I found _Tristram Shandy_ collecting dust in the corner. It was one of those books which I just could not get past the first few pages. With all due respect to Sterne, I never want to deal with that book ever again. Apart from _Tristram_, are there any books out there that you absolutely couldn't finish? Just curious!
2006-08-22 15:26:34 · 26 answers · asked by starsinthemidnightsky 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
Anna Karenina
2006-08-22 15:28:46 · answer #1 · answered by grahamma 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are many books...some already mentioned...which I would NEVER pick up to begin with no matter how many people defined them as a "classic" book everyone should read before they die. So not considering those which I wouldn't even consider reading, one of the hardest books that I've wanted to read but couldn't get through was War and Peace. I really enjoyed Anna Karenina which I read for a class assignment. But War and Peace I've tried to read twice and had to give up because it was just too long. I'd get halfway through and would have forgotten what most of the characters had been up to while the plot had been focused on the "war" or the camp of the soldiers anyway. I find books that have multiple narrators and complex plots...that divide up books like ten chapters to this plotline, ten chapters to this plotline, ten chapters to yet another plotline, and then try to go back to the first and try to move it along...are just TOO confusing.
I would love to read Don Quixote too. My problem with that book isn't that it's boring it's that in my paperback edition (affordable) the print is so very tiny that it's too tedious to read more than a chapter at a time. So the length of it alone is too intimidating.
Vanity Fair is another example. I wanted to read the book because I had heard that Becky is very similar to Scarlett (from GWTW). But I'd get to a halfway point several hundred pages into it...and lose motivation.
I have read many bad books all the way through that I absolutely hated. These were assigned. Most I wouldn't have picked to read on my own. And there was no choice...I had to go on. Great Expectations is a yucky novel. One that I've read twice for assigned reading yet still can't remember the plot because as soon as it's done I block it from my memory...well after the test is taken I block it from my memory. Thomas Hardy is an author I absolutely despise. I hated--very strong hate too--Jude the Obscure.
2006-08-23 10:54:52 · answer #2 · answered by laney_po 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Melville "Moby Dick". I know it's an American classic, and it has many layers of meaning, but it was just so boring.
The other one is Thomas Mann "The Magic Mountain". This book has approx.a 1000 pages, and I was somewhere in the middle, when I realized that I just don't understand what the author is trying to tell me. I know that he is brilliant, but I think I was just too young for this book. I'll give it a try once more in about ten years from now...
2006-08-23 06:17:57 · answer #3 · answered by TT 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Gone With The Wind. I'm sorry, I know it's a classic but that book is so boring and stupid. I think I made it to like, page 208 or something. I was reading it for a class and I actually begged my way out of it. That is probably the only time I have ever tried to refuse reading a book and I know it surprised my teacher.
2006-08-22 22:42:31 · answer #4 · answered by shea_8705 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Born Free by Joy Adamson. Even though it's about two furry little lions and how they grow up and have to leave the care of their human friends.....i couldn't finish it.
I ended up reading the first 100 pages twice cuz i thought, after giving the book a rest for a few weeks, I could somehow rekindle the flame...but.....nope, didn't happen. ;)
2006-08-22 22:30:52 · answer #5 · answered by chishru 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Oh my, save me from Tolstoy. I tried to pick up War and Peace and it was just soooo long, and he takes forever. I still haven't finished it and it's been about a year
Another surprising book that I couldn't get through was Airframe by Michael Crichton. Usually he's really awesome, but this one was sooo bogged down by details and gore that it was just so boring! I was very disappointed with that book
2006-08-22 22:47:48 · answer #6 · answered by greenlady16 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Cryptonimicon. It's by the same author as Snowcrash, which was one of my favorite books. They are so dissimilar; Snowcrash was avant garde and refreshing, and the writing style was witty and very different.
Cryptonimicon was dry, dull, and depressing. I could NOT get through that book. I hated it. UUGGGHH...basically you just feel as though the author is trying to impress you with how intelligent he is, but just comes off as a pompous ***.
2006-08-22 22:57:59 · answer #7 · answered by Oracle at Delphi 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
One of the very few books that I couldn't get through was "100 Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I was about halfway through it, and I just kept having trouble starting each chapter...I think maybe if I were a parent I would have appreciated it more...I don't know
2006-08-23 00:49:18 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Everyone has missed out on EXCELLENT books! I've read most of them. I could not ,however, get past page 2 of Cement ( Iforget the author, but he's Russian) Its an entire novel about a cement factory......YIPPEEE
2006-08-23 00:38:02 · answer #9 · answered by Mommy-of-Twins 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
James Joyce's _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_. I don't know why that "stream of consciousness" stuff is considered so brilliant -- I just found it confusing. Maybe it would've made sense if I'd consumed as much alcohol as the author is reported to have done.
2006-08-22 22:54:15 · answer #10 · answered by D'archangel 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