The Books You've Never Finished...

Another vote here for Jonathan Strange and Mr.Norrell. Maybe it's garbage?

Other works I gave up on were:

Lord of the Rings (couldn't wade through it)
John Dies at the End (garbage)
The Age of Wire and String (WTF)
The Fifth Head of Cerberus (prose too heavy, although I may come back to this one)
Rainbows End (couldn't get into it)
Accelerando (couldn't get into it)
The Winter of the World (heavy going, stuck on book two, determined to read them all one day)
 
I can honestly say I never quite finished Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and I was then foolish enough to get a copy of The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis perhaps hoping he might be able to shed light on my inability to tough it out.

Despite many efforts I've never completed Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra I attribute this possibly to the inability to translate the spirit of the original though in truth it might be that other sources have sullied my expectations of this novel.
@ valis13
As for Accelerando-- I finished it but it is a difficult read-- the reams of techno-babel may not be necessary for the the plot but Stross seems perhaps to think they add to his world building and in some small respect I might agree. If you can get past the constant digression into seeming useless drivel over technical overloading of the senses in a clever view of the internet of the future. There is actually an interesting plot in there and the main characters daughter seems to shine while the whole novel plot is ultimately dominated by the cat[but that's a plot spoiler].
 
Interesting thoughts there, Tinkerdan. I like Stross' style of writing, but he appears (after reading his blog/tweets) to be a little obsessive when it comes to technology and cats. He's certainly shoe-horned them into this particular novel.

I'm not sure I'll ever get round to reading Accelerando, so the cat spoiler isn't a spoiler (for me), although I am glad it is a plot device rather than a throwaway piece of tech lobbed in there for little reason.
 
tinkerdan said:
Despite many efforts I've never completed Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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I too haven't managed to get very far with it so far. If I were in a reading group that tackled it, I might do much better.
 
Extollager said:
I too haven't managed to get very far with it so far. If I were in a reading group that tackled it, I might do much better.
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It is a difficult read. I managed by hook and crook to get through it, but I'm not sure I got that much out of it. Partially yes it is because I think the translation from 16th Century Spanish doesn't help. I struggle to get through Shakespeare on the page and that's written in a language that should be my native tongue.

In some senses its oddly post-modern despite being one of the first 'modern' novels ever written. But then authors at the time were I feel playing about with the form - a lot more than modern authors do now.

I do think you have be in the (long sustained!) mood to read it.
 
A lot of the trouble with the Quixote might be that Cervantes is satirizing the popular Renaissance epics such as Ariosto's and Boiardo's -- but Hardly anybody has read those. For many people, it's enough to take Cervantes' implied attitude towards them for granted, but my sense is that there may actually be a lot in them that can still be enjoyed, perhaps Ariosto's especially. However, the Ballantine Fantasy Series edition of part of Orlando Furioso seems to be one of the Great Unread books in the series. Even people who rattle on about the series often don't seem to mention it. I know I've had a copy for about 40 years and haven't read it. (I also have the unabridged -- I think -- two-volume Penguin translation, also unread.)

Anyone here ever read Hodgen's Ballantine book? What'd you think? Wish he'd done more of Ariosto for Ballantine?

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The old Scribner Classic edition of The Story of Roland is, I think, a prose retelling from Ariosto intended for young readers; with art by Peter Hurd of the N. C. Wyeth school.
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He(?) might have gotten stuck in the chapter that goes on and on about rugs and bric-a-brac. :) Other than that, I thought it was interesting, myself.
 
I kinda want to read accelerando now. I like techno babble and cats ;)
 
I gave up on The Black Company. Based on all of the reviews I read comparing it to GoT and MBotF it seemed like a sure thing, but after 75 pages or so I felt like I was forcing myself to continue.
 
The_Bluestocking said:
I'm curious to know why. I thought it was a brilliant parable about corruption and sin.
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To be honest I found it incredibly boring, I just wasn't interested and found myself not even wanting to turn the page. Most unlike me, I've finished other books in the past that I haven't really enjoyed
 
The_Bluestocking said:
I thought it was a brilliant parable about corruption and sin.
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It is, but in my opinion Wilde should have followed the example of the parables in the Bible and kept it short.

I read a brilliant graphic novel version of the story and then thought I'd try the novel, but I couldn't finish it. The graphic novel cherry-picked the best lines, which in the novel are swamped (in my opinion) by similar but inferior ones. Wilde never seems to give one epigram where three will do, and to my mind he succeeded in making the fantastic character of Lord Henry boring.

I suppose I might have carried on with it if I hadn't already read it in another form and didn't know what was going to happen.

(I highly recommend the graphic version: it's fast-paced and very stylishly drawn.)
 
House of leaves, now maybe there is too much going on but even just concentrating on the main story I just put it down one day and have never picked it up since.
 
Lilmizflashythang said:
Peter Straub's "Ghost Story." I was a crying mess by the time the dog was killed. To be honest, if I'd known that he was writing with Stephen King at times, I wouldn't have pick it up.
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i read this years ago and found it really hard going, I was a massive King fan at the time and loved their collaboration on The Talisman so had high hopes
 
Yes, I agree. Bit of a damp squib if you ask me. I can see why Stephen King liked it so much in Danse Macabre - "small town besieged by evil" sums up a fair few of King's books, too - but I thought it was a bit flat.
 
Different readers, different perspectives: I'd read Julia and If You Could See Me Now by Straub and jumped into Ghost Story as soon as I could when it was published and found it leagues beyond any but the very best of King. But also more challenging because Straub's structure isn't linear.

Honestly, I've been a bit afraid to reread in case it doesn't hold up.


Randy M.
 
I wrote this about Jonanthan Strange & Mr Norrell somewhere** on the Chrons:
While the very high quality slipped a little here and there, I have to say that as I approached the end of the book, I found myself wishing that it was even longer. (And I speak as someone who prefers SF over F and isn't really into magic.) The footnotes gave its setting a richness that I wasn't expecting. Marvellous
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But back on thread: I had to put down Ancillary Justice when 43% through it, partly because it's on my Kindle, which may not have survived the impact with the wall, and partly because it seemed to me that the major driver of the plot is the MC frequently, and deliberately, not saying things -- '...but I said nothing' is a constant refrain in the narrative -- that might resolve yet another situation before it got out of hand. I will eventually pick up the book in the (almost certainly vain) hope that there's a believable reason for this MC's idiocy.

And I've yet to finish (or get halfway through Use of Weapons). But I will try (again). (I can prove my commitment: I lost my copy in a Brussels taxi and bought a replacement.)

I'm sad I finished Diamond Dogs: another story (a novella, thanfully) documenting the MC's complete idiocy. Why would I want to read about fictional idiocy when the real world is full of it?


** - I can't find my original post, but the above is from a post quoting the original.
 
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