I love PKD, yet I’m forced to agree that he really has problems with women. Yet the odd thing is I’ve found some of his most ardent fans are hard core feminists. (These are just women I’ve met, so no cites.) I’ve never figured this out, but I think it’s because the evil women in his novels are always highly intelligent, sarcastic, competent, and get the best lines.
Well, because it’s fascinating. One subject that draws together issues like politics, gender identity, oppression, sexuality, history, the family system and personal narrative.
First, my rebuttal: I know *The Catcher in the Rye *is not a popular book on this board, but I read it when I was 15 and it forever changed me as a writer. It was my first encounter with a voice that wasn’t pristine and trustworthy. I realized that characters really are people. Holden Caulfield was, and still is, very real to me. Of course he’s angsty… he’s a teenager. And I disagree completely with the assessment that he’s self-centered (any more than your average teen.) He’s really just a kid who is frustrated with adults who try to act like everything is okay, when really in his life, dealing with the loss of his little brother, it’s not okay. I enjoy reading that book now as much as I did then, and still list it as one of my favorites. It’s great for so many reasons.
Now, my offering: The Diary of Anne Frank. It’s basically like reading the livejournal of a mediocre writer. Most days, nothing happened. I get the importance of publishing her diary, but it’s not all that enlightening. I felt Elie Wiesel’s Night, or Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning were much more profound personal accounts of the Holocaust.
Possibly I’m a cretin, but I find Faulkner’s writing style mostly annoying. And I’ve never understood how people could positively swoon over Shakespeare.
If memory serves (which is usually not the case) the first one was my favorite. It’s been seven or eight years, but in many of the books the protagonist manages to overcome great obstacles and acquires an amazing weapon that the Dark desperately did not want him to have.
But, opps, in the next book the Dark had also moved up an equivalent amount in power and the protagonist had to acquire a different and even more potent talisman that the Dark desperately did not want him to have.
Even though the book was written before the advent of video games, the story was organized in similar fashion. The hero defeats ten monsters and wins a shotgun, but in the next level the monsters are stronger and need to be shot with 10 shotgun shells to be killed. But if you do that you get a cache of grenades, etc.
After this happened several times in the series, I stopped caring if he triumphed at the end of a book or not. When the series finally did end it seemed completely arbitrary.
But hey, you’re making me feel bad about not liking it again!
Oh, me too. I never cared for it that much, and lots of people gush about how great it is. I mean, for a girl her age, yeah, that’s one thing, but I never felt uber enlightened after reading it. And I also get why it was important, but it basically left me cold. Even though I read it when I was about the age she was when she wrote it.
It might be time for a J. D. Salinger thread, but I haven’t got the motivation to start and feed one. However, I have been reading Salinger recently and my memory is fresh… unlike in most discussions of books or movies…
When I was a teenager Catcher In the Rye seemed like nothing special, and I’ve never re-read it. In my twenties I read the rest of the Salinger books and could understand why he was highly regarded, but thought there were many better American writers.
Over the next 30 years I encountered people whose opinions I respected writing about Salinger in reverential terms. Joseph Heller, looking back over the writers of his generation, felt that Salinger was probably the best of them all.
Salinger’s most famous short story is “A Perfect Day for Banana Fish” which I felt was absolutely over-rated, with a flashy, bogus ending that wowed the easily impressed. The common explanation was that
Seymour killed himself because he was overwhelmed by the richness of life.
which didn’t match my memory of the story at all.
About a month ago I decided to re-read Banana Fish, just to see whether I’d missed any evocative foreshadowing.
Nope. It was nicely written, but nothing special, and still had a flashy, bogus ending.
Then I re-read the rest of 9 Stories and became a convert. Damn the man could write. Every word, every observation was chosen with exquisite care. No cliches were allowed. Only one or two of the stories were as poor as Banana Fish.
Apparently, when I had read the stories in my 20’s I pushed through them too fast just to reach the plot twists and “see what happens.” Things do happen –the stories are generally not just slice of life– but the writing and characters are more important than the plot.
Raise High the Roof Beams Carpenters was also a joy. Seymour, An Introduction was annoying, but very impressive. There was even an apology of sorts in one of those stories for the flaws in Banana Fish (and offering up the “explanation” in the spoiler box above.)
I’ve been afraid to re-visit Franny and Zooey, because my memories of them are not good, and Salinger’s handling of spiritual themes –central in “Franny”– is not something I care for.
My point here, if I have one, is don’t write off Salinger, even if you didn’t like Catcher In The Rye. And don’t even write off Catcher completely. Even if you never love it, there are probably some virtues you didn’t fully appreciate. (But, ya know, I can’t say for sure because I haven’t re-read it yet…)
Oh, I may get back to him at some point. I may even take another look at Catcher in the Rye. But part of my problem with young Mr. Caulfield is that, not only was he annoying, but he never felt real to me.
