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People have mentioned Dune, but I don't think anybody's mentioned the other books in the series. I loved Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, but good god the rest are awful. I'm the type of person that will try to finish a series no matter what, but I cannot bring myself to read the last two after powering through God Emperor of Dune. Also, in high-school I was a jackass and chose The Count of Monte Cristo for an English class book assignment. I genuinely enjoyed the first parts when he's in prison, but there's some disconnect after he escapes and I just could not figure out what the hell was going on. I think I should go back and read it, but I just keep remembering drudging through pages and pages of that book not having any idea what was happening.
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Jun 25, 2008 08:00
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Roctor posted:People have mentioned Dune, but I don't think anybody's mentioned the other books in the series. I loved Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, but good god the rest are awful. I'm the type of person that will try to finish a series no matter what, but I cannot bring myself to read the last two after powering through God Emperor of Dune. See I loved God Emperor of Dune a lot but I know what you mean about Heretics and Chapterhouse. I just finished reading both of them just to say I read all the books Frank wrote and it was almost a chore. Also, Space Jews.
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Jun 26, 2008 08:40
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I'm having a hard time with Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. I loved the book when it started, but there is too much going on towards the last 1/3. I know (or hope) eventually all the different plotlines and characters will get pulled together but it's a little confusing. Not only that but the "New York is the most beautiful, awesome, magical, wonderful place on earth and everyone loves it even if they THINK they hate it" attitude is beginning to grate on me.
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Jun 26, 2008 15:53
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I'm currently (having trouble) reading The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. My brother recommended it to me, and the plot sounded interesting (dude goes to visit his cousin for 3 weeks, ends up staying 7 years), but Jesus Christ; 700 pages of size 10 font. It's not a bad book, but it's so excrutiatingly detailed that it's just tough to soldier through it sometimes. I'm a pretty good reader, so even with all the extremely detailed sentences and big words, I still manage to comprehend all of it, so I get the point and why it's so detailed. But I mean, it takes 100 pages to even get past the initial 3 weeks. And even in those first couple hundred pages, the chapter breaks are 6 or 7 pages apart, so it's easier to get through, but where I am now, they're all 20+ pages, so I have to dedicate an hour or so to just sitting down and reading (because I hate stopping in the middle). It just seems to me that this book is more about the beauty of the language than the content of the story, so it's just tough motivating myself sometimes. But I haven't not finished a book yet, so I don't plan on starting now. If I could get through Snow Country, I can get through this.
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Jun 27, 2008 00:20
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Stephen King's Insomnia. I got to page 628 and stopped. It's been sitting on my shelf for over 10 years and will continue to sit there until it decomposes. That was the last non-Dark Tower* King book I've tried to read. Sorry, Steve, but your post 1995 stuff just doesn't interest me. *that is, title in the actual series, since he's manages to interweave nearly all his books into the DT mythos.
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Jun 27, 2008 02:44
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rangergirl posted:I'm having a hard time with Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. I loved the book when it started, but there is too much going on towards the last 1/3. I know (or hope) eventually all the different plotlines and characters will get pulled together but it's a little confusing. I definitely see what you're saying there, that book confused me as well. (Doesn't help that the synopsis on the back of the book covers approximately the first fourth of the book, and isn't entirely accurate at all.) One thing you've got to remember, though, is that Helprin's New York is about as real as Marquez's Macondo, or Hilton's Shangri-La. It's not the real New York by a long shot. I did end up liking the book, though, and I think in a couple of years it'll be ripe for a re-read. It's very magical.
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Jun 27, 2008 06:50
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Although I could appreciate some of The Tin Drum, overall it was way too dense with symbolism and WWII-era historical references for me to ever finish. I recognize that it's genius, there's just too much there for me. Dostoevsky was awesome to me with Notes From the Underground but after Raskolnikov kills the old woman and the pre-arranged marriage crap starts, Crime and Punishment was unbearable.
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Jun 27, 2008 17:46
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Add me to the extensive list of those bored to tears by Blood Meridian. I bought it on a recommendation awhile ago and I'm currently about half-way through the book and the only thing that's keeping me from tossing it in the trash is a gut feeling that the plot may eventually advance beyond mindless foraging in the desert and random village sackings. While some of the passages are extremely well written, the plot itself is inert. The characters aside from Glanton seem to be defunct and two dimensional.
