I was in a book club that was working its way through one of those Top 100 Books of All Time type lists and there were so many that I couldn’t stand for one reason or another.
Anna Karenina (I have never cheered for a death before) The Wings of the Dove Heart of Darkness Atlas Shrugged
… and others I’ve blocked from memory. The bookclub broke up so we didn’t get terribly far into the list.
I dug both* A Separate Peace* and Catcher in the Rye, but I think that’s because I read them when I was an angsty teen. I think now I’d want to slap the characters and tell them to grow a pair.
Just a few weeks ago I was attempting to read Perdido Street Station because a good friend said I’d love it. Too dark for me and I didn’t care enough about the characters to continue so I returned it to the library unfinished. I see it’s on the NPR Top 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books list, but I just can’t get behind it. Then again there’s a lot I didn’t like on that list as well (Xanth, The Sword of Shannara Trilogy, The Belgariad…)
FWIW, I love Heinlein, but you have to put him in a historical context (even his later books–he never got past some of the limitations of his era–even when he overreacted to the limitations being gone (like in Friday, he was still reacting to them)
When Heinlein started writing, the BIG magazine was ASTOUNDING. They paid considerably better than anyone else and they had a lot of prestige..for a pulp. But in that era, women weren’t allowed to be anything but victims, spouses (mostly off camera), objects of quests, or (occasionally) villains..
Given those limitations, Heinlein still managed to write women characters who fit none of the four categories. Especially in his short stories, he even dealt with surprisingly progressive ideas (this is the '40s, remember) like the glass ceiling ("Delilah and the Space Rigger), marriage as an equal partnership (“The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathon Hoag”) and wrote women who enjoyed being women (with hints of enjoying sexuality…to whatever degree he could slip by). No other major science fiction writer of the era even tried to do that.
I’m not saying you’re wrong to dislike Friday or Heinlein’s portrayal of women in the stories you read, just that there’s a reason for it. I enjoyed Friday, but yeah, some of her characterization was weird and/or over-the-top.
If you’re interested, check out the short stories in The Past Through Tomorrow or The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein and you’ll see a different side of Heinlein and his female characters.
Those were certainly my feelings when I read it. If I encountered it today, I might feel more compassion for the author–whose first published story, you might recall, had his author avatar commit suicide. This compassion wouldn’t make *Catcher *into a good book, though.
Fifthing this? The worst part was that everyone who recommended it to me usually recommends things I end up really enjoying, so I gave it a better try than I should have. I got most of the way through before I gave up.
I also couldn’t finish Anna Karenina or Tess of the D’Urbervilles, but I don’t remember exactly why. I should probably give Anna Karenina another try sometime, at least.
I can see a publisher writing: “This stunning family chronicle from Nobel laureate Donald Duck…” making it seem as if the book in question earned the award.
However, over at Nobel.org this is the whole commentary to Hesse’s award:
“for his inspired writings which, while growing in boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals and high qualities of style”.
A Confederacy of Dunces is pretty much a straightforward farce. Ignatius is not the hero, he’s a catalyst for chaos and the unwitting comic instigator of a series of highly unlikely events. And as with all good farces, humorous coincidences, misunderstandings and intersections create hilarity and then resolve improbably but neatly at the end. Unlike most farces, however, you’re not supposed to like the protagonist (or at least not very much, although even he manages a happy ending of sorts).
Guess I’m right on board with the hate for Atlas Shrugged. I never made it up to the 30 pages I try to give any book. Blecch!
But I totally love Hardy and Steinbeck, and admire Faulkner’s writing.
Sometimes I think that Good Books are introduced too early in school. I was assigned The Good Earth in 7th or 8th grade, and just couldn’t get it. The Great Gatsby, however, resonated.
Although I never read Ethan Frome in school, I listened to it whilst driving across Iowa in early winter, with frost upon the fields, and the full moon causing the snow and frost to sparkle.
Magical!
A Separate Peace - had to read it in English class. About the best thing I could say about it was that it was written in fairly modern style so at least I didn’t have to wade through purple prose. But what a downer!
Moby Dick - Ugh. English class too. Every page of that horrible book was a slog. It got a little better toward the end, but…ugh.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Yep, English class. I tried, I really did. I had a crush on this English teacher, so I wanted to like it. Best thing I can say about it: It appears to be more coherent than Joyce’s other works.
There are only a few canonical authors who’ve written works I truly HATE.
I’ve liked a lot of James Joyce’s work. Honest. I liked Dubliners, I liked Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and despite its difficulty, I learned to love Ulysses. But I am suspicious of anyone who claims to have gotten past page 1 of Finnegans Wake. Indeed, I’m suspicious of anyone who WANTED to keep going past page 1.
I don’t trust anyone who claims to have read all of Finnegans Wake, much less anyone who claims it was worthwhile to do so.
Herman Melville is painful to read. ***Bartleby the Scrivener ***was 40 pages but read like 400. ***Billy Budd *** was 100 pages but read like 1,000. For that reason alone, I will NEVER attempt to read Moby Dick.
As I’ve said many times before: kids, if your teacher ever tells you to read anything by Herman Melville, tell her as firmly as possible, “I would prefer not to.”
When I read Billy Budd, it seemed to me almost as if Melville was deliberately constructing each individual sentence in as labrynthine a way as he possibly could. It’s like you have to wade through six or seven subordinate clauses before you get to the subject or verb. I actually made it through Moby Dick, but it was definitely something of an ordeal. I thought the first seventy pages or so were pretty entertaining… then they get out to sea, and it’s like Melville thought “Nothing really happens out at sea, but I need to fill a few hundred pages, so I’ll spend one chapter writing about the forecastle and another writing about the bowsprit and another writing about the…”. I have heard, though, that his early works (like Typee and Omoo) are straight adventure stories, so they might be worth a try.
I also have to cast a vote for Thomas Hardy. I had heard good things about Look Homeward, Angel and really wanted to like it. I had to stop after about two chapters… the prose just seemed so strained. Like he just knew he was writing something really deep and wanted to make sure you knew it. It seems to combine the worst features of Romantic and modernist prose.
I disliked “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” but I didn’t think it was bad… it was just too intense for me. As someone who has reached the age at which I’m watching people I know die slowly, it hit a bit too close to home.
Another book I really wanted to like was Walden. I tried hard, over a period of time, to get through it, and finally gave up about halfway. I think it may be a victim of its own success… the themes are overly familiar.
I read The Last of the Mohicans and found it interesting as a period piece, but good Lord is it ever slow paced. (Apparently, at the time, it was noted for being fast paced, which is an interesting commentary on how styles change.)
It’s really a shame you started with Friday. Heinlein essentially became a parody of himself in his later years. If that hasn’t put you off him irredeemably, try some of his earlier stuff.
my long rant seems to have been eaten by hamsters, so let’s just say I hate hate hate Phillip Pullman’s overpraised pretentious Dark Materials trilogy (“Golden Compass”) etc.
