This week, we look at books that are hard to read.
Is there any book you simply could not finish? What was it about it that made you give up?
My answer is:
I had a tough time with Herman Mellville's Moby Dick. Perhaps it was because I read it in conjunction with the hidden meanings, which spoilt the flow. I do like a challenge in reading, and have still to finish Marcel Proust's Remembrance Of Things Past (also known as In Search Of Lost Time). I will return to it in the future.
Now it's over to you...
Back in High School we were assigned to read Hemingways The Sun also Rises. I got about half way through and could not finish it. It was the diary of a drunk with no real story.
ReplyDeleteTuesdays with Morrie...a story of a professor who was afflicted with a debilitating illness and his friendship with a student. It made made me cry many times so I stopped reading it. I was unconsciously relating it with my father that's why maybe it made me very sad.
ReplyDeleteMichele sent me today.
Marcel Proust must be a foil for a few of us. I have tried to get into "Swann's Way" and put it down everytime. I read "Remembrance...." years ago, but remember none of it.
ReplyDeleteBTW: I loved your answer yesterday at Michele's when I asked had you ever found something valuable and you said yes - and called her your girlfriend. That's very good!
Michele sent me.
I'm having an awful time with Wittgenstein's Poker. I got it at a garage sale several weeks ago and have only made it through the first two chapters. It is a little boring, and I have to read in short spurts when I have the time so it is hard to get engaged in the story.
ReplyDeleteMichele says hi!
I am right there with you Capt. Picard. I HATED Moby Dick. I was supposed to read it in honors English in high school but couldn't get past page 6 I think. It was so stinking boring and dry. Needless to say I didn't do so good during that portion of the course.
ReplyDeleteI'm odd man (or woman) out... I'm so not a book person.
ReplyDeleteAnne Rice bores me to tears. (I know that makes me odd, but that's ok)
ReplyDeleteMichele says howdy!
Michele sent me today Jean luc.
ReplyDeleteI hate to admit this, but I struggled through Confederacy of Dunces both times I had to read it: once in school and once for a book club.
I'm TRYING to read that book by Dr. Phil...Family First.....But I'm not getting very far at all.....I guess I just don't like people telling me what to do...LOL
ReplyDeleteHave a great day!!!
Oh gosh....that one novel in High School....The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Bored the daylights out of me and never finsihed it.
ReplyDeleteMine was Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. I am not sure why, it just didn't hold my attention, I wasn't even required to read it, I just knew it was a classic and thought I would give it a try. It didn't take.
ReplyDeleteSilence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris. The grammar and style of writing was so atrocious, I could not continue past the first few chapters.
ReplyDeleteJack London's... I forgot what it's called. It's the one where the wolf pup goes tame. I got tired of reading it when the stereotypical drunken eskimo started beating the pup.
ReplyDeleteIronic that your own actions in the timeline sent Jack London to Alaska.
Great examples.
ReplyDeleteKenju, I have read all of 'Swann's Way' and stopped in the second book; hope to carry on though.
Nic, 'Moby Dick' always seemed to be an awkward one.
Hemingway seems to be a popular 'unfinished' novel author.
I don't really read, sorry.
ReplyDeleteIt's just that michele send me
I am ashamed to say the list is much too long and in all honesty, I cannot think of the name of any of them....I was taught to read a peculiar time in the school system that I attened....they "Changed" the method of teaching at that time and I don't know if it was an experiment...but whatever it was, it didn't work well, at all! So, of course withinh a year..they went back to the old method...and I haver found that overcoming that has been a life long problem...Couple that with a bit of dyslexia, and I really think that's why so very many books went by the wayside for me...Boo Hoo...!
ReplyDeleteulysses by james joyce. i used to try to read it at least once a year. i gave up long ago
ReplyDeleteWell, I bow before you, Jean-Luc. Anyone who can read Swann's Way (even the first book) has definite
ReplyDelete"sticktoitness"....LOL
Michele sent me back today!
I usually have a stack of PRs (partially reads). Sometimes they make it to completion and other times they become FFs (file and forget). RGs (relegated to garage) is the final ignomony.
ReplyDeleterashbre
There are a few books I've given up on. Most recently it was English Passengers...I just couldn't get a grip on what was happening with the book and after 150 pages decided enough was enough!
ReplyDeleteNo I am a reader that reads until I am done...........
ReplyDeleteOver from the other Michele's
Thanks for the list; it's taught me to avoid Hemingway!
ReplyDeleteThe Deep End of the Ocean was a book I had to close over and over again. Just could not get past the part where the youngest is lost. This used to be a recurring nightmare for me in my childhood, and it was just too much to see something so similar on print.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently reading Moby Dick. :)
I couldn't get through Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. Bush was reelected while I was reading it, and it just lost its momentum.
ReplyDelete