Gormenghast was a weird experience for me. I felt like I wanted to get fed up and disgusted with it, but I didn’t. I just kept going, even though nothing was happening. I wouldn’t read it again, but I’m glad I did. I’ve never had that kind of reaction to any other book.
Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy.
Sound dry and lifeless? You’re right!
You missed “prolix”. And “bombastic”. “Purple” would probably go in there, too. Aw, hell: redundant, diffuse, repetitious, circumlocutory, pleonastic.
Middlemarch. I’ve tried I don’t know how many times to read it, but I just can’t get any further than Dorothea’s engagement to Casabamelon or whatever his name is. My Big-Ass Books by Dead White Men (aka Five Great Novels) professor said it was an original soap opera, which it is, but I don’t like soap operas.
I happen to like the Fionavar Tapestry a lot, although I’ve never managed to get anyone else to (my wife, after reading it, refused to touch anything else by GGK for years; now he’s one of her favoritre writers). I love its kitchen-sink, take-no-prisoners attitude towards fantasy tropes and mythology (Norse myth? Celtic myth? Arthurian myth? Christian allegory? Tolkien? Sure, we’ve got it all!). It’s like Bullfinch on crystal meth.
But I admit it’s not nearly as good as his subsequent stuff.
As to the Sarantine Mosaic you have to understand that it is what it says it is: a mosaic, a collection of smaller interlocking stories with more of an emphasis on character than on plot. It’s not an epic like his earlier works, and that can throw people off.
Augh! I thought of another one!
The Shelters of Stone (Earth’s Children, Book 5)
by Jean M. Auel
What horrific dreck! I see you can but it at Amazon for 43¢. That’s 43¢ more than it’s worth.
That is one of the great unintentional comedies ever written. (I was not aware that Wicca existed 10,000 years ago!) Although, I can understand where you would get frustrated. I started yelling the third time she stuck in the entire song of the Earth Mother “because Ayla loved it.” :rolleyes:
There’s eleven books now. Wait for 12, when it’s supposed to finally be over. 
I tried twice, and gave up both times. Then I gave the books away. Maybe someday I’ll have the energy to pick them up again, but MS&T is how I learned my “don’t buy the whole series until you’re sure you like it” lesson.
It is almost impossible to get me to quit reading a book, but last year while casting about the house for something I hadn’t read 40 times I came upon a copy of Wicked, the story about the Wicked Witch of the West.
I understand that the musical is quite enjoyable, but that book bested me. It started off so-so, but then devolved into an author’s caprice-laden journey into nowhere. I stopped reading about 2/3 through, it was such a relief to realize that I didn’t have to finish it!
Most recently, Tropic of Cancer. I got twenty pages in and decided that I wouldn’t get anything else out of by reading farther. It’s obscene–okie doke. Next book.
Good for you. I did finish it, and it’s just painful. The best thing about the musical is they took the book’s main idea, (which was indeed nifty) and then threw out the entire muddled, nonsensical plot. I only feel sorry for the poor schmoes who try to read the book after seeing the show.
Jenny, the whole reason I’ve never seen the show is because I didn’t think the story I read would make a good musical. Thanks for that! I’ve found that Gregory Maguire’s books are all the same–love the ideas. Hate the way he writes.
My problem with The Fionavar Tapestry is that Kay felt the need to have a scene in every single chapter that read like it was supposed to be the emotional climax of the entire series. In these scenes, every line of dialogue and accompanying facial expression is so laden with some combination of emotional, historical, spiritual, ancestral, and/or cosmic meaning that after the fifth or so becomes cliche.
Another problem was the tortured logic by which the ultimate bad guy, who had been referred to at least a dozen times as totally immortal and metaphysically unkillable, is killed.
I also liked I Know This Much is True, but I must admit I listened to it as an audiobook. I don’t know how I’d have felt about actually reading it, since one of the things I enjoyed most about it was the fabulous talent of the reader, George Guidall.
I finished Stranger in a Strange Land. Then I threw it away.
I gave up on Cold Mountain. Like elfkin477, when I was younger, I would force myself through books, but now my reading time is too short and precious to waste. There are so many things I really want to read!
The most recent book I gave up on was The Count of Monte Cristo.
I tried to unite all the closet sloggers in this thread from a while back.
Amen! I’ve taken three shots at that one and never got past the first 100 pages. I frankly think Pynchon has a mystique about him that isn’t entirely justified.
This would be the reason why I’ve never bothered to try that book, despite some folks who think it’s like my patriotic duty or something to read it and love it. I don’t know where his grave is, but there’s a girl downtown who stands on a box posing as the LHA Angel for tips; I’ll be happy to give her a glare for you if you’d like.
Daniel
Gormenghast got me, too–I’d forgotten about that one! I finished Fionavar Tapestry, but I’m not happy that I did: it was really disappointing compared to Kaye’s other work.
I think I read Atlas Shrugged when I was a teenager. Atlas and me both.
Daniel
Oh my God. I remember that from undergrad; it was a 19th century lit class that met once a week, so we normally had one week to read each book. But for Middlemarch, we got two. I remember being curled up ALL DAY with that thing and still getting nowhere.