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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Books You Can't Get Into
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
I am just finishing 1965 Nobel Prize winner Mikhail Sholokhov’s And Quiet Flows The Don, which had always been on my list of books I had to read eventually, but which I only actually started because my daughter-in-law’s father gave it to me.
However, there remains a long list of other books which, as I lie on my deathbed, I will probably feel guilty about never having got around to reading – Moby Dick, for example, and A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu.
Then there is my inability to face up to Jane Austen (Mansfield Park was enough), and failure to get past the first few pages of Joyce’s Ulysses.
On the other hand, I revel in Dickens, who regularly appears on lists of writers whom readers can’t abide – "de gustibus…… "
Recently the Spectator ran an article in which a number of famous people ‘fessed up to books and authors which they should have read, but couldn’t – I was faintly relieved to find that Barry Humphries found Moby Dick beyond him.
Any one else game to publicly bare their philistine literary blind-spots?
(This is about fiction, so it does not apply to all those unopened copies of Hawking’s Short History Of Time, or to Christians who wistfully wonder whether they should have a go at Aquinas’s Summa, Calvin’s Institutes or Barth’s Dogmatics – FWIW, I have read the Institutes, but not the other two!)
[jj, kind Heaven host being helpful]
[ 30. March 2013, 15:21: Message edited by: jedijudy ]
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
**raises trotter in the air**
Tolkien. Couldn't get past page 2 of The Hobbit.
Also Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: I got part of the way through it and despite it being set in a period which would normally have me utterly riveted, it just didn't. Then I read an article about her in the Telegraph and someone in the "comments" section said that he found her habit of referring to her characters as "he" or "she" rather than by name confusing and annoying, and I understood why I'd found it so heavy-going.
IIRC I bought it at the book-stall at the Cathedral sale; it'll be going back there at the next one. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
Bugger!
Would some kind editor remove the redundant accent in recherche in the OP?
Thank you.
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
I thoroughly enjoyed most of Dickens, but then I got around to Bleak House. Since then I haven't even been able to manage Great Expectations, which I tried to re-read after trying-but-failing to follow an imported BBC series made from it (I had read GE back in middle school and adored it; maybe it helps to be 12 to get into that one; it certainly helps to be a kiddo when reading Oliver Twist).
Possibily I shouldn't have tried to read Bleak House (or the Book of Job, for that matter) during a New England February, when I'm usually struggling with mild bouts of Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Starting Austen with Mansfield Park is probably a mistake. Either Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice would make a better introduction.
I've never been able to manage Lolita.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lothlorien:
I've read most of Patrick White's output but have never been able to finish Voss or The Aunt's Story.
Yeah, White's another one.
Just as small children have an ESP that tells them they don't like a food they've never tasted, so I know that White is deadly boring without ever having read a single word of him.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
Secret Garden. Most of my friends loved it. I was bored. Read it again ten years ago to see why friends still call it a favorite book of their youth. I was still bored.
Lord of the Rings. I liked Hobbit - not a favorite, but pleasant. But LOTR, couldn't get into it, dull and plodding.
Plato's Republic. Was assigned in college. Put me to sleep so I never read it. Would I like it now? Is that the one where that envisions women "held in common" by all men? I wouldn't like it.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
Eldest Cnihtlet recently enjoyed the Secret Garden. To give it it's due, LOTR does pick up the pace after the first half-book of describing hedgerows.
I've never been able to stick anything by Tolstoy. I keep having a go - I think I've tried War and Peace twice, and Anna Karenina three times, and always give up because I've fallen asleep too often. In translation, of course, because I don't read Russian.
ETA: I've enjoyed most of Dickens, but probably because I started on a long and boring train journey with only The Pickwick Papers for company. Had I had anything else to do, I don't think I'd have persevered.
[ 28. March 2013, 04:21: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
I've yet to meet anyone with legit nerd cred who's finished Tolkien's The Silmarillion—even my boss, who has a limited edition print of the lands of The Hobbit hanging on his office wall and, according to Megaboss, Silmarillion pajamas. I mean, I know there are issues stemming from Christopher Tolkien having to sort out the mess after his father died, but still!
