Which books don't do it for you?

[Moggle]

I have never understood the massive appeal of authors like JRR Tolkien, Jim Butcher, George Martin, or Joe Abercrombie.

 

[Bick]

I hated Jude the Obscure but loved Tess of the D'Ubervilles.

That's funny, because I'm the exact reverse.

 

[biodroid]

Stephen King - Liseys Story, made no sense to me and had no plot to it.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Yep, Sigmund himself, and many others...

Psychoanalytic literary criticism

Thanks, that is interesting. But my intent was to try to find psychological matches between books and readers so more people could more easily find books they would like.

psik

 

[Mr Fraaz]

Interesting. I read everything I could find by Moorcock as a teenager in the late 70s and early 80s, usually in the Mayflower editions. Lots of it was easy to pick up for pennies in second hand bookshops. I still have dozens of these on my shelves.
I started with the novellas Elric of Melnibone and The Knight of the Swords, and was sort of inspired to read the books by a popular Rodney Matthews poster of Tanelorn (I wonder how many teenage bedrooms of the time were decorated with this and the Jimmy Cauty Lord of the Rings poster?):

(pic)

Needless to say the books were nothing like the poster. However I found them engaging and coherent, with an interesting line in anti-heroism and perversity.
Some of Moorcock's stuff is difficult (especially the latter Cornelius books) but most of the early Eternal Champion stories have a fairly straightforward narrative and easy prose.
With respect to the Elric stories: Stormbringer is quite odd, so avoid if you dont want particularly dreamy stuff. A lot of the old Mayflower editions were collections of Elric short stories, which were OK in themselves, but repetitive if read in one go.

Apologies for a ridiculously late reply, but I really wanted to type out an answer

Quite a few Elric books were available in Swedish from my early teens and onwards (around 1989). I'm not sure why I didn't read them. It is possible I was unaware of them, but I might have been too absorbed by Tolkien to really explore other fantasy seriously at that time. I basically read a few things but decided there was nothing like JRRT. I did play a lot of role-playing games, though. The same company that published the most important Swedish RPG's, also published the translations of Elric. (There was an edition or two even before that, but those I was definitely not aware of). Anyway, two of the editions of their fantasy RPG had this Whelan picture on the box.

That alone should have made me interested, but I'm not sure I knew it was actually Elric!

Lovely picture you posted by the way.

(The company in question was the predecessor (or a branch?) of Target Games, that miniature gamers may know of even internationally. Today's Paradox Entertainment (the latest Conan movie) is related to them too.)

 

[End of Time]

I couldn't get through the following books:

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Perdido Street Station and Embassy Town - China Mieville

Perdido was a chore to get through... it had everything. Almost literally everything. When you throw so many things at me as a reader I tend to shut down and just don't care about any of the multitude of plot threads and sidestories and backgrounds. I wanted to like it, I wanted to love it... but I couldn't.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I keep telling other people to read this, but I never got through the novel myself. I like its style, I like its set-up... but dear lords above and below, I can't get past the first hundred pages or so.

Another big contender for me: Wreathu by Storm Constantine

Someone described it in the most hilariously awesome manner possible. But actually reading the thing took me forever, and I never could finish it. It's as if I was reading all the erotica Anne Rice scratched from her Vampire-novels, but multiplied by a horribleness of 10.

 

[vanye]

Now I know why I like the Chrons so much: when it comes to books, y'all are almost as opinionated as I am. Makes me feel right at home.

Generally I cannot stand vampires, undead thingies and such as happy, fully functional characters. Sorry guys, just don't want to read about it. Although Weber tricked me once and I'm still unsure if I'll ever forgive him ... (I tend to finish books I've started, even when the reading gets rocky.)

YA fiction I tend to leave to those who are the intended target group. While I used to be very young for a very long time indeed, I have never quite become adult. So maybe that's why.

Stephen King. Period. I'd rather not read a-tall than any of his books.

Perdido Street Station. The story depressing. The writing a travesty of baroque. But yet strangely compelling.

Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series. Mind you, I read all the books, if only because the more I persevered the less I wanted to stop because it would have meant that all that perseverence would have been for naught.

