Books You Don't Quite "Get"

[Christie.]

Originally Posted by Devastator

I read 'Lord of the Flies' for my Advanced Higher English, actually the worst book I've ever read. I was sorely dissappointed

maybe it was too young for you because i was made to read it for English when we were in 2nd year, about 12 or 13 years old...

Originally Posted by Devastator

Seriously?!?!?!

I fucking LOVE that book!

The Beach? Aye - I liked it, but that was it. It just didn't make me think once I'd finished it. It's a good way to waste an afternoon, but I don't know if it's one I'd be in a hurry to read again.

[Zooropa]

Originally Posted by Zippy

LOTR - I've seriously tried reading it 3 times and every time I get to the 'House of Tom Bombadil' and get so bored that I can't carry on.

It's slow to start, aye.

That bit in particular is pretty hard going. Two pages to describe a tree and that.

I absolutely loved the rest of it though.

[Trip]

Originally Posted by Rowsbette

I can't imagine this'll get anything more than a lacklustre response, but I'd be interested to see what books disappointed you lot. Be it a bestseller that didn't live up to the hype, an apparent classic that had you snoozing, or one of those frustrating reads that just didn't make sense. Warn us!

Martin Amis - Dead Babies
Everyone told me Martin Amis was amazing, and I did quite like this up until the end. Maybe I was too young to "get" it, but the damage is done, I'm now convinced I shouldn't waste any more of my life on his books.

John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
Had me wondering if its classic status was a joke, and if eventually the powers that be will jump out and laugh at anyone who fell for it. Again, it might've been that I was too young to appreciate it, but I found it truly yawnsome.

Ian Rankin - {I can't even remember what this one was called, all his titles seem horribly similar}
Could've been that I just picked up a bad one, but it left me wondering how the actual fuck this guy's so popular. Stilted prose, a predictable ending, and an annoying desire to inflict his music tastes on the reader. I just couldn't bring myself to care about anyone in the book.

I love Martin Amis, and sometimes I think I don't actually GET it, but I like it anyway. I like how when you read a book he's written you often think WHAT? but then when you read it again you notice sooooo many other things. I really like Money it was the first amis book I read, although I didn't really get it until I'd read it a few times. Compared to his other books I though Dead Babies was pretty straightforward coz it doesn't really skip that much. Its a bit ming mong though...

I also don't 'get' The Great Gasby/Wuthering Heights/Gone with the Wind, because I thought they were supposed to be love stories, but when I read them they are about two horrible people torturing each other and then never ending up together. Don't think thats a 'beautiful love story!'.

I also didn't get The Sea by John Banville (totally overwritten) and Hard Times by Charles Dickens which I've just tried reading and its not Dickensian at all and I don't really understand what its point it.

I also didn't quite get 'The satanic verses' by salman rushdie, although I really wanted to. I didn't know the background or anything to it, after I'd read it I read up on it, then I was like 'AHHHhhh.....'. But I still didn't really get it.

[poprock]

Dance Dance Dance by Murakami looked like just my kinda thing, but I found it so utterly devoid of personality that I gave up halfway through.

Originally Posted by poprock

Dance Dance Dance by Murakami looked like just my kinda thing, but I found it so utterly devoid of personality that I gave up halfway through.

That's the same dude that wrote Norwegian Wood, isn't it? I persevered with Norwegian Wood but it was just another Catcher in the Rye for me, I was left thinking, "Did I really just waste all that time reading this?" at the end of it.

[Devastator]

I need to read the whole book, I can't stop halfway through - I end up thinking "THANK GOD!" at the end, haha.

[ashbash]

Originally Posted by Elusive_Faerie

maybe it was too young for you because i was made to read it for English when we were in 2nd year, about 12 or 13 years old...

Yeah we read it in 3rd year. I loved it, but I do agree that it was perhaps a bit young for advanced higher level.

[Devastator]

It was for a comparison with a book I can't remember the name of, it was about incest though, (they kept their mum's dead body in a trunk in the basement? Anyone?). We had to totally analyse every bloody word, there was a lot to do and it was good for it - I just didn't particularly enjoy the way it was written.

[Rowsbette]

Originally Posted by Devastator

a book I can't remember the name of, it was about incest though, (they kept their mum's dead body in a trunk in the basement? Anyone?)

I don't know the book, but I totally wanna read it now.

See I did The Inheritors for Higher (same author as LOTF) and hated it on first reading, but after a coupla weeks of studying it I grew to really like it. Kinda like some of the books I got for uni last term, they seemed deadly dull until we got the lectures on them. I do have the attention span of a five year old though, I've started LOTF at least three times, and always quite like it, but never get beyond the first few chapters.

Originally Posted by Semprini

One I never understood the appeal of was The Catcher in the Rye. Struck me as far too many pages of Caulfield moaning about how everything is someone else's fault, and generally being a whiny little bitch.

I liked The Catcher in the Rye, but I don't think it merits the status its been granted. I suppose it might've seemed radical back in its day.

[ashbash]

Originally Posted by Rowsbette

See I did The Inheritors for Higher (same author as LOTF) and hated it on first reading, but after a coupla weeks of studying it I grew to really like it. Kinda like some of the books I got for uni last term, they seemed deadly dull until we got the lectures on them. I do have the attention span of a five year old though, I've started LOTF at least three times, and always quite like it, but never get beyond the first few chapters.

We did the Inheritors in 3rd year as well. Clearly our teacher had a lot of faith in us

[Will_Couper]

Originally Posted by Devastator

It was for a comparison with a book I can't remember the name of, it was about incest though, (they kept their mum's dead body in a trunk in the basement? Anyone?).

Sounds like 'The Cement Garden' by Ian McEwen.






Will

[Devastator]

YES! Thankyou. It was really good, depressing, but good.

[beshemoth]

Originally Posted by Vonnie

That's the same dude that wrote Norwegian Wood, isn't it? I persevered with Norwegian Wood but it was just another Catcher in the Rye for me, I was left thinking, "Did I really just waste all that time reading this?" at the end of it.

For some reason I remember one of Bruce Sterling's characers saying Murakami "reads like fifty kilos of sprouts if you're not Japanese".

Then again, I didn't "get" a lot of the books on this list so maybe I'm just a bit thick. And I've just admitted to reading Bruce Sterling. Oops...

[PapaZeb]

Originally Posted by severinskiss

Quicksilver: Volume I of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, dear God let there never be a Volume 2

He finished this at 3 volumes, consisting of a total of 8 books of mostly unreadable (but occasionally enjoyable) text.

Cryptonomicon was much better while still being lengthy, his shorter ones are best.