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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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.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.
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 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.
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)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)
I was just 20 when I read it, and still have a copy now - great book imo.I felt guilty about giving up on 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee'.
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.I've abandoned loads. If a book hasn't got me within 50 pages or so, to the charity shop it goes.
Should’ve got to the point.Moby Dick, took about 4 chapters to describe a harpoon.
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.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.
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.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.
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.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.
I’ve read it. Not bad but a predictable endingThe Bible.