# Books or movies you feel bad about not having liked/gotten **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 10, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954 "2009-08-10T18:29:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JimOfAllTrades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@JimOfAllTrades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimOfAllTrades)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/21 "2009-08-11T03:52:49Z")
Kurt Vonnegut. I’d never read any of his stuff until about a year ago. I’m a big science fiction fan, and I’d heard all my life what a great writer he was and how he wrote not only great stories, but even science fiction and disguised it as great literature. So last year I bought a softbound volume that had Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions. I read them, but I didn’t enjoy them. I thought they were boring, the characters were all unsympathetic, and I enjoy getting beaten over the head with the point as much as the next guy, but this was just painful. In a way, I felt kind of like I do about Michael Jackson. It obvious he’s got talent, but I don’t care for his style, his ideas, or his results. I definitely feel kind of bad about it. Here is this guy who is widely hailed as one of the great authors of the 20th century, and I thought… eh. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/22 "2009-08-11T12:41:07Z")
> [@thirdwarning](#): > > Other than that, _Catcher in the Rye_. One of the few books I didn’t finish. Maybe I should, but I just couldn’t stomach that boy through another page. > > Did I miss something more interesting or meaningful in the last couple of chapters? > > Because otherwise I still think of him as a spoiled whiner. > > Makes me feel a bit like a Philistine occasionally. No, you didn’t. Yes, he is. No, you’re not. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/23 "2009-08-11T12:55:17Z")
Well, I wasn’t mean about it or anything, but i didn’t get “The long dark tea-time of the soul” when I was first exposed to it, and that seems strange to me because I like it so much now. My parents got me a hardcover for christmas one year because I was such a big hitch-hiker’s fan. I remember reading the scene at Heathrow in the beginning, chuckling about the dream where there are storage trunks full of penguins 😃 and following some of Dirk’s adventures up to the i ching calculator and so on, but it never really grabbed me and I didn’t finish it. Dirk was a character that I didn’t like very much, and all the foreshadowing and allusions to Norse mythology were flying straight over my head, when they might have held my interest if I’d caught them. (I wasn’t a huge mythology buff as a kid, but I’m pretty sure I would have known who Thor and Odin were, and a few more details. Just didn’t recognize them in the story.) It also helped that when I revisited the book as an adult, I had already been through the first in the series, which had Richard Macduff as a main character first, who I could thoroughly identify with, and introduced Dirk as his wacky, annoying friend who he tolerated. On that basis, I could accept him. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/24 "2009-08-11T13:23:49Z")
> [@Manwich](#): > > For me, it was _Amelie_. It just seemed treacly and forced. But it was so nice and cute and positive I felt bad for hating it with a passion. I liked Amelie and his other earlier stuff like Delicatessen and City of Lost Children, but did not really enjoy A Very Long Engagement which I thought was very aptly named. I mean, the story was kind of interesting, but I did not enjoy the feeling of having to experience the whole thing in what seemed like real time. In a similar vein, most of the things I feel bad about enjoying are other works by a creator whose previous stuff I really enjoyed. The Man Who Folded Himself is one of my favorite books but I haven’t been able to get into any of David Gerrold’s other stuff probably because they all seem to be generic space operas instead of introspective personal stories. I suspect I might like The Martian Child because unlike his other stuff it seems similar, but I haven’t picked it up yet. I really want to like Dollhouse because I love all of Joss’s other stuff and I’ve liked Eliza Dukshu in her other roles (including her stint as Lucy from Charlie Brown in a mental ward). I do kind of like it, but not in the big love way I had for his previous stuff. And Eliza is fine but doesn’t seem like the optimal casting choice for that particular role. The other characters have since grown on me, but for the first third of the season they mostly seemed a bit unlikeable. And the unaired final episode while very interesting in it’s own right or if it had been a series ender, feels like it’s taking away from whatever they can do next season. