"Sight-unseen allergies" to works of fiction?

Cafe Society
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(This may belong more in MPSIMS – mods, please relocate if appropriate.)

With perhaps an unhealthy amount of time on my hands; have been trawling past TSD threads. Came upon one from a few years ago, initially Tolkien-related. Will refrain from resurrecting the thread itself – it quite quickly underwent “topic drift” in a rather ugly direction – but anyway, the OP started by telling of how (by no means for the first time, and not in a very hopeful spirit) he had tried to start reading The Lord of the Rings. The beginning of the first sentence, was enough for him: “When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End anoounced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday…” – incensed at what he saw as the frivolous idiocy of using “eleventy-first”, instead of the conventional modern number system; the OP threw the book aside in disgust, and did not pick it up again.

It emerged later in the thread; that in this, the OP was indulging at least to some extent, in humorous exaggeration. However, the thing did bring to my mind: while I’m a Tolkien devotee; there are in fiction, books or series by various authors, which I have spurned, or never even tried, for what are objectively equally nebulous / trivial reasons.

An example: I like much detective / mystery fiction – but some of same, I am put off “even before the get-go”. There’s a series of mysteries by M.C. Beaton: set in rural England, starring a lady amateur ‘tec called Agatha Raisin. From first becoming aware of these books, the name utterly set my teeth on edge. I felt it very clear that these would be – for my tastes – sickeningly, cloyingly twee “cozy-beyond-cozy” mysteries; the heroine plainly a lovably quirky maiden lady – with her given name, a “homage” (BLEEAAAURGHH !!) to Agatha Christie. I’ve never opened an Agatha Raisin novel, and don’t ever plan to.

Am I particularly weird in being so easily turned off works of fiction, by such superficial “triggers” – when common sense would suggest that the books deserve being given a try, on the chance that one might just be depriving oneself of a treat? If after anyway a few pages, strong feel is, “this seems awful”; it’s perfectly possible to stop at any time. Or do other fiction readers here, sometimes experience such sentiments, so strongly, on such – objectively – almost non-existent grounds?

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I recently picked up the Clive James translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy…and bounced when he used the term “force field.” Dante couldn’t get out of the valley of shadow because he couldn’t get through the force field.

Maybe I’m being totally unfair…but I couldn’t read any further.

One problem is that there are so many books and so little time. We pretty much have to make snap judgements. We read reviews and ask for opinions and follow friends’ advice, all to avoid the wasteful investment of time in a book that won’t be rewarding. It’s not wholly fair, but it’s the way of the world.

One of my life-long rules of books is: if I get to page 100, and am still not interested, I will simply quit. (And…sometimes I don’t get that far.)

Do you remember the first time you ever walked out of a movie? I do. It felt so incredibly liberating! I felt like a grown up, making my own choices. I don’t have to sit here and suffer. Hugely empowering.

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The first book I ever started reading and didn’t finish was Lord of the Rings, during the Tom Bombadil scenes. Friends convinced me to try again, and I enjoyed The Hobbit enough to give it a second chance, but I felt it was a slog, and finally bought a copy of Bored of the Rings, sealed it up, and vowed not to read it until I finished the trilogy (friends had said you couldn’t enjoy it without knowing the source). I’m glad I read it, but, as Steve Brody said, “I did it oncet.”

I’m not interested in reading Catcher in the Rye or any Ayn Rand from what I’ve heard, and I’m probably too old to be impressed by them.

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In the circumstances, I very much think I’d feel and do just the same as you. Unless this translator had – for whatever reason – a deliberate policy of parlaying modern expressions and concepts into the Divine Comedy. That, I feel, might get me interested; or might make me conclude that I utterly “didn’t want to know”.

I recall a historical novel, read some years ago (I forget author / title details, but am sure Googling would retrieve them) about the Norman Conquest of England – into which the author deliberately inserted various small modern and highly-anachronistic details – seemingly, it was just his quirk and fancy to do so. It so happened that I found his doing this very funny, and enjoyed it; but I have no doubt that it would have grated, big-time, on many readers.

For sure – so many books, so many authors, that there are plenty of authors none of whose works even the world’s most dedicated (and speediest) reader will ever manage to look at. Hardly matters, really, on what one bases one’s snap judgements.

It’s just that there are instances in which; I wonder… especially where it’s an author whom very many people whose judgement I respect, seem to love. One instance, is Alexander McCall Smith. Just his titles – plus the little that I’ve heard about, and read in excerpts re, his stuff – make me cringe: for me, it all exemplifies “arch / campy / mincing / twee” to the max – a general “scene and feel” which is to my taste, repellent. Yet so many folk delight in his novels / short stories, especially the Botswana-set detective ones about Precious Whatshername. Still – it will always be “win some, lose some”.

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“Epic. Grand. Sprawling. Saga. Continuing.” Any of those words on the cover or used by a reviewer means I put the book back on the shelf.

Anything with the Flavor of the Month. Wizards, vampires, terrorists…doesn’t matter. It could be the best-written book of the decade, but I’m not going to touch it because the author is just out to cash in on a trend. If it’s the book that started the trend, then the author is condemned as well for inflicting all the junk others produce on the world. :stuck_out_tongue:

Once an author pisses me off, it’s next to impossible to get me to read anything else they wrote, no matter how good. I hear Steven King is turning out good stuff again. Too bad. He lost me years ago and will never get me back. Ditto S.M. Stirling.

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I generally don’t read books larger than trilogies.

I don’t read series that haven’t finished yet.

But the most trivial thing was, I love Stephen King. I tried to read Lisey’s Story, I think that was the one. The main character in the story kept using as her curse word “smucking”. Smucking, smucking, smucking, I smucking threw that smucking book right back into the smucking library bin.

