Books That You're Supposed To Like But Don't...

[Morcant]

[quote]You failed. Unless it offended you for some reason that is nothing to do with religion whatsoever.[/quote]

The book offended me, but I'm not claiming that Pullman is an Enemy to Christianity or Satan in disguise. In what way do I sound like a Harry Potter burning Christian?

[add-on]

[quote name='Isis' post='1309016' date='Apr 10 2008, 10.39']Yeah, they're not awfully sunny stories, but I still find them worth reading.[/quote]
See, I like his poetry quite a bit, which is full of the same gray, hopeless worldview. So maybe it's just that I can only handle him in smaller doses. However, aside from that aspect, I did find his characterization to be a bit...dry.

[quote name='L'Sana' post='1313915' date='Apr 14 2008, 16.20']Some stuff I see why other people might like it, but it isn't my cup of tea, and in other cases, I'm convinced that some idiot lit professor has mistaken incomprehensible prose for something "challenging" when in reality it is just badly written.[/quote]
I try not to let these sort of comments irk me, but they never fail to. It just gets on my nerves when people decide classics are "badly written" when in reality it just doesn't click for them. Awfully presumptuous of you.

You and I have disagreed about stream-of-consciousness style prose before, so I'm going to assume that books that employ that style are part of what you're talking about. For you, this prose is incomprehensible. Fine, I'm not going to say it will or should work for everybody. But for me, it's like jumping into a river and finding I have gills and fins. I'm perfectly at home and there's plenty to eat.

Re Turin:
At the very least, I thought he was a wonderful foil for Tuor. For Beren, as well.

[Chas Warren]

[quote name='Triskele' post='1322025' date='Apr 20 2008, 17.19']That doesn't sound like you're getting a very good return on your investment. :P

It's kind of weird, I almost never read a book and say it wasn't worth it. And I almost never fail to finish something I started. I think I get a lot of satisfaction from finishing a book regardless of how highly I would rate it or how likely I'd be to recommend it. Could that be your stance as well? Maybe the you like reading constantly but you only find about one out of fifteen are worthy of being defined as high art? Cause if you're reading that much and not liking more than one out of 15, it makes me think you're saying "this probably won't be good, but I want to find out" every time you pick up a book.[/quote]

When I was a kid, reading Nancy Drew, I loved everything I read. In my early teens, I loved nearly everything I read. By the time I was in my late teens - early twenties, I loved about 40% of what I read. In my later twenties - thirties (inclusive), that had dropped to perhaps 10% of what I read. I'm now 47, and I've read exactly eight books that I loved since 1995. I've read many, many adequate books, but only eight that transported me. I'm not talking about encountering great literature: I haven't been blessed with that experience since 1980.

The eight books that have transported me since 1995:

The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife, by Philip Pullman
Lirael, by Garth Nix
Assassin's Apprentice, by Robin Hobb
Royal Assassin, by Robin Hobb
Assassin's Quest, by Robin Hobb
Elnantris, by Brandon Sanderson
Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

Reading a great book is transcendent enough that I will keep at it until I die. I just wish I wasn't so picky.

I'm the same way with films. I adore films, and watch them with great passion. But I'd be hard pressed to name three dozen that I would ever watch again, except for when I'm in a nostalgic funk, or sharing it with a loved one or close friend.

Films that I would watch again:

City of Lost Children
Blade Runner
Amelie
Fucking Amal
A Clockwork Orange
THX 1138
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Ma vie en Rose

There are others, but these spring immediately to mind.

Speaking of enjoyable films, i just saw Forbidden Kingdom, and loved it. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it pushed all of the right buttons. I'll probably buy it on DVD when it comes out, which is something I almost never do.

