What books were you unable to finish?

[deborah8315]

I could not finish:
-The waves; virginia woolf
-The sound and the fury; faulkner....

[perhapsican]

I always find it so surprising that people dislike Conrad, or at the least find his writing non-engaging! I loved Lord Jim (and of course HoD), but to each his own....

I have never finished a piece of Bret Easton Ellis' writing, including novels American Psycho and Lunar Park. I can't tell if I have a particular dislike for Ellis, or if it just stems from my overarching disdain for- dare I say the word??- postmodernism.

[readspider]

I enjoy reading disturbing and or banned books and most I have enjoyed immensely.

I could not, however, finish 'Tropic of Cancer' by Henry Miller and 'We need to talk about Kevin' by Lionel Shriver.

I also threw De Sades Sodom away a couple of times before I could finish it. That book was tough.

[Jaylon Wennings]

I couldn't get through Moby Dick until I bought a nice hardback edition, and then because I was fetishising the physical book (shallow I know) I was motivated to get through it and loved every page. Probably helped that I was a few years older and came at it differently also. The above also worked with my first couple of Shakespeare plays, although I now, knowing better, get a Norton Critical paperback for those...

Ulysses I finally got through after putting it down halfway for perhaps as much as a year. I launched back in a second time last year from the start but got bored. I once watched a discussion between Clive James and Martin Amis where James said something to the effect that he had read it many times but never in the correct order of chapters. At the time I thought he was being a pretentious ******, but on reflection I think he's right - in future I'll pick a chapter I remember liking and just read that.

[Iain Sparrow]

I always find it so surprising that people dislike Conrad, or at the least find his writing non-engaging! I loved Lord Jim (and of course HoD), but to each his own....

I have never finished a piece of Bret Easton Ellis' writing, including novels American Psycho and Lunar Park. I can't tell if I have a particular dislike for Ellis, or if it just stems from my overarching disdain for- dare I say the word??- postmodernism.

Now see, Heart of Darkness ranks in my top 25 all time favorite books, but I hated Lord Jim.

I could never finish Les Misérables... not that I really gave it a valiant try.

[readspider]

I too struggled with American Psycho and finishing it was a task.

I liked two other later novels by him - The Rules of Attraction and Glamorama. They seemed to be better written.

[Paulclem]

There's quite a few books I couldn't finish. Life's to short with too many good books I like to struggle with any.
The Turn of the Screw was tedious.
Middlemarch was dull though Silas Marner is excellent.
I finished Austen's Emma, but only because we were studying it. I won't be reading another one. (Oh no, but you can bet some weird occurrence will compel me against my will to read one day - bah).

[Marbles]

I can't remember any book of note which I had been unable to finish. Although there is a long list of books remained unfinished, but that's because they were badly written and boring and the reason I can't remember them is that there was nothing to remember about them. Most of them were newly printed contemporary novels which I acquired and started on in a fleeting moment to 'see' if the new writer has something 'new' to say. Most times I was disappointed, only reading 1/3 of the junk and skimming through the rest of the waste and finally relegating them to the forgotten nooks of my bookshelf.

[Whosis]

I was able to finish The Iliad over audio CDs. I thought there was enough action in it that reading would have been bearable. I could not finish The Testament by John Grisham after page 100. I thought he was trying to impress me too much, and I thought the writing was insincere. I had to put down Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann after a short read because of the dense vocabulary.

[YesNo]

I was not able to finish Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake.

[Emil Miller]

I was able to finish The Iliad over audio CDs. I thought there was enough action in it that reading would have been bearable. I could not finish The Testament by John Grisham after page 100. I thought he was trying to impress me too much, and I thought the writing was insincere. I had to put down Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann after a short read because of the dense vocabulary.

It's no less dense in German but it's a great novel.

[Emil Miller]

I was not able to finish Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake.

I was unable to start them.

[mal4mac]

What??

I think people are too easily intimidated with picaresque and complex works which do not read like airport novels.

I stand by my rejection of 100 Years of Solitude and In Search of Lost Time. I've read enough to know what I like, and to drop something if I don't like it. I like most things, and surely I can drop the 1 in 10 "great" authors I don't like! If you happen to like them, then bully for you, but you shouldn't accuse someone of being an "Airport novel reader" if they don't like your favourite author.

After trying (quite) hard, I didn't find myself enjoying Marquez or Proust. For me, reading should be serious *and* enjoyable, and I have enjoyed the major works of Tolstoy, Steinbeck, Dickens, Shakespeare, Hardy, Conrad...

So it's not a question of lowering my taste because Marquez and Proust are too difficult, just that I have a different taste.

[Marbles]

I stand by my rejection of 100 Years of Solitude and In Search of Lost Time. I've read enough to know what I like, and to drop something if I don't like it. I like most things, and surely I can drop the 1 in 10 "great" authors I don't like! If you happen to like them, then bully for you, but you shouldn't accuse someone of being an "Airport novel reader" if they don't like your favourite author.

After trying (quite) hard, I didn't find myself enjoying Marquez or Proust. For me, reading should be serious *and* enjoyable, and I have enjoyed the major works of Tolstoy, Steinbeck, Dickens, Shakespeare, Hardy, Conrad...

So it's not a question of lowering my taste because Marquez and Proust are too difficult, just that I have a different taste.

Serious reading is difficult. Sometimes the 'enjoyable' bit doesn't come in far into the book when the story comes to life by the turn of narrative. I remember my exasperation and a little boredom when I was exactly on the 95th page of One Hundred Years of Solitude and would probably have put it down if it was not for my insistent friend whose opinions on literature I hold high esteem. So I persisted and by the time I was past 130/135 pages I found myself deeply absorbed in the story. It's difficult and it has so many characters but the reward lies for the reader when they have read it to the end. I cant forget the scene when the runnels of blood of one Arcadio flow throw the town to rest at his mother's feet who is informed of his son's death in this way. Beautiful.

War and Peace is great but so many times we hear people giving it up in exasperation because they can't follow the dense story and the whole bevy of ridiculously named characters. It is normal to have multiple failed attempts before reading it finally to the end. So yeah, a little bit of perseverance goes a long way. Education is tough to come by; it's not always enjoyable but in the end it is very rewarding.

[Cleanthes]

Samuel Butler once wrote something like: 'I think that, if I put some effort into it, I may come to enjoy Bach's music, but I like to enjoy the things I like without effort.'

After modernism, being difficult and requiring effort by the reader has often been seen as de rigueur for great novels. That's why when it comes to Ford Madox Ford, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, etc. some readers cannot enjoy their works.