Books I Loathed discussion
Loathed Titles
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"Great Books" that you just don't get
I actually enjoyed reading most of the books mentioned on this thread.But it is refreshing to visit a place where bashing sacred cows isn't considered sacrilege.
So many of my female friends gaze at me in horror as if I have suddenly sprouted horns when I dare to mention how must I disliked The Red Tent.
I also shock with my opinions about The Poisonwood Bible - I enjoyed the first half but having read Maugham, Conrad et al find nothing innovative and the second half was a rushed political diatribe.
Hey, has anyone read the Young Adult novel The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson? It's getting rave reviews and everybody except me seems to like it. I thought it was dull and didn't even finish it.
Paul wrote: "This is similar to the Bad Books you Read at School thread, but I just wondered what books that are considered classics people have read that left them going "huh? what IS the fuss about?"Two t..."
I read Catcher In The Rye maybe 10 times to try and figure out the part that made Mark Chapman kill John Lennon. Never found it.
Jeannettescape wrote: "I read Catcher In The Rye maybe 10 times to try and figure out the part that made Mark Chapman kill John Lennon. Never found it. "i think it may have been something only he could perceive, like hearing god in morse code in the raindrops. or just hearing god, for that matter.
It's also that Chapman thought he was Holden Caulfield, not that the book influenced him to kill Lennon. The reason he killed Lennon was because he thought that Lennon was the king of all phonies because of his hypocrisy of preaching about nobody having any personal posessions, but yet having a mansion, and hypocrisy and phonies were two things covered in Catcher in the Rye. It's really odd, and, quite frankly, the ravings of a lunatic.
Hmm, never heard that before. WEll for me, Twilight is probably the biggest as most of my friends have read it and are to some point obbsessed ( hardly nay of my friends are Potterheads either)
I haven't read a lot of the really famous works yet, so give me some time I suppose.
I read the Great Gatsby when I was 13, and I loved it!My favorite aspect was that it didn't end with "he got the girl and they lived happily eve after", he gets the girl in the middle of the book and the latter half of the book deals with the sometimes harsh reality of attaining your dreams
Oh also to the poster about Nick and the photographer after the party, that didn't pass me by
I also remember something Jordan said that made her open to interpratation
The Life of Pi. I think Pi may be short for Piffle.
Re: The Red Tent, I didn't hate it, but I wasn't able to enjoy it that much because I thought pretty much all of the men were portrayed as awful in some way (ex. what most of them did to their sheep), and I just couldn't buy a world in which only women were worthy.Re: A Handmaid's Tale, what I hated about it was the passivity of the narrator, which is what I also hated about Cat's Eye. In both books, Atwood creates very interesting situations, but has us view them through the perspective of a character who accepts mistreatment, and observes it in minute detail, but just can't bring herself to ACT! Very frustrating reads. I enjoy having read those books, but I hated the experience of reading them.
I'll also add: A Gesture Life, by Chang-Rae Lee (I wanted to shower when I realized what kind of person I'd been trying to empathize with), and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith (a few nice set pieces, but a mostly absurd plot and lots of painful anti-Semitism).
aghhh so much hate on Wuthering Heights!!Though I must admit that I hated it the first time I read it, but then I watched a less-than-faithful adaption and it really allowed me to see the characters differently. Then I reread it and fell in love. LOVE I tell ya. I love how the "love" between Healthcliff and Catherine is so destructive, and the redemption of the next generation who have that same passion but have learned how to handle it, and not let the fine line between love and hate cross over.
I was pretty sure Gatsby would be one of the first books listed. I like it. Don't ask me why, I just do. I hated Steinbeck when I was young but learned to love him when I was living in California. Something about seeing the Salinas valley made it click for me.
I loved Catcher in the Rye when I was in high school. Now I can't really read it. I think Dave Eggers books are very Salinger-y. On some level I like them but I hate every character in them.
Other classics I don't get: anything by James Joyce. I have to listen to Dickens on audiobook because reading them makes me sleepy. Tom Robbins books bug me. And the classic sci-fi/fantasy book "I am legend" which I think is the worst written book of all time.
