Books you wish you hadn't finished

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Or reading about them could make you more sensitive to the fact that gay people have to read/see/overhear the explicit details of heterosexual sex on a regular basis.

To be honest, I don't really care. The problem in the Netherlands is that (especially famous gay people) feel the need to announce it to the world over and over again, and that has made me cross regarding them.

I'm not going around telling them that I'm not gay all the time, do I?

Just keep the personal stuff personal.

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't want to read explicit sex scenes in any book. I'm not a prude - I just find such things distasteful.

And this too.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Then the fact that the book happened to show gay characters in that way shouldn't be the deciding factor, should it?

It all depends.

Have you ever played Bioware's Jade Empire or Dragon Age RPG's?

It's possible to pursue a gay romance plot line in those games, at least with some characters. While I pertinently have avoided the male-male options, and probably will forever (possibly missing some good plot lines), I happily played all female-female plot lines and obviously, the male-female lines as well.

Am I a hypocrite? Maybe. Possibly. Probably. I don't really care. I'm just not into men, and certainly don't want to be forced to consume that sort of material, in whatever form.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

But what if the book is OK until you get to the last chapter or so, and then the author does something weird at the end? Some of the posts above are about books like this.

Downtown Owl was like that for me. I enjoyed it till the last chapter but the hurried ending annoyed me so much I was a tad indignant for a day or so.

Helen

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

To be honest, I don't really care. The problem in the Netherlands is that (especially famous gay people) feel the need to announce it to the world over and over again, and that has made me cross regarding them.

I'm not going around telling them that I'm not gay all the time, do I?

Just keep the personal stuff personal.

Again: The exercise which could have taught you so much seems not to have registered. You could have understood, through your very distaste for the subject, how it might feel to grow up in a society in which the thing that you love is taboo and that which you might feel alienated from is omnipresent. Instead, you make resentful comments about "famous gay people" who come out (as it were) and in so doing make the same argument as that of a bigot who rails against "reverse racism" in the States: "I'm not the one who's talking about [insert object of prejudice who points it out]; they're the ones who feel the need to announce it" -- as if ignoring a problem means that it doesn't exist.

But the problem does exist. The reason it's important for "famous gay people" to come out is because that preference is made more acceptable among people who aren't famous (or powerful). The level of violence and persecution against gay kids is the true obscenity.

And this too.

Whether intended that way or not, Harry's comment redirected a specific point about prejudiced distaste to an irrelevant one through the substitution of a straw man, implying that distaste for explicit language of any kind is interchangeable with someone's specific distaste for explicit gay language. The discussion then proceeds as if a distinction concerning the gay subject had never been made, which ignores the specific problem of stigmatizing an entire group of people as inherently more obscene than normative straight people.

It's to your credit that you said "this, too," rather than "this is what I meant."

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Whether intended that way or not, Harry's comment redirected a specific point about prejudiced distaste to an irrelevant one through the substitution of a straw man, implying that distaste for explicit language of any kind is interchangeable with someone's specific distaste for explicit gay language.

It is interchangeable. If you don't like something, you don't want to read about it. It's irrelevant WHY you don't like it.

[speakingtohe]

I don't think a distaste for reading about something indicates prejudice. I prefer reading about the actions etc. of whole people, not just their body parts.

A little explicit sex is fine, but not when it is the main focus of the story. A single body part should not be mentioned/described ad nauseum, and usually repetitively on every second page. Of course when I was young I would maybe have just loved it. Now it bores me and when there is pain, bestiality, molestation, coercion etc. involved it makes me feel a tad ill. I don't think this makes me prejudiced.

I also don't care for books that consist heavily of descriptions of the countryside, backstory, or long meandering diatribes on religion or politics etc.. Just me. But I don't think I am prejudiced against the countryside.

I don't want to watch pigs being slaughtered, humanely or not, but I don't think pig slaughterers are wrong or evil or anything bad at all. They probably grew up in a farm where it was just the way of things or need the cash and I am afraid I do like my pork chops on occasion.

I find the operation channel nauseating as well, but am pretty sure I am not prejudiced against surgeons etc.. Well maybe a little.

I do admit to having prejudices (prejudice against prejudiced people for one) and try my hardest to eradicate them, or at least ignore them by telling myself not to be an ass. Let him who is without prejudice cast the first stone.

