What book can you just not get into?

Scarinae

Easily_Irritate wrote:

I don't think I've heard of Three men in a boat... who wrote it?

Jerome K. Jerome. It was written in the nineteenth century like.

I know I keep adding to this, but I also couldn't get into a book called "Smilla's Feeling for Snow". I mean, I read half of it and just got bored

Nimrod's Son

"Otherland" by Tad Williams was a toil. I actually got really far into it (about three quarters of the way) but it was taking forever to read. Then I found out it was the first in a series of books and I decided nuts to that. I tried to stay with it after a really good opening and my mate kept ranting about it. Alas, it was not to be.

I don't think there's anything more painful than trying to finish a book you just haven't got any interest in (regardless of whether it's good or bad).

Fenny

The Great Gatsby. I don't really know why I found it so hard to get into it, because it's not a bad book - it got off to a fairly slow start, but as a whole, I enjoyed once I had finished it. Didn't like it during the reading of it, I mean.
And The Silmarillion. It's still sitting on my bookshelf half-read. It's quite galling to me because I enjoyed LOTR so much.

theCzar

Fenny wrote:

The Great Gatsby. I don't really know why I found it so hard to get into it, because it's not a bad book - it got off to a fairly slow start, but as a whole, I enjoyed once I had finished it. Didn't like it during the reading of it, I mean.
And The Silmarillion. It's still sitting on my bookshelf half-read. It's quite galling to me because I enjoyed LOTR so much.

I found both of those kinda hard going as well. I thought that not a lot happened in The Great Gatsby until the end, i thought there was going to be gangster intrigue, and was a little disappointed.

Silmarilion was hard to read because it didn't really have characters and a story you could follow, it's a neat piece of mythology that shows the origins of Sauron and the Men of Westernesse, but it's a not a book that grips you.

Fenny

^ Yeah, that's definitely true. It's terribly hard to apply real interest in the Silmarillion because of the lack of characters. I'll give it a try again sometime, though.
It's probably the only book I couldn't finish. I have an insane habit of never being able to put a book down, no matter how bad it is, until I've finished. :P

Fenster

Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson.

I read Cryptonomicon, loved it. I'm trying to get into this, but the fact he keeps going off on five page tangents to explain a point has put me off, somewhat.

LadyJ

Ha,just found that "Three men in a boat" book on my aunt's book shelf! I'll soon see what all the fuss is about!

Franky Boy

Fiesta - Ernest Hemingway.
I have tried so many times.......sigh.

LoneGunM@n

Clive Cussler's Golden Buddha ... in a word sh!te

nesf

There have been a few books that were very tough for me to get through. I needed an open dictionary beside me to read them and grasp them fully. Books on philosophy mostly.

One of Satre's books, can't remember which one exactly, was the last one like this. Was a few years back iirc.


There are however other books whose jilted attempts at prose caused my brain to haemorrage but I don't think of them in the same way

Tar.Aldarion

Fenny wrote:

^ Yeah, that's definitely true. It's terribly hard to apply real interest in the Silmarillion because of the lack of characters. I'll give it a try again sometime, though.
It's probably the only book I couldn't finish. I have an insane habit of never being able to put a book down, no matter how bad it is, until I've finished. :P

ive never really put down a book but on the silmarillion subject,lack of characters!!!?! it has 5 million :P but anyway i think it's one of the best books(if not the best)ever written,amazing.along with it go the unfinished tales etc books i can never stop reading.at any point in time one of the books i am reading is a tolkien

arbeitsscheuer

Closing Time, Joseph Hellar's sequel to Catch 22, in which all the characters are in old age and nearing the "closing time" of their lives.
Catch 22 was brilliant, easy to read and a blast, with colourful, rich characters but... This I just find so hard-going.

I actually bought it a year ago, and hav been reading it in fits and starts since then, and am only halfway thru.
It's a much longer book than Catch 22, but it usually takes me about 2-3 weeks to read a book this long (and much quicker if I really really enjoy it).

Just can't get into it. But I'll keep pluggin away.

thesteve

I'm another one for Bill Brysons A Short History of Almost Everything, find some of it interesting, some of it boring but just wanna get it out of the way now, feels like more of a task than anything else...

Johnny Storm

Ulysses (have read the 1st chapter several times over the years - LOL - maybe some day...)
Foucalts Pendulum - zzzzzzzzzzzz

Johnny Storm

Fenster wrote:

Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson.

I read Cryptonomicon, loved it. I'm trying to get into this, but the fact he keeps going off on five page tangents to explain a point has put me off, somewhat.

I read it and am halfway through The Confusion. I'm not sure its worth the effort. You're right he is obviously being paid by the word. Him and his editor need a good boot up the arse.

He is obviously a suberb, intelligent writer when he gets it together, can tend towards the obscure.

Cryptonomicon - excellent

Diamond Age - was blah-to-OK - might read it again someday.

Snow Crash - excellent - who wouldn't love a book about a guy called Hero Protagonist?

