Books You've Never Been Able to Get into or Finish

[BAYLOR]

Half Life by Hal Clement a very bad book , didn't get very far .

 

[ColGray]

Sanderson in general.

Mistborn by Sanderson. I made it a 100 pages and then got eye strain from eye rolls. It was trope after trope after trope. I nope'd out after hitting the bit where, as if there was a question about whether the pro chattel slavery owning lord was good or evil, Sanderson goes, No, he's evil! But how do I show they're evil... of course-- they own slaves and they're a rapist! Coooool story. It was like Piers Anthony aspiring to respectable dark fantasy.

I listened to Elantris a year or so ago and found it less trope-ee and with good worldbuilding and a good (if predictable) twist. But it felt like every female character was ripped from the Robert Jordan 1 Page Book of Female Characteristics: a smart and talented person, underestimated by others and perpetually exasperated with men for being "men" (90's sitcom eyeroll). I just realized he's not for me.

 

[thunderbyrd]

infinite jest. just couldn't make it happen.

 

[reiver33]

Thomas Covenant.

 

[AE35Unit]

Quite a few. Up there is Dune. I know, its a sci fi classic blah blah, every sci fi reader should have it in their shelf etc, but when I tried to read it I was expecting a big sf epic, and instead I got what read like fantasy! I like fantasy, but at the time I was into sf, and I binned it. I put it on bookmooch. Probably not the wisest idea but I can always find another copy and try again.
But another classic I've tried twice and failed is Moby Dick. For the love of Darwin get on with the story. Oh and whales aren't fish! That got on my wick lol.
And thirdly The Pickwick Papers. Dickens first novel, a kind of fix up of its day. I thought it would be short, but oh no its long. And boy is it. Funny in parts but too rambly.

 

[Astro Pen]

Fall of Hyperion Dan Simmons. (The rider being that I didn't read Hyperion first which probably made it more opaque than it would have been for his regular customers.)

 

[BAYLOR]

Well there you go, I'm on the outside again. Meh. I loved Startide Rising. but friends couldn't get past the dolphin crew, or something.

I read the first three books in the Uplift Series and thought them fabulous . So far , those are thinly book ive ever read by David Brin .

 

[Prieneus]

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I guess I'll try it sometime, again.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I guess I'll try it sometime, again.

I got to book 4 in that series.

 

[CupofJoe]

Not SFF but... Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
I had to read it and write a paper about it, as part of a college course.
For about a month and with a deadline looming I could never get more that a dozen pages in.
Then someone leant me their cassette [yes that old] copy that I could listen and read and get the paper written.
The paper wasn't great but it was better than the Zero I would have got.

 

[Vladd67]

Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell, I loved the idea of the story but just couldn't get through it.

 

[Randy M.]

Huh. Looking back at this thread, I'm surprised I haven't mentioned Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. Some readers love it, extol it as an example of Southern Gothic, but until I read this I wasn't really sure what reviewers meant by "clotted prose." I struggled for 50 pages and gave up, pretty sure that Frazier didn't really want anyone to read it and so put together the densest collection of words in the least rhythmic sentences he could produce.

 

[ColGray]

I got to book 4 in that series.

Yeah, i gave up when it was clear each book was about 800 pages of traveling, irrelevant conversations and 90's sitcom wife exasperated eyerolls (every female character in a Jordan book) and 100 pages of actual plot and relevant stakes.

 

[BAYLOR]

Yeah, i gave up when it was clear each book was about 800 pages of traveling, irrelevant conversations and 90's sitcom wife exasperated eyerolls (every female character in a Jordan book) and 100 pages of actual plot and relevant stakes.

He kept padding the series. This series should have gone maybe 8 book maximum.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

I somehow (quite unintentionally) managed to pick up three very different but very difficult books on a single trip to a local book store. Red Shift by Alan Garner, Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner and Neuromancer by William Gibson. But I'm up for the challenge. Watch out for reviews in the not-too-distant future.

 

[paeng]

Henry James' "The Jolly Corner," but it's a short story.

 

[Chris von shannow]

Thomas Covenant.

Absolutley I was loving the premise and such great titles but what a borefest

 

[BAYLOR]

Absolutley I was loving the premise and such great titles but what a borefest

It's an either or series . Either you love it or hate , there no in-between with this series . Its biggest obstacle is the first book

If you looking for really good reads Try Morlock Night by K W Jeter and The High Crusade by Poul Anderson.

 

[AllanR]

I was told if I could get past the pages and pages about bananas in Gravity's Rainbow, that it would be worth it. The bananas won. Same thing with Moby Dick. Too much information too early about varies whale species.

 

[feralreason]

I thought the David Magarshack transition of The Brothers Karamazov was quite good. I also have the newer penguin black classic edition where David McDuff is the translator. I haven't read that version yet. Some people I know seem to prefer the McDuff version to the P&V version of 'Brothers'...go figure. Constance Clara Garnett seems to have quite a few fans but I've not read that version. Certainly P&V are viewed as being the 'closest' thing to Dostoevsky's original Russian voice.

In anticipation I would imagine Joyce's Ulysses will get a few nominations. Personally I think it is far easier to follow and enjoy than Finnegans Wake unless you have a parallel annotation/analysis of the text..which is what I'm currently getting. I would recommend anyone reading Joyce to start with The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners. I would not attempt Ulysses without a well annotated text and definitely leave Finnegans Wake (if you've survived that far) until last. I regard Finnegans Wake (of the text I have so far read and read about it) to be Joyce's most ambitious (and dense) text and not Ulysses despite its brilliance. Perhaps becasue it is more accessible and became infamous thanks to the court case it has always had the greater kudos amongst readers?

I also know Thomas Pynchon's Gravity Rainbow has received a few gongs in previous discussions we have had here on this topic. I have the book but am yet to read it. Anyone here complete this novel?

Gravity's Rainbow - Nope. Tried to get through it but lost focus. I also tried to read Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon" - perhaps a bit easier but I still haven't finished that either. I think of Pynchon's writing as some kind of exotic dessert. Glorious to look at but there is no way I'm going to be able to eat it all.