Oh, well, to each his own, I guess.
I got absolutely nothing out of A Confederacy of Dunces or Hitch-hiker’s Guide…. I really thought I would, so I read both to the end. But nothing.
Thanks for ssparing me from reading this book…I was tempted to, since the park where she was actually raped is fifteen minutes from my house :eek:
I had the same experience but don’t feel bad about it. I don’t think you should, either. Appallingly bad writing.
I sort of feel bad about not liking the latest albums from Pearl Jam (the eponymous one) and The Verve (Forth). Two of my favorite bands seemed to have swung and whiffed at evoking a response from me.
Well, no pressure not to. A lot of people did like it. It is well written, and I don’t think it’s a BAD book. I just came feeling sorry for Alice Sebold that she was raped but finding her like that really obnoxious all black wearing poet who thinks she’s so intellectual.
Add my name to the pile.
I realized that by the end of the first book. I also figured out the big secret (at the time. Maybe it’s subsequently been resolved in later books) of John Snow’s parentage, and promptly decided there was no reason for me to continue reading.
I don’t feel -bad- about it though. 
I don’t get why people say they don’t like the books because there aren’t any likable characters. I mean, you can dislike them because they eventually get Needs An Editor disease (diagnosed very easily in the genre fiction aisles by comparing spine width of each successive book in a series) or for a lot of other reasons (I mean, they’re essentially thousands of pages of the worst possible things happening to good people), but you didn’t like Tyrion? Eddard Stark? Jon Snow? Okay, Catelyn can go take a long walk off a short pier, ditto poor Sansa (I can feel sorry for her but I can’t like her) but I don’t get who doesn’t like any of the characters at all.
ETA - and that was supposed to be a secret? I think it was more of “the people in the book are a little dim sometimes”. 
Nope. He was an ass. Maybe the closest thing to a sympathetic character, but that’s not saying much.
Dead by the end of book one, so doesn’t count. I -did- like Ned, but that was just all the more reason -not- to continue past book one. Congrats George! You’ve killed your only sympathetic character!
Nope. Though he was less offensive than some, I found him tedious at best.
I don’t see why it’s hard to grasp. Most of them are completely lacking in charisma (Tyrion is an exception here) and while I do occasionally feel BAD for them, they never come anywhere near being likeable. Mostly, in fact, they are self serving and unpleasant.
Couldn’t say, but I know a number of people in reality who were perplexed. Heck, the Wikipedia entry still lists him as Ned’s Bastard. 
They just seem like real authentic historical people to me - they never suffer from presentism at all. In that sense they’re much, much more well written than almost any actual historical novels I can think of.
:smack::smack::smack:
Doh! My comments apply to Terry Goodkin’s wretched Sword of Truth series. I happen to have enjoyed the Song of Fire and Ice series (I’ve only read the first 3).
I’m not an educated someone, but I’ll take a crack at it.
Holden is afraid of change, probably due to the death of his brother. Now that he’s in his teens, he’s expected to mature and become an adult. Maturity is a big change, and his fear of it causes him to associate it with being superficial, or “phony”. As he moves into adulthood, he becomes surrounded by this superficial world that he despises, and hence feels alienated and angry.
My guess is you either, identify with the character, and like the book, or don’t identify with the character and dislike the book.
Can I mention a TV show?
Mad Men.
I tried watching it, but I found nothing admirable about any of the characters. They were all lying cheating dysfuctional twits. I know it’s a very well-written and well-regarded show, and I don’t know why it hasn’t clicked with me. Season 3 returns on Monday, so I may try to work my way through season 2 this weekend (On Demand cable TV) and see if I can figure out why everyone raves about this show so much.
I don’t love reading Shakespeare myself…but seeing it acted out? Wow.
Stuff I feel bad about not liking:
TV: Buffy. Everyone said I’d like it. I liked Firefly. I could not stomach even the first season, never got to the second season at all. I feel bad because my friends like it, and because the characters are all right, and the dialogue is good, it’s just boring as fuck. Monster comes, Buffy kills it, does some high school-y thing. Yay.
Books: Definitely Vonnegut.
Long Dark Teatime of the soul.
Go Ask Alice.
I’m sure there are others, too. Oh. Passage to India. British people writing about India never sits well with me (and other Indians). And Zorba the Greek. Boring from the get-go.
Seriously. From the description of Passage to India in Wiki: “Because the newcomers had expressed a desire to see Indians,”
Cause we’re such freaky little things. I can read it dispassionately in other cases but it’s very hard to read when it’s your own grandfather’s time they were talking about.
someone already mentioned this but i detest the movies Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Requiem for a Dream …
in the case of books its 1984 and The Bell Jar…an amazon.com comment about it “Imagine Catcher In The Rye with a female protagonist and written by a retarded howler monkey - this book is the end result.”
i couldn’t agree more
and in music its Janis joplin