That kind of faux cuteness made me want to murder Lisey.

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Years ago I read a fairly routine" band of international villains try to take over the world but turn against each other and are ultimately defeated by the hero" thriller. After about the third time the hero escaped I actually started saying “Why don’t they just kill him!” Ever since then I can’t even read thrillers because I’m sure at some point the hero will get caught and escape even though the bad guys could and should kill him.

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He lost me at Insomnia. I’ve heard some of the recent stuff is really good, but I just can’t.

I’ve read a lot of fantasy, but I just still can’t bring myself to read any Tolkein. In fact, I can’t bring myself to read most epic fantasy that I haven’t already gotten involved in. I don’t have time to remember your rules, book.

I have a friend who loves paranormal romance novels (I seriously am talking about a friend–but I’m not saying I don’t read them too. I read the hell out of them.). She will not go anywhere near anything that is described using the words steampunk, historical, apocalyptic or dystopian.

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S. King, I’ve never wanted to touch with a bargepole, and never have. And – “don’t get me started on Stirling”, which you unfortunately have done.

I was for some years, a keen Stirling fan – loved his “middle-period” stuff. His “Emberverse” series – read the first few, with some keenness; though with less-than-total enjoyment – I being a soft-hearted wimp, would prefer fiction about life after catastrophic killing-off of most of the human race, to be telling of stuff happening a comfortably large number of decades after the catastrophe. And when the Emberverse switched from essentially rational this-worldly action, to the magical / mystical / mythologic, with various “real” gods and demons getting in on the act, I was done. And Stirling’s other recent series has been about vampires – which happens to be for me, the most boring fiction topic, on earth. Just my quirk – more power to those who enjoy vampire fiction, just don’t force me to read it !

I’ll continue to keep half an eye on Stirling, in case he should some time in the future take other, possibly more appealing, directions; but for the present, I am for sure out of the active contingent of his fan club.

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There’s an entire genre of military sci-fi out there that I’ve read a few examples of, and won’t touch with a 10 foot pole anymore, mostly because it seems to be aimed at the 13 year old boys and Walter Mitty types out there who want to read about rayguns and hovertanks. Dumb ass shit like having militaries of the future derived from the French Foreign Legion, etc…

I’ll give the ones by established authors like Niven and Pournelle’s War World stuff a shot, but most of the others seem like awful schlock aimed at people less interested in what I’d call real sci-fi, and more in adventure books set in sci-fi settings.

I also have a real aversion to reading kid books like the Harry Potter or Hunger Games series. I don’t know exactly what it is; maybe the idea that I’m reading children’s fiction, or maybe it’s the idea that if it was that good, it wouldn’t be written for children. Either way, I’ve steadfastly refused to read either series.

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I usually avoid trilogies (though I don’t mind series novels). When I pick up a book, I want it to have an end, not a “to be continued.” If they continue with the adventures of the same character (like the Thursday Next novels), and I like the character, I’ll read the next book.

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Almost anything “international intrigue” or “there’s a conspiracy in our [insert one] country, department, company”. (Tom Clancy). First time I threw a book across the room, I had unfortunately made it all of the way through. 42??? seriously 42? I wasted all that time for 42? Nowadays, like Trinopus said, I rarely get that far, if a book is boring, or annoying me it gets tossed (FWIW I liked Insomnia {shamefaced smilie} King usually gets a pass from me because I normally really like his characters, despite storyline issues). “Fine Things” was the one that turned me off reading King books for a bit, that was a dreadful book.

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I’m amused, because I’ve read a couple of Agatha Raisin mysteries, and she is deliberately the opposite of what you’re expecting.

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“I read what you’re writing” – nonetheless, I’m no more inclined toward trying AR, than I was before – " there’s so much else to read". If in any way extenuating – have read one mystery by the same author, different hero and milieu, and it did almost nothing for me.

I do feel that the “hobby and avocation” scene is one on which people can give free rein to – and hopefully exhaust them, instead of in real life, where such stuff truly matters – their bigotry-and-prejudice tendencies.

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I can easily develop a mental block against reading something if it seems like everyone else is reading and talking about it. I don’t know why, but I suspect if I did it would reveal something quite unflattering about me.

If I do wind up reading something which I had “blocked”, sometimes I will enjoy it and realize I was just being a stubborn ass.

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For whatever it’s worth, I do this too, though it’s usually with games rather than books, simply because I don’t get exposed to the same level of “talking about” books that I do with games.

All that said, the few times I’ve gone back to a book that “everyone” likes that I had been avoiding due to hype-aversion, I have NOT enjoyed it. Game of Thrones? Haha, one book and done. The Name of the Wind? Did Not Like.

So I think maybe I just have different/better taste than most people. :wink: (Well, I will stand by the different part, anyway.)

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First time I picked up a Brian Sanderson book, the word OathPact showed up on like the second page, and it so BugPeeved me that I StopCeased reading the BookTome right ThenThere.

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Not sure if this is what you’re asking, but I won’t read any books or see any movies/TV shows that center on gangsters and crime. So no Godfather or Goodfellas, no Sopranos, no Breaking Bad, or anything of that ilk. I just can’t get interested in people like that.
Roddy

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Wasn’t really thinking about stuff whose subject-matter one is – morally, or for whatever reason – hostile to, therefore one won’t go there. Looking rather at, subject-matter acceptable and maybe interesting; but there’s just something – maybe in itself, very trivial – that from the first, repels one – so one doesn’t even venture on the work to give it a try. “Whatever” – all responses, interesting to hear.

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The most trivial thing I ever let bark me off of a book was the author using the word “sneeze!” in place of “achoo!” I just got enraged. “Sneeze!” is not onomatopaeia!