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Telephone.
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Once, in my Christmas stocking, I got a book of rolls of Life-Savers. We went to my cousins’ house out in the Valley for Christmas dinner that year, and I brought my Life-Savers with me. And then, dammit, I left it there. So that’s another book I never finished.
I was assigned The Bear in high school, as an example of Faulkner’s stream-of-consciousness writing style.
Loathed it. Decided I loathed Faulkner, except for A Rose for Emily.
This next one needs a bit of background. About 16 years ago, Ivylad was in the Navy. In fact, he left for a six-month Med run two days after our daughter was born. So, I have a newborn and a three year old and no husband for six months while he patrols somewhere on a submarine.
I picked up a Tom Clancy novel and there’s a scene about a submarine that gets depth-charged and all aboard drown a horrible death. I threw it across the room and haven’t picked up a Tom Clancy book since.
I tried reading Eragon but I couldn’t get through it. Really, naming a blue dragon Saphira? How unoriginal.
Another vote for fucking Ulysses.
Also: Interview with the Vampire…twice. (I only attempted it a second time because a friend of mine in a very goth phase insisted that it really was good.) I don’t get people who complain that Anne Rice’s writing has gone downhill. It was always horrible!
Dr Faustus by Thomas Mann, even though a friend bet me I wouldn’t finish it, I couldn’t get beyond 50 pages.
It took me three attempts to read First Circle, by Solzhenitsyn.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Great movie, but I couldn’t handle the strange language it was written in; droog-speak?
I can’t remember whether I finished Catch 22 - I was certainly struggling, though. The wackiness stops being interesting after a while.
Godel, Escher, Bach - check
*Les Miserables *- check
Also, *Possession *by A.S. Byatt, and recently *The Zookeeper’s Wife *(too damn depressing!)
Memorably, in high school, Bleak House. We had to read it for English and had an exam on the content. I’d made it through all but the last chapter or two. One of the questions was how did the story end. I made something up out of whole cloth. I got the answer wrong, but still got an A on the test. Only Dickens I could ever stand was Oliver Twist.
I did make it through The Source. It took me like 18 months, when it was the only non-school book I read. Worth it? Well, at least I can brag about it in this thread. Actually, I didn’t hate it, it was just slow going and I fell asleep a lot.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Believe it or not, I got through six and a half books and decided I didn’t really care all that much how it turns out in the end.
And I still don’t know how it ends. . .
Battlefield Earth.
My then-girlfriend gave it to me as a birthday gift when I turned 20. At the time I had never heard of scientology and never made the connection. I got about halfway through the book before I got bored with the plot. Shortly afterwards I learned about scientology when Dianetics was featured in a Time magazine article. From this and other sources I learned what an absolute nutjob Elron was with his silly ideas and I had no desire to resume my reading the book (Battlefield Earth that is; never read Dianetics).
I should have also mentioned Harry Potter in my last post. A friend from work at the time insisted that I read it, so he gave me a copy of the first book. To humor him I started reading it, and I felt I should give it a fair chance, but after getting about a third of the way through it I just could not maintain further interest. Fantasy has never been one of my favored genres.
S. M. Stirling has a solid fan base here at the dope, but I can’t seem to get past the first chapter on any of his books.
Love, Phil
I couldn’t finish Timbuktu. I got to the bit at the Chinese restaurant, realized that the author was going to torment that poor dog until he died, also realized that I didn’t like the stereotypes he was indulging in, and bounced it back in the book drop at the library.
Paradise Lost.
A Confederacy of Dunces. Very early on I realized I just hated all the characters, so I returned the book to the library without finishing it.
The Plot Against America, although it has gotten great reviews.
I was seriously dissatisfied with it, though I did make it to the end. Don’t recommend it to anyone.
Has anyone read The Mill on the Floss? I thought I saw some Book of Lists entry somewhere where that was the most tedious novel ever written.
My dad loved Louis L’Amour books and there was always one or two laying around. One night, I couldn’t sleep, so I tried reading the only thing I could find in the living room–Bendigo Shafter. Absolutely a cure for insomnia–I just couldn’t get into the thing. So I was convinced that I hated L’Amour. But then one day, I found Tucker and couldn’t put it down! After that, I read any of his novels I could get my hands on. Some years later, having enjoyed many Sackett books and various others, I decided to read Bendigo Shafter. After all, I was now accustomed to L’Amour’s style and had grown to appreciate it. What a SNOOZE! I don’t think I got as far the second time as I did the first! I mentioned this to my dad and he said that he’d never liked that one either–even though he finished it, he agreed that it was by far the worst LL book he’d ever read!
Along with that one, I never finished Catch-22. I felt ready for a mental ward within the few pages–I don’t think I even got through the first chapter!
I keep remembering these one at a time for some reason.
I’ve tried to read Middlemarch twice now, gave up on it both times. I may need to dig up a Penguin or Oxford edition because those have very good explanatory footnotes, but before I do that I’ll try to watch the BBC movie. Heck, watching the movie got me to slog all the way through The Lord of the Rings, maybe it works for overly long Victorian literature as well.
I read it in high school (and had a lousy teacher), and I would concede that it really is tedious, but I wouldn’t call it “the most tedious novel ever written.” [del]That honor should go to The Idiot[/del].
I loved Middlemarch, but my trick to sticking with it was to skip the Rosamund/Doctor scenes entirely, because Rosamund made me want to reach into the book and punch her face in. I found the plot-lines concerning Dorothea and Mary very compelling.
(I also enjoyed Daniel Deronda, but only because Mr. Grandcourt was such an excellent villain.)
Another book I’ve tried to read at least four times to no avail: Atonement by Ian McEwan. Seeing the movie finally convinced me to stop trying.
Missed the edit window: I actually enjoyed Middlemarch the book more than the miniseries (although it has Rufus Sewell). George Eliot’s character insights are fantastic but necessarily internal and therefore impossible to translate to the screen, and the miniseries suffered for that, I thought.
Other books by Ian McEwan I have attempted and failed to read: Amsterdam, Saturday, and Enduring Love.
Add me in the Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell column. The first 100 pages or so (up to about the time he revives the wife) were promising but sometime soon after that she just lost me. I can’t even point to any particular thing, it was just like I lost all interest in the story.
I really enjoyed Catch-22, but I lost interest in the sequel (can’t even remember the name( that was set 30 odd years later.