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/25 "2009-08-11T14:17:46Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > **Books or movies you feel bad about not having liked/gotten** > > This topic was puzzling at first because why should I feel bad about not liking something? I might be disappointed that a book wasn’t better or that people can’t see how shallow or obvious a movie was. > > But this: > I feel kind of bad about not liking the “The Dark is Rising” series of juvenile fantasy books. I didn’t read them until I was an adult looking for good books for my daughter. By that time I was not their target audience. > > When someone in Cafe Society gives them an enthusiastic recommendation (which happens frequently) I can’t help questioning their taste a little, even though I know it’s completely unfair. And that makes me feel bad. > > A lot of things I liked as a kid and remember fondly would seem pretty stupid if encountered them for the first time today (…ohh, for example Marvel westerns such as the Two Gun Kid.) And the Rising books weren’t stupid, just several notches down from the Hobbit or Roald Dahl fantasies. Just out of curiosity, did you just read the first one (_Over Sea, Under Stone_) or did you read them all? The first one is by far the weakest - kind of “70’s Adventure Stories”, you know. If not, hey, different strokes. One hopes you at least like Lloyd Alexander? ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/26 "2009-08-11T14:18:47Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > **Books or movies you feel bad about not having liked/gotten** > > This topic was puzzling at first because why should I feel bad about not liking something? I might be disappointed that a book wasn’t better or that people can’t see how shallow or obvious a movie was. > > But this: > I feel kind of bad about not liking the “The Dark is Rising” series of juvenile fantasy books. I didn’t read them until I was an adult looking for good books for my daughter. By that time I was not their target audience. > > When someone in Cafe Society gives them an enthusiastic recommendation (which happens frequently) I can’t help questioning their taste a little, even though I know it’s completely unfair. And that makes me feel bad. > > A lot of things I liked as a kid and remember fondly would seem pretty stupid if encountered them for the first time today (…ohh, for example Marvel westerns such as the Two Gun Kid.) And the Rising books weren’t stupid, just several notches down from the Hobbit or Roald Dahl fantasies. Just out of curiosity, did you just read the first one (_Over Sea, Under Stone_) or did you read them all? The first one is by far the weakest - kind of “70’s Adventure Stories”, you know. If not, hey, different strokes. One hopes you at least like Lloyd Alexander? ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/27 "2009-08-11T14:26:06Z")
I hated the World According to Garp, I thought the protagonist was just a self involved prick, and the author clearly hates women. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/28 "2009-08-11T16:19:23Z")
> [@RJKUgly](#): > > Kurt Vonnegut. > > I’d never read any of his stuff until about a year ago. **I’m a big science fiction fan, and I’d heard all my life what a great writer he was and how he wrote not only great stories, but even science fiction and disguised it as great literature.** > > So last year I bought a softbound volume that had Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions. > > I read them, but I didn’t enjoy them. I thought they were boring, the characters were all unsympathetic, and I enjoy getting beaten over the head with the point as much as the next guy, but this was just painful. In a way, I felt kind of like I do about Michael Jackson. It obvious he’s got talent, but I don’t care for his style, his ideas, or his results. > > I definitely feel kind of bad about it. Here is this guy who is widely hailed as one of the great authors of the 20th century, and I thought… eh. (Emphasis mine.) Given the bolded portion, I don’t think I’d have recommended any of those three Vonnegut novels to you as a first one to read. I’d have suggested _The Sirens of Titan_ instead, because if nothing else it is recognizably a science-fiction novel and you might enjoy it on that level even if you didn’t love it. Of course, you might have disliked _Sirens of Titan_ anyway, but I think it at least would have been more along the lines of what you were expecting to get. FWIW, although I loved Vonnegut when I was a teenager I haven’t felt the need to re-read any of his novels since college. I can’t say whether that’s a criticism of his work or just because my tastes have changed, but had you talked to me 10 years ago I’d have been gushing about what a great writer he was in a way that I wouldn’t do now. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/29 "2009-08-11T16:32:41Z")
I really don’t like Wally Lamb’s stuff. I Know This Much Is True was not interesting enough to convince me to read more than the first couple of chapters. I freaking hate John Irving so much that I want to stab his books with a basilisk fang to make sure they are completely destroyed and no one else ever has to be exposed to them again. Phillip K. Dick holds little appeal to me and I really didn’t like A Scanner Darkly at all. It was recommended to me by my drugged up cousin and after reading it I am not surprised that he liked it at all but I was not impressed. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/30 "2009-08-11T16:43:49Z")
