Sometimes we start to read a book that is very popular or critically acclaimed and it just doesn't do it for us. It never captures our imagination and we can't make it to the end. Here are a few of mine. What are some of yours?
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
The Covenant by James Michener
Fifty Shades of Grey by You Know Who (I made it through 12 pages!)
Cheers,
Will aka penman5248
Someone cover verbal's ears and eyes.
Infinite Jest
50 Shades of Grey! Uggghhhh!!
The Bible. Too many holes in the plot.
Heart of Darkness.
I swear, I've tried like 4 times. I'll do it one day.
The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien (tedious and boring)
The Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (not even a little erotic)
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (overblown christian allegory)
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (could not even get past the first chapter)
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
For the first time...I am trying to finish Stephen King's Christine...it's taking me over a year...not willing to give up.
"Yeah, we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun." John Lennon
Take a look at my new poem for the competition:
I tried to read Ulysses also. What was he on when he wrote that? Somebody else mentioned the Simarillion. I liked Lord of the Rings but that one was really dry as toast.
Fifty Shades of Grey.
It was as if a teenage writer had written their first porn story, trying to be edgy. My mind and imagination felt numb.
Bridget Jones: Mad about the boy.
I have no idea what Helen Fielding was thinking while writing this tripe. Yes Mark died tragically. However Bridget as a woman in her 50 is the tragic figure. A woman of wealth trying to make it as a script writer and has a relationship with some 20 something social media influencer. All the while not really a parent to her two kids who are raised by a nanny. From a character view brilliant, funny 30s Bridget who came up with Fuckwittage etc Ends up cursing toy boy as "Farty fart." Of course she ends up with a minor character who is a dick to her in the book.
No just no. How I know who she ended up with, I skipped a lot of pages to find the passage. It was like totally predictable.
Dune, by Frank Herbert.
Just too damn long and slow, and I generally like epics. Not for me.
Also, Huckleberry Finn. Started it a few times, never finished. And I like Twain.
Life is short, break the rules. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that makes you smile - Mark Twain
Disappointed in so many of you.
I liked Gravity's Rainbow, Ulysses, A Clockwork Orange, Heart of Darkness... Christine was pretty slow and took awhile to pick up, but it wasn't awful. I finished it, and am a pretty big fan of King's. I also like David Foster Wallace's writing, though I haven't attempted infinite jest yet.
As for books I didn't finish: War and Peace... I remember being assigned to read Jane Eyre in university, getting about 30 pages into it, and then deciding to rent the movie instead. Also I've made a couple of attempts at reading Christopher Moore after someone described him as "like Douglas Adams" and I just can't do it. He's a fucking terrible writer, and should have a restraining order placed between him and any kind of word processor, type writer, note book or legal pad, the same way that pedophiles aren't allowed to go near schools and playgrounds.
Don't believe everything that you read.
Tried Langoliers, The Stand, and one other that I can't even remember. Never make it more than a couple of chapters into anything by King. There's just something about his writing style that completely turns me off.
Despite still considering fantasy to be my homebase for writing, and being a DM for years, and still playing RPGs, I've never even opened the cover of Tolkien. I have no reason not to read it. I just haven't. I've looked at it on physical and digital shelves more than once, but never picked it up.
Always makes people stare at me like a cow looks at an oncoming train when they know me from my fantasy work.
The Firm never could get though the first ten pages .
The Bible.....Revelations stops me as I dont want to know about the Apocalypse
The Green Berets. It is a signed copy that the author gave my father in law, who was one. I REALLY need to finish it.
I'm really getting sick of auto-correct's shirt.
Have tried and tried Atlas Shrugged, without success. It has some quotes I'd love to see in context, but couldn't Ms. Rand come up with a better name than 'Dagny Taggart'?
I can't remember the last book I didn't finish (some kind of silly obligation I feel to authors), but I've had a few where my eyes have had to be marched at gunpoint over the final pages. For example:
Reservoir 13, Jon McGregor. I kept reading because I assumed something would happen. But nothing did, which is probably why it's critically acclaimed.
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy. I wish God had made this book smaller.
Brooklyn, Colm Toibin. I just expected it to be better.
Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman, Stefan Zweig. Should have added 'But Feels Like a Lot Longer' to the title.
EDIT: Did not finish Pet Sematary, Stephen King. Just far too much build-up. Nowhere near as good as any of the others I've read of his.
Basically anything by Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, some other alliteration, I'm sure.... They all read exactly the same to me.
For me the one that I have never been able to read is 'Remembrances of Things Past by Proust. Have tried it in both French and English several times since my teens (probably five). I can't get past the first quarter of the first book.
Ayn Rand also leaves me cold.
Loved Tolkien except for the Simarillion.
As I get older I am very picky as to what I read time is too short to read thinks that don't appeal to me. There are so many great books out there.