[L'Sana]

[quote name='matt b' post='1322089' date='Apr 20 2008, 20.24']You know, I've never really thought of the story in those terms before. But that might be because I've never thought of the Silmarillion as a single work with a single plot in the same way that the LotR is. I'm not sure that Tolkien did either. From the earliest conception of his mythology, there were essentially 3 stories: Turin's, The Fall of Gondolin, and Beren & Luthien. Obviously he fleshed things out more than that and filled in those gaps, but even in the published form of the Silmarillion those 3 stories are the longest and most full by far. Asking how Turin's story fits into the overall plot seems almost backwards to me, the question should be how the rest of the Silmarillion fits into Turin's story (and with the other 2 I mentioned).[/quote]

Okay, I guess I can see that. The thing about Beren and Luthien and the Fall of Gondolin is that they are both intimately tied to the silmarils and the war with Morgoth: without either one of those, things would have turned out drastically different from the way that they did. Most other chapters in the Silmarillion were the same way: they contributed in some way to the overall narrative of the Silmarils. As far as I can remember, Turin's chapter was the only one that did not.

Maybe if I try again and don't think of it as part of any overall narrative, but just it's own tragedy like Othello or Romeo and Juliet, then I might be able to like it better.

[quote]I try not to let these sort of comments irk me, but they never fail to. It just gets on my nerves when people decide classics are "badly written" when in reality it just doesn't click for them. Awfully presumptuous of you.

You and I have disagreed about stream-of-consciousness style prose before, so I'm going to assume that books that employ that style are part of what you're talking about. For you, this prose is incomprehensible. Fine, I'm not going to say it will or should work for everybody. But for me, it's like jumping into a river and finding I have gills and fins. I'm perfectly at home and there's plenty to eat.[/quote]

Have we clashed on this before? I honestly don't remember if we have, so forgive me if I'm repeating myself.

I certainly accept that there exist classics that I don't like that are well-written but not for me. I don't, however, accept that just because a book is labelled "literature" that means that it is well-written. Most modern "literature" has only existed about 10 years. The fact that it's being taught could mean that it's brilliant. It could also mean that there was kind of a fad for it among the English professors that will pass when they come to their senses. It's mostly these recent books where I've found prose that I believe is not "challenging" or "stream-of-conciousness" but just bad.

[Vhagar]

[u]The Great Gatsby[/u]. I [i]HATED[/i] that book. All my friends were mooning over it and I despised it.
[u]Moby Dick[/u], but I don't know that you are supposed to like that. Trudge through it, yes. Like it? Not so much. I read the first ten chapters the night before the exam and then got an A on it. :dunno: Never have read the whole thing.

Stuff you're supposed to hate that I love? Russian literature. Just read Dostoyevski's [u]House of the Dead[/u]. Liked it.

I'm a weirdo. I freely admit it. :pirate:

[Larry.]

I rarely respond in posts like this because it seems that a great many of the books mentioned end up being assigned books in school and since I've taught English for parts of 2 years...

Anyways, I was reading a book I found at work this morning, from an 80s reprint of a huge multi-volume work called [i]The Great Books[/i] and the author (who wrote this back in the early 1950s) of the first volume, [i]The Great Conversation[/i], made an interesting observation that is even more applicable today than it was back then:

He claimed that too often people are rushed into reading the "great works" (his preferred term over "classics") at too young of an age, when much of the meaning of stories (such as [i]Moby Dick[/i]) becomes more apparent after people have lived a while. But yet schools are pressured into introducing students to all sorts of great literature in hopes of something sticking, but ultimately too often it is too soon, and with a deleterious effect. After all, if one has to read a story of aging and grieving lost youth when one is a youth, is it as likely to have an impact compared to a person reading it at say my age, which is almost 34, with its creeping silvery hair and increased body aches?

Too many times the "classics" have improved with my own aging and maturation for me to attribute any disliking solely to the books themselves. I myself am often to blame for poor reception.

[Shryke]

Me, R Scott Bakker and others were actually discussing that very thing back on the ThreeSeas forum for awhile.

I think school turns so many people OFF reading by exposing them to boring "classics" and desperately trying to convince them how great they are, while simultaneously degrading the rest of the literature (like fantasy or sci-fi) that they may actually enjoy.

Telling kids "What you like it crap, read this boring stuff instead" isn't great for the image of literature as a whole.

