Slothrop
Tight but Polite
I found it got pretty page-turny about half way through, when the plot actually got going...
books you've had to stop reading
- Thread starter Woebot
- Start date
I found it got pretty page-turny about half way through, when the plot actually got going...
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Actually yeah, that's fair - I'm at about that point now. I'd class it along with Moby Dick as a 'believe the hype' book.
droid
Well-known member
Books you have a moral/physical/psychic objection to I assume.
I had to stop reading both Ligotti's 'Conspiracy...' and Reynolds 'Retromania' as they were both so depressing. Picked them both up again though, have read the former thrice now.
Reading Tim Cahill's book about John Wayne Gacy atm, which is brilliantly written and relentlessly disturbing - not in a gory way, but in how he takes interviews with Gacy and fashions them into a narrative, only occasionally allowing the pure horror to rise to the surface. Reminds me a bit of the final part of 2666 with its catalogue of corpses and dread implications. Tough going.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Ha, I read Conspiracy... while on holiday in Thailand last year. I don't know if I found it depressing as such, although it certainly didn't increase my desire to have children (something I'm extremely ambivalent about anyway).
Interesting (or maybe inevitable) someone should mention 2666 - I was thinking about that book just earlier today. I definitely struggled to get through 'The part about the crimes', I mean, there's only so many times you can read the phrase "vaginally and anally raped" before you find yourself saying "Fucking hell mate, we get the picture already"; but in retrospect it's actually crucial to the book as a whole. I think I mentioned here while I was reading it that although nothing in it happens that's explicitly supernatural, it's imbued with a seething cosmic dread that reminded me of nothing so much as Lovecraft.
I think Heller is an interesting one. His first four novels are incredible and delightful to read until you get to about page 250 and you realise that there are 150 pages left to go and the joke has already been done to death (however well). I had to force myself through the last third of 'God Knows' even though I loved it. 'Good as Gold' probably has the best economy and variation.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Did you read it (or enough of it) to form a justified opinion on it, or do you just dislike the idea of it?
droid
Well-known member
My issues with conspiracy and retromania weren't with the ideas alone, but with their effectiveness. I couldn't find any way out, any crack in the logic.
The Road is another one (though I ripped through it). An utterly convincing tale of somebody's future - a thought I couldnt get out of my head.
The Road is another one (though I ripped through it). An utterly convincing tale of somebody's future - a thought I couldnt get out of my head.