quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The long LONG descriptions in older novels date back to the time when there was no photography, no Google, no Wikipedia. If you wanted to know what a whale was like, Herman Melville had to describe it for you because there was no other way for you to know.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Tubbs:
Emma by Jane Austen.

By the time I'd finished it, I wanted to reach into the Kindle and punch her in the face. OTH, Austen did say she was going to write a book with a heroine that no one would like!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I just happen to think long descriptive passages fell out of vogue because they're startling tedious. And yes, Thomas Hardy, I'm looking at you...

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Careful, now. No dissing the greatest novelist in the English language!
 

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Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
I'd rather pluck my eyes out than read Hardy again. Curiously, the adaptations on R4 are decent fare, probably because he's decent at dialogue.

I do enjoy some books from the period (Wilkie Collins especially, and The Woman in White is massive), but not Hardy, I'm afraid...
 

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Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
Nearly everything anyone's ever told me is a classic, to be honest.
 

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Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
Another one here who just wanted to give Fanny Price a good hard shake and tell her to get a grip. I can just about cope with Hardy though, as long as I skip a few pages during those tediously long descriptions.
Dickens is another matter. I was supposed to have studied Hard Times as part of my degree foundation but had to rely on the study notes book as I just couldn't bear to read it. It was parodied mercilessly at our summer school.
 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
I can't get on with Hardy's novels, but then I was forced to read him for GCSE. Or during my GCSE years anyway. Making someone read something for GCSE is a great way to spoil it for them for life.

Now Austen I discovered for myself when I was twenty. Nobody had ever told me she was funny.

You don't read Moby Dick for the plot. You read it for the tangents. Even Victor Hugo and Sterne don't do tangents as well. (You don't read Les Miserables for the plot. The plot's rubbish: it's about the level of a standard-issue musical.)
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Jane Austen, Trollope, and Russian authors in translation, also anything by Terry Pratchett. There are more, but those are first to come to mind.

William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" was one that left an indelible mark on my memory. One reading of this repulsive book (inflicted on us at school) was one too many.

quote:

---

I've developed almost an aversion to Booker Prize winners and others shortlisted for it.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:


I just happen to think long descriptive passages fell out of vogue because they're startling tedious. And yes, Thomas Hardy, I'm looking at you...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tubbs:
Emma by Jane Austen.

By the time I'd finished it, I wanted to reach into the Kindle and punch her in the face. OTH, Austen did say she was going to write a book with a heroine that no one would like!

Tubbs

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I couldn't finish Emma so I watched Clueless instead.
 

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Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I'd rather pluck my eyes out than read Hardy again. Curiously, the adaptations on R4 are decent fare, probably because he's decent at dialogue.

I do enjoy some books from the period (Wilkie Collins especially, and The Woman in White is massive), but not Hardy, I'm afraid...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sipech:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I just happen to think long descriptive passages fell out of vogue because they're startling tedious. And yes, Thomas Hardy, I'm looking at you...

---

Careful, now. No dissing the greatest novelist in the English language!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
Making someone read something for GCSE is a great way to spoil it for them for life.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
This weekend I was commiserating with a poor unfortunate teenager who is undergoing the cruel and unusual punishment of being forced to read Madame Bovary at school.

For some reason, this tome is considered one of the great masterpieces of the French canon. Neither he nor I can understand why, because it Sucks™.

---

Oh, it's far worse than that. Every word drips with despair and ennui (enfin ils arrivèrent, ces fameux comices!*). The cumulative effect is enough to make you want to throw yourself into the Seine, preferably from a bridge in Rouen.

==

*"At long last the day of the legendary provincial agricultural show dawned"
 

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Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 
The book I read at school and hated, hated, hated was Jane Eyre. The next year we read Wuthering Heights , which was not good but not as sucky as Jane Eyre.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
1984 and Brave New World. Both remind me of those dreadful nightmares which are the more terrifying because of their pure boredom.
 

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Posted by Figbash (# 9048) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sipech:


The one that bucks the trend is To Kill A Mockingbird which just about everyone has had to study at somepoint, though I've yet to find anyone who resents it.

---

I had to study it. I loathe it. It's just so smarmy. Atticus Finch is less believable than a Frank Capra hero, and the whole Boo Radley thing is simply stupid. But the bit I resented most was being very clearly ordered (with the author's least subtle signposting, and, as she is not an expert in the use of the English language, that is very unsubtle indeed) to revere that foul snurge of an elder brother who is clearly meant to be some kind of White Trash Messiah in the making, but awoke in me a desire only to get my kicking boots out.

To continue, I think the book I hate most in the whole wide world (yes, even more than moron-fodder like Twilight, 50 Shades and The Hunger Games) is Tess of the d'Urbevilles. I kept myself going through the second half of that by composing hymns of hate to Angel Clare and, in the latter stages, developing a scenario for a Dadaist take on the whole thing, which involved a lot of scenes of him being attacked by Lancaster Bombers. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.

As far as inability to finish goes, I have been reading Hard Times since 1983, and still have about 200 pages to go.

But Fanny Price is ace. If I met her I would quite happily commit adultery till the cows came home if she signified a desire to do so...
 

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Posted by chive (# 208) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
Jane Austen, Trollope, and Russian authors in translation, also anything by Terry Pratchett. There are more, but those are first to come to mind.

---

1. The hate because you think the writing is in some ways bad e.g. overly descriptive, poor characterisation.
2. The hate because the book creates an emotional response so strong you throw it across the room despite being able to see the writing is decent.
3. the hate in the "love to hate" sense, when there is something about the plot you dislike yet for that reason it grips you.

• Any Bertie Wooster and Jeeves book comes into this category. No, I do not find them funny and do not see why anyone else would.
• Wuthering Heights falls into this group. I have officially read it from cover to cover, but I kept having to have breaks from it. I simply loathed it. The week before I had read Jane Eyre in a single evening.
• I honestly cannot think of one for this, but have it a bit with horror stories

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

Now Austen I discovered for myself when I was twenty. Nobody had ever told me she was funny.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Eutychus:


(re Madame Bovary) Oh, it's far worse than that. Every word drips with despair and ennui (enfin ils arrivèrent, ces fameux comices!*). The cumulative effect is enough to make you want to throw yourself into the Seine, preferably from a bridge in Rouen.

==

*"At long last the day of the legendary provincial agricultural show dawned"

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quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Oh, and if Trollope frosts you? Pick up Tooth and Claw, by Jo Walton. It won the World Fantasy Award. You will never see Trollope in the same way again.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by HCH:
Why has no one mentioned Dickens?

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I started, but fell
 

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Posted by Scots lass (# 2699) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
And the despisers of Fanny Price should have a look at Murder in Mansfield Park, one of the surpassingly few Austen sequels which is worth the trees that died to print them. You knew that Fanny actually was the passive-aggressive source of all the trouble in the house, didn't you? And that somebody would take a brick to her one day.

---

It was me, I got so sick of her being utterly pathetic.

For similar reasons, I took a loathing to A Tale of Two Cities - the golden haired angel has no character and I fail to see why Sidney Carton would do anything for her benefit. I struggled through the tedium in order to stop my friend being horrified that I'd never read any Dickens, and I have no intention of reading any more. Lengthy, unnecessary descriptions and women who are either caricature or paper thin ideal. I do love a good TV adaptation though - Bleak House was great.

Wuthering Heights I loved when I was 16. I tried re-reading it in my mid-20s and couldn't get more than a third of the way through, awful. I liked Jane Eyre much more, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is good.
 

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Posted by Badger Lady (# 13453) on :
 
Hardy. Dear God Hardy.

One short story I read under duress at school involved [IIRC(*)] a man was very very worried about a tree outside his window. So worried he took to his bed and was dying. His son arranged for tree to be cut down. Over many pages. Man wakes up, sees tree has gone. And dies of shock.

I hate Hardy. I've tried Tess and Jude but to no avail. I *like* Trollope; I can stomach Fanny Price; and, Dickens is great for loong train rides. But Hardy.


(*) I may not recall correctly. It was some time ago.
 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sipech:
The one that bucks the trend is To Kill A Mockingbird which just about everyone has had to study at somepoint, though I've yet to find anyone who resents it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scots lass:

Wuthering Heights I loved when I was 16. I tried re-reading it in my mid-20s and couldn't get more than a third of the way through, awful. I liked Jane Eyre much more, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is good. [/QB]

---

I had a very similar experience with Anna Karenina. I loved it when I read it in my late teens and thought it all terribly romantic. I re-read it a few years ago and got very frustrated with Anna's selfishness and failure to consider the devastating impact of her actions on her son.
 

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Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
Haven't read TKAM for, I should think, about 30 years, and IIRC I quite enjoyed it when I did. But I hate its canonical status. It pushes all the 'right-thinking' buttons, with simple goodies and baddies and oppressed virtuous people- a sort of C20 Uncle Tom's Cabin (which, BTW, I've never read). So it's the kind of thing that liberal English teachers love- it goes (nowadays) which the obligatory copy of Nelson Mandela's autobiography (which I've also never read) on prominent display in the school library.

