Popular/critically acclaimed books that you can't stand?

Swiper the fox

I enjoy reading this forum and take some book recommendations from it, I'm very interested to see what books you just couldn't stand despite them being praised at every corner, it would obviously be more educative for us if you hadn't just given up after a few pages,

I'll get the ball rolling with a couple I've read(and finished) recently
The Wasp Factory had it's moments but mostly it was rubbish in my opinion

Kevin Barry is a great short story writer but his novel City of Bohane is turgid despite winning some(at least one anyway) major awards.

Obviously we'll disagree on loads but this could be an interesting thread, maybe it's been done already and could be merged, didn't see anything!

Harry Angstrom

Swiper the fox wrote: »

I enjoy reading this forum and take some book recommendations from it, I'm very interested to see what books you just couldn't stand despite them being praised at every corner, it would obviously be more educative for us if you hadn't just given up after a few pages,

I'll get the ball rolling with a couple I've read(and finished) recently
The Wasp Factory had it's moments but mostly it was rubbish in my opinion

Kevin Barry is a great short story writer but his novel City of Bohane is turgid despite winning some(at least one anyway) major awards.

Obviously we'll disagree on loads but this could be an interesting thread, maybe it's been done already and could be merged, didn't see anything!

There's a similar thread here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054973999

Heart of Darkness is one that I'd put into that category. Conrad sucks the life out of it with his overly descriptive style.

Aenaes

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Finished it recently and it's not a bad book at all but I don't understand the hype seeming to surround it and I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone.

judgefudge

The Great Gatsby

Dull, forgettable. It was quite sad at the end but overall I didn't like it. Maybe I just didn't get it.

Savoir.Faire

I found Catch-22 to be one joke spread very thin over 400 pages.

Harry Angstrom

Savoir.Faire wrote: »

I found Catch-22 to be one joke spread very thin over 400 pages.

I was glad to finish that.... eventually. I don't think I'll ever revisit it.

Borboletinha

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Long hours I'll never get back. And I've heard he might win the nobel prize this year!

Harry Angstrom

Borboletinha wrote: »

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Long hours I'll never get back. And I've heard he might win the nobel prize this year!

Alice Munro won it.

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/alice-munro-awarded-the-nobel-prize-in-literature-29650399.html

Evenstevens

judgefudge wrote: »

The Great Gatsby

Dull, forgettable. It was quite sad at the end but overall I didn't like it. Maybe I just didn't get it.

Hear hear. Think I missed something there too. Odious spoiled characters. maybe that was part of the point.

byronbay2

Not acclaimed but EXTREMELY popular was 50 Shades Of Gray. I read a few pages but left it to the ladies after that. Very poorly written and edited, I thought.

judgefudge

Borboletinha wrote: »

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Long hours I'll never get back. And I've heard he might win the nobel prize this year!

Second this. First murakami book I've ever read and I fear I may never read another one. So long and drawn out and the ending was a cop out.

Borboletinha

judgefudge wrote: »

Second this. First murakami book I've ever read and I fear I may never read another one. So long and drawn out and the ending was a cop out.

I thought it was just me. Kept waiting for something exciting to happen, never did. Pages and pages of the guy cooking or the girl exercising.
I also make it a point if I hate a book to never read anything by that author again no second chances. The authors of A million little pieces and Every dead thing are also on my black list. The latter is apparently idolised in Ireland. Horrible badly edited book!

holliehobbie

I tried reading the Life of Pi and couldn't get past the first 4 pages!! Just couldn't get into it all!

OakeyDokey

I agree Catch-22 was boring and unbearable.

I also despised Catcher in The Rye.. A perspective of a bratty, overly negative teen.

Harry Angstrom

OakeyDokey wrote: »

I also despised Catcher in The Rye.. A perspective of a bratty, overly negative teen.

That's one of my favourite books

canadianwoman

Any book written by Maya Angelou. Blech.

Asbury Park

Beloved by Toni Morrison. This book's presence on the reading list persuaded me to ditch English at Uni - that's how bad I think it is. I concluded there was nothing these people could teach me about good literature if they thought this novel was worthy of study.

chasmcb

Keri Hulme's 'The Bone People'.

Swiper the fox

chasmcb wrote: »

Keri Hulme's 'The Bone People'.

