# Famous novels you just couldn't get through **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 29, 2008, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027 "2008-05-29T16:23:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/61 "2008-05-29T20:01:26Z")
[QUOTE=InappropriateHumor] 1. _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ - I’ve given this one a stab on several occasions. I bought a beautifully bound copy cheap, but it has too many extraneous words. At least as far as I remember. It’s like trying to quit smoking is for some; I’ll give it a try periodically (but not for a couple of years now). It still looks pretty on my bookshelf. [/QUOTE] The only way to read this is to skim or completely skip whole sections. Anytime he starts talking about the socio-political atmosphere, or worse yet the French architecture, skip it. His focus was not Esmeralda and Quasimodo, it was everything else. You can just look for the parts on those two and the Priest. ---
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/62 "2008-05-29T20:18:26Z")
_Foucalt’s Pendulum_ by Umberto Eco. I made it 25 pages in before giving up. _Catch - 22_ - made it through less than that. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/63 "2008-05-29T20:26:58Z")
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. I got within mere pages of the end and just couldn’t stand to read another word. Anything by Henry James The Count of Monte Cristo [QUOTE=InappropriateHumor] I do believe I eventually made it all the way through this one by virtue of sheer bullheadedness, so it doesn’t technically count. Didn’t give a crap what happened to any of the characters because I didn’t like them. [/QUOTE] Yeah, there’s lots mentioned here that I can’t count because I forced myself to suffer all the way through, but then again, it hardly counts that I dragged my eyes across them because I don’t remember anything but the suffocating boredom. I don’t read shit that bores me anymore. The worst thing I ever made myself read entirely? Doctor Zhivago. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/64 "2008-05-29T20:28:10Z")
[QUOTE=Justin Credible] I hate to admit this, but I’ve tried a few times to read the Lord of the Rings straight through, and the farthest I’ve been able to get is about 1/3 of the way into The Fellowship. [/QUOTE] I’m actually about halfway through Fellowship and I’m having the same problem… reading this is some hard slogging and I’m a person who read all of H. G. Wells’ science fiction works in the third grade. I don’t know what it is but Tolkein’s writing style is… difficult. It’s as if he wanted to be serious and “grown up” but subconciously couldn’t get over the fact that he was writing works that his professional contemporaries would dismiss as silly kid stuff. There’s something bizarrely “cutesy” about them that doesn’t do me any favors. ---
**Author:** ![InappropriateHumor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eb8c5e/32.png) [@InappropriateHumor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InappropriateHumor)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/65 "2008-05-29T20:39:25Z")
[QUOTE=Anaamika] The only way to read this is to skim or completely skip whole sections. Anytime he starts talking about the socio-political atmosphere, or worse yet the French architecture, skip it. His focus was not Esmeralda and Quasimodo, it was everything else. You can just look for the parts on those two and the Priest. [/QUOTE] Thanks **Anaamika** , next time I do the old dust-off I’ll give this method a shot. It makes me feel guilty that I own a book I haven’t read. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/66 "2008-05-29T20:41:49Z")
I just barely made it through Moby Dick and I do not remember it fondly. Gone with the Wind was forgettable, but I read it through. War and Peace bored me to tears and I did not attempt to complete. As to the Lord of the Rings, I think for every fan their is a reader who gave up on it. **JohnT** , it changes part way through the first book from the faerie story style of the Hobbit to a more Epic style. This will happen after “The knife in the Dark.” It becomes much more serious from that point on. As to the Silmarillion, if you find the book hard to read or even incomprehensible, skip the AINULINDALË & VALAQUENTA and try it again with Chapter 1 _Of the Beginning of Days_. It will be slow at first but pick up by Chapter 13 _Of the Return of the Noldor_. Actually if you find Chapter 1 boring skip right to Chapter 13, though that might be confusing. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Elenfair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cc9497/32.png) [@Elenfair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elenfair)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/67 "2008-05-29T20:45:36Z")
Another vote for Moby Dick. I wanted to poke my eyes out with pencils. God, I wanted to die. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/68 "2008-05-29T20:59:14Z")
Hey all you Moby Dick haters! Give [Ahab’s Wife: Or, The Star-gazer: A Novel](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ahab%27s+wife&x=0&y=0) by Sena Jeter Naslund a try! Its style is an homage to 19th century literature, but its pacing and subject matter is more up-to-date. I may have enjoyed it a tad more thoroughly because I slogged my way entirely through Moby Dick in my college American literature class … so reading this was a breath of fresh air. It’s entirely the story of Ahab’s wife, who got about a half-sentence mention from ol’ Herman in the original. (I’ve recommended this book here before, so my apologies to anyone having deja vu.) ---
**Author:** ![Aangelica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Aangelica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aangelica)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/69 "2008-05-29T21:03:22Z")
[QUOTE=Elenfair] Another vote for Moby Dick. I wanted to poke my eyes out with pencils. God, I wanted to die. [/QUOTE] I feel this way about _both_ Steinbeck and Hemingway. Giants of literature, blah blah blah - I still can’t stand their work. I’ve been forced to read enough of it to have a fully formed and educated dislike, though.\* I also agree with Anaamika about Thomas Covenant, even though my husband is a big fan and keeps attempting to induce me to try to read the goddamn things again. No. \*It wasn’t the being forced to read it part though - I’ve been forced to read any number of novels I actually enjoyed. My undergrad school required not one but _two_ literature classes to graduate. Had to be different ones, too - so taking two classes about 19th Century novels (for example) only counted once. ---