It's just all so bloody pi .

[ 26. November 2014, 19:04: Message edited by: Albertus ]
 

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Posted by Al Eluia (# 864) on :
 
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. I found the prose style tedious and saw nothing compelling about any of the characters.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Badger Lady:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scots lass:

Wuthering Heights I loved when I was 16. I tried re-reading it in my mid-20s and couldn't get more than a third of the way through, awful. I liked Jane Eyre much more, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is good.

---

I had a very similar experience with Anna Karenina. I loved it when I read it in my late teens and thought it all terribly romantic. I re-read it a few years ago and got very frustrated with Anna's selfishness and failure to consider the devastating impact of her actions on her son.

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quote:

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Their honour precarious, their liberty provisional, lasting only until the discovery of their crime; their position unstable, like that of the poet who one day was feasted at every table, applauded in every theatre in London, and on the next was driven from every lodging, unable to find a pillow upon which to lay his head, turning the mill like Samson and saying like him: “The two sexes shall die, each in a place apart!”; excluded even, save on the days of general disaster when the majority rally round the victim as the Jews rallied round Dreyfus, from the sympathy — at times from the society — of their fellows, in whom they inspire only disgust at seeing themselves as they are, portrayed in a mirror which, ceasing to flatter them, accentuates every blemish that they have refused to observe in themselves, and makes them understand that what they have been calling their love (a thing to which, playing upon the word, they have by association annexed all that poetry, painting, music, chivalry, asceticism have contrived to add to love) springs not from an ideal of beauty which they have chosen but from an incurable malady; like the Jews again (save some who will associate only with others of their race and have always on their lips ritual words and consecrated pleasantries), shunning one another, seeking out those who are most directly their opposite, who do not desire their company, pardoning their rebuffs, moved to ecstasy by their condescension; but also brought into the company of their own kind by the ostracism that strikes them, the opprobrium under which they have fallen, having finally been invested, by a persecution similar to that of Israel, with the physical and moral characteristics of a race, sometimes beautiful, often hideous, finding (in spite of all the mockery with which he who, more closely blended with, better assimilated to the opposing race, is relatively, in appearance, the least inverted, heaps upon him who has remained more so) a relief in frequenting the society of their kind, and even some corroboration of their own life, so much so that, while steadfastly denying that they are a race (the name of which is the vilest of insults), those who succeed in concealing the fact that they belong to it they readily unmask, with a view less to injuring them, though they have no scruple about that, than to excusing themselves; and, going in search (as a doctor seeks cases of appendicitis) of cases of inversion in history, taking pleasure in recalling that Socrates was one of themselves, as the Israelites claim that Jesus was one of them, without reflecting that there were no abnormals when homosexuality was the norm, no anti-Christians before Christ, that the disgrace alone makes the crime because it has allowed to survive only those who remained obdurate to every warning, to every example, to every punishment, by virtue of an innate disposition so peculiar that it is more repugnant to other men (even though it may be accompanied by exalted moral qualities) than certain other vices which exclude those qualities, such as theft, cruelty, breach of faith, vices better understood and so more readily excused by the generality of men; forming a freemasonry far more extensive, more powerful and less suspected than that of the Lodges, for it rests upon an identity of tastes, needs, habits, dangers, apprenticeship, knowledge, traffic, glossary, and one in which the members themselves, who intend not to know one another, recognise one another immediately by natural or conventional, involuntary or deliberate signs which indicate one of his congeners to the beggar in the street, in the great nobleman whose carriage door he is shutting, to the father in the suitor for his daughter’s hand, to him who has sought healing, absolution, defence, in the doctor, the priest, the barrister to whom he has had recourse; all of them obliged to protect their own secret but having their part in a secret shared with the others, which the rest of humanity does not suspect and which means that to them the most wildly improbable tales of adventure seem true, for in this romantic, anachronistic life the ambassador is a bosom friend of the felon, the prince, with a certain independence of action with which his aristocratic breeding has furnished him, and which the trembling little cit would lack, on leaving the duchess’s party goes off to confer in private with the hooligan; a reprobate part of the human whole, but an important part, suspected where it does not exist, flaunting itself, insolent and unpunished, where its existence is never guessed; numbering its adherents everywhere, among the people, in the army, in the church, in the prison, on the throne; living, in short, at least to a great extent, in a playful and perilous intimacy with the men of the other race, provoking them, playing with them by speaking of its vice as of something alien to it; a game that is rendered easy by the blindness or duplicity of the others, a game that may be kept up for years until the day of the scandal, on which these lion-tamers are devoured; until then, obliged to make a secret of their lives, to turn away their eyes from the things on which they would naturally fasten them, to fasten them upon those from which they would naturally turn away, to change the gender of many of the words in their vocabulary, a social constraint, slight in comparison with the inward constraint which their vice, or what is improperly so called, imposes upon them with regard not so much now to others as to themselves, and in such a way that to themselves it does not appear a vice.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sipech:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
Making someone read something for GCSE is a great way to spoil it for them for life.

---

This is why I nominate Pride and Prejudice. Have been put off anything by Jane Austen for life.

---

Indeed. Anything by Jane Austen has my vote. I have tried and tried to read her novels and have invariably ground to a halt after a chapter or two.

I read somewhere, years ago, that Thomas Hardy considered himself a poet and I found that helped me to understand his novels. His descriptions are beautiful; characters and story lines perhaps not so great.

I've enjoyed Dickens, but only reread one, at around this time of year...
 

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Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :
 
Ethan Frome.

That is all.

[ 26. November 2014, 20:38: Message edited by: Porridge ]
 

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Posted by QLib (# 43) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:

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Originally posted by Tubbs:
Emma by Jane Austen.

By the time I'd finished it, I wanted to reach into the Kindle and punch her in the face. OTH, Austen did say she was going to write a book with a heroine that no one would like!

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I think that was Fanny Price - who is, as Molesworth would say, uterly wet.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
Does it help if you're a fast reader? I romped through a lot of Dickens and Austen as a teenager, without being forced to. The only 'set' book I remember having to read was Adam Bede, of which I remember zilch, but I read it in a day and then we discussed a chapter a week on Thursdays – that would kill any book.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
My father-in-law always referred to D H Lawrence as 'The man who made sex boring'. I got as far as the second paragraph of Women in Love once before deciding that life was too short to bother reading the rest.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by M.:
Crime and Punishment. The crime was the author's, the punishment the reader's. That is all.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Scots lass:
I read fast (the "How fast could you read Game of Thrones thing said I would do it in 77 hours) and yet it took me over a week to get through the wretched Tale of Two Cities. Possibly because I would do almost anything other than read it.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Every time I've tried (and always failed) to read Hardy I've come away with the impression that everyone and everything in the 19th century was the colour of mud.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Garasu:
Re: Austen

I suspect half the problem is that she is touted as "Great Literature".

If you think of her as Regency Chick Lit she's much more palatable...

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Nenya:
I read somewhere, years ago, that Thomas Hardy considered himself a poet

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Garasu:
Re: Austen

I suspect half the problem is that she is touted as "Great Literature".

If you think of her as Regency Chick Lit she's much more palatable...

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quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tubbs:
Emma by Jane Austen.

By the time I'd finished it, I wanted to reach into the Kindle and punch her in the face. OTH, Austen did say she was going to write a book with a heroine that no one would like!

---

I think that was Fanny Price - who is, as Molesworth would say, uterly wet.

---

Austen definitely said that about Emma - but it's true that poor little Fanny who is truly the least popular.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
I for one will always think of Hemingway's work as cock lit from now on. Thank you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scots lass:
...it took me over a week to get through the wretched Tale of Two Cities. Possibly because I would do almost anything other than read it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:

quote:

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Originally posted by Albertus:
I for one will always think of Hemingway's work as cock lit from now on. Thank you.

---

Yes, that works quite well for me to describe Hemingway as well.

---

quote:

---

Amanda B. Reckondwythe: Indeed. Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Let's go in this cafe and get drunk. Then we'll go in some other cafe and get drunk some more.

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That describes my life to a T
 

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Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :
 
Good thing Hemingway isn't around to chronicle it.
 

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Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Badger Lady:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scots lass:

Wuthering Heights I loved when I was 16. I tried re-reading it in my mid-20s and couldn't get more than a third of the way through, awful. I liked Jane Eyre much more, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is good.

---

I had a very similar experience with Anna Karenina. I loved it when I read it in my late teens and thought it all terribly romantic. I re-read it a few years ago and got very frustrated with Anna's selfishness and failure to consider the devastating impact of her actions on her son.

---

Yes, Anna Karenina. The blurb on the back of my copy says: "Acclaimed by many as the world's greatest novel." Most overrated, more like. She really needed a slap. And the banquet scene just brought to mind Dennis Wheatley; not the greatest claim to great literature!