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Jun 28, 2008 03:34
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Recently I tried, after many years of meaning to do so, to read Gödel, Escher, Bach. I barely even made it through the loving introduction. I pretty much decided that the book wasn't worth my time when Hofstadter started whining about how he couldn't understand why people didn't recognize the brilliance of the book. Maybe it actually is a good book, but after reading Hofstadter's literary masturbation in the introduction I just wanted to punch him in the face.
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Jul 22, 2008 14:34
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Roctor posted:Also, in high-school I was a jackass and chose The Count of Monte Cristo for an English class book assignment. I genuinely enjoyed the first parts when he's in prison, but there's some disconnect after he escapes and I just could not figure out what the hell was going on. I think I should go back and read it, but I just keep remembering drudging through pages and pages of that book not having any idea what was happening. If you were reading the abridged version, that might explain the disconnect. The abridged cuts something like 700 pages out of the original.
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Jul 22, 2008 17:57
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Neo_Reloaded posted:If you were reading the abridged version, that might explain the disconnect. The abridged cuts something like 700 pages out of the original. 700?!?!? How big is the original? I bought it for a quarter at my library's sale, but it was small and nearly pocket sized. Do I need the full version, or is it cut for a reason?
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Jul 22, 2008 19:33
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Lao Tsu posted:700?!?!? How big is the original? I bought it for a quarter at my library's sale, but it was small and nearly pocket sized. Do I need the full version, or is it cut for a reason? The unabridged Count of Monte Cristo is around 1300 pages in paperback form. I don't know the specifics of why it was originally abridged, but the shortened version makes it easier for high school students to read, and has probably affected the book's level of popularity in modern times - most people aren't willing to read a 1300 page book these days (unless it's Harry Potter of course). A lot of stuff is cut. Some subversive elements are cut, to be sure, but a lot of plot and descriptive text are cut as well if I remember correctly. It's really a different book when you read the full version - everything is fleshed out so much better. If you're interested in reading the unabridged version, I recommend the fairly recent Penguin Classics release with the new 1996 translation by Buss - it restores some subversive elements that were in the original French book but were cut out in the anonymous 1846 translation, which is what you will find in most other "unabridged" versions. Amazon has this version for like $10.
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Jul 22, 2008 19:55
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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. I managed to make it to page 650 before finally giving up. The straw on the camel's back is when he switches to that insufferable postmodern "found journal" format for the last 150 pages. I was already tired of the book by then but still intended to finish it... until five pages later, when I realized that the journal format read three times slower than the rest of the book and didn't accomplish anything substantially different. I drat near threw the book against the wall, and said "gently caress it" to the whole enterprise. There are some intriguing and engrossing parts in the novel, but they tend to get so lost in the sea of junk that makes up the rest of it that it's hard to feel like it's anything but a horrible slog. Other books: I barely made it through Fellowship of the Ring and never bothered to start the rest of the series. I recognize Tolkien's influence and importance in helping to create modern fantasy, but his prose is as dry as toast and his characters are so two-dimensional that they're an insult to cardboard. And the man could not write poetry or lyrics worth a drat. What convinced me to never read the rest of the series (other than finishing Fellowship for class) was the Tom Bombadil line, "A face as clear as clearest water." It's awkward, it sounds awful and it doesn't even make sense. I have a giant mental block against high fantasy in the first place, and this just cemented it. I got 450 pages into Gravity's Rainbow eight years ago and put it down for something else. I keep meaning to pick it up again, but I have yet to do so. I have, however, read V. and enjoyed it quite a bit. I enjoyed the first Dune novel, but got about 30 pages into Dune Messiah before losing interest.
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Jul 23, 2008 01:55
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Gay Captain Polesmoke posted:Add me to the extensive list of those bored to tears by Blood Meridian. Yeah, if you're not into it now you'll really never be into it. The Judge is cool and all, that's about all I got from it.
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Jul 23, 2008 04:05
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The Prince by Machiavelli. Not that it was terrible, I just think all the names of cities and kings/emperors/rulers really got in the way of me enjoying it.