Books of Lost Tales are your friend here, as is the very ample secondary/fan literature. Trust me on this one. There are enough serious academics who study Tolkien that there's no shame in reading what people have written about him, rather than what he wrote himself.
However, I've accepted the fact that I keep my copy of Ulysses around mostly just to have a book I don't read on principle with me, and my copy of Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death by my bedside just to mock me. I never read it as an undergrad when it was assigned to me, now I can never get more than halfway through the varieties of despair without putting it down, 10 pages past the last place I stopped a year ago.
I think that book exists just to mock me. Kierkegaard, no doubt, would enjoy that.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
I've yet to meet anyone with legit nerd cred who's finished Tolkien's The Silmarillion
I have ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I quite enjoyed it, actually. I could never get into the lost tales, though - they just didn't seem all that interesting.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
However, there remains a long list of other books which, as I lie on my deathbed, I will probably feel guilty about never having got around to reading – Moby Dick, for example...
Erk, erk, erk! That and anything by that low-grade moron WIlliam Faulkner and his idiot writing in dumb-shite dialect!
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
I've yet to meet anyone with legit nerd cred who's finished Tolkien's The Silmarillion
I have
I quite enjoyed it, actually.
Us too!
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Snags
Utterly socially unrealistic
# 15351
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Posted
I can claim success on The Silmarillion, but only because I view it a point of honour to finish what I start (when it comes to reading).
Books that have dishonoured me: Ulysses, read just enough to handle my finals; Gormenghast, stalled early in book two. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time sequence, but I don't count that, because he cheated by turning shit part way through. I think that's it, but there are many more I haven't even started simply to avoid defeat.
When we moved house the cat pissed on Ulysses, saving me from any further attempts. I think the cat is wiser than he lets on.
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Vain witterings :-: Vain pretentions :-: The Dog's Blog(locks)
Posts: 1399 | From: just north of That London | Registered: Dec 2009
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
Lord of the Rings. It was page 30.
I quite love Dickens, and have read his entire works although I only kept 4.
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
Another one for whom both Ulysses and War and Peace have failed to make the mark - but I have decided the failings are in the books rather than in me!
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What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I dutifully ploughed through "The Silmarillion" as I was given it as a birthday present. It put me off Tolkien for a while: I felt that too much time and energy had gone into creating this incredibly detailed history of places and people that didn't exist. And I've never liked faux archaic speak.
I couldn't get on with Trollope's books, or enjoy Terry Pratchett's.
I am a Dickens fan and have read just about everything of his I could get my hands on - despite some of his more repulsive characters like Little Nell and Dora Copperfield.
One way forward for people who want to try to enjoy his books might be to start with "Pickwick Papers", the other would be to get hold of one of the televised versions (the BBC does a very good run of these) and use them as an intro. "Our Mutual Friend" with Paul McGann is particularly well done, "Little Dorrit" with Derek Jacobi is another, "Bleak House" with Gillian Anderson as an English lady is a third well worth watching, and the recent production of "the Mystery of Edwin Drood" a fourth. They make great and compelling costume dramas and might help to ease the way into the novels.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by piglet:
**raises trotter in the air**
Tolkien. Couldn't get past page 2 of The Hobbit.
Also Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: I got part of the way through it and despite it being set in a period which would normally have me utterly riveted, it just didn't. Then I read an article about her in the Telegraph and someone in the "comments" section said that he found her habit of referring to her characters as "he" or "she" rather than by name confusing and annoying, and I understood why I'd found it so heavy-going.
IIRC I bought it at the book-stall at the Cathedral sale; it'll be going back there at the next one.
Me too! TRIED very hard to read LOTR just before the movies came out - couldn't do it. I did finish Wolf Hall, and you know, it was ok. Enigmatic but ok. Why it won a major prize is wholly beyond me though. It must be utterly, utterly incomprehensible to people unfamiliar with the period.
In response to things others have posted, I quite enjoyed Plato's Republic, couldn't even finish what was meant to be a non-heavy-going James Joyce book, and have never attempted Moby Dick. I had a project once to read all of Thomas Hardy's works - I stopped after attempting 'The Return of the Native' - totally incomprehensible. I haven't read anything which really qualifies as 'literature' for a couple of years now - just things I can pick up and put down as the fancy takes me (code for: can be read and comprehended in amongst near-continuous interruptions by small whiny people).