Oh, and to anyone who claims that Thomas Hardy is depressing, just try reading Zola.
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
"Foucault's Pendulum", by Umberto Eco. It's the bleakest fiction I ever read. Keep far, far away from it.

 

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Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :
 
I so wanted to like The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky, that I read it twice. It still left me un-wowed, much to my intense disappointment.

Ditto for Gulag Archipelago.

(What is it about Russian writers? Tolstoy was annoying as well, but I never had much expectations from him anyway.)
 

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Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
Oh, and to anyone who claims that Thomas Hardy is depressing, just try reading Zola.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I can't bear Mark Twain, or rather specifically Huckleberry Fin - basically anything where accent is written phonetically for long passages. I am a fast reader and it makes me have to stop and sound out, like suddenly putting concrete boots on - it is incredibly frustrating - I just can't tolerate it beyond a certain point.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by HCH:
Why has no one mentioned Dickens?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gwalchmai:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
My father-in-law always referred to D H Lawrence as 'The man who made sex boring'. I got as far as the second paragraph of Women in Love once before deciding that life was too short to bother reading the rest.

---

Lady Chatterley's Lover would qualify for a Bad Sex award if were to be first published today.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
1984 and Brave New World. Both remind me of those dreadful nightmares which are the more terrifying because of their pure boredom.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Figbash:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sipech:
[qb] To continue, I think the book I hate most in the whole wide world (yes, even more than moron-fodder like Twilight, 50 Shades and The Hunger Games) is Tess of the d'Urbevilles. I kept myself going through the second half of that by composing hymns of hate to Angel Clare and, in the latter stages, developing a scenario for a Dadaist take on the whole thing, which involved a lot of scenes of him being attacked by Lancaster Bombers. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.

---

quote:

---

Life is short and Monsieur Proust is very long.

-Anatole France

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Every time I've tried (and always failed) to read Hardy I've come away with the impression that everyone and everything in the 19th century was the colour of mud.

---

{tangent alert}

I never managed to read any of Hardy's novels, but I do like this poem very much.

{/tangent alert}

Moo

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Even with the allegedly great Oliver Twist, I've never got past the bit with the undertaker.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Snags:
I know I'm going to get shouted down as a philistine, but the biggest load of old bollox I was ever compelled to (mostly) read was Ulysses (James Joyce).

It's weird, it's exactly the kind of self-indulgent literary game-playing experimental wank that I ought to love. But ... no.

I was actually glad when the cat pissed on it and I had to throw it away.

Recently given a run for its money when I decided to read One Thousand Years of Solitude "because I ought to". That was a mistake.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Snags:
I know I'm going to get shouted down as a philistine, but the biggest load of old bollox I was ever compelled to (mostly) read was Ulysses (James Joyce).

It's weird, it's exactly the kind of self-indulgent literary game-playing experimental wank that I ought to love. But ... no.

I was actually glad when the cat pissed on it and I had to throw it away.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Snags:
Recently given a run for its money when I decided to read One Thousand Years of Solitude "because I ought to". That was a mistake.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Snags:
...
I was actually glad when the cat pissed on it and I had to throw it away.
...

---

Given that a book should be loved and cherished before filing it away or passing it on, the fact that you were pleased when this happened at is a) proper book hate and b) the best benchmark for a bad book ever!!!!

[The one exception was the collection of really dodgy Christian literature we found when we cleaned out the church palour. Where unwanted Chrstian books had gone to die. Straight in the black sack! Along with some Richard Clayderman LPs We had some admissions to the book ownership, but no one claimed the Clayderman!)
 

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Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
The Old Man and the Sea just goes on and on and on about that stupid fish.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
The Old Man and the Sea just goes on and on and on about that stupid fish.

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Seconded.

And Lord of the Rings. It took me 3 months to read LOTR, because I kept breaking off to read books which were more enjoyable. Then back to plough through a bit more of LOTR.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Sipech:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I just happen to think long descriptive passages fell out of vogue because they're startling tedious. And yes, Thomas Hardy, I'm looking at you...

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Careful, now. No dissing the greatest novelist in the English language!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tubbs:
Straight in the black sack! Along with some Richard Clayderman LPs We had some admissions to the book ownership, but no one claimed the Clayderman!)

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quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:
I have read Northanger Abbey and tried Sense and Sensibility but could not finish it. I found absolutely nothing of value in either, other than Ms Austen could string a sentence together rather well, it's a shame that talent was wasted on writing drivel.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sipech:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I just happen to think long descriptive passages fell out of vogue because they're startling tedious. And yes, Thomas Hardy, I'm looking at you...

---

Careful, now. No dissing the greatest novelist in the English language!

---

Hardy the greatest novelist in the English language! It's just doom and gloom in the odour of sheepshit, isn't it?

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Yes but he wrote about places where i grew up so love his work.
 

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Posted by opaWim (# 11137) on :
 
Most of the reasons/arguments given so far for hating specific books seem to me perfectly applicable to The Bible.
Am I the only one?
 

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Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:
I have read Northanger Abbey and tried Sense and Sensibility but could not finish it. I found absolutely nothing of value in either, other than Ms Austen could string a sentence together rather well, it's a shame that talent was wasted on writing drivel.

---

You did realise that Northanger Abbey is supposed to be funny?
'No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.'

---

quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
How can The Old Man and the Sea go on and on and on if it is that short?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Dickens is far better digested via the R4 Classic serial. . . . That no-one else likes him on here is really reassuring.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
That no-one else likes him on here is really reassuring.

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quote:

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Originally posted by venbede:
If we don’t care for an author it probably says as much about us as the author. For example, I’m not going to bother with D H Lawrence any more. He’s working class, heterosexual, romantic and suffused with nonconformist high mindedness. I’m middle class, gay and suffused with an Anglican sense of camp.

---

quote:

---

Trollope’s period soap operas are not great literature.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sipech:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
Making someone read something for GCSE is a great way to spoil it for them for life.

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This is why I nominate Pride and Prejudice. Have been put off anything by Jane Austen for life.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:

quote:

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Originally posted by HCH:
Why has no one mentioned Dickens?

---

A couple of us have mentioned Hard Times, which I consider one of the most depressing and tedious books I ever failed to read.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Dickens is far better digested via the R4 Classic serial. . . . That no-one else likes him on here is really reassuring.

---

I love Dickens.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by M.:
Crime and Punishment. The crime was the author's, the punishment the reader's. That is all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by HCH:
Why has no one mentioned Dickens?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
I don't like [To Kill a Mockingbird]. It's all about how white liberals are more wonderful than anybody else, with a special subplot to show that if black people don't wait for white liberals to sort it out for them they'll get shot. (I exaggerate. A bit.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

---

Originally posted by M.:
Crime and Punishment.

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I must protest. This is quite possibly the best novel ever written.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
I thought Death of a Salesman was great. The Crucible, on the other hand, is right there next to To Kill A Mockingbird on the worthy and pi English teachers' bookshelf.

---

quote:

---

I suspect that this will lower my credit in the minds of people who are Supposed To Know About Such Things, but I'll just put my hand up and say, I actually like this book. Also, I want to bang my head against a wall every time someone talks about the sex in it. So, it was controversial at the time. Big deal. Anyone who can read this book and think it is in any way about sex is right up there with the folk who watched the Southpark movie and complained about the bad language.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Dickens is far better digested via the R4 Classic serial than attempting to read him, ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Dickens is far better digested via the R4 Classic serial. . . . That no-one else likes him on here is really reassuring.

---

I love Dickens.

---

So do I. "Hard Times" wasn't his best, I agree.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Porridge:
Ethan Frome.

That is all.

---

No, there's more.

I didn't think I would have much to say on this thread, 19th Century literature being one of my favorite things.


I love Tess so much I've read it four times and Jane Eyre about ten times. I think George Elliot and Tolstoy are brilliant and to a slightly lesser degree, Dickens.

Moving into my second favorite period, turn of the century, I adore Henry James, E M Forster ( a bit later on) and all of Edith Wharton with the huge exception of Ethan Effing Frome.
 

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Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :
 
Hmm, most of those mentioned so far I love! Does this mean my taste is very pedestrian?

Interesting point about books you did at GCSE - I still love most of what I studied at GCSE (Of Mice And Men, Macbeth, Carol Ann Duffy, I can't remember what else aside from a poetry anthology), especially the poetry, but it took me a long time to like Robert Frost after studying him at A Level.

I'm not hugely keen on Hardy and Lawrence as novelists but they're redeemed by their poetry. I hate reading Dickens, but his books make such good TV dramas. So there's not many books that I don't think can be redeemed in some way. Over-description in a book often makes for a really well-done TV drama or film. Also, I love both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, although I love The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall too (poor Anne Brontë being so overlooked, and being buried in Scarborough). Austen is much better if you read it with satire-goggles. Northanger Abbey is hilarious, and I say that as someone who loves ridiculous Gothic fiction.
 

