[Misc] It's Not you, Its Me Literary Blind Spots

[Bakero]

Cormac McCarthy (The Road) - I get what he was doing with the punchy, unpunctuated prose but it left me cold.

Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451) - In contrast to McCarthy's terse style, Bradbury packs his text with symbolism and metaphor. Though not completely without merit I found it rather dull and utterly forgettable.

 

[Bakero]

Harry Potter. You're not 13, read an adult book.

On a more high brow note, I'm trying to get read my way through the 'classics', I am very much struggling with Catch-22, it is not one I'll be picking up a second time.

I loved Catch 22. Laugh out loud funny at times.

 

[Me and my Monkey]

I probably get turned off more by genres and individual books than actual writers. I can't stand fantasy or horror books and only got to page 2 of Life of Pi for example. But I blame Tolkien for much of that. Overrated and boring. I've never lasted more than five minutes of the films either.

Like you I fully expect a flaming any time now.

I was made to read The Hobbit at school, and still haven’t recovered from the trauma. I just don’t get fantasy novels, I find real human beings and human experiences far more fascinating.

 

[BBassic]

I absolutely cannot get through Lord of the Rings. Mind-numbingly tedious. The films are fantastic though.

Dickens.
Austen.
Shakespeare.

They can all get in the sea.

 

[Don Quixote]

I can’t agree with Dickens. You won’t find characters like his anywhere else.

Joyce is nonsense though. Ulysses makes no sense whatsoever despsite what they say.

 

[Peteinblack]

Glad I'm not the only one who finds Dickens hard work. I thought I must be a literary philistine for finding his books over-descriptive - he'll eloquently describe a bowl of fruit, but then spend the next 6 pages describing the same bowl of fruit in different ways to show off his 'skill' with words. I find this tedious and tiresome.

I also consider Virginia Woolf to be vastly over-rated - her books are rambling, stream-of-consciousness, word-soup; she's a femme banal.

 

[hart's shirt]

Most bile is reserved for crap lazy autobiographies, however, inevitably timed for the Christmas “this will do” book buyer and almost always dull and uninteresting PR jobs with no real insight. Increased points for those ‘authors’ now onto their third or fourth lifetime “autobiography” - ie see the shelf for Price, Katie.

At the risk of appearing uncharitable, there's every chance that she's 'written' more books than she's actually read.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

I absolutely cannot get through Lord of the Rings. Mind-numbingly tedious. The films are fantastic though.

Dickens.
Austen.
Shakespeare.

They can all get in the sea.

Dickens is long-winded by today's standards but I try to remember that there was no TV in those days and people wanted weeks' worth of entertainment from a book. There wasn't much else to do in the long evenings. I can also see that Jane Austen might not be to everyone's taste if they want upfront action. But anyone who doesn't get Shakespeare is missing out big time.

My blind spots are Terry Pratchett, Val McDermid, Mervyn Peake and Brighton's very own Peter James. In all cases, it's the prose style. I've tried with all of them but I just can't get through it.

 

[Beach Hut]

Peter James and Geoffrey Archer both dullards in the literal world

 

[Gwylan]

Hmm ... lots of my favourites here: Joyce, Dickens, Austen and Hardy are all writers that I love. Ulysses is the greatest novel in the English language, only Middlemarch comes close

I'm pleased to see Tolkien featuring heavily though, a load of mumbo-jumbo about dwarves. And Peter James is a terrible writer, the Brighton settings don't detract from that.

I'm glad someone mentioned Updike, another writer I'm in no hurry to read again. And can I add William Faulkner and Henry James to the list.

The novel I've really struggled with (I've started at least half a dozen times) is Tristram Shandy. It's meant to be brilliant but I'm baffled by its appeal

 

[SeagullsoverLondon]

I can’t agree with Dickens. You won’t find characters like his anywhere else.

Joyce is nonsense though. Ulysses makes no sense whatsoever despsite what they say.

I would have thought that someone whose name is based upon a 900 page rambling story that makes no sense, would appreciate a 600 page rambling story that makes no sense, but both books are beautiful if you stick with them!

 

[Don Quixote]

Hmm ... lots of my favourites here: Joyce, Dickens, Austen and Hardy are all writers that I love. Ulysses is the greatest novel in the English language, only Middlemarch comes close

I'm pleased to see Tolkien featuring heavily though, a load of mumbo-jumbo about dwarves. And Peter James is a terrible writer, the Brighton settings don't detract from that.

I'm glad someone mentioned Updike, another writer I'm in no hurry to read again. And can I add William Faulkner and Henry James to the list.

The novel I've really struggled with (I've started at least half a dozen times) is Tristram Shandy. It's meant to be brilliant but I'm baffled by its appeal

Perhaps I should read Ulysses again. What would you say is so good about it? I felt the last chapter was the best bit.

 

[Don Quixote]

I would have thought that someone whose name is based upon a 900 page rambling story that makes no sense, would appreciate a 600 page rambling story that makes no sense, but both books are beautiful if you stick with them!

Very true! I have stuck with Ulysses and have read it once. Maybe I’ll give it another go. Don Quixote is genius though, and it does make sense, much more than Ulysses does.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Dickens is easy.

Joyce is better if you listen to it.

Virginia Woolf is just bloody irritating.

 

[Seagull58]

George RR Martin. Was really into the GOT series a few years ago and I thought I'd try the books. I thought the first half of the first one was a hard slog, slow and a grind. Didn't get any further.

Read almost all of the Jack Reacher books. Was great to start with and enjoyed the first half dozen, but then they seemed to get very 'samey': lone drifter goes into a town, gets in trouble, beats up a few baddies and kills a few more, finds a woman to shag and then leaves.

Did you write the script for High Plains Drifter?

 

[Peteinblack]

At the risk of appearing uncharitable, there's every chance that she's 'written' more books than she's actually read.

Her ghost-writer is kept busy.

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

Dostoevsky. Namely Crime and punishment. Utter, utter tedium.

Hemingway is another. I've read a few of his books and I can't get into him, I just find him dull.

 

[Albion in the north]

Fiction in general. I probably lack the imagination for it. I tend to read autobiograhpies or educational books. The last "fiction" I read was in the 90s, The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy but it turns out it was at least semi autobiograhical anyway.

 

[Brightonfan1983]

Charles Dickens is f***** hard work. Tried reading Nicholas Nickleby to my daughter once- am convinced that Dickens' only objective in writing that twaddle was to get in the Guiness Book of World Records for writing the longest sentence ever written (James Joyce excepted of course)

He was paid by the chapter, so the longer he could stretch the story out....

He's really rather good though

 

[SeagullsoverLondon]

Very true! I have stuck with Ulysses and have read it once. Maybe I’ll give it another go. Don Quixote is genius though, and it does make sense, much more than Ulysses does.

I love Don Quixote, perhaps it does go on a bit too long! Ulysses is much harder as it requires you to work at it. Each chapter is different and Joyce is throwing in Irish history, Greek mythology and the kitchen sink all over the place, making up words along the way.
I think the key is first time you read it not to worry about trying to understand it, go along with the words and phrases (as someone said, listen to the CDs or audible) and try to get the rhythm of each chapter.
Then if it has grabbed your attention, try to read again after a good break, maybe look up some of the allusions, read up on Irish early 20th Century history, and things slowly fall into place.

Or failing that, go read Jackie Collins!