# Movies/books you gave up on **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 5, 2010, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188 "2010-10-05T23:31:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Wilson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@Wilson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wilson)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/61 "2010-10-06T17:50:56Z")
I’m another who gave up on Wheel of Time, for me I think I got through book 4. Also Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell… it really slowed down at times. I may try it again someday. The latest book I gave up on was Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk. After several chapters of the main character longing after his lost love, I realized the rest of the book was probably going to be like that, and I gave up. None of the characters was worth the effort, and while Pamuk’s writing is excellent, it wasn’t enough to keep me going. ---
**Author:** ![Eugene\_of\_Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c37758/32.png) [@Eugene\_of\_Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eugene_of_Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/62 "2010-10-06T18:12:00Z")
**Armageddon** - the movie. One of the few I couldn’t languish through at the theater. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/63 "2010-10-06T18:18:31Z")
Another one who gave up on the Wheel of Time. Back in _college_. Do you know how old that book series is?! Back then we had no hope of it ever finishing up. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/64 "2010-10-06T18:31:37Z")
Yeah, there was a point where I opened the new book and had no idea who the hell any of those people were, and I wasn’t willing to go back and reread like I used to when I was younger. I started that shit in MIDDLE SCHOOL. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/65 "2010-10-06T18:35:10Z")
> [@EristicKallistic](#): > > I kind of petered out on Infinite Jest, but I liked it and intend to finish it someday. Just requires more concentration than I’ve been able to muster so far this year. A friend recommended that book to me. I’m very glad I checked it out of the library instead of purchasing it. I didn’t even last until the end of the pot-smoker thingy in the very beginning of the book. Poorly defined characters without names delivered in SoC narration just isn’t going to interest me. I’m with all the reviewers who felt the name of the book was referring to an act by the author with regard to his readership, rather than a reference to anything in the actual story. ETA: Oh yeah, _Oryx & Crake_ sucked ass. I don’t think I even made it thru 50 pages of that shit. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/66 "2010-10-06T23:40:25Z")
Thank Og I’m not the first to mention Confederacy of Dunces. I will try again sometime. A friend gave me Lovecraft’s The Dream Quest of the Unknown Kadath, and it did nothing for me. Another example of a work not aging well? I wonder if Crossing Delancy works better for a straight guy, Sampiro. I enjoyed it mostly because I could fall in love with Amy Irving. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in anything else so good. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/67 "2010-10-06T23:55:00Z")
I made it 250 pages into the first Wheel of Time book, which everyone acted like was some kind of fantasy classic, and gave up. Robert Jordan is simply woeful at writing dialog, his descriptions of the world come off clunky and wooden, and I hated every female character. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/68 "2010-10-07T00:00:35Z")
Lessee… Books: [ul] [li]**Lisey’s Story[/li][li]The Passage[/li][li]The Talisman[/li][li]Dreamcatcher[/li][li]Lucifer’s Hammer** (the writing in this is among the worst I’ve ever read)[/li][li] **Eragon** (ditto)[/li][li]**A Game of Thrones[/li][li]Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone**[/li][/ul] Movies: [ul] [li]**Napoleon Dynamite[/li][li]There Will Be Blood[/li][li]Forgetting Sarah Marshall[/li][li]Tropic Thunder**[/li][/ul] And a movie that I initially gave up on about twenty minutes into it, only to be talked into going back and watching the rest of it, and after doing so I now desperately _wish_ I’d not given it another chance: **Slumdog Millionaire**. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/69 "2010-10-07T00:03:05Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > LOTR (the books, the movies were fine) Seconded. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/70 "2010-10-07T00:09:05Z")