I read that while travelling in New Zealand a few years ago, I don't think I've ever worked so hard or struggled so much while reading a book, it was such a relief to finish it that I followed it up with my only ever Dan Brown book.

cyclic

If you want to work unrewardingly hard through a fog of confusion, check out 'Gravity's Rainbow' by Thomas Pynchon.

LynnGrace

The Book Thief, I read most of it, but I struggled. Two books I read that are popular, but I couldn't wait to send to the charity shop, Room and We Need To Talk About Kevin.
Have picked up The Slap a few times, and considered it, but still haven't read it.

chasmcb

Swiper the fox wrote: »

I read that while travelling in New Zealand a few years ago, I don't think I've ever worked so hard or struggled so much while reading a book, it was such a relief to finish it that I followed it up with my only ever Dan Brown book.

Haha, and I see they've just awarded the Booker to Kiwi author Eleanor Catton, the first NZ writer to win the prize since Keri Hulme.

sudzs

LynnGrace wrote: »

The Book Thief, I read most of it, but I struggled. Two books I read that are popular, but I couldn't wait to send to the charity shop, Room and We Need To Talk About Kevin.
Have picked up The Slap a few times, and considered it, but still haven't read it.

I loved all of those!

But I did not enjoy Before I Go to Sleep by S J Watson. It got great reviews but I thought it was just so implausible and downright silly at times. While reading it I found myself muttering "rubbish... ridiculous... ohforgodsake"

LynnGrace

sudzs wrote: »

I loved all of those!

But I did not enjoy Before I Go to Sleep by S J Watson. It got great reviews but I thought it was just so implausible and downright silly at times. While reading it I found myself muttering "rubbish... ridiculous... ohforgodsake"

I got through Room and Kevin, but I didn't like them, if that makes sense.
I was reading The Book Thief on a flight home, and when I got home, I left it, never finished it. They were all very popular, I know. I think I have Before I Go To Sleep somewhere, haven't tried reading it yet.

minnow

cyclic wrote: »

If you want to work unrewardingly hard through a fog of confusion, check out 'Gravity's Rainbow' by Thomas Pynchon.

True! I'm currently on my third attempt to read it in 5 years, am 300 pages in but seriously considering jacking it in. It's become one of those books I now only want to finish out of spite. I cannot recommend it.

Hayte

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

There's a similar thread here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054973999

Heart of Darkness is one that I'd put into that category. Conrad sucks the life out of it with his overly descriptive style.

Conrad or Marlow or the framing narrator? Heart of Darkness is interesting because its very unclear who is telling the story. Technically, it is being told by an unnamed narrator aboard a steamer on the River Thames, so it is difficult to tell who is embellishing, the author, his protoganist or the narrator who tells the protagonist's story.

The entire novel is a conceit within a conceit where you are never sure who is telling the truth or what is real. You can never really tell whether Marlow's derisory opinions are his own, the author's or his framing narrator adding some spice to his yarn. Its like a game of chinese whispers and I believe this is deliberate.

It ties in to the wider implications of empire building, which involve exploiting vassal or tributory states, who are stripmined of resources, their people enslaved to enrich the capital. People in London go about their daily business so distanced from the cost to human life and dignity in the Congo that it leads the reader to question where the metaphorical heart of darkness is. The implication is that it is London, not the Congo Basin but depending on who you ask and what perspective they have, it could be either.

It is possible to play the game of chinese whispers until the message never gets out intact. Who is telling the truth? Who is embellishing? You know less at the end of the novel than you do at the beginning because all the information you get is from second and third sources, none of it verifiable. I thought it was a brilliant exercise in how to misdirect, miss the point and in so doing, perpetuate a great evil.

r3nu4l

I wouldn't say that I can't stand it but Cormac McCarthy's The Road was very highly overrated. It was good but not that good!

I'd disagree over the Wasp Factory, I loved that one, same with Catch-22

Pretty.Odd.

The Book Thief, could not stand any part of it at all!

donkey_kong

I found Catch 22 stunning in places, though large parts of it were a chore to get through.

Am I the only person here who absolutely hated Kerouac's On the Road?

I recently reread Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, I think it has aged very badly.

longshanks

Shantaram.

Asbury Park

donkey_kong wrote: »

Am I the only person here who absolutely hated Kerouac's On the Road?

No, you're not alone there. Kerouac used to say he wrote the novel in three weeks on one long roll of typing paper. The story is not exactly true, but the first time I read about it I thought "yeah, and it tells." An awful pile of sh..e if I do say so myself, so it might have been more appropriate if he'd written it on toilet paper.