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Posted by Roselyn (# 17859) on :
 
I loved Emma; loved Nostromo, loved Jude the Obscure and Lawrence's poetry and other Lawrence's 7 Pillars...Phantastes was good but came to a halt in middle of LOTR book 2. As I did not care about anyone in the story I stopped reading it; the first work of "literature" I just did not finish! Do not read much good literature at all these days finding non fiction more enchanting.
 

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Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
anoesis, on Lady Chatterley's Lover:

quote:

---

I suspect that this will lower my credit in the minds of people who are Supposed To Know About Such Things, but I'll just put my hand up and say, I actually like this book. Also, I want to bang my head against a wall every time someone talks about the sex in it. So, it was controversial at the time. Big deal. Anyone who can read this book and think it is in any way about sex is right up there with the folk who watched the Southpark movie and complained about the bad language.

---

Well, I have never read it; the opinion I quoted was my father-in-law's. I never got far enough into any of his books to find a sex scene; I read the first page or so of Women in Love and didn't like his writing style. And I don't often give up on a book that early.

---

quote:

---

Jack the Lass: I don't know if he's really considered contemporary 'classic' but I know he has a huge following, and I can't bear him - 'he' being Paolo Coelho.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Golden Key:
Re "Brothers K" and "Women In Love":

---

quote:

---

Absolute worst: Cranford: a load of snobbish old biddies spend their dull days gossipping about nothing, looking back over lives filled with nothing and forward to more of the same.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Galilit:
I was a 10 year old book-worm who "people" were trying to wean off science fiction in the 60's. My teacher suggested to my first Spiritual Director a.k.a. Mum that I read Dickens.

I was in New Zealand. It was sunny and clean and fresh. We had food. We had parents. We had a house. We had a garden. We had the bush and the beach. We had a school. We had friends. We were loved and looked after.

It is a life-long trauma to have been forced to read those books. I did not need to be exposed to that kind of cruelty and deprivation at that age AND to be told it was "literature".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:

Absolute worst: Cranford: a load of ... old biddies spend their dull days gossipping about nothing, looking back over lives filled with nothing and forward to more of the same.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:

Absolute worst: Cranford: a load of ... old biddies spend their dull days gossipping about nothing, looking back over lives filled with nothing and forward to more of the same.

---

You make it sound like a feminist version of "Waiting for Godot".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:
I have read Northanger Abbey and tried Sense and Sensibility but could not finish it. I found absolutely nothing of value in either, other than Ms Austen could string a sentence together rather well, it's a shame that talent was wasted on writing drivel.

---

You did realise that Northanger Abbey is supposed to be funny?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Snags:
I know I'm going to get shouted down as a philistine, but the biggest load of old bollox I was ever compelled to (mostly) read was Ulysses (James Joyce).

It's weird, it's exactly the kind of self-indulgent literary game-playing experimental wank that I ought to love. But ... no.

I was actually glad when the cat pissed on it and I had to throw it away.

Recently given a run for its money when I decided to read One Thousand Years of Solitude "because I ought to". That was a mistake.

---

I don't think you're a philistine at all; you don't like Ulysses.

Let's face it, it's not an easy book. Many people read bits of it, which is OK. Sometimes I remember 'perfume of embraces all him assailed' and I feel strangely exultant. But that's just me.

I think it's the oughts and the compulsion which do the damage in literary study. I taught Lit Crit for a few years, and I can't face reading any novel now, except possibly Wolf Hall.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sipech:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Snags:
Recently given a run for its money when I decided to read One Thousand Years of Solitude "because I ought to". That was a mistake.

---

Not sure if it was a typo or hyperbole, but it's actually One Hundred Years of Solitude.

---

An honest mistake (that I've just made again in another reply). It just felt like a thousand years
 

---

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Snags wrote:

Delayed coming back to this. Ulysses was a compulsion, owing to being one of the set texts for in the final year of an English degree. It stands in honour as one of only a handful of books I've started and not finished. I read just enough to blag a finals answer out of it.

These days I'm too frazzled to read much at all, which is horrible. When I do, I read "good quality crap" because it's for fun, and periodically leaven it with random samples from the contemporary worthy section. By choice; just occasionally not a vindicated choice.

I did an English degree, and eventually taught Eng Lit; and as I said, eventually, I burned out. I mean, I can't read novels or poetry now.

Well, occasionally, I swallow down a Jane Austen or the like. But modern novels seem like rat poison to me.
 

---

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas Aus:
I find stream of consciousness writing in general boring. If Joyce has had an influence on modern literature, in my view it has been negative.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ArachnidinElmet:
...
Can someone explain the point of Death of a Salesman to me? Utterly unsympathetic, uninteresting characters. Sometimes life is a grind? No kidding. I'm glad you told me. I love The Crucible so it's not an anti-Miller thing, but I just can't bear it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tubbs:
This thread isn't depressing. It's hilarious how many "classic books" that some people don't consider to be all that whilst others love them. And at least we're talking about them!

Tubbs

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tubbs:
This thread isn't depressing. It's hilarious how many "classic books" that some people don't consider to be all that whilst others love them. And at least we're talking about them!

Tubbs

---

Yes. I'm enjoying the Austen v. Dickens debate.

---

At least Austen wasn't as prolific ...

Tubbs
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I'm reading a biography of Dickens. This was a troubled man, profoundly oppressed by the culture of his time. Austen seems to have been more easy in her milieu; she uses her pen as a needle, not as a sword.
 

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Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
I think Austen has been misplaced, by comments about her elegance and so on. In fact, she is a profoundly moral writer, and also a profound one. Also her psychological insights are something else, see Emma with her sexual projections all over the place, trying to avoid her own sexuality. Ooops, this is supposed to be hate, not adoration.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sipech:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Snags:
Recently given a run for its money when I decided to read One Thousand Years of Solitude "because I ought to". That was a mistake.

---

Not sure if it was a typo or hyperbole, but it's actually One Hundred Years of Solitude. While I found it rather frustrating for it's nonlinear timeline and the fact that all the characters have almost the same name, I will defend it on the grounds that Gabriel Garcia Marquez's turn of phrase is achingly beautiful. He conjurs up some wonderful imagery, even if it is at the expense of a plot. Love in the Time of Cholera is much better.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think some of Hemingway's short stories are little jewels, simple short words, simple sentences, deadly.

But yeah, in his novels he over-reached, and tried to fit his own image. As he used to say, poor old Hem.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Snags:
Ulysses was a compulsion, owing to being one of the set texts for in the final year of an English degree.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Glad to see all the Hemingway hate-- "cock lit" it is. Not that I begrudge anyone who likes him, but I have been sharply scolded for not liking him. Only answer I need now is, " Well, Trudy doesn't like him either."

---

quote:

---

I have really wanted to like Henry James since I was a teenager and read and re-read him. But the penny hasn't yet dropped.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think Austen has been misplaced, by comments about her elegance and so on. In fact, she is a profoundly moral writer, and also a profound one. Also her psychological insights are something else, see Emma with her sexual projections all over the place, trying to avoid her own sexuality. Ooops, this is supposed to be hate, not adoration.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tubbs:
This thread isn't depressing. It's hilarious how many "classic books" that some people don't consider to be all that whilst others love them. And at least we're talking about them!

Tubbs

---

Yes. I'm enjoying the Austen v. Dickens debate.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
My least favorite is Pride and Prejudice (hands down her most popular work) and my favorite is "Mansfield Park." That was her last book and I think her deepest, most mature work, and as you say, profoundly moral.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Hemingway -- Hemingway, my god! -- found it impossible to make a living writing short stories, and so he moved on to the more profitable novels. People do not make a living writing short stories, any more than they do writing tweets, or poems. Their life style is supported by something like a tenured professorial position.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:
I love Dickens. Particularly as I find in myself a growing identification with Flora Finching.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
Amazed no one has mentioned Steinbeck. Literature to slit your wrists by. Hated Of Mice and Men, despised Grapes of Wrath. Was nonplussed by Red Pony and Cannery Row. Gag me with a dust bowl.

---

quote:

---

Amazed no one has mentioned Steinbeck. Literature to slit your wrists by.

---

So true! I've had a grudge against Steinbeck ever since a well-meaning relative gave me a copy of 'The Red Pony' in the mistaken belief that it was a suitable book for a pony-mad eleven-year-old. I was heartbroken when the pony died, and I hated the ending.

[ 28. November 2014, 21:29: Message edited by: Jane R ]
 

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Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
mousethief:

quote:

---

Amazed no one has mentioned Steinbeck. Literature to slit your wrists by.