I never made it through On The Road, even though it was supposed this big, huge symbol of why we were all angsty and such. I just felt “meh” about it. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/31 "2009-08-11T16:45:40Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > I never made it through On The Road, even though it was supposed this big, huge symbol of why we were all angsty and such. > > I just felt “meh” about it. Oh yeah, I feel the same way about Fear and Loathing and Las Vegas. It felt like it was all, Look at me, I’m on DRUGS!!! GONZO JOURNALISM! ---
**Author:** ![vislor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vislor/32/5933_2.png) [@vislor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vislor)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/32 "2009-08-11T16:55:49Z")
As someone who plays DND and loves fantasy, I have never been able to read (in fact, just to listen to) Tolkien. I find him boring and no fun. As for the movies, I enjoyed the first one a lot, the second one was eh and the third was boring and terrible to me. As a related tangent, I appreciate what E. Gary Gygax did but don’t like his fiction. I use Forgotten Realms, created by Ed Greenwood, but don’t like his fiction much either. I do like Ed’s gaming stuff and appreciate what EGG did for DND but am glad it’s moved on from him. I bought the Kim Harrison books and read two and a half of them and never liked the main character or her situation. My wife loves them, goes on about them and is really bummed that I don’t like them. This probably doesn’t count but I have never been interested in reading “classic” science fiction, such as Vonnegut, because dated science usually snaps me out of anything they might create. Asimov I could read but not in years. I used to get the Years Best Science Fiction from many different decades and some of them were so tough to read. No interest in Frankenstein, Dracula or other 19th century Victorian prose. Wow. I thought I would have more but had to stretch for this much. vislor ---
**Author:** ![Dante](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dante/32/9673_2.png) [@Dante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/33 "2009-08-11T16:58:29Z")
> [@thirdwarning](#): > > Other than that, _Catcher in the Rye_. One of the few books I didn’t finish. Maybe I should, but I just couldn’t stomach that boy through another page. Did I miss something more interesting or meaningful in the last couple of chapters? Because otherwise I still think of him as a spoiled whiner. Makes me feel a bit like a Philistine occasionally. Ugh, yes. I read this about 5 years ago and hated it. I suppose if an educated someone explained the subtext and whatnot to me, I might _appreciate_ it more, but I’m still not going to like it. In one of the “Recommend me some books to read” thread, someone had suggested reading **Earth Abides** by _George R. Stewart_. I’d heard of it, and knew it was considered a classic, but I just gave up halfway through. It just seemed so damn tedious. Ditto **Lucifer’s Hammer** by _Larry Niven_. ---
**Author:** ![vislor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vislor/32/5933_2.png) [@vislor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vislor)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/34 "2009-08-11T17:01:46Z")
I didn’t like GRRMartin’s ASOFAI and couldn’t get past the first book. So, there’s one. vislor ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/35 "2009-08-11T17:32:53Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > Phillip K. Dick holds little appeal to me and I really didn’t like A Scanner Darkly at all. It was recommended to me by my drugged up cousin and after reading it I am not surprised that he liked it at all but I was not impressed. MrWhatsit has a large collection of Philip K. Dick books. I read a few of them. I now usually just refer to Dick as “that misogynistic asshole.” ---
**Author:** ![Sparky\_the\_Wonder\_Spirit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Sparky\_the\_Wonder\_Spirit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky_the_Wonder_Spirit)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/36 "2009-08-11T17:56:34Z")
> [@vislor](#): > > I didn’t like GRRMartin’s ASOFAI and couldn’t get past the first book. > > So, there’s one. > > vislor I made it into the second book, I think, before I realized I didn’t much like any of the characters. In fact, I wanted an asteroid to hit, vaporize the oceans, and steam them all like lobsters. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/37 "2009-08-11T20:17:10Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > MrWhatsit has a large collection of Philip K. Dick books. I read a few of them. I now usually just refer to Dick as “that misogynistic asshole.” I’d do the same but then people wouldn’t know if I were talking about Phillip K. Dick or Woody Allen. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Weird\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@The\_Weird\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Weird_One)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/38 "2009-08-11T21:06:28Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > A friend of mine could not stop raving about _Confederacy of Dunces_. She loved it. Thought it was hilarious. She just knew I would love it, too. She knew it! So she loaned it to me. > > I could never make it past the first chapter or so. The affected dialect, the unlikable characters… just, egggh. I felt bad about not ever finishing it, but it was just completely, 100% unappealing to me. Yes! I had the same experience with _Confederacy of Dunces_, as well as _Russian Debutante’s Handbook_ and _The Corrections_. I read all three of them cover-to-cover, and never cared for any of them. They all struck me as similar stylistically as well, particularly _Russian Debutante’s Handbook_ and _The Corrections_. My conclusion was that I simply don’t care for the contemporary American humorous novel. > [@thirdwarning](#): > > Other than that, _Catcher in the Rye_. One of the few books I didn’t finish. Maybe I should, but I just couldn’t stomach that boy through another page. Did I miss something more interesting or meaningful in the last couple of chapters? Because otherwise I still think of him as a spoiled whiner. Makes me feel a bit like a Philistine occasionally. Yeah, I read the whole thing, and I still don’t get what’s so supposedly great about it. The protagonist is clearly a self-centered little prick, and I couldn’t find any appeal in the book. I really expected to enjoy T. H. White’s _The Sword in the Stone_ when I was assigned it the summer before my freshman year of high school, but I hated it. I might’ve enjoyed it when I was younger, but it struck me at the time as juvenile and simplistic. My grandmother sent me a copy of _Little Women_ when I was in middle school. I made it to page 16 before I gave up in disgust. I just couldn’t stand the characters, the stilted dialogue, or the overly simplistic writing style. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/39 "2009-08-11T22:28:42Z")
> [@The\_Weird\_One](#): > > I really expected to enjoy T. H. White’s _The Sword in the Stone_ when I was assigned it the summer before my freshman year of high school, but I hated it. I might’ve enjoyed it when I was younger, but it struck me at the time as juvenile and simplistic. FWIW, there are two different versions of _The Sword in the Stone_. T.H. White originally wrote the book as a stand-alone novel, then significantly revised it for the compilation edition of _The Once and Future King_. Both versions are still available; if you were reading _The Sword in the Stone_ as its own book then you were almost certainly reading the original. I have never read that version, but that’s the version upon which the Disney film was based. It’s my understanding that the revised version is darker in tone, has stronger moral/political themes, and omits some of the fantasy elements like the Madame Mim character. So maybe you’d have liked that better…although maybe not. I don’t hate it or anything, but the revised version of _The Sword in the Stone_ isn’t my favorite part of _The Once and Future King_. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2009, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954/40 "2009-08-12T02:26:26Z")
> [@thirdwarning](#): > > Other than that, _Catcher in the Rye_. One of the few books I didn’t finish. Maybe I should, but I just couldn’t stomach that boy through another page. Did I miss something more interesting or meaningful in the last couple of chapters? Because otherwise I still think of him as a spoiled whiner. Makes me feel a bit like a Philistine occasionally. It was mentioned up thread that Ignatius J. Reilly (not O’Reilly) is one of the most polarizing characters in fiction. Holden Caufield has got to be one of the other ones. I personally loved the book (and _Confederacy of Dunces_), even though I didn’t really identify with Holden particularly strongly (and not at all with Ignatius). I just think Salinger did a brilliant job of crafting a convincing character portrait. The biggest literary disappointment for me was _On The Road_. I read it in my late teens, when I was adventurous and full of wanderlust, and I could never get past the first chapter or two. I’ve tried several times to pick it up–before I began traveling by myself around the world, while I was doing it, after I had done it. And, always, the book bored me to tears. I don’t understand what people see in it. > [@delphica](#): > > TO THIS DAY, I strongly suspect this woman thinks I myself am a child abuser because I was so thrilled to read a book about child abuse. Thank goodness I’m not in your book club. Wonder what they would say if they ever found out _Lolita_ is my absolute favorite novel. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-or-movies-you-feel-bad-about-not-having-liked-gotten/505954.md?page=3)