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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Sparrow
Shipmate
# 2458
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Posted
Me neither for Lord of the Rings. I think it was my first encounter with Tom Bombadil that made me throw the book across the room.
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For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life,nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Posts: 3149 | From: Bottom right hand corner of the UK | Registered: Mar 2002
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
I usually love Dickens - even Bleak House - but I have twice got halfway through David Copperfield and then stalled utterly. I just don't like the whiny kid enough to persevere.
I have also stalled twice on Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady. Likewise, I have read and enjoyed other James novels, but he was so clearly in love with his heroine in this one, whereas I just found her intensely annoying. Nothing brings quicker death to a book than the author being in love with the main character.
I've only stalled once on Moby Dick, and must give it at least one more try. It struck me as a big homoerotic romp at the time, with lots of penises and semen and men sharing beds. Frankly, as a delicate female (ahem!), it was a bit TMI at times.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
I've yet to meet anyone with legit nerd cred who's finished Tolkien's The Silmarillion
I have
I quite enjoyed it, actually. I could never get into the lost tales, though - they just didn't seem all that interesting.
I've read it too, and loved it ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I was supposed to read Dickens' Hard Times during my degree and hated it and just read the commentary instead ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) it was so depressing, and more boring than the landscape scenes in Hardy's novels (I had to study Hardy's poetry in college, talk about bleak).
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'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
Most of mine have already been mentioned despite me being one of those people who usually finish whatever I start, even when I don't get on with it.
I never finished Moby Dick either.
One of my favourite quotes is this:
quote:
La vie est trop courte et Proust est trop long.*
(Anatole France)
I am also currently attempting to read Lillith by George MacDonald. I probably will finish it on the basis that it's very rare for me not to finish books, but it really hasn't grabbed me and I am pretty much dutifully ploughing on.
*Life is too short and Proust is too long.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
I am also currently attempting to read Lillith by George MacDonald. I probably will finish it on the basis that it's very rare for me not to finish books, but it really hasn't grabbed me and I am pretty much dutifully ploughing on.
Not his best. Macdonald can be a bit twee at times and "The Little Ones" put me off. "Phantastes" is a better novel.
Life is too short to spend it reading books you don't enjoy.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Arnold Bennett. In theory, the sort of traditional novelist, writing about a time and milieu I find interesting - but all the appeal of a wet Wednesday in November.
Even driecher, Conrad.
HenryJames I somehow, elusive and undefinable as the feeling - shall we say shadow of the ineffable? cannot bring myself even to the penumbra of regard.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
I am also currently attempting to read Lillith by George MacDonald. I probably will finish it on the basis that it's very rare for me not to finish books, but it really hasn't grabbed me and I am pretty much dutifully ploughing on.
I must be one of countless readers who tried MacDonald on C.S. Lewis's recommendation and found him unreadable.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
My most shameful failure has been The Brothers Karamazov.
I persisted to the end, but it was bloody hard work.
And its not as if I can't cope with Russian classics - I've read all three of Anna Karenina, War And Peace and Crime And Punishment twice (in English, I hasten to add).
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
My most shameful failure has been The Brothers Karamazov.
I persisted to the end, but it was bloody hard work.
And its not as if I can't cope with Russian classics - I've read all three of Anna Karenina, War And Peace and Crime And Punishment twice (in English, I hasten to add).
I've tried Karamazov twice now - failed both times. Last time I made it to about 200 pages in, and realised that if I wanted a constantly bickering family with a beastly dad, I might as well just watch Eastenders. But I sailed through Crime and Punishment - one of my top novels of all time. Maybe the top.
I had three false starts at Iris Murdoch's The Bell before I finally made it. Each time I only managed the first handful of pages. I think the problem was adjusting to Murdoch's beautiful, terse style.
Loved LOTR when I was 17. Not so much now. Never managed The Silmarillion, and finally gave my copy to a charity bookshop last month.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Caissa
Shipmate
# 16710
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Posted
I'm having trouble with Suetonius' Twelve Caesars. Despite reading it on and off for the last two months, I have only progressed to the third caesar.