Terry Brooks. Read the first three Shannara books and thought it was enough boredom to last me a lifetime. Simply could not get interested.

Oh, and then there is the worst reading experience to be had in my mind: Moralizing litanies by Christian bigots (yes, I realize that this will almost always be a tautology). Most prominent example: Richardson's Clarissa. Easily the worst book I ever had the misfortune to read.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Vanye, I tried Wizard's First Rule (think that's the title) and had to stop. The writing style I really liked, but not the plot. It was incredible, everything felt so damned convenient I just stopped reading.

 

[Foxbat]

Mein Kampf Just rant, rant, rant, invade Russia, rant, rant, rant.

Naked Lunch The ultimate piece of navel gazing...too much.

I managed Perdido Street Station and enjoyed it but have not managed to finish any of his other work.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra finished it but had to skip bits because it was really starting to get tedious.

Beyond Good And Evil Couldn't get past the first few pages.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Foxbat, I can just imagine someone sitting down to read Mein Kampf.

"This is rubbish! The author's really angry and irrational. Has he done anything else?"

I think I've read Beyond Good And Evil. I have no bloody idea what it was about.

 

[The Bluestocking]

Thomas Hardy. Oh God.

I was forced to read "The Mayor Of Casterbridge" for my Literature A-Level and it put me off Thomas Hardy for life.

It was soooooooooooooo depressing that even my pen dragged while writing essays on it.

*Shudder*

 

[HareBrain]

I was forced to read "The Mayor Of Casterbridge" for my Literature A-Level and it put me off Thomas Hardy for life.

I studied it for O-level and loved it. Must be a youth thing.

 

[Hex]

Show off

A particular kind of youth thing. My sister adored Thomas Hardy -- the grimmer the better. I think Jude the Obscure was her favourite. The only one I could stand was Tess of the D'urbervilles, though I have no idea why since it was hardly (or hardy -- boom boom!) less depressing than the others.

Slightly more seriously, I read Beyond Good and Evil when I was about 15, also Metamorphosis. I don't think I'd cope now (& probably wouldn't have even by the time I got to ripe old A-Level age).

I read Naked Lunch on a train in Russia, praying that no one else could read English and see what shocking stuff I was reading.

 

[Toby Frost]

I too read, and disliked, The Mayor of Casterbridge. I can understand a book being depressing because it's about depressing things, like the great dystopias, but Hardy's miserable world-view seems essentially to be a pose. The gods don't punish hubris, because they don't exist. It wasn't very entertaining, it didn't tell me anything, and the writing was all right. Not my sort of thing.

 

[Foxbat]

I think I've read Beyond Good And Evil. I have no bloody idea what it was about.

Glad I'm not alone.

@Hex - I do like Metamorphosis - and much of Kafka's other work.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I was forced to read "The Mayor Of Casterbridge" for my Literature A-Level and it put me off Thomas Hardy for life.

It was soooooooooooooo depressing that even my pen dragged while writing essays on it.

*Shudder*

I read that in high school. I didn't like it but I didn't really mind it.

Better than Revelation Space by Reynolds.

psik

 

[The Bluestocking]

I too read, and disliked, The Mayor of Casterbridge. I can understand a book being depressing because it's about depressing things, like the great dystopias, but Hardy's miserable world-view seems essentially to be a pose. The gods don't punish hubris, because they don't exist. It wasn't very entertaining, it didn't tell me anything, and the writing was all right. Not my sort of thing.

I think you pretty much nailed it about "The Mayor of Casterbridge" right there!

 

[The Bluestocking]

Is it me, or should there be a 'grand literary tradition' called: "... and then they all died. THE END."?

Thomas Hardy and GRRM and any book with a ridiculously high body count would fit right into it...

 

[Foxbat]

Is it me, or should there be a 'grand literary tradition' called: "... and then they all died. THE END."?
QUOTE]

I thought Shakespeare started this tradition with Hamlet

 

[The Bluestocking]

I thought Shakespeare started this tradition with Hamlet

Oooh... totally forgot about Hamlet... and Romeo and Juliet...