Inspired by a thread on the Guardian Arts blog. So? The only fiction I've ever stopped after starting are: - High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. I love the film but the book version of Rob is just too whiny and pathetic. Had to airlock him. - Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Marquez. It has no full stops. At all. I knew that before I started but had high hopes for my tolerance. I have stopped a couple of non-fiction efforts for one reason or another - usually not because it was bad but because I wasn;t in the right frame of mind. Hence I have not yet finished: - Churchill by Roy Jenkins - Stalingrad by Antony Beevor - London by Peter Ackroyd.
I must admit, having been in the past an avid Pratchett fan. I'm having problems getting through 'the truth'. I think its because its been so long since i read a discworld novel that i'd got out of the habit of reading Pratchetts 'style'
Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973. I tried to make it through that book, but it's so dry that I gave up. I may make another attempt someday. My Life as a 10-Year Old Boy by Nancy Cartwright. I don't know if she actually wrote it or if it was ghosted by someone (if it wasn't, it probably should've been), but it's the most saccharine, cliche`-ridden book I've ever tried to read. I won't be trying that one again.
Les Miserables. Dry and self-indulgent. Either a book entertains, or it doesn't, and unless it's a fucking dictionary that's pretty much my standard for enjoyment and completion.
Tried to read Master and Commander when the film came out...ye gods. You have to have a dictionary of 19th century British navel jargon handy.
Lord of the Rings. Blecch. But in all fairness, I never liked "fantasy" stuff. The Satanic Verses. Picked this one up after all the controversy almost 20 years ago. Got about halfway through it and realized I was bored out of my mind. Those are the only two that I can think of. I usually like to finish a book once I've started it, even if I'm not enjoying it 100%.
If I can't "get into" one by at least the third chapter, it's history. If the author isn't good enough to hook a reader by then...
Low-brow philistine. Don't you know the act of nailing yourself to the high-minded "entertainment" cross is not about pleasure, but demonstration of your cultural refinement for the approval of pseudo-intellectual peers?
I didn't say you did need it to be simple, just raising the obvious question from your post. But that's a discussion for another thread really.
Oi, my dear old Pa fucking loves Clive Cussler! He's got more money then you'll ever be able to count (Clive that is, not pops )
There's a difference between books that mindlessly entertain (Clive Cussler, Dan Brown, JK Rowling), and books that require you to work your brain a bit as you read them. Some books are just simply boring and poorly written, but many times if a book is deemed "great", chances are there's something in there worth reading. The only time I've stopped reading a book is when I realized it was utter shit not worth finishing. Like Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. Or anything Anne Rice wrote after "Queen of the Damned". I'm stunned, though, to see more than one person say Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity" wasn't worth finishing. I enjoyed it a great deal, even more so than the movie. Odd. I'm also surprised that someone didn't finish Satanic Verses, lots of good stuff in there too.
LOTR, yes. Those suck IMHO. Other than that, a whole variety of airport books I never bothered to finish after the flight. And Cussler is mildly entertaining from what I remember. But it's been a long time since I read one. Those are airport books too
I don't know about how his worth is measured in the general circles of literary studies, but I've certainly enjoyed his novels. Why would you say he's over-rated?
I can't see how anyone can say LOTR is 'bad writing' Overly complicated, yes... Unecessarily archaic, yes... overly long, yes... I can see how the incredible detail and complication would bore to death those who arn't interested in it... but badly written? naaaa Some parts of LOTR are some of the nicest, most well-written english i've ever read. And that includes shakespear
The Shipping News - Annie Proulox (sp?) First I was bored by it, I didn't care about the characters. Then, I hated the characters, because I just found them just all so pointless! Then, I gave up, and started reading it when I woke up from nightmares, and needed something to help me sleep. All in all, I think i got through about a third of the book.
He has a decent mastery of theEnglish language, yes. But writing, in these terms, is really the whole package. All the stuff you mentioned that was wrong with it...it tends to outweigh the good.