[Maid of Tarth]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1324059' date='Apr 21 2008, 21.30']Me, R Scott Bakker and others were actually discussing that very thing back on the ThreeSeas forum for awhile.

I think school turns so many people OFF reading by exposing them to boring "classics" and desperately trying to convince them how great they are, while simultaneously degrading the rest of the literature (like fantasy or sci-fi) that they may actually enjoy.

Telling kids "What you like it crap, read this boring stuff instead" isn't great for the image of literature as a whole.[/quote]
Absolutely agree- and with [b]Dylanfanatic[/b]'s post. In high school they hand us a massive brick (the one I have for Eng 12 is 2010 pages long, and I do in fact use it as a foot stool.) of stories and poems that we're supposed to dissect for their "meaning". I [i]love[/i] to read. I have read obsessively all my life, and I have tried just about everything. But reading the stories in this book (which I've been struggling with all day today actually.....somehow I keep winding up back at these forums because I can't focus on the thing- I have to analyze 8 of them for a "reading journal". Yes, painful. :( ) has me on the verge of tears of boredom. If with all my reading (and love of some "classic" literature) I'm struggling with this book, you can bet that most other students are as well.

In the whole thing there's not one genre story that I've found. Most stories are about "old" people and themes that aren't remotely relateable to students of my age. Science Fiction and Fantasy (especially) are generally frowned upon in English courses unless it's a "literary classic", in which case it's [i]speculative fiction[/i]. Read The Chrysalids one year.....but the way we're made to read these books automatically makes them a detestable chore. I hated The Chrysalids when I read it for school, tried it again a year later and absolutely [u]loved[/u] it. Same with Lord of the Flies. And Animal Farm.

It's frakking hypocritical that there are all these complaints about kids not reading, when the English courses seem to try to do everything possible to turn us off of it. Frankly I've learned ten times more than any English course has ever taught me simply by reading whatever books I've chosen and discussing on forums or programs like nanowrimo or whatever else I've had to go and find myself. Anyone who doesn't have that kind of inclination just loses out on any love of reading and writing they might have developed, which is just sad. :bang:
/rant

That went on a little longer than I intended..... :blush:

[Shryke]

It's ok, I could easily go on for longer. It's one of my HUGE pet peeves with the school system.

When someone picks up The Chrysalids and says "Wow, this is a huge book", I weep for the literacy of the future generation.

[Tears of Lys]

[quote name='matt b' post='1322089' date='Apr 20 2008, 22.24']/snip

I think the real reason why I love Turin's story is so much is because it is so tragic, and I'm a sucker for tragic heroes. I can't read [b][i]that scene when Hurin and Morwen reunite at their children's graves [/i][/b]without tearing up. For me, this is Tolkien at his most heartfelt and emotional. It doesn't really affect the overall movement of the story, no, but to me that's irrelevant because the Silmarillion isn't 1 overall story, but many.[/quote]

Me too. Talk about a tragedy - it can't get more tragic than that.

DAMN YOU, MORGOTH!! :tantrum:



On another note, when I hear the classics called "boring," I cringe. Some may not be your cup of tea, but there's reasons they're still around. I agree, though, that people should be encouraged to read things in school that have more relevance to them currently. If the habit of reading is implanted, they'll undoubtedly move on to other things later in life.

[L'Sana]

[quote name='Tears of Lys' post='1325090' date='Apr 22 2008, 13.59']On another note, when I hear the classics called "boring," I cringe. Some may not be your cup of tea, but there's reasons they're still around. I agree, though, that people should be encouraged to read things in school that have more relevance to them currently. If the habit of reading is implanted, they'll undoubtedly move on to other things later in life.[/quote]

I hate to be in the position of defending the school system, but...

I'm not sure that the point of English classes is to have you read books that you will like. In elementry school, yes: the goal is literacy, the choice of words is almost irrelevant. But once kids reach the point where they can read in middle school (or is it high school these days), then the point becomes to introduce them to the English literary tradition. There is a certain body of work, what used to be called the cannon, that it's important to know in order to be able to communicate in educated circles. Shakespeare and Dickens and Austen are part of our selective civilizational knowledge.