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Jul 23, 2008 05:46
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A Confederacy of Dunces and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius for the same reasons: I can't stand the main characters. One is a fat slob who any time he opens his mouth to begin dialogue I start to grip the book slightly harder and my eye starts to twitch. The other, even though I love his flash fiction, comes across as a massive prick who can't stop whining about his life. Also I keep trying to get through Wuthering Heights but a series of events have made it mostly impossible. Plus it is kind of dry.
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Jul 23, 2008 15:10
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I've read copies of both Dune and Dune: Messiah into tatters, but every time I start up on Children of Dune I find myself nodding off, then waking up and discovering I'm still on the first 50 pages. I simply cannot get into it for whatever reason.
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Jul 23, 2008 16:35
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Anunnaki posted:I'm currently (having trouble) reading The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. My brother recommended it to me, and the plot sounded interesting (dude goes to visit his cousin for 3 weeks, ends up staying 7 years), but Jesus Christ; 700 pages of size 10 font. It's not a bad book, but it's so excrutiatingly detailed that it's just tough to soldier through it sometimes. I'm a pretty good reader, so even with all the extremely detailed sentences and big words, I still manage to comprehend all of it, so I get the point and why it's so detailed. Jesus, if there ever was a literary character I'd like to punch in the face, it would be Settembrini. Mann presents him as this suave artiste-philosopher, when in fact everything he spews forth are lovely musings on life and art straight from goon.txt. I wouldn't mind it so much if it weren't for the affection Mann displays for this kind of dribble. It's very elaborate, stylish and lyrical, but it's BS nevertheless. Plus if you're lucky enough, you might end up writing an exam on his musings in high school. Ahem.
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Jul 23, 2008 20:19
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Chamberk posted:Yeah, if you're not into it now you'll really never be into it. I felt the same as most people in this thread complaining about the book but I gave it the benefit of the doubt because the road is one of my favorite novels and forced myself to finish. The last 50 pages or so really wrap the book up well and for me made me look at it in a completely different way. The book is not about characters or plot at all and I think that is the biggest wall people have to overcome to really enjoy it
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Jul 23, 2008 20:47
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MargotK posted:Jesus, if there ever was a literary character I'd like to punch in the face, it would be Settembrini. Mann presents him as this suave artiste-philosopher, when in fact everything he spews forth are lovely musings on life and art straight from goon.txt. I wouldn't mind it so much if it weren't for the affection Mann displays for this kind of dribble. It's very elaborate, stylish and lyrical, but it's BS nevertheless. Plus if you're lucky enough, you might end up writing an exam on his musings in high school. Ahem. As terrible as Settembrini is, Naphtha is five times worse. I spent two months reading this book and I swear half of the second month was spent on part six. Naphtha and Settembrini's battles really bogged things down. And while Settembrini's a douchebag, Naphtha is just plain crazy.
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Jul 23, 2008 21:13
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Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. It is a pretend prequel to the god awful Jane Eyre which I also didn't get through. Wide Sargasso Sea still haunts my dreams. My senior year of high school I was in an AP english class. Problem was, the cool hip AP teacher got promoted the year prior and so we got stuck with this bitch who spent the past 20 yrs teaching English to the lowest level classes and had no concept of the fact that this was suppose to be a college level course that counted for college credit. Her idea of reading a book was reading wide swaths of it outloud and forcing her own interpretations down our throats. I read 20 pages of this garbage and refused. Best part is because she spent so much time pushing her interpretations and arguing with us in class, I was able to write a 5 page paper on it, tell her exactly what she wanted to hear, and got a fuckin A+. Ridiculous. Bonus: After we finished the book, she rented the movie to show us. Turned out to be less movie and more softcore Caribbean porn. She ended up fast forwarding through at least 50% of it. Also throwing my hat in on Catch-22. I just bought that a few months back and couldn't get more then 1/3rd through it. I really just don't get it, I guess. EDIT: Forgot to throw in A Farewell to Arms by Hemmingway. I'm a fan of his simple style and the first 1/2 half of this book was pretty sweet, but once he goes into the hospital and he turns it into a crappy wounded solider and nurse romance bullshit I lost interest. DOMDOM fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Jul 24, 2008 |
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Jul 24, 2008 03:17
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Oh God, totally forgot about the several books high school English killed for me to the extent that I simply dropped them then and there. This list includes: Madame Bovary Woman Warrior The Great Gatsby House of the Spirits Perhaps there were others, but those stand out as casualties of over analysis. Luckily, they didn't call our advanced class system IBS for nothing.
