted to like it, the setting and its inhabitants were completely awesome -- it was like any second I would roll for initiative. I could even stand the obnoxious insertions of the author's politics (believe it or not, I actually sat through Atlas Shrugged). But what really broke the book for me, I think, is that absolutely none of the characters were particularly likeable, and the ones I didn't outright despise were just uninteresting. And eventually the fact that the whole thing read like a D&D campaign started to lose its charm. Added to that were too many plots that weren't going anywhere fast and (at the risk of making myself sound like an old man) an overabundance of scatological... "humor," I think it was meant to be. I can laugh at a poo joke just as hard as the next guy, but seriously, it added nothing to this book. H.P. Shivcraft fucked around with this message at 02:55 on May 30, 2008 |
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May 30, 2008 02:43
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JackGeneric posted:That looks intensely annoying to me. All the colors, the unnecessary stuff on the sides and reading half of eight pages and then having to flip over. That would just distract the crap out of me. I was willing to go through with turning the book over; it's a somewhat interesting exercise that gives you a chance to think about how we read and why it's that way. What really bothered me was that I couldn't crack WHY Danielewski went to so much trouble with the wordplay. I always feel bad suggesting that a book could have been half as long because it's my policy to try my best to be in the author's shoes, but with this one I just couldn't do it. It's like the Jabberwocky to the 10th power. Edit: Oh, and the stuff on the sides is supposed to clue the reader into what time period the author is currently referencing, and the lists cut off when he gets to the future. Not truly unnecessary, but personally I would have had to look up more than half the events referenced in order to understand them.
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May 30, 2008 17:43
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Cydonia posted:Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. Yeah, the OCD asian girl part was a little wierd, but later on it gets kinda interesting, what with the FTL travel and clones of Valentine and Peter and genetic modification and lions and tiger and bears, Oh My!
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May 30, 2008 21:32
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Mokinokaro posted:I never finished Don Quixote. The book just plods along a bit too much. same here, I just gave up when he talked about the vigil over the armor and whatnot. I mean seriously, who really wants to read about some senile old guy, if I want that I'll just go and visit my grandmother at the old folks home, there's plenty of 'em there
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May 30, 2008 21:35
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I want to read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel by Susanna Clark. I really do. It seems like just the sort of book I would enjoy. Every time I try, though, I get overwhelmed by the pretentious footnotes-upon-footnotes that sometimes go on for several pages.Bandit Queen posted:I couldn't finish Stranger in a Strange Land; it was dull and I hated how most of the female characters were there to fill stereotypically feminine roles. I love Heinlein -- well, most of his books, anyway -- but his female characters are always hilariously ridiculous. Try reading Friday.
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May 31, 2008 03:09
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For those of you who can't make it through the beginning of LotR, my mom had the same problem, so my dad and I gave her a reader's digest version and told her to pick up after the Council of Elrond. If you still care, perhaps give it a try. It worked well for her (they end up being better than The Hobbit imo). For books that I couldn't get through: 1.) Little Women - I had to try to get my way through this for "accelerated reader" in middle school. I got close to the end before just finally saying gently caress it because I couldn't stand it any longer (for those of you unfamiliar with accelerated reader, it is this program designed to essentially force children into reading. You are tested on your vocabulary, then given a score, and are supposed to read books within a certain margin of your score. The scary part? The children who were struggling with reading had to read much, much less than those who knew how to do so). 2.) Pride and Prejudice - I will admit that this may be an enjoyable book (although I made it to about page 80 and stopped for basically the same reasons as the first book listed) something about having a HS English teacher who can't shut up about how hot Mr. Darcy is probably didn't contribute to my liking of the book (I will admit that HS English teachers tend to have this effect on books, especially this one [I still hate you Mr. Roberts]). I can put up with most things, but just not these two.
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May 31, 2008 12:12
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One of these days I'm going to finish The Once And Future King, I swear.
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May 31, 2008 15:38
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The Scarlet Letter- this is one book that I don't think I would have ever read if it was not mandatory in one of my classes, I still didn't finish it. It spend several pages talking about a rose bush in front of a prison. Come on. Les Miserable- I have tried twice, and I always stop at Waterloo because it is about eighty pages that all he talks about is waterloo and I can't even divine what he is doing with it. Sure people died and the French lost, but what does it have to do with Valjean? LOTR- like most people Mr. Tolkien will just not get started, add that to his over descriptiveness and I fall asleep every time. I read it whenever I'm having troubles falling asleep, works like a charm. As for Dune, I though that was pretty good, but the sequels just lost my interest instantly. I just couldn't be brought to care about it. Ovid's Metamorphosis- Lovely, Apollo rapes a Tree and a Woman feeds her Husband their son in a meat pie then gives his husband her sister's (who he raped) head by throwing it at him. Sure it's fun at some points but at other points It just makes me want to bash my head on the wall.
