Note that Mark Twain managed to correctly show several local dialects without resorting to bad spelling that makes your head hurt. Mark Twain was brilliant, this guy ain’t no Mark Twain.
In my free time I read a fair chunk of Moby Dick during my senior year of high school, maybe a third of it. I never got around to finishing it once I got busier.
Among books I’ve actually finished, I present An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser. That thing was a slog for 450 or 500 pages, and I kept going only so I could cross it off my list. The last 100 pages actually got more interesting but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
Thanks. I still have it sitting on a bookshelf somewhere, and I expect I’ll pick it up and try again in the not-too-distant future. Baudolino was a difficult read for me, too, but I ended up loving it, so I’m hoping for a similar experience with Queen Loana.
Another one I’ve had to put down recently is Catch 22. I’ve heard such good things about it, but I got about 100 or so pages in and realized that I just didn’t care about what was happening. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for it at the time [shrugs]. Like Gravity’s Rainbow and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, though, I will likely give it another shot.
I’m trying to think of a book that (1) I couldn’t finish when I started and (2) have no intention of trying again, and the only one that springs to mind is The Fourth Crusade by Jonathan Phillips. I don’t remember much about it, other than that I picked it up because I wanted to learn more about that crusade after reading Eco’s Baudolino, but set it down pretty early on. I’ve since read other non-fiction books about the Fourth Crusade, though, so I don’t really see any need to read anymore about it.
I abandoned TekWar by William Shatner halfway through and took it back to the library.
I’ve never been able to get a grip on Ulysses by James Joyce, though to be fair the last time I tried it, I was in high school.
Making Money by Terry Pratchett. Normally I devour his books, but this one was a struggle.
Yeah, I’m still working on this one too.
Good to know.
*Out Stealing Horses. * I’ll get back to it. Someday.
Emma, Jane Austen. I’ve been coming back to it every few months for maybe a year, now.
Great expectations. Tried about 4 or 5 times without any luck.
The Lord of the Rings. When I was in elementary school, I polished off and loved The Hobbit, and both my siblings read and recommended LOTR, so I gave it a try. I got about 2/3 through Fellowship and couldn’t take it any more.
A couple years later, I thought being older might help and gave it another try. Got about 3/4 through Fellowship and had to put it down.
Finally a couple years ago when the movie was going to come out, I decided to give it another go. Being much older, and having enjoyed other lengthy, detailed sagas, I read again. This time I did complete the set, but still had to slog through that first book. It did get better at the end, and the second book, but the first is long and slow. All those years in the shire are boring.
*The Illuminatus! Trilogy *… by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
It’s one long conspiracy theory trip full of sex and drugs and rock & roll and mythology and giant submarines and Discordianism and fnords …
Chapters jump back and forth in time and to different characters and settings, sometimes within a single paragraph. You don’t read it as much as you absorb it.
Moby Dick. Again. Again. And Again. Will It Never END???
Ditto The Bible. :mad:
He enjoyed words so much, but there were just too many of them going on and on. Yeah, I quit on that one too.
Michner’s Iberia wandered onto the unfinished bookcase for me. It is well written but perhaps too much about too little.
For some reason I had trouble finishing Catch 22. I loved it, but had trouble finishing it. Maybe I found it too accurate. I’m not sure.
I usually love anything dark and twisted, the more depressing and disfunctional the better. I mean, I even liked the movie Happiness. :eek: So with high hopes I started reading The Kiss by Katherine Harrison and for some reason, I couldn’t move much past the first couple of chapters where she talks about, as an adult, choosing to begin an affair with her father.
Yes, I realize she’s screwed up, but even just the kissing parts was too oogy for words. < shudder >
And that’s the only one I can think of conclusively off the top of my head.
In literature, I was defeated and stomped into the dirt by Absalom, Absalom! God, I hated that book. I never finished it and I threw away my copy. So there, William Faulkner, you bastard!
There’ve been some seriously bad books I couldn’t finish. One good book I struggled with recently was The Bastard of Istanbul. I just couldn’t get into the swing of it, but I finally did and enjoyed the read.
Ugh, Wideacre.
I am someone else who loves Phillippa Gregory, but Wideacre was awful. I managed to finish the whole book, but the whole thing actually made me nauseous. I’ve seen two other books from the Wideacre series at my library, but I refuse to read them.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Oh, GOD, that book took a million lifetimes. I think I was literally reading it for five months, and it’s only like 300 pages. I don’t know what it was about it… the story was alright, though it crawled along at a sorrowful pace; the prose was sometimes impressive and sometimes overwrought. It just… the whole thing was so fucking dull I could feel myself aging as I read it. I think I’d just about rather eat it than read it again.
I’ve started Middlemarch twice, and both times I gave up on it in confusion. I may pick it up again one day, but I’m going to insist on a good annotated version and possibly Cliffs Notes so I’ll have half a clue about what’s going on.
I got five chapters in to The Painted Bird, realized that there was a brutal, unnecessary torture/death in every chapter and decided it wasn’t worth the effort. If I hadn’t been so disgusted I would have thrown it across the room.
I guess it isn’t Great Literature, but I’ve read most of Dick Francis’ mystery novels. Some are better than others, but all are interesting and not put-down-able.
Until the last one I bought - don’t remember the title, but it was the first he wrote after his wife died (she gets considerable credit in some quarters for helping out on his books). I got this novel to read on vacation, and it was so dull that I got only about two-thirds of the way through and wound up leaving it behind in the motel room. Never thought that would happen with one of Francis’ books.
He’s still writing them, in collaboration with his son now. I have had zero interest in reading any.
Ya gotta know when to fold the franchise.
I like a lot of big complicated books, a lot of which have been mentioned (Pynchon, Infinite Jest, Moby-Dick, etc.), but here’s some I haven’t been able to get through yet:
- For those of you complaining about Ulysses, that’s kid’s work compared to Finnegan’s Wake
- I really liked Danielewski’s House of Leaves, but I couldn’t understand what his follow-up, Only Revolutions, was trying to to do (only made it through the first few pages)
- JR, by Gaddis. It’s probably my fault, but I just never could slog through it.
- Women and Men, by Joseph McElroy-- Who knows, it might be easy to read, but it sure looks daunting. I haven’t even started it, so maybe one day…anyone know if it’s worth it?
- On a completely different level, I love Bucky Fuller a lot, but his two-volume math/philosophy/science/everything book Synergetics is tough-going
The Secret Plot to Save the Tsar: The Truth Behind the Romanov Mystery by Shay Mcneal.
The most fiction I’ve ever read in a non-fiction book. Instead of a plot to save the tsar I wish there had been a plot to save me from this book. It’s the only book I’ve never finished. Thankfully I got it from the library and didn’t waste any money on it.