The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
Author Chat
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Authors I Will Never Read Again
Louise wrote: "So Paul, if "Saturday" is the only McEwan book I tried, and I wasn't thrilled - which one should I read next?My completists are Paul Auster, Murakami, Sjón, Jon Kalman Stefansson, Siri Hustvedt &..."
Of recentish McEwan's Sweet Tooth and Atonement.
Kalman Stefansson tested my patience a little with Fish Have No Feet (see the MBI thread) but I will likely complete him as well, although 4 books in English seems a little low for 'complete' e.g. I think I am on c.20 each for Bernhard, Murakami and Saramago. Lack of translators is definitely a problem for some - e.g. have read 13 Kenzaburo Oe's but there are at least as many not yet in English - and he's a Nobel winner.
I have read all the Peter Carey I need to read, I think. I love his characters, but I burned out on him.I recognize his talent, but I found no joy reading Coetzee, other than Waiting for the Barbarians, not that WftB was joyful. I tried a couple of his books and they left me cold.
Fortunately I have read every Penelope Fitzgerald book in my collection so I don't have to read her again. I enjoyed The Gate of Angels and The Beginning of Spring, but her masterpiece, The Blue Flower went right over my head. I understood the story of course, but the genius of this slim book completely eluded me, as did the others.
Well, my most recent Booker bête noires, that I hope I never have to suffer through others of their oeuvres include: Mike McCormack, Jon McGregor, A. L. Kennedy, J. M. Coetzee, David Means, Ottessa Moshfegh, Marilynne Robinson, Marlon James, Howard Jacobson and Richard Flanagan. And, of course, Anna Burns.
I'm reading Richard Flanagan's new novel now and loving it to bits.
Moshfeigh's Eileen made me squirm and I can't say I enjoyed it, but I'm glad I read it for the same reasons Im glad I read Martin John.
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Hugh wrote: "I think this has the potential to be a fertile topic for a more general debate about the writers who have provoked such extreme reactions, or perhaps just those we have been avoiding subconsciously since one bad experience."Judging from the almost 60 quotes in the past three weeks, Hugh's right that "writers we will never read again" is a fertile topic.
Would any of you also be interested in a "writers we will happily read again (and again and again)" folder?
Dan wrote: "Would any of you also be interested in a "writers we will happily read again (and again and again)" folder?"For me the real test is whether I have read every book an author has published and am champing at the bit for a new one to be written / translated.
As I mentioned upthread, of living authors for me that would include Kenzaburo Oe, Krasznahorkai, Per Pettersen, Ishiguro, Rushdie, Pamuk, Murakami and Javier Marias,
I have less urgency to read all the books of deceased authors as I find myself rationing them - e.g. I am saving my last Thomas Bernhard as a 50th birthday present to myself next year.
So good news today that I saw Javier Marias published a new novel (Berta Isla) and Margaret Jull Costa has already started the translation.
Neil wrote: "OK - so after the Booker last year, someone is going to have to work very hard to persuade me to read another Coetzee. The two "Jesus" ones were my first and, as it stands, last."That's unfortunate, Neil. IMHO the two "Jesus" novels don't hold up to his own Coetzeean standards. Good writers misfire sometimes. Take Rushdie's "Shame" for instance, which is an embarrassing failure for an otherwise A-one writer.
I'd recommend "Disgrace," "Life and Times of Michael K." and "Waiting for the Barbarians" if you change your mind!
I would read anything Hillary Mantel writes. although I have not yet read the WolfHall trilogy. I periodically google Saramago in hopes that a new manuscript has been discovered and have saved a couple of his best books to read when I feel desperate for him. There are a number of writers I would read over & over.
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I like this idea, so go here to discuss!
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Philip Roth was on this list for me. I read "The Breast," almost 50 years ago and decided I was done for life. Of course we can change our minds. I had American Pastoral come up for my library book club and decided to read a couple of Roth's for that discussion. I read The Ghost Writer and thought no big deal, but then read American Pastoral and was very impressed. I don't think I've read a book and thought of the adjective, relentless," to describe the prose.
David Mitchell is in my "I keep trying to read him and suppose I will one day get to the end of one of his books" category.I would have said Nicole Krauss is a never-again author for me but my book club just elected to read Forest Dark so I'm gamely giving her another try.