Zodiac - blah-to-OK - I read it but can't remember much about it

Interface (?) - crap - I think he co-ghost-wrote this one or something. I dont think his name was even on this book until he became well-known. Seperately describes two different charactors as looking like actors who could have played admirals in Star Trek TNG. WTF? Book never edited?

Stark

I agree. I loved Cryptonomicon but Quicksilver is rubbish.

Also Red Mars. It's good in parts but mostly it just drags I find.

Johnny Storm

Stark wrote:

.... Red Mars. It's good in parts but mostly it just drags I find.

I have to say I really liked it. It way exceeded my expectations (which admittedly were quite low). I thought the charactors and their interactions were generally very good and I loved the use of technology.
I liked the way there was no struggling to find a foothold in the barren Martian landscape which would have been the SF cliche. Instead they just drop in a whole pressurised trailer park and industrial infrastructure.
There was some repetition as you say but I thought on the whole the excitement and vision of the book more than made up for it. KSR really conveyed a love of the Martian landscape/geology which is quite an achievement when you think about it.
The second one (Blue Mars or was it green?) was at least as good possibly even better. The third one did drag in parts and "The Martians" was just for the cash. But still the first three books are quite an achievement IMHO.


I have to say though I'm still not clear why Frank(?) has John(?) killed in a flash-forward at the very beginning. Any thoughts?
- but it was a real attention grabbing opening.

theCzar

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

ive never really put down a book but on the silmarillion subject,lack of characters!!!?! it has 5 million :P but anyway i think it's one of the best books(if not the best)ever written,amazing.along with it go the unfinished tales etc books i can never stop reading.at any point in time one of the books i am reading is a tolkien

it lacks properly developed characters, it reads like a history book (and not a particularly good one). But Silmarillion is one of the best book ever written? We'll have to agree to disagree on that chestnut, since our views are irreconcilable :rolleyes:

Tar.Aldarion

oh they are properly devoled after you read a dozen or so books with those characters in them and know everything that has ever happened to them :P maybe i should put these books down....i dont think it is particularily like a history book but it can be looked at like that(one of the great things about it is the fact that he creates a whole world,its history and even languages that have practially correct language structure!).the english used is the kind i like as would be the english in beowulf etc etc
of course we don't agree,you are not me! :P i disagree with every1 and anything

Kenshi

Mear wrote:

Lord of the Rings as well..

Im on the last book, I should really finish it for the sake of it.

I am on the return of the king just after the house of healing and just started reading "The Grapes of Wrath" by Steinbeck. After that it is east of Eden. Although I didn't finish it yet I am just taking a break. Then I am done with Tolkein. I like the Lord of the Rings but it seems to go on forever.I ain't bothered about the Silmarillion. I read the Hobbit. It was cool.

Books that I couldn't get through were the skit's on Harry Potter called "Barry Trotter" by "Michael Gerbert" (I think that is his name). Also I couldn't get through a book about the british SAS captain Robert Nairaic. The book was good but I wanted to finish the Lord of the Rings. Now that I have stopped again I am starting to think I can't finish a book! Ever get that feeling?

Breezer

Managed Lord of the Rings on the 3rd attempt and have read it 2 or 3 times since.

This happens to me quite a bit - I start a book, get a bit of the way into it, possibly even be enjoying it, then I get sidetracked for some reason. I go back to the book a week or two later and I've lost it - not the whole thing, just annoying minor details but when they keep referring to a character and you've no idea who it is it can get pretty annoying! So it gets dumped on a shelf for a few months (possible years) and then when I eventually go back to it I love it (usually).

By the way, anyone here read "Shade" by Neil Jordan? I really tried to enjoy it but it just wasn't happening - can anyone tell me if the pace picks up at any stage or does it stay unbelievably slow and boring the whole way through? I've just spent a year trudging my way through "Amongst Women" for the Leaving Cert (IMO the most boring book ever written) and don't want a repeat of that experience.

Kenshi

Breezer wrote:

Managed Lord of the Rings on the 3rd attempt and have read it 2 or 3 times since.

This happens to me quite a bit - I start a book, get a bit of the way into it, possibly even be enjoying it, then I get sidetracked for some reason. I go back to the book a week or two later and I've lost it - not the whole thing, just annoying minor details but when they keep referring to a character and you've no idea who it is it can get pretty annoying! So it gets dumped on a shelf for a few months (possible years) and then when I eventually go back to it I love it (usually).

By the way, anyone here read "Shade" by Neil Jordan? I really tried to enjoy it but it just wasn't happening - can anyone tell me if the pace picks up at any stage or does it stay unbelievably slow and boring the whole way through? I've just spent a year trudging my way through "Amongst Women" for the Leaving Cert (IMO the most boring book ever written) and don't want a repeat of that experience.

Everything on the Leaving Cert is boring IMHO. Man we should be able to read whatever we want. We could just use a book we would be able to get into! There is no point in hoping that I will be able to get into the novels for the comparitive studies in my leaving in 2006. Isn't it really a shame that the majority of us cannot enjoy the ****e the department of education want to give us to read.