Posts: 972 | From: Saint John, N.B. | Registered: Oct 2011
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Hilda of Whitby
Shipmate
# 7341
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Posted
LOTR and The Hobbit--fuggedaboutit
In Search of Lost Time (Proust)--have started it innumerable times but cannot get much farther than 1/3 of the way into the second book. I like 'Swann;s Way', though.
Don Quijote--no, no, no, and again, NO!
Ulysses--maybe if I were in a class with a professor who could explain what the heck was going on. On my own, though, no go.
Henry James--have finished several of his books, but the Golden Bowl defeats me
David Foster Wallace--ain't happening
Jonathan Franzen--see above
Joyce Carol Oates--'Them' and 'We were the Mulvaneys' are the only books of hers I have read, and both times it was because I was trapped in an airplane for long periods of time. I have no desire to read anything else she has written.
I could go on and on ...
In my opinion, life is too short to spend on books that don't grab you. I have zero qualms about shit-canning books that I can't get into ... and I'm a librarian.
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"Born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad."
Posts: 412 | From: Nickel City | Registered: Jun 2004
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Hobbit for me, too. Tried it a couple of times when i was a kid, never got on with it, never felt any inclination to go back to it. Far too twee. Never felt any inclination to read any other Tolkien, either.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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marzipan
Shipmate
# 9442
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Posted
I used to be good at finishing books, but now I have the kindle it's too easy to just give up reading half way and forget all about it...
Books I've started on my kindle include
Ulysses
Les Miserables (in English)
Catch-22
I've just noticed that I have The Voyage of the Beagle on there too, which I started reading in paper version (I think I'm stuck somewhere in Patagonia)
It's not just books that I dislike that I fail to finish, either, but just ones that I forget about (and because there's not an actual book lying about it's pretty easy to forget!), together with not realising how long the books are in real life...
I did read War & Peace (in English) a few years ago - it took me about as long to wade through the second epilogue as it took me to read the rest of the book!
Never had much of a problem with Tolkien (though having read the Silmarillion once I haven't managed to re-read it)
I'm not too good at reading Dickens, though A Tale of Two Cities went down quite easily the other summer.
As for the Wheel of Time books, I gave up after about book 5.
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formerly cheesymarzipan.
Now containing 50% less cheese
Posts: 917 | From: nowhere in particular | Registered: May 2005
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
When it comes to those big Russian doorstops, I think the translation makes a huge difference. The Penguin translation of Karamazov, for example (IMHO) is crap. I still love the book (I've read it twice) but spend a lot of time sighing over what a better translator could have done with it.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
These are the ones that have beaten me:
Salman Rushdie, 'Midnight's Children'.
Henry James, 'The Europeans'
Victor Hugo, 'Notre-Dame de Paris'
Alexander Solzhenisyn, 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'.
At some point I'll definitely retry the Victor Hugo, as I've been told it gets better once you pass the beginning section. Maybe 'Midnight's Children' too.
I've never had any problems with Dickens, though I still have a few left to read. Tolkein is fine, but I have no intention of trying his background material!
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Like many, I've tried reading the bible. Cannot get through Leviticus, Chronicles, Revelation. With several others, where I read the words, don't get the point, and brain glazes.
The Golden Bough by James Frazer is impenetrable to me, and people talk about, and I wonder, how they got through it. I've never gotten through anything by James Joyce.
All of these, Bible, Golden Bough, Ulysses etc make me feel that I have a learning disability.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
I am another who gave up on Robert Jordan several books ago when I couldn't tell whether it was ever going to finish. And I lost track of which book I'd last read when they all became the same.
These days I'm more distractible from books than I used to be. So rather than give up on a book, I start on a new one. There are also quite a few books that I started on train journeys and then decided were too big to carry around on the bus.
I've read and enjoyed many of the books listed above. I think the book I'm least likely ever to take up again is Vanity Fair.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I gave up on Crime and Punishment at least twice before I found the Pevear & Volokonsky translation and breezed through it. So I suggest for translated works people try different translations (and for Russian works in particular, P&V are fabulous).
