Bukowski's a jam tart, soft in the middle and hard on the outside.Quote:
Originally Posted by deguonis
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Bukowski's a jam tart, soft in the middle and hard on the outside.Quote:
Originally Posted by deguonis
Well yes it does but Beckett's obscurantism is a distraction too far in my view and if you thought that Godot was pointless, what about Endgame. I attach an extract from Wikipedia's summation of the play.Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
The implication in the play is that the characters live in an unchanging, static state. Each day contains the actions and reactions of the day before, until each event takes on an almost ritualistic quality. It is made clear, through the text, that the characters have a past (most notably through Nagg and Nell who conjure up memories of tandem rides in the Ardennes).
Whoopee! Book me two tickets.
Just joined this forum and was thrilled to discover that I'm not the only one who HATES Moby Dick! I love reading and it was books like this - forced, assigned reading in a college class - that suck the life and fun out of reading. This is the only book for which I bought the Cliff's Notes :-/ After reading endless pages on the tying of nautical knots in ropes, I was about ready to scream. If I wasn't being tested on the content of this book, I would have burned the thing.
I completely understand why anyone would identify Shakespeare in this list. But my main defense of Shakespeare is that he wasn't meant to be read, he was meant to be watched. I doze off reading Shakespeare, but I love watching any of his plays being performed, be it college productions, community theater, movies, what have you. The stories are timeless.
Jane Austen's "sense and sensibility"
Il disprezzo by Alberto Moravia
Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez
Martin Eden by Jack London
The Misunderstanding by Camus
Les Catilinaires by Notomb
Homo Faber by Frisch
Oscar and the Lady in Pink by Schmitt (hate him)
12 chairs by Ilf&Pertov (the other book The Little Golden Calf is much better)
Can't remember more...http://im-smiley.com/imgs/character/character063.gif
That sounds like the worst class ever! "To the Lighthouse" is the dullest, most pretentious and just plain shi@@y novel ever written. I hate it with all the passion of my heart. I have read a lot of classics and many of them tend to the dull side, but this novel is the worst reading experience I've had in my life.Quote:
Originally Posted by Love to Read
And Henry James.....right up there with the most overrated writer Ginny Woolf.
George Eliot is kind of hard to read. I definitely wouldn't say it was the most boring writing ever though. But I have had to have a break from reading Daniel Deronda for a while, and read something slightly quicker paced, I'm just impatient.
I can't really say what I found the most boring book ever because I doubt I even bothered reading many pages to remember. Also too many books I haven't even tried reading yet.
jACKIE cOLLINS is pretty boring, if I wanted to read that trash I'd go on literotica or something. Also she seems to think the name Raphael is spelled 'Rapheal' - That's like spelling the name: Michael as 'Micheal' - which is apparently the most uneducated, low-class, inbred incorrect spelling ever, according to freakonomics and some people who know about word roots, anyway.
Why was this boring? I have it sitting on my shelf and its such a short book that Ive been meaning to read it so I was just wondering about someone else's opinion on it.`Quote:
Originally Posted by deguonis
Even though I found "Great Expectations" to be rather dull (partly thanks to high school nightmares...), I'm giving "Bleak House" and "A Tale of Two Cities" a shot eventually. Hopefully, my opinion of Dickens will change...Quote:
Originally Posted by mono
Anything by Faulkner, Morrison, Dickens, and Shakespeare. With Shakespeare I can watch the plays but thank God I don't ever have to read any of it again.
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Had to abandon it half way.
When you find a famous book boring (like "Moby Dick" or "Dr Zhivago") it's usually because you're too lazy to read it.
That's ridiculous. I call Argumentum Ad Populum. (Many people like a book, not liking it makes you lazy is a complete nonsequitur.)Quote:
Originally Posted by wordeater
Anyhow, let me think... I recall being fairly bored by certain segments of Crime and Punishment, but conceptually it was at least interesting enough for me to remember most of it... That's the thing about most boring books, if they're so uninteresting, what is there to remember about it?
That's ridiculous. I call Argumentum Ad Populum. (Many people like a book, not liking it makes you lazy is a complete nonsequitur.)
There is a difference between a book that is "popular" and one that is recognized as a "classic." Of course we all like what we like... but there is something to be said for the ability to recognize that there is a difference between what we "like" and "dislike" and what is "good" or "bad." If we find this or that "classic" to be dreadfully boring it probably says more about us as readers than it does about the failings of the author.
True, but the word used was "famous," which essentially means "popular".Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I agree, though, that it's important to understand that personal taste and "objective" quality are not the same thing.