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Jun 1, 2008 09:50
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As much as I want to finish it, I can't make it through Heart of Darkness. As soon as it starts to promise to pick up, I peter out. I also failed to finish Nostromo but I only wanted to read that to get the "joke" about the ship in Alien, So I was pretty doomed from the start. I will say that these failures are my own and not Conrad's. However, I hate hate hated Mists of Avalon. All my friends loved it and insisted I'd love it to. I really hate "feminist perspective" stories that end up being more demeaning and stupid than a men's adventure pulp. I got 3 chapters in, snorted in disgust and used that big honking book to balance a table.
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Jun 1, 2008 22:13
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I loved the poo poo out of "Rendezvous with Rama" by Arthur Clarke, and I was so psyched when I figured out that there had to be a sequel! Then I started reading "Rama 2" and just about lost it. Thanks Gentry Lee, thanks for nothing. I don't know if there's a "Rama 3", but there probably is and I'm not reading it.
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Jun 1, 2008 23:12
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Lackloss posted:Les Miserable- I have tried twice, and I always stop at Waterloo because it is about eighty pages that all he talks about is waterloo and I can't even divine what he is doing with it. Sure people died and the French lost, but what does it have to do with Valjean? Oh, but how else can we further establish that M. Thénardier is a bad person? I mean, as if the point hadn't been driven home already by the systematic child abuse and penny pinching and otherwise being a huge douche to everyone but his daughters and wife?   I started skimming around page three of this, and gave up on the book shortly after. The musical was much better, and a lot easier to follow chiefly because it didn't have these huge digressions to complain about French society that have only vague ties to the plot.
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Jun 2, 2008 19:02
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I've tried twice to read Pale Fire by Nabokov, but I don't think I "get" it. I loved Lolita, but this one just isn't clicking with me. I think I'm going to try one more time this summer, though, because I've come to the conclusion that I've sorta grown out of a lot of the Sci-Fi stuff I used to enjoy...
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Jun 2, 2008 20:27
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Nathander posted:I pride myself on the fact that, due to my love of reading, it's rare that I ever put a book down and never pick it back up. I usually tend to perceiver to the end, no matter how bad the book, which is possibly the only reason I've been able to get through anything written by Terry Brooks. I, too, rarely put a book down, but I have this problem with certain books, like Naked Lunch or Gravity's Rainbow. I'm reading, trying to get going in the book, when suddenly I find myself saying, "Wait...what happened on the last page?" I flip back, re-read and it happens again, two pages later. Finally, I get aggravated and give up. It pisses me off, because both books are considered classics and I'd really like to get through them. Cosmonauticus posted:House of Leaves. As soon as he started rambling about that stripper named Thumper I just tossed the book across the room. Crazyweasel posted:I picked up Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy a few months ago and it has been quite the struggle. After seeing No Country for Old Men I looked up a bit about the author and saw that Blood Meridian was thought to be his masterpiece, so I waited about a week and took it out of the library. Moz Spos posted:The one only thing that keeps me motivated to continue is the thought that maybe this story will build up to something interesting, soon. That, and the fact that I liked The Road, which had a similar pace. Blood Meridian is definitely a tough book to get through--especially considering I don't read Westerns--but when I look back on it, it's an amazing story. I think that, if done by just the right people--though I've no idea who that might be--it could be an absolutely fantastic film. The Judge is a truly amazing and terrifying character, like the assassin (e: Anton Chigurh) from No Country for Old Men. What I recommend is barreling through it, let it sit on your bookshelf for a year and then re-read. You'll get a lot more out of it. TouretteDog posted:Dhalgren. The friends I have who like science fiction all love it, but I can't bring myself to get past the first twenty pages or so. Mad Monk posted:Right now I'm plodding slowly through Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, I pick it up and read a few chapters or so between other books. I like the story but am having problems with the BIG words and the lists that are in the book, he'll start listing off something like different occults and such and it will go on for a full page and a half. I have no trouble keeping up with the characters or the plot but my god, the language and writing style makes this a difficult read. stray fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Jun 4, 2008 |
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Jun 2, 2008 22:40
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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang posted:However, I hate hate hated Mists of Avalon. All my friends loved it and insisted I'd love it to. I really hate "feminist perspective" stories that end up being more demeaning and stupid than a men's adventure pulp. I got 3 chapters in, snorted in disgust and used that big honking book to balance a table. How is it more demeaning than a men's adventure pulp? I'm not sure that it's meant to be a "feminist" novel at all, but a retelling of a very familiar story from a different perspective entirely. I'll admit to being a bit of a sucker for Arthurian literature, and my favorite modern rendition of the story is the trilogy by Mary Stewart, but I thought The Mists of Avalon was pretty entertaining, mostly well written, and something of a fresh take.
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Jun 3, 2008 17:18
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Lets see here. LotR: Return of the King. I was trying to read all three books in a row but it just sort of felt like it all dragged on. Similarly I tried the Surmilions. No, bad choice. Which really doesn't matter anyways because the other two were just a blur right after I finished them. Narnia. I've read them all before (I think I maybe missed one in the middle) and I was trying to reread the whole collection. I haven't gotten past the Magician's Nephew. Truck: A Love Story. It's by a local author, I don't think he's too bad. I finished another book by him (Population: 485) and I really liked it. But after reading both him and Augusten Burroughs, never read more than one memoir in a row. This is also the reason I never got into Burroughs' third book. I don't want to hear any more about him. Shampoo Planet. Thanks for loving me over, Douglas Copeland. All your characters having pseudo-blasé attitudes and being "unique" are just super annoying after a while. You pulled the wool over my eyes, fucker. First volume collection of Oz and all the original Sherlocke Holmes. I hope these speak for themselves.