If kids like sci-fi, they will find Heinlein and Asimov and Herbert. If they like fantasy, they'll probably run across ASOIAF without anyone having to assign it to them. Same with mystery and romance and sappy Oprah's Book Club fiction. It's not safe to assume, however, that because a 16-year-old decides to pick up Robert Jordan, that he'll eventually pick up The Faerie Queen, or because a teenage girl like the Harlequin Romances, that she'll move on to Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. The high school years may not be the ideal time to introduce the kids to some of these classics, but they are also the only years when adults have a chance to have a big influence on what kids read.

Now having said that, I do believe that the school system manages to muck it up quite a bit. I never had to read a "lament for lost youth" in high school, but it is obvious why that wouldn't work for a teenager. I did exeperience far too many teachers who substituted their own tastes for actual literary merit (just because Oprah likes it does not mean it's great literature). I also think that schools could give students a bit more choice in what they read (if you want them to read Shakespeare, let them pick the play; he hit just about every genre, and odds are good that there is something in there for just about everyone). Overall, though, I don't think the job of an English teacher is to make sure that no one ever has to read anything that they don't like.

[Zoë Sumra]

I've not read a modern work of literary fiction that I liked since... well, ever. The literary purists all seem to say that literary fiction is "superior" to genre fiction due to the quality of the writing. The payoff seems to be dullness all around. If you want a well-written book, why not read [i]The Scar[/i], a highbrow book in which things actually happen?

That said, I hated [i]Iron Council[/i], not because of the story in any way but because of the way in which it was written. I just couldn't connect to it on any level at all.

I feel a lot of the classics are overrated, Dickens and Austen in particular, but still "like" them. Re. [i]Neuromancer [/i]- I have the feeling that Gibson got the hang of the language he was using about three quarters of the way through the book. I think it's a fantastic book, but I can see that the first stretch of it is incredibly dense. Re. [i]Les Miserables[/i], the only English translation I've ever found worth reading is the Wordsworth Classics version (set in two volumes), which is stupendously good - it stays very close to the original French. However, if you p-p-picked up the Penguin translation... yeah, that's dreadful. Stick to the Wordsworth.

[Shryke]

[quote name='L'Sana' post='1325379' date='Apr 22 2008, 18.11']I hate to be in the position of defending the school system, but...

I'm not sure that the point of English classes is to have you read books that you will like. In elementry school, yes: the goal is literacy, the choice of words is almost irrelevant. But once kids reach the point where they can read in middle school (or is it high school these days), then the point becomes to introduce them to the English literary tradition. There is a certain body of work, what used to be called the cannon, that it's important to know in order to be able to communicate in educated circles. Shakespeare and Dickens and Austen are part of our selective civilizational knowledge.

If kids like sci-fi, they will find Heinlein and Asimov and Herbert. If they like fantasy, they'll probably run across ASOIAF without anyone having to assign it to them. Same with mystery and romance and sappy Oprah's Book Club fiction. It's not safe to assume, however, that because a 16-year-old decides to pick up Robert Jordan, that he'll eventually pick up The Faerie Queen, or because a teenage girl like the Harlequin Romances, that she'll move on to Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. The high school years may not be the ideal time to introduce the kids to some of these classics, but they are also the only years when adults have a chance to have a big influence on what kids read.

Now having said that, I do believe that the school system manages to muck it up quite a bit. I never had to read a "lament for lost youth" in high school, but it is obvious why that wouldn't work for a teenager. I did exeperience far too many teachers who substituted their own tastes for actual literary merit (just because Oprah likes it does not mean it's great literature). I also think that schools could give students a bit more choice in what they read (if you want them to read Shakespeare, let them pick the play; he hit just about every genre, and odds are good that there is something in there for just about everyone). [b]Overall, though, I don't think the job of an English teacher is to make sure that no one ever has to read anything that they don't like.[/b][/quote]

No, but introducing them to "The Classics" turns more people OFF reading then anything. By high school, people CAN read, but most don't read for pleasure. (Although this is more of a problem with their home life/culture then school). You want to teach them to read. Then you want to make them ENJOY reading. And only after that is it time to start making them really THINK about what they read.

[TTB]

[i]Dune[/i] by Frank Herbert. I tried, I really did. Perhaps it's now time for another try at this one.
[i]The Scarlet Letter[/i] by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I just could not get into this one.

There's a lot more of the so-called classics that just did not do it for me. I guess that may make me somewhat ignorant, but they were more chore than anything else. And yes, I have liked some of the books assigned in literature classes; John Steinbeck's [i]The Grapes of Wrath[/i] and F. Scott Fitzgerald's [i]The Great Gatsby[/i] come to mind. Not all of the classics were a chore, but some of them definitely were so.

[Lady Blackfish]

I have to say, I don't know many people who love [i]The Scarlet Letter[/i]. Respect in some fashion, sure, but love? It was probably most universally suffered-through book we ever did in high school, and speaking to my English teacher about it, it seemed like it was that way every year.

[Lord of Oop North]

[quote name='Lady Blackfish' post='1331498' date='Apr 27 2008, 18.54']I have to say, I don't know many people who love [i]The Scarlet Letter[/i]. Respect in some fashion, sure, but love? It was probably most universally suffered-through book we ever did in high school, and speaking to my English teacher about it, it seemed like it was that way every year.[/quote]

Aye. That seems to be the one that every teenager loves to hate.

[mcbigski]

Funny, I was about to agree with DF's post about getting exposed to the 'classics' too early and was thinking about all of the stuff in high school that I read that I just couldn't stand. One of the first things that came to mind was, like everyone else apparently, 'The Scarlett Letter.' I guess adultery just doesn't pack the punch it used to.

Also, I must imagine "The Red Badge of Courage" still really blows. Naturalism, or whatever the realism in literature movement was called, was probably a dying trend with the advent of photography, to say nothing about video and Youtube.

I suspect I might enjoy Steinbeck and Hemmingway more nowadays, but I'm not in terrible hurry to verify this.

Most of the fiction I read is either by authors I have read already, the selection of the month for my book club, or recommended to me by one of three friends with very similar tastes, so most of I've read in the last decade or so I liked if I was supposed to.

[add-on]

[quote name='mcbigski' post='1331683' date='Apr 27 2008, 21.21']Also, I must imagine "The Red Badge of Courage" still really blows. [b]Naturalism[/b], or whatever the realism in literature movement was called, was probably a dying trend with the advent of photography, to say nothing about video and Youtube.[/quote]
I'm gonna go ahead and say that the bolded word does not mean what you think it means. :P

Also, I wouldn't give up on Stephen Crane. [i]Red Badge of Courage[/i] was okay, but his short stuff generally blows me away. "The Open Boat" is one of the best stories I've ever read.

[Astra]

[quote name='TTB' post='1331413' date='Apr 27 2008, 20.53'][i]Dune[/i] by Frank Herbert. I tried, I really did. Perhaps it's now time for another try at this one.[/quote]

I am not a fan of SciFi. I liked the first two books in the series and could not get over the first 50 pages of book 3.

[lessthanluke]

[quote name='Maid of Tarth' post='1324080' date='Apr 22 2008, 07.01']It's frakking hypocritical that there are all these complaints about kids not reading, when the English courses seem to try to do everything possible to turn us off of it. Frankly I've learned ten times more than any English course has ever taught me simply by reading whatever books I've chosen and discussing on forums or programs like nanowrimo or whatever else I've had to go and find myself. Anyone who doesn't have that kind of inclination just loses out on any love of reading and writing they might have developed, which is just sad. :bang:
/rant

That went on a little longer than I intended..... :blush:[/quote]

:agree:

I learned everything from reading what I want to read. English lessons are very overated lol. I passed all my english exams with flying colours and I hardly attended because they were so boring. Saying that I did like To Kill A Mockingbird when we read that but that was because I read it independently and didn't disect it word by word like everyone else had.