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Jul 24, 2008 04:42
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I couldn't read the Hobbit for years, then one day I picked it up and read it all the way through in 4 or 5 days. Now I'm on the George R. R. Martin books, which are pretty drat good. The book I really couldn't get through, no matter how badly I wanted to, was Don Quixote and Dune. Oh well... edit: for those of you whom couldn't get through Martin's epic fantasy I urge you to read this review done by a friend of mine. Don't let the length of the review shy you away from reading it, it really gives a new perspective to the books: ***SPOILER FREE*** quote:Let me just say that I didn't find ANY of the characters boring. Even the characters that I would find an anoying personality type, is deeply engrosing in this tale. And those types of characters number just 1 for me in this book. There are so many characters, with such a broad range of personalities that there is someone to match everyones likes. Yet even the characters I initially found myself repulsed by, grow and change and are just as fascinating as those that I admire and empathize with. Red Robin Hood fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Jul 24, 2008 |
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Jul 24, 2008 05:34
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EvilUrchin posted:Oh God, totally forgot about the several books high school English killed for me to the extent that I simply dropped them then and there. This list includes: That's really too bad. It's actually one of my favorite novels, but high school teachers tend to miss the forest for the trees with it. They do that with a lot of books; my 11th grade teacher spent a week on the titular chapter in Catcher In The Rye, but had absolutely no idea that Holden is an unreliable narrator until I pointed it out. What're they teaching these teachers?
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Jul 24, 2008 06:34
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Lawful Judas fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Jul 24, 2008 09:39
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Lawful Judas fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Jul 24, 2008 09:42
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Spoilers Below posted:I'd also highly recommend the BBC miniseries from a couple years back. They hit on almost everything in the book, cut it down to about 6 episodes, and make it look drat cool to boot. The book I've never manged to finish is Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach. I loved it at first, but by the time you get a few hundred pages in, the endless digressions start to try your patience, and the "dialogues" between chapters start to seem a lot less clever and interesting. It might by partly due to the fact that a lot of what's in the book is old news to anyone with an education in computer science these days, and also that I personally have very little knowledge of or interest in music theory, so the "Bach" bits I find especially wearisome. By contrast, his more recent book I Am A Strange Loop is fantastic, and I finished it really quickly. It seems to distill all the interesting bits of GEB (i.e., the parts that are actually about strange loops and consciousness) without the endless digressions or the oh-so-clever stylistic nonsense.
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Jul 24, 2008 22:31
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Noctone posted:Recently I tried, after many years of meaning to do so, to read Gödel, Escher, Bach. I barely even made it through the loving introduction. I pretty much decided that the book wasn't worth my time when Hofstadter started whining about how he couldn't understand why people didn't recognize the brilliance of the book. Maybe it actually is a good book, but after reading Hofstadter's literary masturbation in the introduction I just wanted to punch him in the face. I know exactly what you mean, I've failed three times to read it. I always start out loving it, and just lose my patience about 3/4 the way through. I just quit The Rebel (Camus). I only had about a hundred pages to go, but there was just too many references to people and events I had no idea about. Wikipedia helped a bit, but it came to a point where I just couldn't get a clear picture anymore. The bits I was able to understand I did enjoy, however.
