Eponine Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 You all know what I'm talking about. You're fluent in 10 different languages. You're an expect literary critic. You have signed first editions of great literary masterpieces. You're best friends with the most influential post-modern authors... but you secretly hate a book that you know an educated person should love. Maybe you don't even have a good reason for it... you just don't like it. I hate Jane Austen. Even the characters she wants us to like, I find repugnant and tedious. Moreover, I dislike people who adore Jane Austen. Casual admirers I'm ok with, but if you've ever considered starting a Jane Austen society, you're the kind of person I want to avoid. I know that part of my dislike comes from my dislike of the people who actually were in the Jane Austen society at my college. And I don't like reading about romance at all, even romance with social commentary and deeper insights on the human condition. Screw the human condition. Dune was boring. NFT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
salinea Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 Dorothy Dunnett. I went through three volumes of Lymond and two of Niccolo. Boy, was i bored. The plot totally revolved on highly unbelievable characters and the highly contrived effort to make them look good - clever, skilled, knowledgeable, cultured, manipulative & oh so pretty. It was plain ridiculous. Dune is totally boring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zhaduum Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 whats with the Dune bashing? I liked that book. Now Children of Hurin, that is boring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eponine Posted September 5, 2007 Author Share Posted September 5, 2007 Well that's the point zhaduum. These are supposed to be books that most other well-read people like and admire. Where, if you walked into a convention of literary critics and shouted, "I don't like ____", everyone would consider you an idiot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Barry Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 *Bashes Dune* Leo Tolstoy. Not feeling it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcelo Rebelo Firqoralas Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 A lot of people whose taste I respect adore Cordwainer Smith, but he does nothing for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kawnliee Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 I cannot stand Charles Dickens. I tried to read Dune and made it three pages in. Moby Dick makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a potato peeler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Monkey Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 I've never been a fan of Toni Morrison. I'm sure her books are great but I personally don't particularly enjoy them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokisnow Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 Thomas Pynchon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kcf Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 Lots of people like Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley - I did not care for it. Add me to the Dune chorus - it was OK, but for me it wasn't near as good as the praise it usually gets. I think I read the sequel, but I don't remember if I finished it or not - I found it even less interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Multaniette Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 Well, I hate the premise of this thread, to begin with... However, a book I thought I would like was Blood Meridian. Try as I might, I just couldn't get into the story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derfel Cadarn Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 Tolkein to an extent. I liked LotR but found the Silmarillion pretty dull. It's like the bible but with less sex. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shryke Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 Tolkien. Can't stand his writing. LOTR is dull and plodding. Like a boring travelogue that goes on too long. Silmarillion is even worse. It's like reading a book of Greek Mythology, except not even written to be exciting. Dryer then Oscar Wilde too. Dune. Good ideas, not bad story, but I don't think Herbert can write worth shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PuroGeo Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 Silmarillion for me also. I have tried reading it twice but just can't seem to get into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabbit21 Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 I tried to read Dickens and just couldn't make it work. Just too hard to get through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
add-on Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 ummmmm, lots... Chaucer Malory Beowulf Marie de France Actually, you could probably plug in most authors/works written before the late 16th/early seventeenth century, and it would work just fine. There are exceptions, just not very many. After that... Thomas Hardy's fiction (I think his poetry can be pretty powerful, if depressing) Emily Bronte Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Silenus Posted September 5, 2007 Share Posted September 5, 2007 Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, William Burroughs, Tom Wolfe (Die! Kltpzyxm!)... I find so many 20th century American authors to be majorly disappointing. I read half of the Tropic of something-or-other because friends, plural, people who don't read but will flow with a fad, recommended it to me. And later: Kerouac. Vonnegut. De Sade. Where does their popularity spring from? Vonnegut often fails to rise past a fan-fic level. Norman fucking Mailer I despise. I read some of Advertisements For Myself and marvelled at how he thinks he has the balls to dismiss James Baldwin and Gore Vidal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry. Posted September 6, 2007 Share Posted September 6, 2007 I'm tempted to be a smartass here and say Terry Goodkind But no, that would be fibbing, so... I've already said before that I just don't like Isaac Asimov's or Robert Heinlein's works, at least the small sampling of theirs that I've read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freudas Posted September 6, 2007 Share Posted September 6, 2007 Add me to the Dune and Tolkien bandwagons I guess DVC as well, although that has been exposed here for the shite that it is, the friend that pressed it on me was all about how awesome it was Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matrim Fox Cauthon Posted September 6, 2007 Share Posted September 6, 2007 This seems to be a bash authors MFC likes thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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