Breezer

Kenshi wrote:

Everything on the Leaving Cert is boring IMHO. Man we should be able to read whatever we want. We could just use a book we would be able to get into! There is no point in hoping that I will be able to get into the novels for the comparitive studies in my leaving in 2006. Isn't it really a shame that the majority of us cannot enjoy the ****e the department of education want to give us to read.

Well I liked everything else apart from Amongst Women. Hamlet was a work of pure genius and A View from the Bridge was really good too, lots of suspense - plus I've read Wild Swans which was on the comparative for 2005 and found it really interesting as a non-fictional, historical novel. I actually think the English syllabus is one of the best thought-out of all the subjects I did.

Anyway sorry if this was off-topic, it probably was, just thought I should clarify this.

ixoy

OK I'm also on "Quicksilver" here. It's difficult to get through. I really enjoyed 'Cryptonomicon', 'The Diamon Age: A Young Lady's Primer', and 'Snowcrash'. The problem here is it's too dense - everything moves glacially as Stephenson shows off all the (very impressive) research that he's done or starts creating a mini pastiche play and so forth. Yet the plot hangs...

I'm onto the second part of it now - 'King of the Vagabonds' - and I can honestly say it'll be a long while before I read 'The Confusion' as I've plenty of other series to catch up on that won't seem quite such a demanding chore.

sanvean

Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated. I was really looking forward to it, as from what I understood it was about, it had everything which would appeal to me. But I found most of the characters, especially the Ukrainian narrator Alex, incredibly annoying. I also thought the depiction of Ukrainian's as peasant people stuck in an eighties time-warp somewhat offensive (not personally, mind). And the style of writing in the sections about the history of his family were written in the most pretentious mind-bogglingly awful prose, that it took me a couple of occasions to actually get through it. I enjoyed it in the end, more for the story in and of itself, but I really do think he's overrated. Flicked through his new one, seems quite gimmicky.

nesf

Kenshi wrote:

Everything on the Leaving Cert is boring IMHO. Man we should be able to read whatever we want. We could just use a book we would be able to get into! There is no point in hoping that I will be able to get into the novels for the comparitive studies in my leaving in 2006. Isn't it really a shame that the majority of us cannot enjoy the ****e the department of education want to give us to read.

One, that font is annoying.

Two, you're lucky. In the old English course, Jane Austin was considered Literature! Plus, read what you want? Seriously, I hope you're joking. Can you imagine what some people would choose! Mills & Boon here we come etc. I do appreciate that for a small group of students it might work, but it's totally unfeasible in reality.

Three, um, that font is annoying!

Cathy

Matthew Pearl - The Dante Club
Nelson deMille - The Lion's Game
Dean Koontz - The Face


Couldn't get into any of them...
Maybe I'll give them another go, I'm desperately in need of reading material.

arbeitsscheuer

Cathy wrote:

Matthew Pearl - The Dante Club
Nelson deMille - The Lion's Game
Dean Koontz - The Face


Couldn't get into any of them...
Maybe I'll give them another go, I'm desperately in need of reading material.

Two good authors there tho. Haven't read their books you mentioned there, but I've read a lot of their other stuff.
Where did they go wrong with these efforts? Koontz especially sucks you in after the first few pages, and DeMille's plotline's are usually intriguing enough to make up for the sometimes slapdash dialogue.

Cathy

SebtheBum wrote:

Two good authors there tho. Haven't read their books you mentioned there, but I've read a lot of their other stuff.
Where did they go wrong with these efforts? Koontz especially sucks you in after the first few pages, and DeMille's plotline's are usually intriguing enough to make up for the sometimes slapdash dialogue.

I really don't know. I usually really like Koontz... maybe it was just the mood I was in at the time. I'm going to give The Face another go this evening if I can find it. I read The Lion's Game last night, it was better than I remembered but still not really my cup of tea.

grumpytrousers

for those of you attempting to see what 'all the fuss is about', I can exclusively reveal there's nothing to it.

I really enjoyed the book but, and let me tell you a secret here, NOTHING HAPPENS. Well, apart from 3 lads going up a river in a boat. With a dog. And the odd thing or two happens them. For the most part, the book is just a load of anecdotes told by the narrator of things that have happened him and his friends.

If anything, now that I think of it, it's almost like Victorian stand-up comedy; I mean, there's a part of it where he's describing his friend Harris attempting to sing a song from HMS Pinafore, and it's absolutely hilarious.

Of course, it all depends on what floats your, um, boat, whether you'd like it. I fell in to 3 men and a boat and read it in a sitting (a long protracted sitting in the Tottenham DHSS office as I waited for a National Insurance number!) and had no difficulty enjoying it.

On the other hand (and God knows I'm in a minority here) I've tried and tried and tried with Catch 22 and found it to be the most tiresome load of codswallop ever. Except it's not. And it's that kind of contradictory sentence structure that Heller insists on using that really hacks me off more than anything else. In fact the only thing that hacks me off more than his contraditory sentence is...Oh I dunno something about Nately and a Whore or something. Hilarious, eh...