Too Much Author

[PabloQ]

I felt that in The Wings of the Dove, Henry James was too much in presence in the narrative. James seemed to write this novel to entertain himself more than to entertain me the reader. I ended up not caring much for his characters or his plot or his story or his writing style. As the book moved along I was able to adjust and push through to the end, but throughout the book, James seemed like he had all the secrets and he wasn't willing to share them with me. He left a lot of things open to my interpretation as a reader, which is okay, but in this case, James fell short of giving the reader enough to work to develop one's own conculsions.
So here's the question:
What book have you read (completely) in which the author was too heavy handed or manipulative as to ruin the reading experience?

[Dark Muse]

In reading Violen by Anne Rice, whom I normally really like I felt the book fell short of her usual writing style becasue I felt as if she had written the book more for her personally then for the reader. To me it felt the work was a very personal peice but it did not really translate well to the general reader whom did not have the experince she had had.

[Sir Bartholomew]

I always felt Henry James wrote like that to deliberately confuse his readers, so that, at least, we get the same feeling of uneasiness and chaos as his characters do. (In The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl we see his characters trying to figure what others are trying to figure out, one major player stays ahead of everybody) I always keep in mind that this is integral and a major part of his fiction; in that way I wouldn't feel that bad if I didn't get what he's trying to say. Sometimes it's fun being mixed up, scratching your head and resisting the urge to wring Henry James' ghosts' neck. But it's all part of the fun.