Helen

[faithbw]

Well, I just thought of another book I wished I hadn't finished: The Catcher in the Rye. I actually read it twice. The first time I read I was in the 9th grade and thought Holden was so deep and his angst such an example of what is wrong with our materialistic and fake modern society. I read it again two years later and wondered why I ever found that character appealing. He came off as such a spoiled brat. I still wonder why my opinion of the book changed so drastically.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Again: The exercise which could have taught you so much seems not to have registered.

...

It's to your credit that you said "this, too," rather than "this is what I meant."

You know what what I really dislike? Political correctness. In the Netherlands, this is being driven to extremes and I'm thoroughly tired of it. It's causing the problem that it's almost forbidden to dislike, or say something negative, about anything.

Being tired of that, I'm going to state, very bluntly, what I think about this gay stuff subject:

I dislike gay people who feel the need to state that they are gay, everywhere and anytime they get a chance to do so. I consider the entire gay soap around the Winter Olympics preposterous. I consider passing laws for or against gay people idiocy. Just let everybody do whatever they want regarding sexual orientation, habits or preferences.

So...

1. For the people: do whatever you want, but keep it to yourself. (edit: or make sure I'm not *forced* to be confronted with your preferences. So for a radio DJ, keep your mouth shut about it in between songs, for example.)
2. For society: let them be and keep sexual orientation out of the law. (Except where it includes minors and regulations would be desirable.)

To get back on topic: I don't have a problem with the fact that a book such as 'The Fourth Man' by Gerard Reve exists; normally, I'm not forced to read it. I still wish I hadn't. I'm still of the opinion that it's wrong to use one's position of power, in this case as a teacher, to *make* people read it even if they have no desire to.

[MeSue]

Originally Posted by faithbw

Well, I just thought of another book I wished I hadn't finished: The Catcher in the Rye. I actually read it twice. The first time I read I was in the 9th grade and thought Holden was so deep and his angst such an example of what is wrong with our materialistic and fake modern society. I read it again two years later and wondered why I ever found that character appealing. He came off as such a spoiled brat. I still wonder why my opinion of the book changed so drastically.

I just finished it (audiobook) for the first time and didn't wish I hadn't. In fact, the implication in the ending is what makes the whole thing meaningful, IMO. It made me laugh... I didn't love it, but didn't regret finishing it.

[pdurrant]

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Please note that discussions of LGBTQ rights or oppression belongs in the (opt-in) Politics and Religion forum and not in this thread.

Any further posts on this topic will be deleted without notice.

[Victoria]

I hate to admit it, but have sometimes regretted reading Margaret Atwood's books. She is brilliant, and the stories were compelling enough to make me finish the novel. But they were so cutting, bleak or cynical that they left me feeling 'grey' afterwards. So I pass on them now.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by sakura-panda

At the moment, An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon. It was a cliffhanger, in the worst sort of way (to me) and I wish I had stopped a chapter or so back and waited for the next book (not yet released) before I actually finished it. I re-read it recently, forgot to stop before the ending, and got upset with it all over again.

Other than that one book (and that will remedy itself soon), I can't think of anything that I've finished and regretted. Sometimes I'm even happy that a book is behind me and that I don't ever have to read it again!

Speaking of Gabaldon, I read Outlander. I read the entire thing, AWFUL book. What a waste of time.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

They actually did that with Star Trek Enterprise.

The series (situated in the 2160's, about the Enterprise-NX) got canceled, so the last one or two episodes suddenly stated that the entire Enterprise series was just a historical novel played on the Enterprise-D's holodeck (situated in the 2360's), and that it was time to get back to work, or some crap like that.

I'd rather have seen the ship sent on some sort of epic mission, achieving it, but getting utterly destroyed trying to escape enemy territory, closing the series with a memorandum or something.

It was the last episode played back on the holodeck of the Enterprise-D. It wasn't the entire series played on the holodeck.

[JSWolf]

Some books I disliked and did finish...

Dracula by Bram Stoker
Cold Atlas by David Mitchell
Battlefield Earth by L. Rob Hubbard
The Invader's Plan by L. Ron Hubbard
April Morning by Howard Fast
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster

[dakini]

Palo Alto by James Franco, and Our Lady of the Forest by David Guterson.