---

So true! I've had a grudge against Steinbeck ever since a well-meaning relative gave me a copy of 'The Red Pony' in the mistaken belief that it was a suitable book for a pony-mad eleven-year-old. I was heartbroken when the pony died, and I hated the ending.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evangeline:
I agree with Venbede Mansfield Park is IMO Jane Austen's deepest novel it's a profound examination of morality and moral courage within the gentry of the time. It's sad that Fanny is just too passive to be a likeable heroine but it's difficult for us to understand today how courageous it is for her to risk her precarious position in the household by saying "no' to anything.

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I'd have far more respect for her if she had told Edmund to take a hike
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Steinbeck (like Dos Passos) is one of those authors whose star has sunk tremendously in my lifetime. If it were not for school exams he would not be read at all today.
 

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Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
Amazed no one has mentioned Steinbeck. Literature to slit your wrists by. Hated Of Mice and Men, despised Grapes of Wrath. Was nonplussed by Red Pony and Cannery Row. Gag me with a dust bowl.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:


"Mansfield Park" was my introduction to Jane Austen. We did this for A level and I hated it so much that after I'd flung the book across the room, I sat down and wrote a version I felt happier with, where Fanny's uncle and aunt were Satanists, and Fanny got involved in a knife fight with Mary. I don't remember the other details (Henry Crawford may have been on drugs), but you get the general gist.

---

You are my hero.
 

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Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :
 
Steinbeck: loved Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday; I have CR on my bookcase and shall read it again and see if it still works. I have a feeling I've read some other Steinbeck but if so it's passed out of my consciousness.

quote:

---

Austen is much better if you read it with satire-goggles. Northanger Abbey is hilarious, and I say that as someone who loves ridiculous Gothic fiction.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The5thMary:
"An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser. Boring, simplistic, boring, badly written, boring and, oh, did I mention it's boring?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by anoesis:
I also don't rate Katherine Mansfield at all, but disclosing that fact to my compatriots tends to get me very funny looks and a slight shrugging away from my vicinity, as though this makes me not only vulgar and tasteless, but sort of suspect in my loyalties to the country. Or perhaps I'm just imagining it...though I have been told, out loud, that as a woman, I ought to like her work. WTF?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
I don't know if he's really considered contemporary 'classic' but I know he has a huge following, and I can't bear him - 'he' being Paolo Coelho. The only good thing I can say about "The Alchemist" is that it was better than "The Pilgrimage", which is the closest I've ever come to throwing a book across the room. Pseudo-spiritual willy-waving mumbo-jumbo, ugh.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The5thMary:
"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" by...whoever the hell the guy's name was.

It was a good book, in places, but most of it was incredibly violent, incredibly boring, incredibly tedious, and the little statistics about violence against women was off-putting. The movie with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara was meh. Rooney Mara was really cool but still, the movie was like the book--way too violent.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The5thMary:
"An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser. Boring, simplistic, boring, badly written, boring and, oh, did I mention it's boring?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Talking about whiny little shits, can we include Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I hated Portnoy's Complaint. Protagonist was a whiny little shit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jack the Lass:
I don't know if he's really considered contemporary 'classic' but I know he has a huge following, and I can't bear him - 'he' being Paolo Coelho. The only good thing I can say about "The Alchemist" is that it was better than "The Pilgrimage", which is the closest I've ever come to throwing a book across the room. Pseudo-spiritual willy-waving mumbo-jumbo, ugh.

---

Agreed. I can see why "The Alchemist" might appeal to an angsty 14 year old - in fact I'd probably have loved it at 14 - but any older than that, no.

I love "Hard Times." It was a set text for the OU Foundation Arts course, so perhaps the joy of starting my history degree made everything in that context seem excellent. I've never managed to read "A Tale of Two Cities."

---

That's the same course where I studied it and hated it
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Neil Gaiman is one of those authors that I just know has a stupendous, worldchanging book in him. Unfortunately he never writes it, instead pouring out his putative genius on what feels like ephemera. (Ocean at the End of the Lane was severely disappointing.)
 

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Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Neil Gaiman is one of those authors that I just know has a stupendous, worldchanging book in him. Unfortunately he never writes it, instead pouring out his putative genius on what feels like ephemera. (Ocean at the End of the Lane was severely disappointing.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tubbs:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Neil Gaiman is one of those authors that I just know has a stupendous, worldchanging book in him. Unfortunately he never writes it, instead pouring out his putative genius on what feels like ephemera. (Ocean at the End of the Lane was severely disappointing.)

---

I liked it.

Tubbs

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
My least favorite is Pride and Prejudice (hands down her most popular work) and my favorite is "Mansfield Park." That was her last book and I think her deepest, most mature work, and as you say, profoundly moral.

---

Her last novel was in fact "Persuasion". But good on you for standing up for Fanny Price, who has been written off here as a goodie. God, what she has to put up with. Aunt Norris is Austen's nastiest character and all too believable.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
I nearly got kicked out of two book clubs for this but I can't stop myself:

I hated Beloved.

I thought Toni Morrison was hell bent on inflicting every single recorded atrocity from the history of slavery on this one small group and making sure every last white person, including the abolitionists were pure evil. Morrison's anger omits all subtlety. None of the characters were developed past their own list of miserable happenings so the reader's empathy was reduced to what one might feel reading a newspaper account of tragedy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kitten:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tubbs:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Neil Gaiman is one of those authors that I just know has a stupendous, worldchanging book in him. Unfortunately he never writes it, instead pouring out his putative genius on what feels like ephemera. (Ocean at the End of the Lane was severely disappointing.)

---

I liked it.

Tubbs

---

Me too, I like most of his work. Loved American Gods

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I hated Portnoy's Complaint. Protagonist was a whiny little shit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:


Now for a true stinker: although no one ever said it was a 'great' book, if you really want to plumb the depths track down a copy of The Heart has its Reasons by the late Duchess of Windsor. Over 300 pages of self-justifying tripe in a style of such dreadful arch whimsy it induces migraine and nausea.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Galloping Granny:

Gormenghast: Mervyn Peake was an artist and in every scene I felt him building the picture word by word like a painter with brush strokes. I revelled in it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
I nearly got kicked out of two book clubs for this but I can't stop myself:

I hated Beloved.

I thought Toni Morrison was hell bent on inflicting every single recorded atrocity from the history of slavery on this one small group and making sure every last white person, including the abolitionists were pure evil. Morrison's anger omits all subtlety. None of the characters were developed past their own list of miserable happenings so the reader's empathy was reduced to what one might feel reading a newspaper account of tragedy.

---

It's been a long time since I read 'Beloved' and my memories are probably heavily influenced by the film, but I suspect that the reality of slavery in that place and time was far worse in most cases than a modern fictional account. I can't imagine it was a way of life, for either slave or slave-holder, that admitted much subtlety.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Les Miserables is a book that I would have sworn was impossible to bring to the musical stage. Shows you what I know, eh?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:


I've read accounts by people who actually were slaves as well as people who lived through concentration camps during WWII and I'm always amazed at the human spirit that can survive through such things. Amazingly those people were still generous, still able to laugh at times, and still able to hope. I felt none of that in the characters in "Beloved," and I think it was because Morrison thought that any moment of joy or spark of wit would undermine her message. I think she underestimates the people who survived slavery as well as the intelligence of her readers.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Les Miserables is a book that I would have sworn was impossible to bring to the musical stage. Shows you what I know, eh?

---

Well, the opera did suck. Badly.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Les Miserables is a book that I would have sworn was impossible to bring to the musical stage. Shows you what I know, eh?

---

Well, the opera did suck. Badly.

---

Dude, some things you learn to enjoy just so you can throw your arms around your friends' shoulders and drunkenly bawl out " Empty Chairs and Empty Tables."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
And while I did love Hugo's Les Miserables, here would be a rare occasion I would say, " get the abridged edition."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:


I've read accounts by people who actually were slaves as well as people who lived through concentration camps during WWII and I'm always amazed at the human spirit that can survive through such things. Amazingly those people were still generous, still able to laugh at times, and still able to hope. I felt none of that in the characters in "Beloved," and I think it was because Morrison thought that any moment of joy or spark of wit would undermine her message. I think she underestimates the people who survived slavery as well as the intelligence of her readers.

---

There are some very life-affirming texts about slaves, slave owners and Holocaust survivors, true. But perhaps we need to hear a little of the alternative, sometimes. Plenty of people would have been totally destroyed, morally and spiritually, by these experiences.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:


Now for a true stinker: although no one ever said it was a 'great' book, if you really want to plumb the depths track down a copy of The Heart has its Reasons by the late Duchess of Windsor. Over 300 pages of self-justifying tripe in a style of such dreadful arch whimsy it induces migraine and nausea.

---

Oh, I read that in a couple of hours lying on the sofa a couple of Boxing Days ago, minding the dog while while Mrs A took the inlaws to the panto, and rather enjoyed it as a sort of extended Hello article. Suitable for convalescents and so on.

---

You, Sir, win the grand prize for cattiness on this thread, hands down. And I say that with a
, rather than a , to be clear...
 

