books you've had to stop reading

droid

Well-known member
"Stoner" by John Williams, most depressing thing i've read in a while. Droid if you like visceral reactions check it out.

Thanks - looked that up a while ago after a recommendation somewhere. Ill have to find a copy.
 

droid

Well-known member
Yeah, Beckett's early novels are hard work. So dank, so depressing, too long for the effect they're striving for. The later, shorter novellas are better. As are the ultra-abstract and technical later plays.

Funny thing is, that when I read the introduction I discovered that Im an acquaintance of the guy who unearthed it and was primarily responsible for its publication. Wrote him an excited email and later had to pretend Id finished it, which, I think, he saw right through.
 

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
i posted a thread about books that got the better of me, either on this board or another, i don't remember.

i can barely understand woebot's reaction to Moby Dick
it is one of my favorite books and i am firmly anti-whaling
i also love Death in the Afternoon despite being against bullfighting

i couldn't get through Ulysses but i will try again
i'm not up on irish history and i kept getting bogged down
and i gave up on Nigger of the Narcissus (J. Conrad) - i kept losing track of the characters - i reckon i'll give that another go when i'm feeling up to it

also The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein
i just couldn't stick with it - she can be maddening
plus it is a huge tome

there's more...
 

droid

Well-known member
Oooohhh, there is one actually - 100 years of solitude. I was so annoyed that almost every character in a multi generational magical realist family saga had the same name I threw it away after about 50 pages.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Not a book but I tried to read some Hegel once and I reckon I'd have to be shipwrecked with only Hegel books for company to ever read Hegel again.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Anyone done the whole of 'The Faerie Queene'? Or, indeed, the entire Holy Bible?

Luke was struggling with 'The Divine Comedy' a few months ago.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I've just remembered that I was unable to get past about page 100 of 'Lord Jim' - I found it uniquely tedious, which surprised me.

I had no trouble finishing 'Ulysees', I skipped joyfully through it. I'm big on style though, plot doesn't overly interest me. Two of my favorite novelists are Saul Bellow and Huysmans, both basically plot-less novelists.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Anyone done the whole of 'The Faerie Queene'? Or, indeed, the entire Holy Bible?
I've read the bible right through a couple of times, I guess I probably kinda skipped all the "and jehosophat begat jehenosat" stuff. I think when I was younger I thought that it was kind of important to know what it was about for some reason. And now I'm glad I do I guess - it's obviously useful for the millions of times quotes appear in popular culture and it's handy to know all the shit that is and isn't in there for religious (obviously) debates.
Just read this thread and can I be the nth person to say that I just can't get that reaction to Moby Dick. I don't even remember those scenes if I'm honest but even if I did and was horrified I wouldn't let it spoil the rest of the enormous book and.... it's all been said before anyway.
Like someone said I can't imagine being put off a book by something like that. I give up if I'm bored and the level of boredom outweighs the desire I have to finish it, otherwise I don't. Unless I lose the book - in the last couple of years I lost Pynchon's Mason and Dixon and one by Eco and I made zero effort to replace them even though I was enjoying them both. Just shrugged my shoulders and moved on to the next thing in my pile.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
So many, I can't remember them all. best to recall the ones I threw across the room. Midnight's Children was definitely one of them - insufferable, trying way too hard to be 'clever'. In non-fiction, there was a book by Adam Phillips (psychoanalyst) I was so angry at that I took to defacing it, at the age of 35 rather than 15.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Anyone done the whole of 'The Faerie Queene'? Or, indeed, the entire Holy Bible?

Luke was struggling with 'The Divine Comedy' a few months ago.

I finished Paradise Lost and remember quite enjoying it - but then, I'm one of those insufferable cunts who actually really likes The Silmarillion. I have it on good authority that Paradise Regained is a massive pile of arse, however.

I liked Midnight's Children! I appreciate that I have probably got a higher tolerance for overly flashy writing and self-indulgent magic realism than some people (although not to the extent of tolerating Orhan Pamuk, it would seem). Got The Satanic Verses sat on a bookshelf in front of me but haven't read it yet.
 

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
ah, Billy Budd! didn't get through that for some reason.

i've noticed that novellas are hard for me to finish unless i am totally gripped by the story. maybe because i feel i've got no skin in the game with a short book.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Saw this book on the NYT's 'Books of the Year' list and thought it might be an interesting read for those who love/loathe 'Moby Dick':


'The north water is where the whales are, and this novel is about the dying days of Hull’s whaling industry, in the late 1850s. Paraffin and coal oil are replacing whale oil, threatening ruin to shipowners who have invested heavily in their fleets. Only the most agile or ruthless will survive, even though there are still whales to be hunted.

The story opens violently. Henry Drax, a harpooner, has signed on for a six-month voyage on a Greenland whaler, the Volunteer, which is presently being trimmed and packed in harbour. Drax is a brute, a vacuum into which men and boys are sucked and do not emerge alive. Within the first 12 pages he has killed a Shetlander who has crossed him in a bar. Next he beats unconscious and rapes a young boy whom he suspects of leading him into a trap. Before doing this he says to the child: “I’m the fucker, me, I’m never the one that’s fucked.” Drax joins his ship, and it’s clear that if he has anything to do with it, the Volunteer is already marked for trouble.'

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/19/the-north-water-ian-mcguire-review
 

you

Well-known member
Ravenscrag by Alain Farah - pretentious self indulgent patrician lit-bro shite that doesn't work
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I've read 'Great Expectations'. It was worth it for the many long stretches of imaginative brilliance. Of course, Dickens is often sentimental/maudlin and the plot creaks under a surfeit of contrivances

I can't believe I wrote a sentence like this and wasn't struck down by a thunderbolt the very same day.
 
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