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Jun 3, 2008 18:38
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I was supposed to read 'The Moonstone' by Wilkie Collins for my English Literature course. I persevered up to page 200 before giving in. I found it really bland and dry at the time. More recently, a family member lent me a copy of 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' by Marina Lewycka. It had good reviews and was supposed to be really funny. It was not that funny as it was hyped up to be - just about a hundred or so pages of a mildly amusing family feud, which might have elicited a smile from me at one point. At around page 70 I gave it back.
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Jun 3, 2008 23:32
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Buck Lodestar posted:How is it more demeaning than a men's adventure pulp? I'm not sure that it's meant to be a "feminist" novel at all, but a retelling of a very familiar story from a different perspective entirely. I'll admit to being a bit of a sucker for Arthurian literature,.. but I thought The Mists of Avalon was pretty entertaining, mostly well written, and something of a fresh take. Not Feminist, 'feminist perspective' a female perspective. And that perspective seemed to mostly be about who got raped, when they got raped, meek submission, submission to some weird pseudo Celtic Druidic stuff (which I found even more unpalatable) on an on. At least in Men's pulp woman are either Madonnas or Whores and are treated thusly. In Mist's you still had this division, but they were all treated like crap. Now it it arguable that I may have had an axe to grind at the time(its been 12 years). It is also arguable that I didn't give the book enough time to get into the story..but I wanted a rip roaring retelling of Arthur not a lot of whiny navel gazing. edit: for stupid use of "'" Kiss Kiss Bang Bang fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Jun 4, 2008 |
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Jun 4, 2008 02:05
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Pious Pete posted:One of these days I'm going to finish The Once And Future King, I swear. I just finished it, I love it.
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Jun 4, 2008 04:40
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Lord Jim This was years ago when I had to read it for a highschool english class. The only thing I remember is being bored out of my mind. This was at a time when I was reading a book or two a day, including finishing most of the required reading in no time flat because I wanted to see how they ended.
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Jun 4, 2008 06:34
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I stopped reading How to Lose Friends and Alienate People when I was only a chapter or so away from the end. Everything that made it funny and interesting suddenly ended and the author started talking about how he sobered up and fell in love with someone. When I realized that the rest of the book was going to go on in that vein I shelved it.
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Jun 4, 2008 14:24
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Only Revolutions so many times and for so many reasons. The first time I threw it down in a "What the gently caress is this poo poo" sort of way. All I knew is it wasn't House of Leaves and I didn't have the time for this bullshit since it was from the library and due back soon. However, I then saw the new paberback edition at Borders and had to have it. It was too lovely. I've been very slowly making my way through it and have put it aside 10,000 times. The two main reasons I always have to set it down are as follows: 1. It takes a LOT of effort. It's worth deciphering the story, but it's a book you have to put time into. 2. It is truly a beautiful love story to the point where it hurts. To see two beings just slightly and eternally younger then me so passionately in love in a way that I have only experienced in unrequited situations creates a yearning so strong in me that I feel it physically and have to set the book down for a while lest I be overcome.
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Jun 5, 2008 05:39
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snikkins posted:1.) Little Women - I had to try to get my way through this for "accelerated reader" in middle school. I got close to the end before just finally saying gently caress it because I couldn't stand it any longer. I read this as a 7-year-old girl. I liked it at that point. That being said, it's not any kind of literary masterpiece (although for some reason it is considered a classic), and I wouldn't be too upset about not getting through it. Lackloss posted:The Scarlet Letter- this is one book that I don't think I would have ever read if it was not mandatory in one of my classes, I still didn't finish it. It spend several pages talking about a rose bush in front of a prison. Come on. With both of these, I skipped both of the sections you're talking about (well with the exception of the last page of the Waterloo section since that was actually important to the plot). Sometimes you just have to know when the author is going on an irritating rant that detracts from the story. Overall, I enjoyed both of those books to some degree (Les Mis much more than Scarlet Letter). My list: Walden by Thoreau. I even tried to read it on a road trip with nothing else to do in the car. And failed miserably. Thoreau is a prick. Dune. And have no desire to read it, either, despite my mother and brother repeatedly extolling its virtues. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. There are approximately 3 interesting sections in this book. Couldn't make myself do the rest even though it was required for school. And, apparently a common one, LOTR. Basically for reasons touched upon by everyone else who's mentioned it. My first attempt was after I read The Hobbit (I think that was when I was seven as well, probably much too young to have any chance with liking them anyway)...colossal failure. When the movies came out, my mother wouldn't let us see them unless we read the books, so I skimmed them and lied to her about having read them. At that point I was in middle/high school.
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Jun 6, 2008 15:24
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