Oh, I never get "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" either.
Navah wrote: "In the same vein, my list includes "The adventures of Huckleberry finn", " The Grapes of Wrath", i'm sure that there are others, but none i can think of off the top of my head"I loved Huckleberry Fin
I have difficulties with anything by Margaret Atwood. I've tried four different books and I just can't get into them at all. My friends are apalled. Oh well,such is life.I have tried to read Ulysses several times- I can't get into it, same with Daniel Deronda & The Citadel. Maybe one day... until then they will sit on my bookshelf unopened and taunting.
Helena wrote: "I have difficulties with anything by Margaret Atwood. I've tried four different books and I just can't get into them at all. My friends are apalled. Oh well,such is life.I have tried to read Ul..."
Ulysses is famously (and deliberate) difficult, the very epitome of Mark Twain's saying "a classic is a book that everyone admires and nobody reads"
your generally excellent taste makes up for your bizarre lack of appreciation for Ms Atwood ;D
Paul wrote: "Helena wrote: "I have difficulties with anything by Margaret Atwood. I've tried four different books and I just can't get into them at all. My friends are apalled. Oh well,such is life.I have tri..."
Well Joyce did a bang up job on that, didn't he? Thanks for the vote of confidence despite my bizzare dislike for Ms Atwood :D
ooh, I know why I didn't like Handmaid's Tale. (I stopped halfway thru, just fyi to be honest). It was repackaging 1984 to the point of being IRRITATING. It was 1984 with a few Christian Rightish words thrown in to make it seem like a different novel. (and no, it's not just because I'm a Christian--she called it an "orwellian novel" or whathaveyou--and it's not orwellian, it's friggin ORWELL. Changing the regime to a Christian Right one doesn't magically make it a different novel, jeez. She just read 1984 and thought, "I'm gonna write a modernized one!" Friggin lazy! Especially since the whole POINT of the soulless, creedless regime of 1984 is IT DOESN'T MATTER what bullshitty idealism facade you package it in, POWER IS POWER and a regime is a regime (Even tho it was intended to be a "veiled" reference to the Communists--the complete LACK of an idealism facade in the regime of 1984 communicates the fact that a regime is a regime, and the idealism it adopts is completely meaningless--therefore it's irrelevant if, say, Marx had some inherently good ideas, said ideas are being used as a ploy to gain power in a Communist regime, and nothing else.) But anyhoo, Handmaid's Tale pretty much took the regime of 1984 and added a bunch of Christian Right stuff. YAWN.
Regine wrote: "I was really dissapointed with Wuthering Heights. When I was younger, my mother had an illustrated version of Wuthering Heights in her library, and I would stare at the illustrations, t..."I agree completely! Wouldn't you have just left both Katherine and Heathcliff??They were insufferable!
Stranger in a Strange Landby Robert A. HeinleinlOMAO: Soooo adored ... could it really be misogynist, racist, Nasty! Some of us think so!And Atonement by Ian McEwan- I'm usually ambivalent about McEwan (I like his Black Dogs the best of all his work). I find a lot of his work disturbing. But I found a lot of Atonement just plain dull, after the opening bits.
You aren't alone Ellie. I am a scifi fan although I don't read enough of it. I fully expected to love Stranger in a Strange Land and I found it an anti-climactic dud. And really offensive. A nurse decides to quit her job to help human kind by becoming...a stripper. Orilly?
Anna, read Stranger. Form your own opinion. Heinlein is a product of his time. He happened to love women in an extreme and juicy way. His females are both hot and smart.
Frankly, if you really want to be offended by Heinlein, you can't get much better than Sixth Column.
BTW, no disrespect intended toward stripping. I just found Heinlein intolerable. Don De Lillo is the only other writer I had such a gut hate response toward.(Now Dune is, for my money, worthy of the mantle of sf classic.)
The latest read that I found awful, slow and pointless was The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen. Don't bother. Boring.
