- Apr 13, 2015
- 3,751
I gave up on S by JJ Adams..... but I may revisit, it's a complicated book about and within a book.... deciding how to read it is the key.
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[Misc] Books you gave up on
- Thread starter Flounce
- Start date
Cheshire Cat
The most curious thing..
Dan Brown - is completely unreadable crap.
Dick Knights Mumm
Take me Home Falmer Road
I have considered Proust but I’m just not sure I’ve got it in me. I did have the most delicious madeleine earlier in the summer in south east France that gave me encouragement.
North of Robertsbridge
Active member
You’ve just saved yourself a few hundred pages of tedium (another of my degree texts). The madeleine is as good as it gets
Well….. yes and no. Apparently the ending is contentious
Schrodinger's Jesus?
I mean, it is theological stuff and I'm holding tight to not believing or not not believing in anything. He discusses God, which isn't necessarily my favorite topic, but everything is quite radical in a sense that seems... metaphysically sensible some x hundred years later. Very much in touch with Christian tehology, yet hated by all of churches. He held a very human-centric view which has today become dominating.
It is interesting to find out on the origins on why we reason why we do, and he is influential in that, but half of his stuff is quite incomprehensible.
This is where I left off this morning:
Every sentence takes 15 minutes to read and probably 30 if you're stoned. Then trying to understand the shit and puzzle it together with what has been said on the previous 500 pages, well... I'm not giving up but I'm getting there...
Wardy's twin
Well-known member
- Oct 21, 2014
- 8,703
It was 50+ years ago when is 14 or so and haven't been tempted back . I guess most of what i read is 'light' stuff so I just plough through it often as a way to fill time rather than be engaged. Some books are heavier or factual accounts but most are simple detectives. Loved Orwell though and Lord of the Rings and have reread each probably every 10 years . Probably need to go back to Steinbeck and a few others.
Want to know what I mean by "inconsequential dross"? Let's consider the start of A Christmas Carol:
"Marley was dead"
Great start, let's move on.
"to begin with."
It's the start of the book, so that makes sense.
"There is no doubt whatever about that."
Glad about that, it'd knock the story off track if you changed your mind in the second sentence.
"The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner."
Starting to lose me now mate if I'm being honest.
"Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to."
Good for him.
"Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail."
I know, that's what you started with.
It clearly wouldn't.
It's not like I'm aiming to convince anybody of anything anyway, it's a thread about books people have given up on. Ironically I'm pretty sure I read A Christmas Carol in full at school. Of course in my memory (and most people's) that starting paragraph's shortened down to less than the first and last sentences, which is clearly exactly what Dickens should have done himself.
Iggle Piggle
Well-known member
- Sep 3, 2010
- 5,788
I'm one of the people that gave up on Wolf Hall, however, the Barry Shitpeas review of the TV adaptation is a thing of beauty
- Oct 12, 2022
- 2,498
Dylan Thomas has a great reputation as a poet, but apparently has been criticised for the lack of a consistent voice in his fiction. I’ve read his collected short fiction, and it’s genuinely brilliant. So, ignore the scholars that sniff and give it a try. I think I had a Penguin “Modern Classics” edition before one of the small childlike forms dropped a glass of milk over it while it sat on the coffee table.
Under Milk Glass more like.
Dune.
I have tried to get into it in all its variations. I just found it incredibly tedious.
I have tried to get into it in all its variations. I just found it incredibly tedious.
Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,136
Strange piece to try to pick apart. It's comedy. He's deliberately saying the same thing in different ways to amuse through repetition. For me, it's the obvious inspiration for 'Red Dwarf's' 'He's dead Dave'. Dickens goes on to start wondering 'what's so dead about a doornail?' You're criticising it for being inconsequential, when it's supposed to be. He's playing with language and playing a part to ease the reader in before things get first serious, then scary.Want to know what I mean by "inconsequential dross"? Let's consider the start of A Christmas Carol:
"Marley was dead"
Great start, let's move on.
"to begin with."
It's the start of the book, so that makes sense.
"There is no doubt whatever about that."
Glad about that, it'd knock the story off track if you changed your mind in the second sentence.
"The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner."
Starting to lose me now mate if I'm being honest.
"Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to."
Good for him.
"Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail."
I know, that's what you started with.
It clearly wouldn't.
You don't have to like him, but there are far worse bits you could have picked to stress how annoying he can be.
Hemingway and Thomas are two of my favourite authors.
Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises being my favourite book of all time.
Under Milk Wood is magical and I own many performances of it, the iconic Burton reading being one of my favourites.
An animation of it exists and is wonderful.
I’d also recommend Orwell’s, Down And Out in Paris and London. Great piece of work.
But anyway enough about stuff I like, back on track;
Terry Pratchett’s books. I want to like them. Never got through one of them .
Iggle Piggle
Well-known member
- Sep 3, 2010
- 5,788
Glad it's not just me. I should love everything about Dune. Spice. Yawn.
Yeah probably. I'm not taking this conversation nearly as seriously as some people seem to be. I could do pretty much the same with, say, A Tale of Two Cities, which riffs on its opening line so long that even Tony Iomi would say he's taking it too far.
Of course, it's not funny anyway. I don't really see the Red Dwarf link either, that feels more like a reference to the emotionless delivery of HAL9000 and how a complete idiot like Lister would react to it.
Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,136
'Under Milk Wood' was, I think, originally a radio play, written to be heard. I picked up the CD a few years back. Richard Burton challenging John Arlott for the title of greatest radio voice ever. It's one of the most beautiful things ever made. I hadn't a clue what any of it was about until about the third or fourth listen, but just drifted off, floating on a warm ocean of the sounds of language. Here's the 2003 revamp:
I was brought up on Under Milk Wood. I took it to primary school once when we had to talk about the books we were reading, gave my teacher a bit of a shock.
My father used to do a one-man Dylan Thomas show, so I got used to him rehearsing that. I still have a recording of it, so any time I want to hear my dad's voice I can. And he's been dead as a doornail for 32 years.
Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,136
I think it's a Victorian thing. They loved the sound of their own voices. A lot of Moby Dick is more whaling manual than plot and I remember, when reading Les Miserables, being enthralled by the daring escape from the authorities by diving into the sewer, then turning the page to a new chapter to find out what happened to Valjean and Marius and getting a full history of the Paris sewers, for an entire bloody chapter. Thanks Vic.m20gull
Well-known member
I'm not sure I've ever got past the second page of 'A Tale of Two Cities'