What books were you unable to finish?

[mal4mac]

Couldn't finish...or hardly start "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie. No intention to try again either.

I found it difficult getting to page 50, then gave up. Also gave up on:

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez
Ulysses - James Joyce
The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
Hunchback of Notre Dame - Hugo (though I did make it through Les Miserables with great enjoyment)
Mason & Dixon - Pynchon
Remembrance of Things Past - Proust
Being & Time - Heidegger
The Rainbow - D.H. Lawrence (made it through Sons & Lovers, wish I'd given up...)
Naked Lunch - Burroughs (Junkie was a good read.)
Treatise on Human Nature - Hume
Fear & Trembling - Kirkegaard
Physics - Aristotle (Made it through Nicomachean Ethics, with a struggle)
The Bible

I did make it through one Iliad (Rieu's translation!) but not another (Fagles' translation)

[mal4mac]

Another one is Nostromo by Joseph Conrad. The first half is a real grind. I expect many thousands of people have given up on it. They missed out because the second half is some of Conrad's best work.

I also found this, and "Lord Jim" followed a similar pattern. He's the only author I've encountered who starts as a tedious grind and finishes well. So (apart from Conrad) give up if it's a grind! There's enough literature out there that's great all the way through, why waste time with something you aren't enjoying.

[kev67]

I gave up on Catch 22. I'm sure it has many merits but I just couldn't stand his sense of humour.

That said, I think if a book has a reputation it is often worth persevering with.

I put down Catch 22 when I first tried it about age 14. It annoyed me. I read last year. I cannot say I really enjoyed it except for the Milo Minderbender parody of the stock market/financial sector, which I thought was brilliant.

I've just finished War and Peace and thought the second half was far superior to the first. It begins like a 19th Century Russian soap opera, kind of interesting but not the Tolstoy I knew from Ivan Ilyich or Kreutzer Sonata. By the end it felt like a very different book.

Another one is Nostromo by Joseph Conrad. The first half is a real grind. I expect many thousands of people have given up on it. They missed out because the second half is some of Conrad's best work.

Nostromo is reputed to be Conrad's best book. In a weak moment I bought a copy, so I ought to read it. I am not looking forward to it. I am sure I won't finish it feeling happy and uplifted.

[kev67]

Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes - I know a lot of people love this book, but it was a very long book that I found became rather repetitive very quickly.

I agree with this. I slogged through the first part. Didn't fancy the second part.

[kev67]

I always avoid the brouhaha surrounding books, films, or anything else that involves mass marketing. However, the publicity surrounding The Satanic Verses convinced me that 1.6 billion Muslims can't be wrong.

They weren't.

[Poetaster]

They weren't.

That it was a blasphemous novel?

[Emil Miller]

That it was a blasphemous novel?

Possibly but overhyped definitely

[Calidore]

I also found this, and "Lord Jim" followed a similar pattern. He's the only author I've encountered who starts as a tedious grind and finishes well. So (apart from Conrad) give up if it's a grind! There's enough literature out there that's great all the way through, why waste time with something you aren't enjoying.

Sounds like the literary equivalent of French director Henri-Georges Clouzot (The Wages of Fear, Diabolique)--takes his sweet time setting everything up, but by the end you have pieces of the couch under your fingernails.

[Marbles]

I found it difficult getting to page 50, then gave up. Also gave up on:

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez

What??

I think people are too easily intimidated with picaresque and complex works which do not read like airport novels. This and a few other books you listed require considerable investment of mind and time.

Reading constitutes more than just perfunctory enjoyment; it's hard work, reading a great work of fiction is always hard work (one only need to think of War and Peace and In Search of Lost Time) but the dividends at the end of the day are immense. One masterpiece vs 100 mediocrities and the scale will still tilt downwards on the side of the masterpiece.

[kev67]

That it was a blasphemous novel?

It wasn't very blasphemous. It implied Mohammed was a bit of a politician, but that was only a substrand of the story.

[Poetaster]

It wasn't very blasphemous. It implied Mohammed was a bit of a politician, but that was only a substrand of the story.

Ah, I've not actually read it. It's sitting in my 'to read' pile. Any good?

Open question.

[kev67]

Ah, I've not actually read it. It's sitting in my 'to read' pile. Any good?

Open question.

IMO, no. It's not an impossible slog. I just didn't like it.

[prendrelemick]

Recently I have been not finishing books because of my Kindle. I don't invest much time and effort in choosing what to read any more, if I don't like it, it I just leave it and click on the next one. Life's too short (and so is my attention span in this modern age.)


The two books I couldn't finish for significant reasons, were "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist" - because I became too painfully involved with a character's plight and began to feel depressed in a scary way - and "When the Lion Feeds" by Wilbur Smith.

Not finishing the Smith one was a life changing moment. I was a fan, I bought the book as soon as it came out, I couldn't wait to get it home. I began reading and 10 pages in suddenly saw that it was formulaic crap , and realized that most popular fiction was formulaic crap too. I do mean "suddenly", in a flash the tawdry tricks and cliches the author was using were revealed and I hated it. I put it down and decided to seek out quality Literature from then on. I am still seeking it out now, and I am in no doubt that what I've read since has had a great affect on my outlook on life.

[prendrelemick]

Ah, I've not actually read it. It's sitting in my 'to read' pile. Any good?

Open question.

I found it entertaining.

[Marbles]

It wasn't very blasphemous. It implied Mohammed was a bit of a politician, but that was only a substrand of the story.

If you tell the Muslims that Muhammad was a bit of a politician they will nod their heads in agreement. Of course he was; he was the leader of a new state and he traded and signed treatises of peace and went to war when his nascent community was threatened and etc etc. But he was a 'good' politician. You know what I mean.

In between the larger debate, the real offensive stuff in The Satanic Verses was the depiction Muhammad as being under the influence of Satan, about Quran a book that teaches how to "fart, f*** and clean one's behind", and the scene from a bordello where prostitutes are named after the prophet's many wives. It was these deliberately designed insults which got the better of the believers.