OOOH I do want to read that James Tiptree Jr. book. I read one of her short stories in an anthology years ago "Houston, Houston Do You Read?" and it has stuck with me vividly. And gender roles are a key element in that story. An interesting (and very good) sf book about gender is The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin but this crowd has probably all heard of it. We read it recently in my book club.
Someone else picked Darkness for the month's read and I admit I wasn't looking forward to it because I had tried to read a Le Guin short story in an anthology once and it was just impossible to make heads or tales of or plow through. I ended up loving the book though. I love it when a book club selection subverts my expectations.
Anna wrote:Dear Mr. Melville,Moby Dick was annoying and 700 pages too long.
Seriously, can we talk about this? This book gets name-checked as the great American novel constantly. I heard someone (Jay Parini) just the other day refer to him as the American Tolstoy. I read this in high school and it was slow torture. Of course, some things I read in high school I know I'd be able to appreciate now but I don't think it would matter with this. Plus, the subject is so distasteful that I just can't get past it. And the nautical terms. And the wordiness. Hate.
Jay Parini also said that Melville had an unrequited love for Nathaniel Hawthorne which was news to me. I don't think that's universally accepted but it did put a new light on that scene where Ishmael and Queequeg slept together.
I love that image.My favorite James (& I like & have read most of the long ones too) is his short story, The Beast in the Jungle and Other Stories. It's maybe 30 pages or so. I've read it several times-it had a very profound impact on me as a young adult.
It's a short & powerful story. Very Jamesian as well. I think it'd make a good introduction. James is not easy. The older I get, I find, the less patience I have to read him. And you do need patience with James. Not so much with this story, I think-I hope, but with his longer works. Patience just to finish a sentence sometimes (when you're not sure he going to ever finish it!).
Good luck - & have fun!
Awwww...I loved Sister Carrie.
As for Edith Wharton, Summer and Ethan Frome. Good place to start with her.
As for Edith Wharton, Summer and Ethan Frome. Good place to start with her.
Sister Carrie was my favorite and then Jennie Gerhardt my next-also Jennie because of the depiction of New York City in the 20s (I think). I totally understand what you wrote about your junior year & anything between you & your reading being evil. A nice vivid description.
That is funny-made me literally laugh out loud.Even tho' I love Hardy-at least when I was younger. Now I don't really have the patience he needs. Love his poetry now.
I adore Fforde's Tuesday Next books. I do also love Monty Python, word games (though I'm, surprisingly to me, bad at them), literary references,Jane Eyre (adore actually, especially the childhood chapters & then the wedding scene, of course), cheese (sometimes) and puns even when they're awful, make many myself-& look at Shakespeare (not that I'm comparing myself to him).I've read The Eyre Affair, The Well of Lost Plots, The Big Over Easy, and Lost in a Good Book. I'm saving the rest until...well, I don't know why. It might be time now!
Thanks.
No-believe it or not, with all those books I'm always finding books I missed. I got exhausted compiling that list. I'm going to have to go back & add those. Sigh.
Part of it is that there are times in my life when I'm fondly remembering books I've read.
And then there are times (like now) when I'm completely swept up in books I want to read next.
I'm going to have to read the rest of the Thursday series (she says being ridiculously optimistic) before the next comes out.
Or more likely have to wait to read the new one until I've caught up.
But seriously, thanks for reminding me of the series.
I do remember now enjoying them enormously.
I went to add the books but they are already listed (quick sigh of relief) & some of the others I forgot about. I could read the new one but I think I'd better reread at least one of the old because to be honest my memories are pretty vague.
Me too-I had this very minor anxiety shiver 2 days ago just about that & ran back to reading.But I'm almost as addicted to browsing stack as I am to reading. It's like lists (of books mostly)-I love, love, love them.
Hours gone I could have spent reading. Or even seeing people! (what a thought-I do do it sometimes)
Catcher in the Rye is the only book I can ever say I've hated. I had to read it for uni and it was the most painful afternoon of my life. It gives me stabby feelings to think of reading it again. Horrible, horrible drivel.
I really like Edith Wharton; the first book of hers I read was 'Ethan Frome,' then 'Age of Innocence,' followed by 'House of Mirth,' which is my favorite.
