Books People Can't Finish

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bearymore

Last, any discussion of translated classics shouldn't leave out the wonderful recent translations of The Iliad and the Odyssey by Robert Fagles.

The Fagles translations are certainly excellent, but personally I think the Richard Lattimore translations are better. They are probably the closest someone who doesn't read Ionic Greek can get to the experience of reading the original (which I am fortunate enough to be able to read).

[Araucaria]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Famously (and perhaps notoriously), Harold Bloom disagreed:

What's happening is part of a phenomenon I wrote about a couple of years ago when I was asked to comment on Rowling. I went to the Yale University bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.

Imagine what he might have thought about repetition in Lord Dunsany (would he have considered "the fields we know" to be a cliche?)!

As a man in his sixties who was very surprised to find that he really enjoyed the HP books, I was prompted to look for the only example of Rowling stretching legs rather than walking. And what I found, early in the first chapter of HP1, was that the person who thinks he will stretch his legs is HP's overweight uncle, Vernon Dursley. It's not the narrator: instead it's effectively a bit of internal monologue:

"Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he’d stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the bakery."

Rowling is trying to show a Mr Dursley who thinks entirely in clichés, and in my view, and in that context, the phrase is more than acceptable, it's appropriate.

But what do I know: I'm just a reader. I have finished Proust, though (and enjoyed it).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ManosHandsOfFate

I read LoTR when I was about 12. I was so enamored with Middle Earth that I immediately started The Silmarillion. It was a slog. I think I got about 50 pages into it and gave up. I tried it again a year or so later and it wasn't any better.

That was many years ago. Maybe as an adult it'll go better?

Nope, The Silmarillian doesn't get better. I did read the entire book because I got it as a gift in hardcover. What a lousy book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Geralt

It's one of my favorite fantasy books. Very unique.
I "read" it as an audio book. Narration was wonderfully done by Simon Prebble, footnotes included. It's unabridged version.
Even though you have autographed copy I recommend that you consider audiobook.
You can have a listen at the sample: here.
Footnotes are important here, but with an audiobook, you won't even think about them as you do now.

I cannot find where to listen to the sample.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ApK

Hitch is saying that reading those kinds of classics builds discipline of thought.
Katsunami is saying they require discipline of thought going in.

To me, it sounds like Hitch is from the "no-pain-no-gain lift heavy weight until you are strong" gym, while Kat is of the "play sports you love, ride your bike, go backpacking and eventually you'll be strong enough to lift heavy weights" gym.

I have no data on this, but it's interesting.

For myself: never read the denser classics when I was young, never had that kind of discipline, yet I did well enough on the SATs to join Mensa, and loved Logic and Language in college.

From my single data point, and my life experience I tend to side with Kat in general.

The problem as I see it is what's being pushed on the kids to read in school turns them off to reading. If I wasn't already a reader by the time I got there, I might have been turned off to reading because most of what we had to read was awful. And then to have to study it made what was awful into something even worse. So really, get the teachers to read something more modern that the kids might actually enjoy or even relate to. Kids don't relate to these moldy old classics. It has nothing to do with life as it is now and they need something they can relate to. Shakespeare is not a good idea. It really puts kids off reading. It's written in a way that is hard to understand and IMHO, it doesn't help them by being forced to read Olde English when they won't ever have to do it again and a lot won't.

Teachers have no idea how they are turning kids off to reading by picking the wrong books for them to read in school. Let's find something modern to read they will work a lot better then these old books that kids don't relate to. All it does is turn them off from reading.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shanghaichica

Unfortunately I finished 50 shades of grey

It's incomplete. There are 256 shades of grey, not just 50.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

and that reading Dickens or St. Thomas Aquinas in high school is just "too hard." I simply disagree. (Cheerfully, mind you, but I disagree. We'll have to agree that we disagree!)

Hitch

I don't think that reading Dickens is too difficult for high school students. I think some of it may be not relevant for them depending which book(s) is/are chosen to be read. Kids come up with excuses because they have no interest or simply don't like what's being read. I read books in school that I really would never have read on my own and I would never recommend any of them to anyone to read.

Some books I've read and disliked in school are... Romeo & Juliet, The Bothers Karamazov, The Canterbury Tales, and April Morning are some that come to mind. I didn't dislike the story for Romeo & Juliet, I disliked reading it. I disliked the Olde English and I still do.

All of those books I mentions are flawed for today's kids. They aren't relevant for one reason or another. They aren't modern enough and when kids feel that what they are learning isn't something they'll need to know then they turn off and don't care. Get them books that mean something to today's kids and they'll do better at reading (IMHO).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by arsingh1

A Brief History of time by Stephen Hawking. (It is the best-selling but also supposed to have earned the dubious honor of being the world's most unread book.)

Sorry, but that's just not true. The most unreadable book is Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Agreed, with a very large number of adult fans.

My step-daughter is 30 and she loves the Harry Potter books.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

I've just never been much for fantasy, munchkins or muggles or whatever.

Since you are not much for muggles, then I cannot see how you read books at all. A muggle is just an ordinary non-magical person. That would be the type of people you will find in an ordinary novel such as The Silkworm.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

I do have to wonder just what book he read, seeing as the phrase is used exactly once in my copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, searching by "stretch". ("He was in a very good mood until lunch-time, when he thought he’d stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the baker’s opposite.")

I have the US eBook and I searched for the word legs. I found the phrase "stretch his legs" just once. Harold Bloom is an idiot (IMHO). He's marking off when something occurs in a book that's not actually in the book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Most of the people who finish LOTR are not average readers, but above average readers. It is a difficult to read book. I could never read James Michener's books. By the third chapter, I simply could no longer plow through his excessive description. Which may be why LOTR was an issue. Lots of description - not very action oriented.

The first time I read The Hobbit and LoTR. I was not yet in high school.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I didn't dislike the story for Romeo & Juliet, I disliked reading it. I disliked the Olde English and I still do.

"Romeo and Juliet" is not written in "Old English"; it's written in early modern English.

This is an example of Old English (the beginning of the Lord's Prayer):

Fæder ūre þū þe eart on heofonum,
Sī þīn nama ġehālgod.
Tōbecume þīn rīċe,
ġewurþe þīn willa, on eorðan swā swā on heofonum.
Ūre ġedæġhwāmlīcan hlāf syle ūs tō dæġ,
and forġyf ūs ūre gyltas, swā swā wē forġyfað ūrum gyltendum.
And ne ġelǣd þū ūs on costnunge, ac ālȳs ūs of yfele.
Sōþlīċe.

[mgbino]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Sorry, but that's just not true. The most unreadable book is Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce.

I am totally convinced that Finnegan's Wake is one of the earliest examples of trolling.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

"Romeo and Juliet" is not written in "Old English"; it's written in early modern English.

This is an example of Old English (the beginning of the Lord's Prayer):

But regardless that it's early modern English, knowing how to read early modern English is not a skill kids need to know. It's a skill they don't care about and I don't blame them for it. It's a turn off to reading. So STOP MAKING KIDS READ EARLY MODERN ENGLISH for no good reason at all.