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Jul 25, 2008 01:46
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A few... Heart of Darkness - For some reason I wanted to write a paper about this for a high school class knowing nothing about it... I'm so glad somebody else took it up. It didn't seem like anything was happening, and I was getting nothing out of it..and when I picked it up a few months back, I just realized I had no obligation to finish it, and so many other..better things to read. So I dropped it. Today I picked up THE TIN DRUM for the third time. My bookmark was still in there from the second time.. stuck at page 57. I was determined to give it another shot. I want so badly to enjoy and finish this award winning book... but I just cannot seem to care. Maybe it's all the German names and places and my lack of interest in them. The first two chapters were okay... but I couldn't make it past page 57. HERZOG -Saul Bellow. To be honest I'm not sure why I stopped reading this. I was working on it, everything was going fine and I was more than halfway through it and I was having an okay time of it... but for some reason I just gave up on it. To be honest I'm not even sure why I got it in the first place, but eventually I'll sit down and give it another shot. I might was well considering I can remember absolutely nothing about the first half I read. LIBRA & The Body Artist by Don Delillo - My position on Don Delillo is this. Don Delillo comes up with some of the most interesting story ideas of all time. A book about people fighting to get their hands on a Hitler sex tape? A fictionalized attempt to recount Kennedy's Assassination.... that one about that math genius person. The basic idea of these books is interesting so I give Don Delillo a chance... but in reality he ruins his good ideas by writing crap. I got halfway through LIBRA in a plane ride a few years back..furthest I had gotten..and I just couldn't take it anymore. To be honest.. if I stop reading a book, it is always with the intention of coming back to it later and giving it another try. The first time i tried A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES I got so fed up with it I had to put it aside and roll my eyes for an hour.. but a few years later I picked it up and I really enjoyed it.
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Jul 25, 2008 03:59
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I've never finished Goncharov's Oblomov. Supposedly Oblomov is the first potrayal of a slacker-type persona in literature. Maybe it was too realistic (ha-ha) or I was just fed up with russian 700-page books. Has someone read this? Just tell me if I've missed anything.
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Jul 25, 2008 08:06
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Oblomov finally starts delivering to some degree towards the end but the romantic diversion in the middle is just a killer. It would've been better served if the whole thing were summed up in an aside or reminiscence, but instead you get 150(?) pages of numbingly dull set-up for obvious failure. Not finishing it only suggests you lack the required irrational stubbornness. Being prey to coming across unfocused and overlong is just one of the pitfalls of serialised novels, I guess.
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Jul 25, 2008 09:14
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Neo_Reloaded posted:If you were reading the abridged version, that might explain the disconnect. The abridged cuts something like 700 pages out of the original. The non-abridged even has a bit of a disconnect since the story broadens out and isn't focused solely on Dantes. In fact, the story kind of pretends that Dantes is not the Count for quite a while. It's a wonderful book, though. I actually found the second half better than the first once it gets going. Mokinokaro fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Sep 18, 2008 |
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Jul 30, 2008 00:51
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Roctor posted:Also, in high-school I was a jackass and chose The Count of Monte Cristo for an English class book assignment. I genuinely enjoyed the first parts when he's in prison, but there's some disconnect after he escapes and I just could not figure out what the hell was going on. I think I should go back and read it, but I just keep remembering drudging through pages and pages of that book not having any idea what was happening. Entropic posted:Seconding this. The Gormenghast miniseries was fantastic, but after finally finishing the first book of the trilogy I had no desire to pick up the next one. So much pointless plodding description, and it's not even like Tolkien where the description is at least interesting and full of neat poems.
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Jul 30, 2008 04:18
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Whatever the first book in A Song of Fire and Ice is: Boring, kept dragging on, people seemed to be hurt or killed for no reason. I didn't care about any of the characters and put it down about 200 pages in. If I want to read cliche Fantasy I pick a shorter book. An Arsonist Guide to Writer's Homes of New England: I might have got the title kinda wrong but that is essentially it. The premise sounded funny and the local bookstore guy recommended it to me. Pretty much the main character burned down Emily Dickinson's home at a teen and everyone in his town hated him for it. He eventually gets married and leads a normal life until someone starts burning down all the other old writer homes in New England. His life falls to pieces and he has to try to solve the mystery of who is doing it. I didn't care about the main character, it book was poorly written and paced. The dialog was stilted and embarrassing to read in places. I put it down after the author added the third red herring to the mystery. P.S. for all the people having problems reading Cormac McCarthy, it is because he is a horrible writer and you shouldn't have to force yourself to get through a book. Delicious Sci Fi fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jul 30, 2008 |
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Jul 30, 2008 16:25
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When I first picked up Dune I only read about 10 pages. Second time went all the way through and loved it. I never finished Excession by Ian M Banks. I'm divided as to whether I think he's actually a good writer or just an overrated writer, either way I find his books dull as dishwater and his characters two dimensional. The thing about Excession is that the inorganic characters are more interesting than the humans (or aliens, I can't remember) and while that may have been the point of the book it just got on my nerves. I did finish Wasp Factory and The Crow Road. I liked neither of them so that's it for me and Banks. I didn't read the last chapter of Moby Dick because I loved it so much I didn't want it to end. That's a bit weird, I guess.