**Author:** ![WormTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbe5ce/32.png) [@WormTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WormTheRed)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/70 "2008-05-29T21:09:43Z")
[QUOTE=Malthus] Heh, it certainly gets _faster_. 😉 I suspect one has to love the purple prose to really enjoy Gormenghast, but Steerpike is the real protaganist of the story - and his various plots become more frenzied and murderous in the second volume. [/QUOTE] Faster you say - I guess it deserves another try then. And yes, I agree that the fight was actually quite entertaining, I just want more like that 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Merhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Merhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merhouse)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/71 "2008-05-29T21:10:28Z")
[QUOTE=Anaamika] Yes! Hunt for Red October turned me off because of this. Everyone was Dimitri Federov Dosteysky Kuparo Singh. No nicks, either. Here’s a note, authors: If you introduce too many people with too many long names too fast and don’t give them any kind of nicknames, and don’t take time out to establish their personalities, _no one will ever care_. No one will empathize with your characters. Names should be simple, and distinguishable. I should not have to make notes on a work of fiction. [/QUOTE] THANK YOU! I got through something like 23 pages of that book, at which point my brain exploded and I put it down forever. And nope, I’ve never even tried to read another Tom Clancy book since. So yeah, what **Anaamika** says 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/72 "2008-05-29T21:21:17Z")
Another vote for _The Fountainhead_. Also, I don’t really know if it’s _famous_, exactly, but _Quicksilver_, by Neal Stephenson. I should like it. Loved _Snow Crash_ and _The Diamond Age_. But I keep on getting maybe 200 pages into it and just giving _up_. If I’ve got to go more than two hundred pages before caring the least little bit about any of the characters. . .it’s just not worth it. And I want to bitchslap his lack-of-an-editor. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/73 "2008-05-29T21:23:43Z")
We’re drifting, folks; Tom Clancy books don’t count as famous. I’ve never gotten more than a few pages into _House of the Seven Gables_. Does anything happen? ---
**Author:** ![InappropriateHumor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eb8c5e/32.png) [@InappropriateHumor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InappropriateHumor)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/74 "2008-05-29T21:37:32Z")
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention _A Tale of Two Cities_. The opening pages bored the shiite out of me and I didn’t have the old gung-ho spirit for that one. Thankfully it was a library book, so I wasn’t guilted into slogging my way through the whole thing. Or, to play devil’s advocate, maybe by the second chapter it was awesome. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/75 "2008-05-29T22:35:27Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] We’re drifting, folks; Tom Clancy books don’t count as famous. [/QUOTE] Man, I know it is popular to slam Clancy on this board, but Hunt for Red October was a good read, especially while the Cold War was still reality. I reread it a few years ago and I still enjoyed it. I did find it “Unputdownable”. Jim ---
**Author:** ![carlb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carlb/32/5930_2.png) [@carlb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlb)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/76 "2008-05-29T22:51:03Z")
I have made multiple attempts at _1984_ and _Lord of the Flies_, and one attempt each at _Moby Dick_ and _A Confederacy of Dunces_. Just couldn’t do it. _1984_ and _A Confederacy of Dunces_ I just found interminably boring. _Moby Dick_ and _Lord of the Flies_ seem like books I should like, but I just haven’t been able to get into. I’m going to give both of the latter books one more shot. I feel like I got far enough along in _Moby Dick_ the first time around that I might be able to slog through to the end with one more attempt. I am actually thinking of simply skipping every other chapter so I can make it through the main narrative. Then maybe I’ll read the rest at another time. It’s been a long time since I tried to read _Lord of the Flies_, and the first time was for school. It seems like the kind of story I could really get into; maybe I simply wasn’t mature enough for it the last couple of times I’ve tried. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/77 "2008-05-29T22:56:41Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle] The Count of Monte Cristo . [/QUOTE] Wow. This ranks up as one of my favorite stories. It’s the best revenge story of all time. Recommendations, if you are so inclined to try it again: skip all of the Sinbad the Sailor parts. And skim - note the difference a lot of the “high society” type crap. In this book the payoff is more than worth it. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/78 "2008-05-29T23:10:50Z")
[QUOTE=Merhouse] THANK YOU! I got through something like 23 pages of that book, at which point my brain exploded and I put it down forever. And nope, I’ve never even tried to read another Tom Clancy book since. So yeah, what **Anaamika** says 🙂 [/QUOTE] _Patriot Game_s &\* Clear and Present Danger\* are much, much better. Not great, but Jack Ryan is a much more sympathetic character and they are interesting. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/79 "2008-05-29T23:19:43Z")
I slogged the entire way through Anna Karenina and, hand to God, it killed me nearly to death. I took on Swanns Way for the third time, and for the third time wished I could piss directly in the eye of Proust before setting him on fire and rolling him off a cliff. Stranger in a Strange Land made me think I was a chair on the set of Plan 9 from outer space. It was a plastic hell described in paperback. Outside of that, I bought Finnegans Wake, it sat on the shelf for, oh, two years maybe, until I donated it to the humane society resale shop. I just can’t do it. ---
**Author:** ![Dumbguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dumbguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dumbguy)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027/80 "2008-05-29T23:19:49Z")
[QUOTE=Biffy the Elephant Shrew] I’ve read _Gravity’s Rainbow_ three or four times. [/QUOTE] Wow. I love Pynchon, and I couldn’t finish that book. Reading _Gravity’s Rainbow_ is like trying to break a rock with a bag full of cupcakes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-novels-you-just-couldnt-get-through/451027.md?page=5)