Books you don't "get"

[MrSarichFan]

[quote name='Yana' post='1375582' date='May 29 2008, 16.04'][i]Never Let Me Go[/i] by Kazuo Ishiguro (awful book, for me at least) and everything by Hesse, Kafka and [b]Paulo Coelho[/b]. What's the big deal?[/quote]

Paulo Coelho is like selfaid in a sort of fairy tale DISGUSTING, for my it has the "taste" of the moral bits after Heman, totally surreal moralist crap. And the people who seen to like it are the ones that had never grab a book in their lives*.


*of course i imagine that there must be intelligent people who like mr. coelho, but i never found one...

[add-on]

Don Quixote
Beowulf

[quote name='Simon of Steele' post='1375686' date='May 29 2008, 15.49']That just makes me sad inside. Dickens has so much to offer. Try Great Expectations, it's wonderful. Or for commentary on formal education read Hard Times. It is as true today as it was when it was written.[/quote]
huh. My two favorite Dickens novels. :cheers:

[Anatole Kuragin]

[quote name='Myshkin' post='1376096' date='May 29 2008, 18.58']I've tried [i]Great Expectations[/i] and just couldn't push myself through it. Like I said, boring. But it's not just Dickens, I can't stomach most of the supposedly great 19th century English authors. Give me a good Russian author and I'm happy, but the English are just so dry, so boring, so unrelentingly [i]English[/i].


Yes, Dickens should have killed most of his main characters within the first few pages of his novels. But sadly he didn't. One can only imagine that he was trying to punish his readers for reasons unknown.[/quote]

Same here. I love Tolstoy and hated Great Expectations.

[felice]

[i]Brasyl[/i]! I found it a horrible slog to get through. There were some nice ideas in there, but I felt it was sorely lacking in story, sympathetic characters, and readable prose. It would have helped a little if the glossary had been mentioned on the contents page (I noticed it half way through, checking how many pages I still had to go), but only a little.

[Myshkin]

[quote name='Anatole Kuragin' post='1376110' date='May 29 2008, 18.16']Same here. I love Tolstoy and hated Great Expectations.[/quote]
I can see by your user name that you are a man of surpassing quality and great intellect.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

[quote name='Anatole Kuragin' post='1376110' date='May 29 2008, 18.16']Same here. I love Tolstoy and hated Great Expectations.[/quote]

See I can't stand the Russian big guns like Tolstoy, while I love English and American greats. I am going to give Tolstoy another crack this summer though.

[Caligula_K]

Jane Austen's [i]Persuasion[/i], the only Austen I've ever read. I have never been more irritated with a book; I actually yelled at the characters a few times, was bored throughout (the most exciting part is when a 6 year old sickly child grabs onto the protagonist, Anne, and she yells for help, and luckily Captain Wentworth is there to save the day!), and laughed at the stupidity, such as when a character is revealed to be the blackest hearted of rogues because he once wrote mean things about someone in a letter. I hate Jane Austen so much.

I also have some Dickens hatred as well, though mainly due to the boredom and, as others have said, the insufferable kid characters. In the only one I've finished, Hard Times, I did nothing but hope that Bounderby would kill Sissy Jones at some point or other, or whatever that Mary Sue's name was. At least Bounderby was awesome- if the whole book had been about him, I would have loved it.

And count me in on those who love 19th century Russian (and European in general) literature but mainly can't stand the British type. Goddamn Brits.

[Lady Blackfish]

See, I like both Tolstoy and Dickens. I mean Dickens is not my favorite, but I love [i]Great Expectations[/i] and [i]Bleak House[/i]. He is very English yes, lol I guess you can't fault an Englishman for that.

[Myshkin]

[quote name='Simon of Steele' post='1376181' date='May 29 2008, 19.36']See I can't stand the Russian big guns like Tolstoy, while I love English and American greats. I am going to give Tolstoy another crack this summer though.[/quote]
Have you tried Dostoevsky?

[quote name='Brahm_K' post='1376185' date='May 29 2008, 19.37']And count me in on those who love 19th century Russian (and European in general) literature but mainly can't stand the British type. Goddamn Brits.[/quote]
It seems we are a fast growing brotherhood. The English get far too much credit when it comes to their literary tradition, imho of course.

[Lord of Oop North]

[i]Ä°nce Memed[/i] by the Turkish "author", YaÅŸar Kemal.

[i]Lusiad[/i] by the Portuguese "poet", Luís Vaz de Camões.

[i]The Swiss Family Robinson [/i] by the Swiss "author", Johann David Wyss.

[mashiara]

[quote name='MrSarichFan' post='1376098' date='May 30 2008, 03.59']Paulo Coelho is like selfaid in a sort of fairy tale DISGUSTING, for my it has the "taste" of the moral bits after Heman, totally surreal moralist crap. And the people who seen to like it are the ones that had never grab a book in their lives*.