Since I did not grow up here in the States, Catcher in the Rye was amazing to me. I found it humorous, wry and well written. I love Salinger though. It kind of brought Americans down to earth for me. Loved it.
I must say (in a small, frightened voice) I like Salinger too. And I grew up in New York. They're sort of familiar, if I were only rich, famous, and/or brilliant.
Ellie wrote: "I must say (in a small, frightened voice) I like Salinger too. And I grew up in New York. They're sort of familiar, if I were only rich, famous, and/or brilliant."Hey, all! This is a discussion about Books you Loathed. All this complimenting is making me nervous! Ha!
I'll admit, I do like some of Salinger's short stories, but I will never, never, ever like Holden Caulfield . . . he is the single most annoying narrator I have ever encountered. He makes Henry Fielding (as Henry Fielding) seem restrained.
Anna wrote: "Mary Ann wrote: "I really like Edith Wharton; the first book of hers I read was 'Ethan Frome,' then 'Age of Innocence,' followed by 'House of Mirth,' which is my favorite."I love Wharton. Last ye..."
I can't say I'm a big fan of Wharton. I read sometnhing of hers that didn't make me ill . . . it might have been House of Mirth. It was the one that took place in New York. (Now I'm going to have to go looking for it . . . ) But Ethan Frome (which I was subjected to in HS, and had to teach years later in HS, is simply tedious. I find no one to like. They're all really unlikeable characters (perhaps not as unlikeable as Heathcliff and Catherine in Wuthering Heights) . . . but the pacing of the book . . . Gad! The sledding was the most interesting scene of the book, the climax . . . and it occurred so far before the ending. We are subjected to more maudlin description and that unhappy ending. I don't mind an unhappy ending, but I do subscribe to the idea that there must be a sense of hope somewhere.
And as you can see, I do insist that we beat up on all those supposedly "great" books that we just don't get. There's just too much fawning over questionably "great" literature here. Let's get back to the roots of this page.
Oh I not only hate Thoreau, I loathe Walden's Pond where he pontificates on the simple life as a housekeeper cleans his house & delivers prepared food paid for by his oh-so-beneath him bourgeois family.Not liking Emerson either. Another full of himself, tho' better than Thoreau (easy task).
But I do love Melville. Including Moby Dick but also his early adventure tales (like Typee) with which I had a great time.
Oh I'm one of those people who hate Hardy but I can't read him any more. I had much more patience when I was young. Same thing for James. The thing with Dickens, is even if he's padding out the verbiage for the extra money, he does keep the plot going & tossing in interesting characters. At least as far as I'm concerned.
I had to join this group just to jump in and defend "The Great Gatsby"! ;) I adore this book. Gatsy gets all he thought he needed to make him happy - money, success, happiness, Daisy - but he is still empty and unfulfilled. It's an epic statement of the human condition.
"It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms out farther...."
Two classics I loathe - The Jungle and Animal Farm. I get that they are supposed to have some Big Message and Important Symbolism, but for me they were just about animals that get butchered and animals that talk. Ugh.
I hate The Jungle and Animal Farm. Same reasons. Also I hate (& I'm afraid to even keyboard it for fear someone'll jump thru my window & egg me or something) but hate Lord of the Flies. Boys can be nasty but please.But Gatsby is just one of my all time favorite. Not that there are any characters to like but the writing is so gorgeous & the people are vivid (if a bit, unpleasant).
Could not stand Lord of the Flies. They can egg me instead. God awful book. Love Gatsby as much as I despise Daisy, which means he did his job.
Books I Loathed
Books mentioned in this topic
The Catcher in the Rye (other topics)War and Peace (other topics)
Madame Bovary (other topics)
Madame Bovary (other topics)
Of Mice and Men (other topics)
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Paulo Coelho (other topics)Paulo Coelho (other topics)
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I also had problems with Great Expectations. Granted, it may be that I was only fifteen when I read it, and had just finished reading Pride and Prejudice. However, it just wasn't something that I enjoyed. I remember having to force myself to read just ten pages from it at one point.