Books highly prized you couldn't finish

Adagio

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Pundits from The New York Times Book Review swoon over a book proclaimed a bestseller, a must read, the best new voice, or the best of an "old" voice . . . and yet, it did nothing to you, bored you to death.

The Shipping News. As much as I appreciate Ms. Annie Proulx (yes, I read from cover to cover Accordion's Crimes and her other novels) I couldn't finish The Shipping News. I left it to sleep for a while, picked it up again -- nothing. I told myself it's well written, turned it into a movie, I persuaded myself that Ms. Proulx is a talented writer -- nada. Maybe because she uses too much local vocabulary, local dialect, obscure words, some characters talk and talk and talk, long speeches, maybe her sentences are choppy, sticking in my throat like fish bones. I don't know. Some images are splendid, some scenes are funny. I couldn't finish. Mind you, I got that novel through Interlibrary Loan, that much I wanted to read it. I apologize to you, Ms. Proulx, in case you read my post.

Have you gone through a similar experience? This includes classics as well as established contemporary authors.

Adagio
 
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AmyBA

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I couldn't get into Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones. People I knew raved about it, but about one quarter of the way in, I just quit. I couldn't get into the story, but unfortunately, I guess, I never really bothered to put my finger on why, I just stopped reading it.
 

Maryn

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Oh, I'm so glad to have this thread as proof that I'm not the only one. I, too, could not get through The Shipping News and while I may have technically finished The Lovely Bones, I skimmed the last third.

I read the first quarter of A Prayer for Owen Meany--twice. That's all the chances a book gets with me, no matter how many people whose tastes seem similar to mine rave about it.

Maryn, whose to-read stack is daunting
 

Sohia Rose

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Truman Capote, In Cold Blood. He spent like 10 pages describing the kitchen. :sleepy:

Also, I couldn't get through James Frey, A Million Little Pieces. By the time I got to page 200 or so, I was still waiting for something to happen. :Shrug:
 

A. Hamilton

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Both Accordian Crimes and the Shipping News sit unfinished for this reason, although I did get several chapters into Accordian Crimes before giving up.

The God of Small Things,
by Arundhati Roy - same thing, I tried but I could not get into it. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, is probably very very good, I had no problem with the weay the story was told, but I tried and tried and could not bring myslf to finish it. I think in this case it was just a story I did not desire to hear.
 

aruna

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Me three with Lovely Bones - though I did finish it. I didn;t enjoy, it, though.

Two books I didn't finish were The Autograoh Man ans On Beauty - both by Zadie Smith. Blah.
 

Cathy C

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Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (yes, yes---I know a lot of you liked it, so don't throw sticks at me. :scared: .) I made it through the first 150 pages . . . desperately waiting for the story to start. It didn't. And since 150 was barely a 7th of the way into the book, I donated it to the library!

Oh, and another one was The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency. It was an odd collection of short stories tied together by the MC being the owner of an African female detective agency. If only she would have investigated something. :Shrug: BORING...
 

Soccer Mom

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Oh, I loved The Number One Ladies Detective Agency books! Different strokes. And I didn't like Lovely Bones.


::Spoiler Alert::










































The scene where she takes over her friend's body and has sex with the BF. Ick. Just ick. It destroyed any sympathy I had for the character.
 

maestrowork

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I admit I couldn't finish most of Stephen King's novels. I know, it's just me.
 
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Dawno

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I've had a bookmark stuck on page 251 of 642 of The Historian for, ummm, I'd guess 5 months now. I *will* finish it but I keep finding more interesting stuff to read. Like the fine print in the junk mail I get from people trying to get me to take out a second mortgage on the home I rent. So far the small print hasn't shown me a loophole that would get me rights to the equity from something I don't own...
 

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Just cruising through after signing up, (Hello!) and wanted to add a couple of my all time reading lows.

Underworld by Don Delillo. Couldn't finish it. Twice. Have got it in for him now. ;) (Kidding! or maybe not? Hmm.)

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman - finished the trilogy reluctantly (i.e. had to...just to make sure I didn't like it). I think I'm one of the few, but I couldn't stand these books....I could write an essay about it, but I'm trying to put them out of my mind. ;)

Two old nemeses are, respectively: Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. One day I will conquer them both! :tongue
Or possibly I will just admit that books with lots of big words and names defeat me....and I should perhaps stop putting literary masterpieces on my library list. ;) - Lifes too short!
 