For the Bible, for me it's the effing Proverbs. Half of them are demonstrably false, and 67% of the other half are smug, and the remainder read like off-brand fortune cookie fortunes. And in the Deuts, Sirach, which is just Proverbs on Barry Bonds™ brand steroids.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Belle Ringer wrote about Plato's Republic:
quote:
Put me to sleep so I never read it. Would I like it now? Is that the one where that envisions women "held in common" by all men? I wouldn't like it.
I don't think so.
From what I recall of Book V, Socrates argues that men and women are essentially equal, apart from women being somewhat weaker physically. He compares this to bald men vs. hairy-headed men, ie. a minor difference that has little bearing on overall ability.
Thus, he thinks that women should do most of the same things that men do in the Republic, including rising to positions of high leadership. If I remember correctly, he does not advocate a system of common-ownership of women by men, but does argue that marriage should be abolished among the elite. For purposes of reproduction, men and women would be paired off for conjugal relations, via a lottery system, at regular intervals.
Somewhere near the beginning of the passage, Socrates does use the phrase "community of women", but within the context of speculating about how his proposals might be misunderstood.
It's been a while since I read The Republic, and I do believe there is some ambiguuty about what exactly Plato was advocating in that chapter.
[ 28. March 2013, 15:43: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
I feel almost guilty, like I didn't have a proper college experience, because I actually finished Plato's Republic. Judging by the highlighting left by the three previous owners, two of whom stopped in Book I, the other who stopped halfway through Book III and became pretty sporadic long before then, I'm the first one to ever reach the end of that particular copy.
As for books that take too damn long to read and make you question your literacy: Gravity's Rainbow took me six months. Granted, I was in grad school, reading Kant during the day, etc., but still.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
SparksNotes on The Republic
Sparks says that Plato advocated "spouses" be held in common, which would be egalitarian. I can't quite recall what terminology Plato used in the book itself.
Sparks also says that Plato thought that, while a woman from an upper class would be superior to a man from a lower class, she would still be inferior to men in her own class. I honestly don't recall that from the book, but I'll assume they're not lying.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hilda of Whitby:
Ulysses--maybe if I were in a class with a professor who could explain what the heck was going on.
That would be hard to do since there isn't anything. I got about 1/3 of the way in, then I realized what he was doing, and knew that I could do it just as well or perhaps better. They say that inside every fat book is a skinny book dying to get out, but I'm not sure that's true of Ulysses. If you cut out all the fat you wouldn't have more than a bone or two left, and those not even capable of being fitted together.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cheesymarzipan:
I used to be good at finishing books, but now I have the kindle it's too easy to just give up reading half way and forget all about it...
I've said this before and I will say it again, I find that the Kindle is actually the best way to approach a doorstop book. Less intimidating when you don't have to actually look at the insignificant physical process you have made after a few days, and if you blow up the font and shrink the margin, you can really feel like you are blasting through pages.
Unfortunately, I let my wife use the Kindle once, and I haven't been able to use it again for almost two years now. She tends to be of the read half way and give up school.
At some point in the last few years, I finally acknowledged that it is OK to read what you want, and that a life in which you never get around to reading Ulysses can still be fulfilling. Although there is definitely a copy of that one on my shelf taunting me.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
I read Slughterhouse Five in my early twenties, and found it to be rather misanthropic, but in a folksy, cracker-barrel sort of a way.
A few years later, I started reading Cat's Cradle, but got about two pages into it and figured I was gonna be in for more of the same. So I put it aside and never went back to Vonnegut again.
But I will say that the film of Slaughterhouse Five is one of my all-time favorites, as a visual experience. Especially the parts in Dresden. Mother Night is okay as well, but other Vonnegut films I've seen can't seem to transcend his sophmoric humour.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
I've yet to meet anyone with legit nerd cred who's finished Tolkien's The Silmarillion
I have
I quite enjoyed it, actually. I could never get into the lost tales, though - they just didn't seem all that interesting.
Me too. "Lost Tales" is a study in the development of the myths rather than of literary interest itself. The Silmarillion I've read through several times and I've never understood what the issue is; the prose is generally quite simple and straightforward.