Unofficially, because 'never' is a long time, I'd say Roberto Bolaño, László Krasznahorkai, and Proust are as never-again as I get.
I tend to avoid books translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt after Wolf Totem, The Butcher's Wife and Binu and the Great Wall.I was trying to think of a gender-neutral synonym for 'emasculate' while walking the dog this morning, to describe what Goldblatt's translation does to a story. Then I thought of an incident in "Wolf Totem" where the narrator knocks the wolf's teeth out, so that it is no longer capable of being a wolf. That mirrors the effect of the translation quite well. It also sets my teeth on edge.
Bret Easton Ellis - I thought American Psycho was amazing but I've hated everything else before and after.Howard Jacobson is hit or miss
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Ian McEwen. In particular "Atonement" and then everything else.
How interesting, Ian McEwan and David Mitchell are two of my favourite authors and Atonement I absolutely adore.Anyway I probably wouldn’t read anything by Jon McGregor, Howard Jacobson or J.M Cortzee ever again
Maybe it’s the Js
I might not have read anything else by McEwan if I had read "Amsterdam" first, luckily for me, I didn't.
Hugh wrote: "I hated American Psycho so Ellis would be on my list..."Hear, hear - one of my 3 ever DNF's (yes, I'm slightly OCD about starting and not finishing)
Val wrote: "Philip Roth is also hit or miss."I was a huge fan until this summer when I read I Married a Communist, which I found was too sexist but I do have The Humbling on my shelf and am curious
Val wrote: "I might not have read anything else by McEwan if I had read "Amsterdam" first, luckily for me, I didn't."Same situation but I really do not like Atonement - too stuffy for my liking.
Actually I'm not too fond of post Atonement McEwan.
Trudie wrote: "How interesting, Ian McEwan and David Mitchell are two of my favourite authors and Atonement I absolutely adore.Anyway I probably wouldn’t read anything by Jon McGregor, Howard Jacobson or J.M Co..."
I'm with you on ALL of the above!! :-)
How lovely Doug that seldom ever happens to me in here ;) Co-incidentally your review of “Frankenstein in Baghdad” is also bang on the money I think.
I read The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman and I hated it. The book has 4-5 long-winded, jokey metaphors on every page, as if the author is screaming out “look! Isn’t this funny?!” And I said never again. And then Glow came out, and the plot I found intriguing, so I thought, it’s his third book, I’m sure he’s learned a lot between now and then, so I’ll give it ago. And it was the same thing.So, I tried, I really did, but I’ll never read Beauman again.
Bret Easton Ellis is the only one that comes to mind.
Robert wrote: "Val wrote: "I might not have read anything else by McEwan if I had read "Amsterdam" first, luckily for me, I didn't."Same situation but I really do not like Atonement - too stuffy for my liking.
..."
Atonement is my worst book ever. That ******* little girl Brioney makes me so angry that I just want to burn the book. Nobody has the right to destroy peoples' lives like that.
I swore that I would never read McEwen again. But the "Nutshell" came up in another group. I thought OK, give it a go - but that was absolutely awful.
No more McEwen, definitely.
James wrote: "I read The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman and I hated it. The book has 4-5 long-winded, jokey metaphors on every page, as if the author is screaming out “look! Isn’t this funny?!” And I said..."I liked his first two novels, Boxer Beetle is very good, but Glow was just a slog.
And I have to concur with Doug and Trudie, I love Mitchell and McEwan. And though I think The Bone Clocks is maybe a bit too out there, the final section is one of the most harrowing dystopian/post-apocalyptic pieces of writing I’ve ever read.
Neil wrote: "OK - so after the Booker last year, someone is going to have to work very hard to persuade me to read another Coetzee. The two "Jesus" ones were my first and, as it stands, last."Gumble's Yard wrote: "I agree re the different styles - but I hated Disgrace and hated the two Jesus ones as well! Definitely an author I would try to avoid, but if he were Booker longlisted again I would try again. "
I made the mistake of ignoring my commitment and not just reading a new Coetzee (the third in the Jesus trilogy) but re-reading the first two as a back to back read.
The good news:
- With a bit of generosity I marked the trilogy a 5* read
The bad news
- The 5* was across all three books added together
Gumble's Yard wrote: "I made the mistake of ignoring my commitment and not just reading a new Coetzee (the third in the Jesus trilogy) but re-reading the first two as a back to back read."When you are dead and accounting to St Peter for your time on Earth, how will you explain that you devoted some of it to re-reading books you did not enjoy even the first time around?
Whatsoever you do to the least of my authors...
MHG i know I know ... I will say that I just felt people (even authors) deserve a second chance in the spirit of forgiveness.
I have seen several people on here argue that books (and authors) you hate are the ones you should prioritise for re-reading. The theory is that many of those will turn out to be good or even great books when you take a second look.It’s not a theory I agree with, but it’s got some sense to it, I think. I had to drink several glasses of whisky before I liked it.
My personal experience of Coetzee is just the first two Jesus novels and I have no plans to read anything else by him. I appreciate from comments by others that that is cutting off my nose to spite my face.
Neil wrote: "My personal experience of Coetzee is just the first two Jesus novels and I have no plans to read anything else by him"Hi, I have not read Jesus novels but judging from what's been said, they seem very different from his other, well-known novels. I have read Disgrace, Life and Times of Michael K., Waiting for the Barbarians and I think highly of all of them, Michael K. being an underrated masterpiece for its devastating portrayal of human (in)dignity and personal breakdown under the weight of collective racial experience.
Hi Jibran - lots of people have told me this and I am sure it is right. It’s just that I thought the two Jesus novels I read were so bad that I can’t work up the enthusiasm to try a different one.
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If you read very fast, have always done so and have accumulated a very large amount of read books over your lifetime, perhaps. But for the vast majority of people, who read more slowly (where 50 books a year seems a big achievement to most adults), this would more likely result in missing out on other works that are significant and/or which they are more likely to enjoy.
Even leaving reading speed aside, it doesn't work for me with most authors and books; over the past six months I have read and finished several books or authors I previously disliked and abandoned. I didn't actively like any of them (I don't like a lot of my 3-stars, but a lower rating would be dismissive of the general merits of the books), I was just more motivated and able to finish them this time. The only times my impressions have been very different, even after c.15 years, were where it was a translated book and I read a different translation the second time. And the only author I can think of where I have very different opinions between works is Virginia Woolf - and as I read the book of hers which appealed to me most, first (Orlando) I started with a positive impression. (That is what readers should really do, to start with the book they most like the sound of, but if one is in the ARC/prize cycle, or the book trade, one often ends up starting with the newest book.)
I would see the time for reassessment and revisiting books you didn't like as being long term, e.g. a book you didn't think much of nearly ten years ago is now being considered one of the most significant books of the decade. (At least if you have found your opinions of these things change over time.) Whereas something where, within that timespan, it may well be the case that no-one outside prize discussions cares about it any more, I can't quite understand why that is worth one's time unless you can finish it in a few hours and a max of maybe two days (and you are regularly able to finish books in that sort of time).
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I read the three Coetzee books a couple of days back in one (very lengthy) sitting (with the benefit of food and drink being served) so it wasn’t really a waste of my time and also allowed me to edit and post a review of each (my previous reading of the first two predated my involvement in Goodreads). I actually mainly enjoyed the first (in both reads but more so second time) and then enjoyed trying to understand why I had such a different and negative reaction to the second (both times I read it). And by the third I was enjoying disliking it if that makes sense.
Antonomasia wrote: "If you read very fast, have always done so and have accumulated a very large amount of read books over your lifetime, perhaps. But for the vast majority of people, who read more slowly (where 50 books a year seems a big achievement to most adults), this would more likely result in missing out on other works that are significant and/or which they are more likely to enjoy."Exactly that. Even as someone who reads 100+ books a year there are always more books that I wish I'd had time to read. Re-reading books you didn't like first time around, or revisiting new books by authors you didn't like first time around has no appeal to me at all.
I still have a hang-up with abandoning books but I really do need to make myself do that more, particularly when it's relatively clear the rest of the book is largely more of the same - Ducks last year would have been a case in point, and I'm currently a third of the way through a 1600 page novel that I'm not particularly enjoying.