---

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
I'm another one who couldn't finish Beloved. It wasn't the story because I didn't get that far into it. I just couldn't engage with any characters enough to want to read further. The same sort of feelings engendered by Charles Bukowski.

Another prize winning book that didn't live up to expectations was Hotel du Lac - and that one I finished.
 

---

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I also hated Beloved, it wasn't the portrayal of slavery but the nature of the writing. I vaguely remember, (its been over 20 years since we did the book at school), that early on the character thinks / is described as feeling she needs a man to lift her heavy breasts, the way she needs one to help round the house.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I also hated Beloved, it wasn't the portrayal of slavery but the nature of the writing. I vaguely remember, (its been over 20 years since we did the book at school), that early on the character thinks / is described as feeling she needs a man to lift her heavy breasts, the way she needs one to help round the house.

---

[...]

Really, I don't know why I try to explain it. I've read books where the protagonist is in as much unremitting agony and liked them better. It's really just the writing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doublethink.:
There is a specific kind of female (rather than feminist) writing / programme making that is obsessed with femaleness as understood as any bodily function, or attribute not common to both sexes. They have to tell you if the character has their period, or are "hormonal" or the sun sets like her memory of libido before she had six kids or whatever. And I find it turgid and alienating to read.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by anoesis:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:


Now for a true stinker: although no one ever said it was a 'great' book, if you really want to plumb the depths track down a copy of The Heart has its Reasons by the late Duchess of Windsor. Over 300 pages of self-justifying tripe in a style of such dreadful arch whimsy it induces migraine and nausea.

---

Oh, I read that in a couple of hours lying on the sofa a couple of Boxing Days ago, minding the dog while while Mrs A took the inlaws to the panto, and rather enjoyed it as a sort of extended Hello article. Suitable for convalescents and so on.

---

You, Sir, win the grand prize for cattiness on this thread, hands down. And I say that with a
, rather than a , to be clear...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The long LONG descriptions in older novels date back to the time when there was no photography, no Google, no Wikipedia. If you wanted to know what a whale was like, Herman Melville had to describe it for you because there was no other way for you to know.

---

Most coastal populations would have seen a whale (which were far more plentiful in the 19th C), and whales were (and still are) seen in the Thames as far up as London (example here from the 1840s). Newspapers often used lithographs to illustrate their stories - often fancifully - and since whaling was a major activity across the world, paintings and prints of whalers and whales were common.

I just happen to think long descriptive passages fell out of vogue because they're startling tedious. And yes, Thomas Hardy, I'm looking at you...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
It isn't a Great Book (although it is a great big book) but LOTR is stuffed with long boring descriptions too.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
It isn't a Great Book (although it is a great big book) but LOTR is stuffed with long boring descriptions too.

---

Sir! We meet at dawn, bring your second.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:



But some of these things, like tooth flossing, are just things that are dull and everyday, and that it is not interesting to read about. The author very properly feels that if it's not interesting (and cannot be made interesting) then it shouldn't be written about. Life is too short, to write, or read, about dull things.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
It isn't a Great Book (although it is a great big book) but LOTR is stuffed with long boring descriptions too.

---

Sir! We meet at dawn, bring your second.

---

I'll be your second, LB.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gwalchmai:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
My father-in-law always referred to D H Lawrence as 'The man who made sex boring'. I got as far as the second paragraph of Women in Love once before deciding that life was too short to bother reading the rest.

---

Lady Chatterley's Lover would qualify for a Bad Sex award if were to be first published today.

---

No, that award goes to Valley of the Dolls.
 

---

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
But isn't that most likely just a reaction to a long tradition of women's writing in which it was considered inappropriate to talk about those things? I said on the Longbourn book club thread that you could read all of Austen without ever thinking anyone went to the bathroom ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Starbug:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gwalchmai:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
My father-in-law always referred to D H Lawrence as 'The man who made sex boring'. I got as far as the second paragraph of Women in Love once before deciding that life was too short to bother reading the rest.

---

Lady Chatterley's Lover would qualify for a Bad Sex award if were to be first published today.

---

No, that award goes to Valley of the Dolls.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:


Those who write about mundane bodily matters in a " behold how I am GoingThere" sort of way are kind of tedious. But a frank, non- sensational description of a character's tolieting habits can be revealing and entertaining.

...[snip]...

This would probably make a great thread of its own.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:


I can imagine that in an environment of PC readers it's hard to criticise a book like this. But you're probably on safer territory among such people if you make it clear that it's the style and not the content that you disapprove of. Although some of your comments above seemed to blend into content too, e.g. re the ghosts, and the slave holders being depicted as unremittingly bad people rather than being nuanced characters.

Did your book groups read any other novels by black authors about slavery, or was this the only one? I think it's very unfortunate when a just one or two books are singled out to represent what was a vast, complex and controversial history.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
But isn't that most likely just a reaction to a long tradition of women's writing in which it was considered inappropriate to talk about those things? I said on the Longbourn book club thread that you could read all of Austen without ever thinking anyone went to the bathroom ...

---

Apart from Apthorpe and the Thunderbox in Sword of Honour I can't think of many books by men that say much about this daily experience.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evangeline:
Why does one never hear Hemingway's work described as cock lit?

---

Now see here, people of SoF. I was playing the piano in church this morning, and the visiting Bishop began his sermon with the tale of Hemingway's 6 word stories. I had to bite my tongue to prevent an outbreak of the giggles.

I blame you people.
 

---

Posted by Jemima the 9th (# 15106) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Penny S:
[tangent] The thing about Woman's Hour is that it discusses the things not discussed elsewhere, not that women are confined to listening to it. We can listen to Jim Al Khalili, Melvyn Bragg, anything and everything outside that three quarters of an hour, but those things are not discussed anywhere else, and they need to be. (Actually, I find the singer songwriters tedious and turn elsewhere.) [/tangent]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
Your reaction is like some of the women in my book group. You act as though I said slavery never existed or that slaves didn't suffer. We're talking about a work of fiction. I happen to think this subject deserves good writing and authentic characters. You seem to think any book at all written on this subject, becomes sacred because of it's subject matter. I don't. I'm a Christian but I don't think every book published as "Christian," is a good book.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
And while I did love Hugo's Les Miserables, here would be a rare occasion I would say, " get the abridged edition."

---

Nonsense. The reason to read Les Miserables is to watch and see what tangent Hugo is going to go off on next. (Hugo is one of France's best poets - the tangents are prose poems.)
The other advantage of the tangents is that in real life it would be an intolerable coincidence that the same four or five people keep bumping into each other. You don't feel this so much when each encounter is separated by fifty pages on the Battle of Waterloo, or twenty pages on sewers.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
There is a large class of things that we simply don't write about and don't read about (except in medical textbooks and health articles): excretory matters, flatulence, flossing of the teeth, sanitary napkins, boborygmus (a pity, such a cool word!) and so forth.

Many of these are bodily functions and fall into the 'not in public, dear' category. It is interesting to look at what has moved into, and out of, this class over time. Sex, for instance, is now front and center in a way that would make Austen's eyes pop. But we are as shy as ever about bowel movements, and to a great extent cigarettes have moved into the no-go zone in my lifetime.

But some of these things, like tooth flossing, are just things that are dull and everyday, and that it is not interesting to read about. The author very properly feels that if it's not interesting (and cannot be made interesting) then it shouldn't be written about. Life is too short, to write, or read, about dull things.

But from the historical point of view, these things are fascinating. Austen didn't write about chamberpots because of rule 1, above. But they also came under rune 2, and now we know nothing of it, mostly.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
The unanridged version of Les Miz is like an 19th century version of The Tommyknockers.

That's right! I said The Tommyknockers !

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Oh, and while I'm here, Jude the Obscure was yet another whiny little shit.

---

Tell me about it. All that stuff about "the eastwrd position, and all creation groaning!" He wouldn't have lasted ten minutes in Ecclesiantics.

( added in case anybody thinks I really am a heartless git.)
 

---

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
Suitable for convalescents and so on.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
Suitable for convalescents and so on.

---

That's a very good aside. Some books seem designed to be read when you're not feeling very well: most of Wodehouse for example.

On the other hand, I once read one of Susan Howatch's church-themed novels when I was suffering from bronchitis. Don't ever do that! All her pompous and arrogant ecclesiastics without a glimmer of humour or self-awareness prancing around some Establishment shrine of a cathedral close, drove me almost suicidal.

So much so that I could never face reading another of her massive tomes. She was highly thought of at one time (20 years ago perhaps?) but seems to have, understandably, faded from the scene. My impression was confirmed when I saw her on telly talking about her ideal candidate for Archbishop of Canterbury. Having seen that, I was quite relieved when we got Carey instead, which just shows!

(tangentially, the above reminds me of a comment by a recently-retired bishop about one of the supposed qualifications for that office being 'gravitas.' His interpretation of that was 'is he boring enough?')

---

quote:

---

My vote for that is for Anne Rice D'Pseudonym's Sleeping Beauty series.

