What books were you unable to finish?

[English reader]

I could never finish any Stephen King novels. Otherwise, I'm pretty good about finishing books.

[AuntShecky]

I could not finish:

-The sound and the fury; faulkner....

I finished that particular novel only because it was part of a course assignment (several-- I mean several--Presidential administrations ago.) All my academic life I heard how great Faulkner was supposed to be, but I just couldn't see it. It's not merely a question of the difficulty of his writing; it's just that it moves soooooo slowly. Even so, I figure the highbrows are more in the know than I am. That's why I feel extremely inadequate as well as slightly guilty about disliking Faulkner. I did like the Joanne Woodward/Paul Newman movie "The Long Hot Summer," which was based on a couple of Faulkner's shorter works.

Coincidentally, just this morning I enjoyed reading " Requiem for a Noun, or Intruder in the Dusk," a parody of the Bard of Oxford, MS by Peter DeVries, a writer who's always good for a laugh.

Also gave up on:

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez

Tried reading this one and failed. Next time I can get a ride to the library I might check it out again for another go, since I'm a fan of "magic realism."

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.

I'll agree with you here. What I disdain about Ellis is his writing style, which strikes me as affected and pretentious. That irritating use of the second person, for instance. (Or have I got him confused with Jay McInerney?) I'm pretty sure that I would not characterize either writer as "postmodernist." According to my understanding of the term, postmodernism is the realm of the wonderful Donald Barthelme and the great John Barth.

[Vota]

I stopped reading Don Quixote and Catch-22 before getting to page 100, and frankly don't care. I read The Inferno and realized I had no interested reading the other two parts, nor would I every likely re-read it for pleasure or knowledge.

I made it about 3/4 of the way through The Aeneid, and thought, meh, he's biting off Homer and can't hold his jock strap. I told this to a professor of mine and I was surprised when he agreed with me. He did say that the chief thing about Virgil was the quality of it when spoke in Latin.

The Iliad and The Odyssey translations by Robert Fagles are both fantastic. They have a great sense of speed, yet still retain an epic quality to them. The Richmond Lattimore version of The Iliad is fantastic because it really does have a stately and epic quality to it. If I could only have TWO translations, it would be his and Robert Fagles. I think the reason that translators often only get high praise for one translation of Homer is because the two works are so different from each other. I can't comment for any other translator, but I was introduced to these two epics back to back through Robert Fagle's translation, and imo, he nailed both.

Moby Dick is a great book. It's just this grand, bizarre thing that is beautiful even if Melville's syntax is at times strikingly odd.

War and Peace is not a hard read at all, and the cast of characters isn't that big. It's mostly the names. It started really slow for me, but Tolstoy is such a solid writer that the first 110 or so pages while being fairly dull, did a nice job introducing the characters and setting up the massive story. By the time you're halfway through the book the characters work themselves out and it's not hard at all to follow along. I'm about 4/5 of the way through the book and enjoying it very much. I can't say it's the greatest book of all time, but it is definitely a great book, one that I will look forward to reading again. That's pretty much become my gold standard with books. Did I enjoy them, and do I think I can learn more and or get more out of them on a re-read? If yes to both, then it's a keeper, otherwise sell it.

[Ramona Tudor]

I have come across several books that made it difficult for me to finish them. When I was in high school I was unable to finish Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. The funny thing is that I didn't find it hard to read, or anything of the sort (and I was certainly not displeased with the book's over-all content). What bothered me was a certain passage from the book where a certain character was skinning a meadow... it made me go nuts, if I should say it in a way that would match my past self. I know, however, that today I would enjoy the book and it's on my to-read list for a while. Even though I now can state with a sort of certainty that I would enjoy the book, there still ”is” a past-me in high school who didn't enjoy the book. Or, to be more accurate, this person that was once myself did not enjoy Tolstoy's exaggerate description of a man who was skinning a meadow. Meanwhile I've come across certain books that were similar to the certain passage from Anna Karenina, and I was surprised by how much I actually liked them. I have in mind this particular Romanian novel, called ”Ion” (Ion is a name which is rightly translated as ”John” in English). This character, let's call him John, was very fond of Earth and agriculture, so to speak. And there is this mad passage where he kisses the Earth, and it's one of the most intense scenes I've ever read. Anyhow. what I am trying to say is that even though I found that scene boring when I was in high school, I am sure that today I might perceive it differently.

There were also certain books I couldn't read and dropped them very fast. I don't remember those titles, as they were not as important as to note them down... though this is this one book I haven't been able to finish until now (even though I am not so sure that I don't like it, it's more like I haven't got the right chance and mood to read it). It's a Romanian book that I hardly know how to translate... I could roughly translate it as ”The publican of rains” or ”Rain's turnpike man”, or something along those lines (it is rather weird, though). The author's style is very dense and I can hardly cope with it - you find yourself wondering what was he talking about two pages ago, and it's hard to follow the sentences as they are very long. The book in itself, as well as its content, is quite interesting. However, I find it hard to cope with it for too long and end up by dropping it.

Even though I have already given two examples, I still haven't made my point. The above paragraphs are only the introduction to what I actually wanted to say: that I am having a hard time trying to finish Soren Kierkegaard's works. I've come across two books until now, Fear and trembling and Sickness unto Death. I started reading both of them, but could not finish them by any means. I've read most of Sickness unto Death, but was quite impossible for me to finish it. Even though I found the book very interesting, I couldn't finish it because in the last part, it seemed to me, the author was talking too much about Christianity, and it made me feel uneasy, frustrated, and in the end I had to drop it because I wasn't even able to pay attention to what he was ”saying”. I have to confess that this is very frustrating for me because I know how interesting Kierkegaard actually is, and I have also been studying parts from Fear and trembling last semester, at my Faculty. However, even though this is the case, I cannot finish these two books. I found Sickness unto Death extremely interesting, and I even felt a certain corespondency between me and the text. Even so, from a certain point, I was unable to finish it (and the book still lays somewhere in my bookshelf, rented from my faculty's library). It's frustrating and quite annoying that I can't finish them, and I plan to try The concept of anxiety soon and see whether I can finish this one or not. I admit Kierkegaard's works aren't an easy read (or, well, that's what most people suggest), yet I feel disappointed that I cannot finish it. And this disappointment, I have to say, is fully and rightfully directed to my own persona, not towards the author or the books.

[Emil Miller]

Another book I was unable to start is Fear and Loathing in Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

[ennison]

That cruel novel "The Crimson Petal and the White". Lots of others. It's a long time since I felt the necessity of finishing because I have started.