JohnT, I agree with you about having difficulty reading dialects.
I couldn’t read Everything Is Illuminated because of the one character’s approach to English, and then there’s Ullyses…
ZJ
I didn’t like Ragtime either, or Billy Bathgate, but I loved The March.
It starts with a loooooooooong paragraph, and I went “uh oh”, but there were no more of those, and if there were a lot of short, choppy sentences, I didn’t notice them. Excellent book, IMHO. If you buy it and don’t like it, I’ll buy it from you. I could use an extra copy for lending.
i’ve read most of vonnegut’s work, and i have found it to be light, and refreshing.
on the other hand, i am having a hard time getting through war and peace (reading it for fun, i think it is beautiful, but it moves like a glacier).
Anything by Dean Koontz. It grates on my nerves for some reason.
I avoid fiction written in the present tense. (He opens the door. He sees Jennifer sitting there. She rises and starts towards him…BLEAH) I can’t say why I find it annoying but I sure as heck do. There may be masterpieces written in the present tense, but they’re not for me. I think I may have broken this rule of mine maybe twice in a 40 year - plus lifetime of reading.
I also find lack of quotation marks off-putting.
and odd spellings for no good reason. (One of the many reasons I threw Pullman’s Golden Compass book down in disgust was the way he spelled “daemon”. Just annoyed me. )
There’s an author, probably an author of great merit, given that he is often studied in literature courses in universities in the United States, the better courses in the better universities; specifically American universities, even though he, an American, often wrote pieces, both novels and short stories, that were set in England, which many believed was a conscious attempt to overcome his self-imposed, with no real justification, denial of his land of birth- which most feel was unjust on his part…or anybody’s part, for that matter, whose prose style, so involuted by his overuse of the humble, yet powerful comma, made him unreadable, for me at least.*
*Oh, yeah. Henry James is the dude I 'm talking about.
I’m amazed it was 20 posts before someone referenced Joyce :).
That’s because Joyce is a given in a thread like this. 
Abso-freakin’-lutely.
When I see overuse of adverbs, it’s usually because the writer didn’t choose the correct verb or adjective they’re modifying in the first place.
The “Left Behind” books by Jerry Jenkins - I’d enjoy them for camp value, but the man cannot write. And ten pages in there were about 5 errors in things that the slightest bit of research would have prevented (f’rinstance - LaGuardia is not an international airport - pilots don’t keep in contact with the control tower when they’re several hours into the Atlantic - etc.).
Good one, Sailboat. Riddley Walker beat me too. I’m not used to having to stop and sound things out.
marque elf, I’d have recognized Henry James if you’d droned on for another couple of paragraphs. Without a period, of course.
I have a hard timne with dialects too. But I don’t see how that makes them stupid. Twain had a good reason to use them.
I just read A Million Little Pieces, too, and all the randomly capitalized nouns drove me bananas. I found the story compelling enough to keep reading, but I can understand giving up on it.
Dickens–just wading through the dense wordage to get to the meaning exhausts me. Austen doesn’t do that, nor does Thackeray (Thackeray maybe a little).
Whoever wrote Bonfire of the Vanities–I couldn’t get past page one–something about the smell of the prose–can’t describe it better than that.
Dialect is very hard to read–even Herriot is tortous at times and so is Hurston (as in Nora Zeal–I think). Just say it! Or throw in an occasional “eh” or “y’all” to spice it up–don’t drag down my silent reading by making me speak the dialogue in my head…
Oh, and Faulkner, too–no reason, just 'cause.
Close - you Spoonerized her name. It’s Zora Neale Hurston.
That impression of Henry James made my head hurt just trying to follow all the clauses and sub-clauses in that paragraph. Where’s the Advil?
And I completely agree with the overuse of adverbs. If I ever see another “the raven-haired strapping hero bravely stepped forth,” or “His emerald orbs rolled around and then settled a little on the floor,” I will – well, at least I’ll be really tempted to spork myself in the eye. Hard.
With dialect, it’s a fine line to walk, probably one of the finest around judging from how many discussions and how-tos I’ve seen on the subject. Some authors can hack it, some can’t. I’m a little surprised Herriot got tapped as an example of the latter category, though. I’ve never found his writing to be impenetrable. Actually, if you can make me hear the dialogue in my head, that’s a plus for you in my book. In fact, I’ve hung onto a set of so-so books solely due to the dialect used in there: *“Hellflowers is crazy.” * (if you can place the quote, you get points)
I thought I would hate A Million Little Pieces for the reasons the OP mentioned, but I ended up liking it a lot. However, if you were looking for light reading, you were going to be sorely disappointed anyway-- it is very compelling, IMHO, and anything but light.
On the other hand, I hated, hated, hated the style of the much-praised Confederacy of Dunces. I struggled through 25 or so pages, then gave up in defeat. I know there are lots of people who love it, but I am not going to be one of them, I fear.
Accents don’t bother me once I get into them. I just read Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and once I settled into it, I liked the dialog, except for this one guy who kept saying “I god,…” What the hell is that supposed to be?
A.S. Byatt: I really, really want to like her work and everyone says how brilliant it is, but it drives me batshit.
Oh, and Barthes . . .
Thomas Pynchon.
He writes like he has something to say, or rather that there’s some mystery involved in what he’s writing that is going to be revealed through his novels, but you have to wade through so much stream-of-consciousness drivel that you wonder if it’s going to be worth it at the end. “Gravity’s Rainbow” was the best example. I finally made it through the damn thing and still can’t figure out if it was worth it or not.
Posted by JohnT:
Yes it does; and no, you don’t, if you still think it’s “stupid”.
Yes, people, because God Forbid I should express an opinion in a thread asking for one. :rolleyes: