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NancyJ, Moderator
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Jun 29, 2018 04:03PM
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The Alienist. Have tried 2x. Even after I got rid of my paperback many years ago, I recently bought the ebook for Amazon's 100 thrillers/mysteries to read. One day!Silly me! I realized the Alienist is not on the list. It's the Alchemist! Whew.. I am spared for now.
Gretchen wrote: "The Alienist. Have tried 2x. Even after I got rid of my paperback many years ago, I recently bought the ebook for Amazon's 100 thrillers/mysteries to read. One day!Silly me! I realized the Alieni..."
haha!
I remember that I was frustrated with that one, too (especially since it was taking time away from work reading). Interesting premise, to write a detective novel at the time when the concept was still emerging and taking shape, as well as the first use of fingerprinting and other new forensic technologies/strategies. But it just felt like information dump. I felt like when I read one of Vargas Llosa's historical novels, or Padura Fuentes' bio of the man who killed Trotsky--it's as though he were a graduate student who felt the need to include every single factoid he'd learned into that work.
However, the series on TV was great! It looks as though they'll bring it back for another season, but I'm not certain that it could be as good as the first one (certain characters and relationships will be missing).
Gretchen wrote: "The Alienist. Have tried 2x. Even after I got rid of my paperback many years ago, I recently bought the ebook for Amazon's 100 thrillers/mysteries to read. One day!Silly me! I realized the Alieni..."
I also bought "The Alchemist", after searching and searching for it in Portuguese. Now, I hear it's not so great, but have to read it, anyway! Let's hope it's not as dense as "The Alienist"!
My abandoned books from the list-Moby Dick. I was reading it as a grad student-again, time away from what I was supposed to be reading- and left it on a table in our mailroom. Came back less than 10 minutes later, and it was gone, someone had taken it.
War and Peace. I WILL get through this one day. Again, I bought it. Just tried to start it at a moment when I couldn't get into that long list of characters. Need a time when I can just read the first few hundred, with no distractions, to get into it far enough that I can take a break and still remember who's doing what when I get back to it. Plus, I'm generally deficient in the Russian classics.
The Brief Wondrous LIfe of Oscar Wao. Abandoned, then finished. Someone gave it to me, but the first ten pages threw me off so much that I had to put it down. Seems like he's writing for more than one audience. Finally finished it, to say I had (and I liked his book of short stories), but didn't like it. In general, my Dominican friends hate it. And don't even get my female Dominican friends started on the topic of his appropriation of the female voice, not unless you've got a couple of hours to spare.
I've finished all the others, because I hate to leave a book unfinished. A book has to be really, really bad in order to occupy space on my "did not finish" shelf.
NancyJ wrote: ""And this is how the book feels. Trying to muster some sympathy. ;>)
Not sure why, but I liked Moby Dick. The only book I see on the list that I started and didn't finish was The Shack.
Ones i wanted to give up on included: The Eye of the World (omnipresent narrator/ unoriginal content), Ready Player One (copy/paste sections drove me crazy), The Pilgrim's Progress (had to read in religious school), The Book Thief.
Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: The Brief Wondrous LIfe of Oscar Wao. Abandoned, then finished. Someone gave it to me, but the first ten pages threw me off so much that I had to put it down. Seems like he's writing for more than one audience. Finally finished it, to say I had (and I liked his book of short stories), but didn't like it. ..."
I didn't abandon that one, but man, I sure didn't see what all the hype was about. I'm with you...it was not great!
Tammy wrote: "Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: The Brief Wondrous LIfe of Oscar Wao. Abandoned, then finished. Someone gave it to me, but the first ten pages threw me off so much that I had to put it down...."
There were elements there that I "Got" (my ex is Dominican, so I've been there, and that means not a Club Med, but houses out in the country without running water, etc.) And I found it interesting that he was able to look at the culture through the eyes of someone not raised there (outside looking in, so to speak). But I couldn't figure out why the audience that would get the Proust/madeleine references or understand the analogy "bigger than a Glasgow ghetto" would also need him to drop the Fbomb every 6 words. And no, they didn't call Trujillo "F>>>face" in the 50s, because it didn't even exist in English then, not to mention Spanish. They had a million names for him, just use one, for God's sake!
There were many times I tried when I was younger and gave up -- Great Expectations
Dune
Lord of the Rings
only to pick them up later and think they were great!!
The Great American Read
Books mentioned in this topic
The Book Thief (other topics)The Pilgrim's Progress (other topics)
The Eye of the World (other topics)
The Shack (other topics)
Ready Player One (other topics)