Adagio

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maestrowork said:
I admit I couldn't finish most of Stephen King's novels. I know, it's just me.

I finished The Stand. Started Cell but when I reached the gory stuff, I returned the book the library. I started Lisey's Story, hoping it's different.

Dawno said:
I've had a bookmark stuck on page 251 of 642 of The Historian for, ummm, I'd guess 5 months now.

Dawno, same here. I bought The Historian based on reviews (although I'm not into Dracula stuff). I was curious to see how she portrays Vlad. Couldn't warm up to the story -- it sags in the middle and I lost patience. What pissed me off was that the author wrote about a country she hasn't visited during her research trips (according to an interview).
 
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paprikapink

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Maybe I'm the only writer in the world who doesn't appreciate Eats, Shoots, and Leaves? It just seems mean to me, to crow about other people not being as knowledgeable as you are. I'm sure there's a book's worth of material about what a math fool I am, but who wants to read that?
 

poetinahat

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I raced through The Shipping News and loved it -- go figure. I won't see the film, though; the main character would've needed to be awkward and unattractive. Knowing Kevin Spacey was cast in the part, I didn't think the rest of the film would hold for me.

I made it through Soul Mountain, by Gao Xingjian, but wanted my weeks back. It won a Nobel Prize for Literature, but I got very little from it at all.

I've read Ulysses halfway -- twice. I'll get there.

John Steinbeck's The Red Pony and Henry James' The Turn of the Screw were two shortish books that died early for me.
 

TrainofThought

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There is only one book I couldn’t finish and that was The Name of the Rose. I feel an obligation to the writer to finish. I know, I’m weird.

I liked the The Shipping News too.
 

poetinahat

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I haven't read that one, Train, but I enjoyed the film (completely irrelevant, I know). I like the notion of obligation to the author; that's probably a good description of why I'll bang away at Ulysses again.

I did read another Eco book, Foucault's Pendulum. It's not an easy read by any stretch, but I did enjoy it, and I found a great sense of humour underneath all the abstruse references and labyrinthine plot workings.
 

TrainofThought

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I probably will go back and read The Name of the Rose, but it just doesn’t fit in my life right now. Maybe in time I will relish it emotionally.
 
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Mud Dauber

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:hi: Another vote for Lovely Bones. I, too, couldn't get past what SoccerMom posted in her spoiler alert. I wasn't really digging the story to begin with, but once I got to the aforementioned spoiler, I wanted to toss the book across the room. I forced myself to finish, and I thought it was a waste of time.

Lisey's Story by Stephen King didn't grab me right away either. I only gave it 30 pages, but...:e2yawn:
 

A. Hamilton

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I haven't read Lisey's Story, but I did struggle to finish The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, (it was good but a bit redundant or mundane or something) and gave away Gerald's Game about halfway through. I've enjoyed the other King novels I've read, and read the Stand twice.
 

Mud Dauber

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P.H.Delarran said:
I haven't read Lisey's Story, but I did struggle to finish The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, (it was good but a bit redundant or mundane or something) and gave away Gerald's Game about halfway through. I've enjoyed the other King novels I've read, and read the Stand twice.

Someone told me he wrote the book that Stand By Me was based off of. Has anyone read it? Is it any good? That's one of my all-time favorite movies.

I really want to be able to say 'I've read a Stephen King book.';) But apparently, it's not going to be Lisey's Story.:scared:
 

Adagio

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TrainofThought said:
There is only one book I couldn’t finish and that was The Name of the Rose. I feel an obligation to the writer to finish. I know, I’m weird.

I DID finish The Name of the Rose. I read somewhere that if you manage to get through and past the page where the narrator describes The Door, you're in.:hooray:

You're not weird. I'm partial to Ecco, to myopic monks copying musty parchments in feezing-cold scriptoria lighted by flickering candles, and to librarians, ancient and modern. :D
 

limitedtimeauthor

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Most of the ones I couldn't finish I didn't bother to remember the names of. But it's great to have a thread where I can let my big secret out. And it's not that I'm King-bashing, because I loved The Shining and Cujo, but at the risk of getting kicked out of the Cooler for this one...

I couldn't finish On Writing. <ducks>

Maybe I was just in a hurry for some nuts and bolts writing instruction, and this was more of a memoir. That was probably the reason.



ltd.