I have nothing against spanking, sub fantasies, or a healthy dose of erotica, but there are only so many adjectives you can go through to describe gushing bodily fluids before things get tedious. And sticky.

---

Welllllll, that's true but one doesn't read those books cover to cover for the literary content. One reads them to...uhh...you know..."bang the bishop". "Dig down deep for a dime". "Have a date with Rosy Palm and her five sisters".
 

---

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I went to a charity store once, and made a quick survey of the used book shelves. There was a separate shelf for the kiddie books: picture books, Harry Potter, Little House on the Prairie and so on. And there on the lower shelf was Sleeping Beauty, by A.N. Roquelaire. The clerks clearly did not know what the work was about. I didn't feel equal to an explanation. I just moved the book from the kid section to the top shelf of the grown-ups' bookcase.
 

---

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:
That's the perfect comparison, Kelly! Nobody needs a ruthless editor more than Stephen King. I guess his publishers are so glad to have him they just let him run off as many words as he likes. It's all gold for them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Starbug:
Having enjoyed The Hobbit, I was surprised that I just couldn't get into Lord of the Rings at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Twilight:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
The unanridged version of Les Miz is like an 19th century version of The Tommyknockers.

That's right! I said The Tommyknockers !

---

That's the perfect comparison, Kelly! Nobody needs a ruthless editor more than Stephen King. I guess his publishers are so glad to have him they just let him run off as many words as he likes. It's all gold for them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The5thMary:

quote:

---

My vote for that is for Anne Rice D'Pseudonym's Sleeping Beauty series.

I have nothing against spanking, sub fantasies, or a healthy dose of erotica, but there are only so many adjectives you can go through to describe gushing bodily fluids before things get tedious. And sticky.

---

Welllllll, that's true but one doesn't read those books cover to cover for the literary content. One reads them to...uhh...you know..."bang the bishop". "Dig down deep for a dime". "Have a date with Rosy Palm and her five sisters".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The5thMary:

quote:

---

My vote for that is for Anne Rice D'Pseudonym's Sleeping Beauty series.

I have nothing against spanking, sub fantasies, or a healthy dose of erotica, but there are only so many adjectives you can go through to describe gushing bodily fluids before things get tedious. And sticky.

---

Welllllll, that's true but one doesn't read those books cover to cover for the literary content. One reads them to...uhh...you know..."bang the bishop". "Dig down deep for a dime". "Have a date with Rosy Palm and her five sisters".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough

quote:

---

I went to a charity store once, and made a quick survey of the used book shelves. There was a separate shelf for the kiddie books: picture books, Harry Potter, Little House on the Prairie and so on. And there on the lower shelf was Sleeping Beauty, by A.N. Roquelaire. The clerks clearly did not know what the work was about. I didn't feel equal to an explanation. I just moved the book from the kid section to the top shelf of the grown-ups' bookcase

---

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I went to a charity store once, and made a quick survey of the used book shelves.

---

quote:

---

Lourdes Kim, an Asian American Catholic?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The5thMary:
I've never read any Anthony Trollope but if his writings are as ponderous and borrrrrrrrrrrrring as Howatch's writing, I'll just decline thanks.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The5thMary:
They keep saying, "She's the Anthony Trollope of the twentieth century".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:

quote:

---

Originally posted by The5thMary:
They keep saying, "She's the Anthony Trollope of the twentieth century".

---

ie Susan Howatch. If anyone says that, either they've never read Trollope, or they've never read Howatch and probably neither.

Trollope wrote about clergy (in four of the Barchester Novels) but was totally uninterested in religion. (He wrote about politicians but was uninterested in politics.)

Howatch wrote with a conscious intention of religious apologia.

I was no great fan, but I remember Anglea Tilby prior to ordination being enthusiastic about Howatch at an Affirming Catholicism conference.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evangeline

I think The Great Gatsby is beautiful to read, the prose is just perfect. I believe the feeling is that it did capture the Zeitgeist of 1920s America and that it is important because of what it says about the corruption of the American dream. It does seem to be a novel that people either love or hate.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Those Howatch books were odd. I read a few of them pretty much as they were published and they did capture something at the time, but I tried to pick one up a few years back and couldn't get into it at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
I was no great fan, but I remember Anglea Tilby prior to ordination being enthusiastic about Howatch at an Affirming Catholicism conference.

---

So did I - her domineering clergy were the sort that we Affcaths love to hate.
 

---

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
I have been pratchettified to the point where I keep reading about the author Susan Hogwatch. I daresay she writes about the Unseen Church.
 

---

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 

 

---

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Those Howatch books were odd. I read a few of them pretty much as they were published and they did capture something at the time, but I tried to pick one up a few years back and couldn't get into it at all.

---

I read one of them once. An interesting introduction to an aspect of English religion that I have no connection with. There's a more recent author called Michael Arditti who writes about a similar sort of Anglo-Catholic environment.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
I believe Howatch used to write romantic airport novels before her conversion. After her conversion she basically wrote romantic airport novels about clergy with added theology.
She therefore gets read by people who want to read romantic airport novels but needs added theology as an excuse.

(I couldn't possibly comment on whether I've read them.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Sorry - I read 'Aff-Cathy' in Albertus's post above and it became 'Anglo-Catholic' in my mind.

(These labels are all rather confusing for someone who's not an Anglican! As I said, though, Howatch's - and even Arditti's - fictional churches are rather exotic to me. The CofE churches I attend are very different.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
I wouldn't have thought Howatch's characters were particularly anglo-catholic.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
My point was that I couldn't quite understand why anglo-catholics (affirming or otherwise) should rate Howatch so highly

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Badger Lady:
Hardy. Dear God Hardy.

One short story I read under duress at school involved [IIRC(*)] a man was very very worried about a tree outside his window. So worried he took to his bed and was dying. His son arranged for tree to be cut down. Over many pages. Man wakes up, sees tree has gone. And dies of shock.

I hate Hardy. I've tried Tess and Jude but to no avail. I *like* Trollope; I can stomach Fanny Price; and, Dickens is great for loong train rides. But Hardy.


(*) I may not recall correctly. It was some time ago.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
And, in a very understated way, so does Barbara Pym. (Going off at a slight tangent, I always think of the TV series Rev as not dissimilar from Barbara Pym's churches, despite the social class and churchpersonship difference).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Angloid:
My point was that I couldn't quite understand why anglo-catholics (affirming or otherwise) should rate Howatch so highly

---

Could it be that Howatch's novels are a bit camp?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
... Are Barbara Pym's novels camp? In a sense, and in places, perhaps, but I think they have a truthfulness which outweighs that. ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:
(Never seen Rev. It's not a book.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Authors, like horses, have a form that they are best at. Asimov seems to be better at the short form, and perhaps this is what you are perceiving.

---

I know. I was just ruminating on the dynamic.
 

---

Posted by doubtingthomas (# 14498) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
OK, too much agreement here. Allow me to shock and outrage you all.

Many people have insisted I read the Foundation Trilogy. I keep trying. I just can't get into it. I am sure this is because I am a horrible person with a poor literary palate.

Strangely, though, I love Asimov's short stories, and I really love his essays and scholarly works. Odd, isn't it? how you can completely embrace an author in one genre and be stumped by him in another?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by doubtingthomas:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
OK, too much agreement here. Allow me to shock and outrage you all.

Many people have insisted I read the Foundation Trilogy. I keep trying. I just can't get into it. I am sure this is because I am a horrible person with a poor literary palate.

Strangely, though, I love Asimov's short stories, and I really love his essays and scholarly works. Odd, isn't it? how you can completely embrace an author in one genre and be stumped by him in another?

---

I like Foundation &c., which are not really a trilogy, but a set of 8 novellas in 3 volumes. I'm not a fan of short stories as a form, and this intermediate format gives Asimov the chance to bridge the gap - unlike his actual novels, which are not as good.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
OK, too much agreement here. Allow me to shock and outrage you all.

Many people have insisted I read the Foundation Trilogy. I keep trying. I just can't get into it. I am sure this is because I am a horrible person with a poor literary palate.

Strangely, though, I love Asimov's short stories, and I really love his essays and scholarly works. Odd, isn't it? how you can completely embrace an author in one genre and be stumped by him in another?

---

I'm guessing it's because Asimov doesn't do characters. He just doesn't. They are like little named chesspieces, acting out the grand ideas of his mind. Which are pretty grand, and definitely interesting, which is why I forgive him for the lack of interesting characters. But that's easier to do in a short story than in a novel, when you occasionally want a break from intelligence.

 

---

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
OK, too much agreement here. Allow me to shock and outrage you all.

Many people have insisted I read the Foundation Trilogy. I keep trying. I just can't get into it. I am sure this is because I am a horrible person with a poor literary palate.

Strangely, though, I love Asimov's short stories, and I really love his essays and scholarly works. Odd, isn't it? how you can completely embrace an author in one genre and be stumped by him in another?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
OK, too much agreement here. Allow me to shock and outrage you all.