Dickens on the other hand I find quite impenetrable, as indeed I do the vast majority of fiction. Most of my reading material is non-fiction because I seldom find a novel I can get into.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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The Intrepid Mrs S
Shipmate
# 17002
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Posted
Years ago Master S. had to read Tess of the d'Urbervilles for his GCSE and was reading it on holiday (Crete if I remember aright). I tried to read it, but it made me so bl**dy furious I had to stop for the sake of my blood pressure. Everyone says he loves his heroine so much - then why can't he give the poor girl a break even once in a while!
I said to Master S in a joyful way 'Oh, Cedric*, whatever do people do who don't read for pleasure?' and he replied in his most despondent tones 'They read Tess of the d'Urbervilles'.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Mrs S, still simmering - that poor girl!
*Luckily for Master S, he is not called Cedric.
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Don't get your knickers in a twist over your advancing age. It achieves nothing and makes you walk funny.
Prayer should be our first recourse, not our last resort
'Lord, please give us patience. NOW!'
Posts: 1464 | From: Neither here nor there | Registered: Mar 2012
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If you cut out all the fat you wouldn't have more than a bone or two left, and those not even capable of being fitted together.
The point of Ulysses is the fat. You may or may not like the idea of a chapter written in the style of the history of English prose, and another chapter written in the style of bad women's magazines. If you do, then you'll like Ulysses.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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lilyswinburne
Shipmate
# 12934
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Posted
I definitely have not been able to finish the Bible, despite starting several times. I keep getting disgusted and tossing it aside.
Same with "The Essential Writings of the Christian Mystics" by Bernard McGinn. Kept thinking that what those people needed was a good meal!
Patrick O'Brian - too much writing about rigging, not enough about the plot. He was definitely a gear head.
Loved LOTR. Read it over and over again as a teenager.
Loved Proust. Read him over and over again in my 20s.
Posts: 126 | From: California | Registered: Aug 2007
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Bob Two-Owls
Shipmate
# 9680
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Posted
Karamazov for me as well I'm ashamed to say. Other books I have flung to the wall in disgust or boredom have been Wuthering Heights (I loved Jane Eyre and hoped for something similar), Seven Pillars of Wisdom (loved the film, couldn't be bothered with the book) and Harry Potter.
I have read through the Bible several times, mainly because at school we got squillions of house points for doing so. We could get a month out of uniform every year given three or four dedicated bible-readers per form.
Posts: 1262 | Registered: Jul 2005
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
Add me to the list of people who have read "The Silmarillion". (At least twice, in fact.)
I never quite finished "The Three Musketeers", but I hope to do so.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Desert Daughter
Shipmate
# 13635
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Posted
Another Karamazov giver-upper here (three very brave and honest attempts).
Am currently facing the challenge of my reading life with having to eat my way (for a research project I foolishly agreed on participating in ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif) ) through the original version of Kant's 'Critique of Practical Reason'. It. is. hard. work.
And difficult language (German is my mother tongue, but not this kind of German) aside, I just cannot 'link up' with it... A pure, dry, and so far deeply uninspiring academic exercise.
As I read it, my mind either switches off or continuously counter-argues and bickers with what the eyes read. With the result that I'm utterly exhausted and angry after five pages.
My nightly consumption of silly Bollywood-DVDs has increased dramatically since I embarked on this project
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"Prayer is the rejection of concepts." (Evagrius Ponticus)
Posts: 733 | Registered: Apr 2008
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SonOfAPreacherLad
Apprentice
# 17617
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Posted
Again, Plato's Republic. Tried to read it the summer before last before I went off to University (conscientious student - where did THAT go?!) but haven't managed to pick it up again... considering I study Ancient and Medieval History, I should probably rectify that
Managed Tolkien's stuff, including the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales... enjoyed those very much!
One book I absolutely hate is Wuthering Heights. I cannot stand that book...
Has anyone had any joy with Barchester Towers? I'm trying to plough through that at the minute ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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'Yet not the more cease I to wander where the Muses haunt...' John Milton
Posts: 1 | From: Warrington | Registered: Mar 2013
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
Atonement.
about page 12 I lost my will to live.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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