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Jul 30, 2008 18:52
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Delicious Sci Fi posted:Whatever the first book in A Song of Fire and Ice is: Boring, kept dragging on, people seemed to be hurt or killed for no reason. I didn't care about any of the characters and put it down about 200 pages in. If I want to read cliche Fantasy I pick a shorter book. This is probably going to be said a lot but I'd recommend at least finishing the first book before you decide its entirely cliche and crap. It certainly does have its cliche moments though, I'll give you that.
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Jul 30, 2008 22:22
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WE DOIN IT NOW posted:This is probably going to be said a lot but I'd recommend at least finishing the first book before you decide its entirely cliche and crap. It certainly does have its cliche moments though, I'll give you that. Let me second this. My opinion for most of the first book was that it was pretty good, but nothing incredible. It's actually much better on a second reading, because there is a whole lot of stuff going on that you have no real way of picking up the first time. If you make it to the end of the first book and don't love it, the series isn't for you.
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Jul 31, 2008 03:07
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Delicious Sci Fi posted:P.S. for all the people having problems reading Cormac McCarthy, it is because he is a horrible writer and you shouldn't have to force yourself to get through a book. McCarthy definitely isn't the most accessible writer, and I'll go as far as to say that often, at best, it can be difficult and require effort to get into his writing style. This is, however, far and away from horrible writing. I've found that if you put in the effort early on, his books can be very rewarding and are far from a struggle. If you've put in the effort and McCarthy still isn't for you, I would much sooner attribute it to your personal taste than to bad writing. Edit: To contribute, I've still never been able to finish Nineteen Eighty-four. I've started it three times now, and I'm not sure if it's just always been bad timing but I usually get horribly depressed about three quarters of the way through. I should just suck it up and finish it one of these days. jessecore fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Jul 31, 2008 |
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Jul 31, 2008 06:01
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VoodooSchmoodoo posted:I never finished Excession by Ian M Banks. I'm divided as to whether I think he's actually a good writer or just an overrated writer, either way I find his books dull as dishwater and his characters two dimensional. The thing about Excession is that the inorganic characters are more interesting than the humans (or aliens, I can't remember) and while that may have been the point of the book it just got on my nerves. I did finish Wasp Factory and The Crow Road. I liked neither of them so that's it for me and Banks.
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Jul 31, 2008 06:06
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jessecore posted:McCarthy definitely isn't the most accessible writer, and I'll go as far as to say that often, at best, it can be difficult and require effort to get into his writing style. This is, however, far and away from horrible writing. I've found that if you put in the effort early on, his books can be very rewarding and are far from a struggle. If you've put in the effort and McCarthy still isn't for you, I would much sooner attribute it to your personal taste than to bad writing. If this isn't horrible writing I don't know what is: "They walked off in separate directions through the chaparral to stand spraddle-legged clutching their knees and vomiting. The browsing horses jerked their heads up. In was no sound they'd ever heard before. In the gray twilight those retchings seemed to echo like the calls of some rude provisional species loosed upon that waste. Something imperfect and malformed lodged in the heart of being. A thing smirking deep in the eyes of grace itself like a gorgon in an autumn pool." That is from All the Pretty Horses. You can't tell me those last two sentences don't make you just burst out laughing. What the hell does that even mean? and who describes a hangover like that? That is pure crap. P.S. to the two guys who said I should read ASOFAI I am good. I think by now I have just heard too many crazy geeks fawning over it and I would rather not be in that crowd.
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Jul 31, 2008 20:53
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