Many people have insisted I read the Foundation Trilogy. I keep trying. I just can't get into it. I am sure this is because I am a horrible person with a poor literary palate.

Strangely, though, I love Asimov's short stories, and I really love his essays and scholarly works. Odd, isn't it? how you can completely embrace an author in one genre and be stumped by him in another?

---

I'm guessing it's because Asimov doesn't do characters. He just doesn't. They are like little named chesspieces, acting out the grand ideas of his mind. Which are pretty grand, and definitely interesting, which is why I forgive him for the lack of interesting characters. But that's easier to do in a short story than in a novel, when you occasionally want a break from intelligence.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
He's a rare one, though even he is a bit sparse on characterization. But yes, he's my favorite too of the Asimov characters, most of whom I cannot even recall by name.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
He's a rare one, though even he is a bit sparse on characterization. But yes, he's my favorite too of the Asimov characters, most of whom I cannot even recall by name.

---

I read somewhere that one of the glories of genre fiction is that plot matters more than characterization. It's a storyteller's medium, not a psychologist's. Not sure if I believe that 100%, but there's something to it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albertus:
... Are Barbara Pym's novels camp? In a sense, and in places, perhaps, but I think they have a truthfulness which outweighs that. ...

---

Philosophical question. Is it possible for a novel - rather than the sensibilities of some of her readers - written by a women about women's lives, to be camp?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Even his novels feel like a couple or three novellas strung together.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
The original Foundation books ("The Trilogy") are awesome. All that followed (much much later) was trash.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
I thought they jumped the shark when they introduced the Mule half way through volume two.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
The original Foundation books ("The Trilogy") are awesome. All that followed (much much later) was trash.

---

I thought they jumped the shark when they introduced the Mule half way through volume two.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
I thought they jumped the shark when they introduced the Mule half way through volume two.

---

Problem was, he pretty well had to. The whole series was getting too cosy: historically inevitable crisis arises; hero inevitably defeats it thanks to historical inevitability. He realised he had to throw in a wildcard just to keep it bumping along.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evangeline:
Unfortunately by the time it got to book 4 in the series nobody was game enough to tell JK that her work needed editing.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sherwood:
The Horse and his Boy by C.S. Lewis.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evangeline:
Unfortunately by the time it got to book 4 in the series nobody was game enough to tell JK that her work needed editing.

---

YES

---

quote:

---

quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evangeline:
Unfortunately by the time it got to book 4 in the series nobody was game enough to tell JK that her work needed editing.

---

YES
Hear that, editors out there? The more prolific an author gets, the more they need a ruthless editor.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Hear that, editors out there? The more prolific an author gets, the more they need a ruthless editor.

---

From what I understand, fewer and fewer publishing houses are using in-house editors, and are expecting the author to hire their own editor on their dime. And if you're working for the author, and not the publishing house, you're going to not necessarily tell your boss something they don't want to hear, for fear of your job.

Also agree that HP3 was the best one.
 

---

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Editors no long edit. They spend all their time in marketing meetings.

There is also the 'don't mess with success' feeling. If Stephen King is selling books by the boxcar load, someone is doing something right. Why rock the boat? Better to take the money and run.
 

---

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
And then poor Stephen King cries himself to sleep every night over the continued existence of The Tommyknockers. Will no one think of the writers?

i know, wiping his eyes with fifty dollar bills, but still.

[ 06. December 2014, 19:35: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Hear that, editors out there? The more prolific an author gets, the more they need a ruthless editor.

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From what I understand, fewer and fewer publishing houses are using in-house editors, and are expecting the author to hire their own editor on their dime. And if you're working for the author, and not the publishing house, you're going to not necessarily tell your boss something they don't want to hear, for fear of your job.

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Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
But then it is a barrier to editing. All of a sudden now I have to listen to what you say? Why?

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Originally posted by mousethief:
To which the answer is, as you well know, "Because you are too close to it, too heavily invested in it, and too enamoured of it, to see its flaws."

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Originally posted by Enoch:
The Arthur Ransome series seemed to be describing children as adults would like us to be.... John Moore, James Hilton, Ian Hay, A. J. Cronin, Somerset Maugham, Nancy Mitford, and of course in those days the ubiquitous Conan Doyle. Apart from the latter, how many of those are read now.

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Originally posted by venbede:

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Originally posted by Enoch:
The Arthur Ransome series seemed to be describing children as adults would like us to be.... John Moore, James Hilton, Ian Hay, A. J. Cronin, Somerset Maugham, Nancy Mitford, and of course in those days the ubiquitous Conan Doyle. Apart from the latter, how many of those are read now.

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I certainly read and re-read Nancy Mitford. I wouldn't have liked Arthur Ransome as a child, but I certainly enjoy reading and re-reading him now. And there is certainly a degree of camp in Ransome about how these children are total fantasists who always have to imagine a place or person is something different (except in We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea where potentially mortal reality creeps up on them like a fog.

I read Harry Potter when I was old enough to be a parent.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
To which the answer is, as you well know, "Because you are too close to it, too heavily invested in it, and too enamoured of it, to see its flaws."

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This is not quite true. It's more that if the writer hadn't spent the last how ever long training themselves to ignore the flaws the writer would never have actually finished.

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Originally posted by Firenze:
Hang on a minute - how did we get from dissing Hard Times and Tess of the D'urbervilles to copy editing and swimsuits?

Back to moaning about Moby Dick , people.

Firenze
Heaven Host

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jedijudy
Heaven Host with a raised eyebrow and the 'Mama Look'

[ 07. December 2014, 02:04: Message edited by: jedijudy ]
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Right, heh, sorry.
 

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Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :
 

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Originally posted by balaam:

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Originally posted by Sherwood:
The Horse and his Boy by C.S. Lewis.

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That and The Last Battle. But that still leaves 5 glorious Narnia books.

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The Horse and his Boy is my favourite of the lot .

I really loved the Swallows & Amazons as a child but re-reading them several years ago, it suddenly struck me that their campsites never have a loo tent and I have not been able to take them seriously since .
 

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Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :
 

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Originally posted by JoannaP:

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Originally posted by balaam:

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Originally posted by Sherwood:
The Horse and his Boy by C.S. Lewis.

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That and The Last Battle. But that still leaves 5 glorious Narnia books.

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The Horse and his Boy is my favourite of the lot .

I really loved the Swallows & Amazons as a child but re-reading them several years ago, it suddenly struck me that their campsites never have a loo tent and I have not been able to take them seriously since .

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quote:

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Originally posted by JoannaP:

I really loved the Swallows & Amazons as a child but re-reading them several years ago, it suddenly struck me that their campsites never have a loo tent and I have not been able to take them seriously since .

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Originally posted by JoannaP:
The Horse and his Boy is my favourite of the lot .

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Same here. It is the most like a fairy tale, and the one that most stands on its own rather than filling a place in the chronology.

[ 08. December 2014, 00:09: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 

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Posted by Roselyn (# 17859) on :
 
We were set "Wind in the Willows" for the Intermediate Certificate c. 15/14 yrs old.

I cannot think of a worse age, too old; too young.
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
I love The Last Battle, myself.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
yeah. me too.
 

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Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 

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Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

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Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:

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Originally posted by Evangeline:
Unfortunately by the time it got to book 4 in the series nobody was game enough to tell JK that her work needed editing.

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YES

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Hear that, editors out there? The more prolific an author gets, the more they need a ruthless editor.

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I consider that I am still too young for Ulysses.

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I'm ashamed to say that I love Ulysses. Joyce wrote like an angel but by golly he had a filthy mind. So I sort of feel that loving Ulysses reflects badly on my own mind.

Although I don't go around imagining the sort of stuff Joyce imagined. No, I don't. Really.


 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
I'm the only person I know who got all the Gilbert and Sullivan references in "Ulysses".

There is a scene where according to the commentaries, Bloom watches a young girl masturbating while in a neighbouring chapel there is Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

I got all the references to Benediction. I didn't understand about the other bit.
 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
The book that's sat the longest on my shelf without getting chucked is "The Tale of Genji". It seems impenetrable to me but too important to just discard.
 

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Posted by Tea (# 16619) on :
 
Don Quixote. I wanted so much to enjoy it, but soon tired of Quixote's delusions of chivalric excellence. Unfortunately, Sancho Panza was no compensation; I remained unbeguiled.
 

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Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Herodotus's Histories. I have a lovely HB volume of it here on the TBR bookcase, but have never gotten more than half-way along. (Although looking at it it is clear where Mary Renault was mining her material.)
 

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Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 

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Originally posted by venbede:
I'm the only person I know who got all the Gilbert and Sullivan references in "Ulysses".

There is a scene where according to the commentaries, Bloom watches a young girl masturbating while in a neighbouring chapel there is Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

I got all the references to Benediction. I didn't understand about the other bit.

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