*of course i imagine that there must be intelligent people who like mr. coelho, but i never found one...[/quote]

Everyone kept praising the Alchemist when it first came out. I finally gave in and read it.. and found it complete rubbish. I haven't read any other books of his since and I'm not going to.

Count me in on the group that likes Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

[Shryke]

Dickens was boring as shit.

And The Great Gatsby.

And, hell, for this board, I'll throw in Lord of the Rings.

Oh god, and The Silmarillion, worst book I've seen constantly recommended.

[Zap Rowsdower]

Any book by Frank Herbert. Any book at all.

[RedEyedGhost]

[quote name='felice' post='1376155' date='May 29 2008, 19.10'][i]Brasyl[/i]! I found it a horrible slog to get through. There were some nice ideas in there, but I felt it was sorely lacking in story, sympathetic characters, and readable prose. It would have helped a little if the glossary had been mentioned on the contents page (I noticed it half way through, checking how many pages I still had to go), but only a little.[/quote]


Seconded, but because the book needed 50 more pages and none of the characters had very interesting story arcs. The priest's arc was OK, but nothing all that special. Really though, this book is a 50-50 book on this site - it's just that the biggest proponents are some of the bigger bloggers and that makes it seem more popular than it actually is.

[u]Lord Foul's Bane[/u] put me completely off of Stephen Donaldson.

[u]Viriconium[/u] gets [i]massive[/i] love by a few, but is reviled by many (including me).

I didn't enjoy [i]The Book of the New Sun[/i] when I read it, but I was a very immature reader when I read it. Although, I did pick on the subtleties that most think are brilliant. :dunno: I do think I'll like it more when I reread it at a later date.

[Gold Storm]

[i]The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever [/i] did not like the main character and did not get the story at all.

[i]Catcher in the Rye[/i] Hated the whinny main character.

[Larry.]

To be honest, when there's a well-regarded book that I don't engage with well, I question first if [b]I am[/b] the one at fault, not the author.

I wonder if the case could be made in some of ones listed above that it is an ill-prepared/read reader and not the author who is more to blame. After all, the more immature/non-worldly me at 16 hated [i]Moby Dick[/i]; the 23 year-old grad student me [i]loved[/i] it. Go figure *shrug*

[Korr]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1376014' date='May 30 2008, 00.49']It took me ages to get into Rankin. My dad kept recommending the [b]Armageddon Trilogy[/b] and it did nothing for me. I then picked up [i]The Book of Ultimate Truths[/i] and almost had major organ failure as I was laughing so hard. The Hugo Rune books are genius, but pretty much everything else is very hit or miss.[/quote]

Hmm, I suppose I can give Rankin another chance. I'll have to see if we've got that one lying around anywhere. Can't tell off-hand, these are big bookcases using the 'Because I say so' system of organisation. :P


[quote name='Dylanfanatic' post='1376304' date='May 30 2008, 06.15']I wonder if the case could be made in some of ones listed above that it is an ill-prepared/read reader and not the author who is more to blame. After all, the more immature/non-worldly me at 16 hated [i]Moby Dick[/i]; the 23 year-old grad student me [i]loved[/i] it. Go figure *shrug*[/quote]

D'you know, I feel exactly the same way [b]in reverse[/b] about [i]Lord of the Rings[/i]. 16-year-old me loved it, more grown-up me can't even read it anymore.

Regards,
Ryan

[Kat]

If I loved a book that everyone else hated, there's something wrong with everyone else.

If I hated a book that everyone else loved, there's still something wrong with everyone else. ;)

[Isis]

[quote name='Yana' post='1375582' date='May 29 2008, 21.04'][i]Never Let Me Go[/i] by Kazuo Ishiguro (awful book, for me at least) and everything by Hesse, Kafka and Paulo Coelho. What's the big deal?[/quote]Argh. Can't put Hesse and Kafka in the same sentence as Coelho. *shudder*

[Muttering Bill]

[quote name='hadaad' post='1375439' date='May 29 2008, 14.06']Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey. Everyone says how wonderful and lovely they are and I just felt dirty reading the first one. I gave it up before it was half-over.[/quote]
Do people say that? Well, count me on the list of dissenters. I gave up after 150 pages. Awful!

[quote name='mashiara' post='1376218' date='May 29 2008, 22.21']Count me in on the group that likes Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.[/quote]
Dead Russians FTW!

I've never had any desire to read American or British "classics." Maybe I'm missing out on some good books but... I don't really care.

[quote name='Shryke' post='1376236' date='May 29 2008, 22.41']And The Great Gatsby.[/quote]
Agreed. Terrible book.