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[Misc] Books you gave up on



Peteinblack

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jun 3, 2004
4,123
Bath, Somerset.
I don't like conceding defeat, but I gave up on Bulgakov's Master and the Margarita, Thackeray's Vanity Fair and Ayn Rand's two 'classics' Atlas Shrugged, and The Fountainhead.
 
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Sid and the Sharknados

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Sep 4, 2022
5,607
Darlington
As I say, I did try it myself but unreadable doesn’t really do that “novel” justice. Pretentious shite from a man who was going through a mental health crisis at the time post-Ulysses, and high on cocaine and morphine. It can’t be understood because it’s meaningless.
I have read various interpretations of what it's about, however these were presumably all invented by people mad enough to have both started it and read to the end.
 


jcdenton08

Offended Liver Sausage
NSC Patron
Oct 17, 2008
14,124
I have read various interpretations of what it's about, however these were presumably all invented by people mad enough to have both started it and read to the end.
Anyone can make up an interpretation though. I find it funny when scholarly people make up convoluted, intellectual interpretations of text, or lyrics, or movies, “explaining” what they mean - only for the author to turn around and say it’s bollocks.

I could do a well-written 2000 word essay on how “She’s Electric” by Oasis is actually a damning indictment of Norwegian politics in the 1920’s, but it’d be pretentious shite of course.
 


Brovion

In my defence, I was left unsupervised.
NSC Patron
Jul 6, 2003
19,804
The appendix to V1 of Capital is really interesting, and points to a different understanding to the development of capitalism than the one normally taken from Marx (ie, productive industry consolidating, falling rate of profit, increasing class homogenisation and conflict, revolution)
Never got to the appendix! I was young and it was back in the 1970s, and I wanted to be the only Marxist I knew who had actually, shock horror, read Marx. (I did manage The Communist Manifesto)
 






Cheeky Monkey

Well-known member
Jul 17, 2003
23,813
I've abandoned loads. If a book hasn't got me within 50 pages or so, to the charity shop it goes.
My record is about 380 pages into a 400 page thriller, could not be arsed to finish it as the dénouement was some 'cobbled together to make everything fit' shite.
:rock: :amex:
 








Professor Plum

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 27, 2024
532
I'd rather read every page of Jack Torrance's "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" than put myself through any Dickens ever again.
Dickens is a truly brilliant wordsmith. You might dislike his plots or be minded not to read him for any number of reasons but his actual skill with words is immense. Mind you, I hated his stuff at school. It was only much later, in my 40s, that I went back to him and loved it. Great Expectations the pinnacle for me. It helps if you’re interested in social history.
 


Seagull

Yes I eat anything
Feb 28, 2009
802
On the wing
Moby Dick, 200 pages in where’s the frigging whale?
Catch 22, just couldn’t face another page of utter drivel

And ones I dragged myself to the end of out of sheer willpower
The Famished Road by Ben Okri - just very weird, born in the wrong continent probably
Candide by Voltaire - dire, born in the wrong century I guess
 


amexer

Well-known member
Aug 8, 2011
6,762
As I like autobiographys have learned most are very poor when put together when youngish or at height of fame and just put out by agent to make money while they have public awareness.. Certainly several I have not finished. Best ones are those that have a passion to put life story down. Last three were excellent the inventor of Nike, Steve Jobs and Kieth Richards. The latter one surprised me how good it was
 




Dave the OAP

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
46,737
at home
The bible
 


BNthree

Plastic JCL
Sep 14, 2016
11,423
WeHo
Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. She's won the Nobel Prize for literature but found that book dull and hard to get into.
 


BBassic

I changed this.
Jul 28, 2011
12,984
My record is about 380 pages into a 400 page thriller, could not be arsed to finish it as the dénouement was some 'cobbled together to make everything fit' shite.
:rock: :amex:
In a similar vein I read through almost the entirety of Stephen King's seven book Dark Tower series but gave up when SPOILERS King wrote himself in as a character. Awful.
 






Sid and the Sharknados

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Sep 4, 2022
5,607
Darlington
Dickens is a truly brilliant wordsmith. You might dislike his plots or be minded not to read him for any number of reasons but his actual skill with words is immense. Mind you, I hated his stuff at school. It was only much later, in my 40s, that I went back to him and loved it. Great Expectations the pinnacle for me. It helps if you’re interested in social history.
If by "brilliant wordsmith" you mean "verbose bore who never says anything once when he can say it 50 times using as many words as possible", then I'd be forced to agree.
 




SAC

Well-known member
May 21, 2014
2,628
Tale of two Cities and Captain Corelli‘s Mandolin. Both were recommended to me and both very difficult to get into.

Each to their own but I found Catch 22 and excellent read.
 




Questions

Habitual User
Oct 18, 2006
25,456
Worthing
Ken Keseys “Sometimes a great notion”
My brother said I was ‘too young for it’ when I returned the book saying I couldn’t get into it.
I almost certainly was at the time.
I think I might still go back to it…..
 


pocketseagull

Well-known member
Dec 29, 2014
1,360
Seem to remember it took a couple of attempts for Catch-22 to click but definitely worth it, incredibly funny book.
 


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