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

One book ive tried and failed to get into was Dahlgren by Samuel Delany . The furthest I ever got was 100 or so pages . I gave up because I couldn't make heads or tales of what the book was really about about.

I've tried The Brothers Karamazov a few times. I got pretty far last time, but just... stopped.

I'm less tolerant of such things, and never force myself to finish (or continue) books that don't grab me. The sample available with e-books means I rarely buy a bad book, fortunately.

Catcher in the Rye. Like the start, can't get any further. Lolitia.

thaddeus6th said:

I've tried The Brothers Karamazov a few times. I got pretty far last time, but just... stopped.
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Whose translation?

If you tried the Pevear-Volokhonsky translation and that didn't catch on with you, then yeah, you might scratch this novel off your list. But if you attempted one of the earlier translations, you might give P-V a try.

I tried to read Gormenghast after having watched a TV adaptation but really couldn't get into it.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens -- 100 pages in and I didn't really care about the characters or where events were headed. I may eventually try again. At any given time a book may do nothing for me, but a later me finds it fascinating.


Randy M.

At the moment A Dance with Dragons. Oh yeah, Leviathan Wakes.

It's David McDuff, incidentally.

Edited extra bit: as translator.

The most dreadful printed thing I ever dragged myself through (not counting that best-selling dark horror fantasy 'The Bible') would have to be Ramsay Campbell's 'To Wake the Dead'. Around 300pp long and just about nothing happens until around page 287. Then not much. Should be retitled 'Tedium'.

I keep a list of all the books I read, how many times I've read them and various other statistics. I also give each a score out of 10. I think that Campbell item is the only one with 0 out of ten, and there are quite a few wasted bits of tree on my list. That is, without doubt, the worst.

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The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Promises of vampire horror and suspense, but just seemed to be a Transylvanian travelogue. I gave up not quite halfway through.

Patrick Rothfuss, Name of the Wind. He seems to love himself a lot when he writes and it shows. He also takes forever to move the plot which I couldn't see and I read over 300 pages.

thaddeus6th said:

It's David McDuff, incidentally.

Edited extra bit: as translator.

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Of The Brothers Karamazov, I think you mean. I haven't read it -- it might be fine; but it was the P-V translation that, I believe, kicked off their series of translations of Russian classics that has received so many enthusiastic reviews. Their thing is to try hard to let the author's voice come through, in contrast to the approach of translators such as, say, Constance Garnett, who seems to have smoothed out differences between the various authors. (But I must always remember what a revelation Garnett's translations were for Hemingway, when he discovered them as described memorably in A Movable Feast, his book about living in Paris.)

But having said that -- I warmly recommend you try the P-V translation of Brothers -- I will make my contribution here to the discussion of books that have stumped us -- and it's the translation by p-V of Dostoevsky's The Adolescent/A Raw Youth. Maybe someday. My sense is that the book's problems are pretty much due to Dostoevsky and not, this time, his translator.

biodroid said:

Patrick Rothfuss, Name of the Wind. He seems to love himself a lot when he writes and it shows. He also takes forever to move the plot which I couldn't see and I read over 300 pages.

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I had a number people recommend this one to me. I disliked it from page one.

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?

I seriously wish I hadn't bothered to finish The Silmarillion. Terrible book. That's a whole chunk of my life I'll never get back.

Got to say I really like The Silmarillion. It's far better than Lord of the Rings.

About 25 odd years ago, Michael Moorcock, any books, either in French or a bit later on, in English. Gave up after a few pages, bored to death. Peter Hamilton's the Dreaming Void, after a hundred or so pages, when there was some kind of episode of "Location, Location, Location"* with someone buying a place in some unremarkable planet. Yawn! Give me a 200 pages Jack Vance full of weird wonders any time!
Also, I couldn't get into Hyperion, or A song for Arbonne, eventhough I'm a fan of Tolkien. Also, a load of French Science Fiction. They are a few remarkable ones, but as some acquaintance said 'Good ideas, but some authors write with their feet.'



* British property search program.

I read Rothfuss' Name of the Wind when it first came out and loved it but tried recently to pick it up again, planning to remind myself of the plot before I bought his next book, but I couldn't get past page 10. I have no idea why because generally I have no problem re-reading a book and tend to enjoy them even more the second time round. Having memory issues is a mixed blessing.

The Silmarillion was exactly the same. Read it as a teenager but couldn't manage it as an adult.

Clearly my reading maturity is running backwards.

So many...

Greg Keyes Briar King, GRRM's books, both of them for the same reason -- the blood and guts and general nastiness were too much and I didn't dare care about anyone in case they got killed.

Time Traveller's Wife -- not sure what it was, the voice just repelled me.

GRRM's first book because I became sooo confused with the characters... Didn't read any more after that. Considering how much I love Shogun, I couldn't get into Noble House, for some reason. Any Wilbur Smith book after 1993...