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I actually wouldn't rule out going back to that book when I needed some sort of light read. (I will watch, and less often, read all sorts of trash with cli-fi or relatively realist societal collapse dystopias, e.g. the recent series COBRA, which has a pretty terrible script even when watched on about 3 hours sleep, but this stuff has a place and is not an actual goal for me.)
Hugh wrote: " I have just been reading an early one (In the Heart of the Country) and would love to know what others made of it - it is intense and atmospheric but very dark, with a narrator so unreliable that the reader has almost no idea what she is imagining.That sounds fabulous, Hugh. I don't think I have that one and will look out for it.
Antonomasia wrote: "But for the vast majority of people, who read more slowly (where 50 books a year seems a big achievement to most adults), this would more likely result in missing out on other works that are significant and/or which they are more likely to enjoy.."Yes, exactly. I will sometimes reread books that I first read in university, as being almost twenty years older can certainly change your perspective (i.e. I was really glad I gave Virginia Woolf another go). But rereading in general is reserved for books I loved, otherwise there are so many new ones to read.
More than authors I hate, I'm considering abandoning authors I'm just not enthused about. I've now read four of Zadie Smith's books, they're not bad, but I feel like I've gotten as much out of her writing as I'm going to, and they're long and take me longer to read than I'd like.
Paul, is the 1600 pager Anniversaries? I lost the plot with that back in October and keep trying to make myself go back. I hate to abandon in part because it was kind of expensive... but I don't see what all the fuss is about.
Yes re Anniversaries. I think issue I am having is part reading approach - reading an entry a day (or two every two days) means I've just lost the plot as well.And it isn't clear reading all 1600 pages is going to add anything to the 500 I've read so far - it's very impressive but I'm not sure what justifies the length. But I will likely persist.
I don't tend to reread the books I do like (but for a few exceptions which usually has to do with reading the book with others), so rereading the one I didn't like is unheard of. I will try a book multiple times if it's something I want to read that I think merits the effort. I'll usually give an author a second chance if I didn't like the first book I read by them. I gave up entirely on Günter Grass because I loathed The Tin Drum. Stopped reading Chuck Palahniuk after several novels because while still entertaining in parts, his works felt too formulaic. I read one Carl Hiaasen book and felt I need not read another. Mitchell and Murakami are both authors whose more recent books have slowed my enthusiasm considerably--haven't given up on them, they are just lower on the priority list. Not likely to read any more of Henry Miller or Mitch Albom.
I’ve learned to live with my love/dislike relationship with many authors. Roth, Pynchon and Coetzee come to mind. I despised some of their books (Portnoy’s Complaint, V., and Foe were all horrible). But I loved many of Roth’s later works, enjoyed Mason & Dixon, and adored Michael K. There are many authors I approach with reservation: Bataille and Delillo are examples of this, but they both have multiple books on the 1001 list and on my shelves, so I will give them more chances. I may abandon some, though.
The only author I absolutely despise so far is Updike. I will avoid his books unless forced under threat.
Paul wrote: "Yes re Anniversaries. I think issue I am having is part reading approach - reading an entry a day (or two every two days) means I've just lost the plot as well.And it isn't clear reading all 1600..."
I gave up sticking to that schedule in the first book because I really was enjoying it and absentmindedly read ahead one Saturday morning, but I honestly think doing it day by day is the only way I'll get through book 2. I just think it's not as good as book 1 was.
As for authors I've given up on, I still haven't read the most recent Murakami (Haruki) and every time I think of giving it a go, I get sort of queasy so maybe I'm done w/ him.
The Mookse and the Gripes
Books mentioned in this topic
The Tin Drum (other topics)In the Heart of the Country (other topics)
Binu and the Great Wall (other topics)
Wolf Totem (other topics)
The Butcher's Wife (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Carl Hiaasen (other topics)Henry Miller (other topics)
Mitch Albom (other topics)
Günter Grass (other topics)
Chuck Palahniuk (other topics)
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Hugh wrote: "I would struggle to justify putting number9dream ahead of Cloud Atlas... ."
I wouldn't - Cloud Atlas was David Mitchell's The Bends, ie an early warning sign of what was to come.
Jonathan wrote: "If I had read Zero K as my first experience of De Lillo I would probably never have taken up Underworld"
Given Underworld was another 'never again' book for me, perhaps I would like Zero K!