> [@NetTrekker](#): > > > [@Kolga](#): > > > > The movie **Sin City.** We got about 45 minutes into it, I looked over at my then-bf and said “do you care about any of this?” He said “absolutely not,” and we ejected the disk. > > > > Everybody always assumes it was because it was so “graphic,” so “brutal,” but honestly, it was so damn BORING. > > That reminds me, I also bailed on Pulp Fiction…not my cup of tea. See, I love most of Tarantino. I WANTED to like **Sin City** , really, I did. Many of my friends who share the same taste as me in movies raved about it. Snore. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/71 "2010-10-07T00:13:34Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > **The Dark Tower**. I read _The Gunslinger_, _The Drawing of the Three_, and about half of _The Waste Lands_. The story was going nowhere fast and my patience ran out. Was that the one with them fighting a giant robot bear at the beginning? I know it’s either that one or **Wizard and Glass**. Whichever story features Roland and the legless woman fighting a mechanized bear, that’s the last one of the series I attempted to read. To this day, the image of the legless woman fighting a giant robot bear makes me giggle. And that’s why I’ve never attempted to resume the series. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/72 "2010-10-07T00:15:41Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > > [@NetTrekker](#): > > > > That reminds me, I also bailed on Pulp Fiction…not my cup of tea. > > See, I love most of Tarantino. > > I WANTED to like **Sin City** , really, I did. Many of my friends who share the same taste as me in movies raved about it. > > Snore. You do know that Quentin Tarantino didn’t make **Sin City** , right? ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/73 "2010-10-07T00:20:13Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > > [@Kolga](#): > > > > See, I love most of Tarantino. > > > > I WANTED to like **Sin City** , really, I did. Many of my friends who share the same taste as me in movies raved about it. > > > > Snore. > > You do know that Quentin Tarantino didn’t make **Sin City** , right? **I** do, yes. I was responding to **NetTrekker’s** comment about not making it through _Pulp Fiction_. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/74 "2010-10-07T00:22:36Z")
\*Dune \*and \*Dhalgren. \*With both books, I found myself eventually just staring at the page in a glazed stupor. I blame these books for the fact that I now have cataracts. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/75 "2010-10-07T00:45:42Z")
Books: **Left Hand of Darkness** **Redemption of Althalus** (I threw this one across the room eventually) **The Gulag Archipelago** **David Copperfield** movies **Bad** **Dances with Wolves** ---
**Author:** ![rolandgunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@rolandgunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rolandgunslinger)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/76 "2010-10-07T01:08:06Z")
**Under the dome** ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/77 "2010-10-07T01:48:32Z")
Happily ditched: The Satanic Verses Tree of Smoke American Psycho Sadly defeated by: Swann’s Way God and the New Physics One Hundred Years of Solitude ---
**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:** [October 7, 2010, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/78 "2010-10-07T02:30:51Z")
**Godel, Escher, Bach** Fascinated by Godel, enjoy Escher, love Bach, but I could not make it through this book. I don’t think it’s a bad book by any means, I just couldn’t understand it. Or, to use **koeeoaddi’s** phrasing, I was sadly defeated by it. ---
**Author:** ![moejoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@moejoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moejoe)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/79 "2010-10-07T03:34:48Z")
I’ve tried One Hundred Years of Solitude three times, no dice. Also I couldn’t finish The Informant book or movie, snore city. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Nader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188/80 "2010-10-07T07:05:50Z")
David Wingrove’s **Chung Kuo** What a mess. Great ideas, and only a hundred pages of exposition between plot points. Think Logan’s Run vs. Dune vs. Shogun, with extra padding. Argh. Seriously, here’s the new definition of bloat: The twenty books in the re-release schedule are planned to be published at regular intervals between April 2011 and June 2015. 1. Son of Heaven 2. Daylight on Iron Mountain 3. The Middle Kingdom 4. Ice and Fire 5. The Art of War 6. An Inch of Ashes 7. The Broken Wheel 8. The White Mountain 9. Monsters of the Deep 10. The Stone Within 11. Upon a Wheel of Fire 12. Beneath the Tree of Heaven 13. Song of the Bronze Statue 14. White Moon Red Dragon 15. China on the Rhine 16. Days of Bitter Strength 17. The Father of Lies 18. Blood and Iron 19. King of Infinite Space 20. The Marriage of the Living Dark zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-books-you-gave-up-on/556188.md?page=5)