Books People Can't Finish

[Dngrsone]

While we are banging on LotR, I completely failed at trying to read the Silmarillion. Twice.

I am a terrible fan.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

While we are banging on LotR, I completely failed at trying to read the Silmarillion. Twice.

I am a terrible fan.

No, you're not. The Silmarillion is a very different book. It reads more like a Bible than a novel. I found it a good read, but I CAN imagine why LotR fans don't like The Silmarillion.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by tdonline

I wasn't thrilled with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo initially but kept with it. About 2/3 of the way through the second book, I wasn't sure if I wanted to read the third but let's just say if you finish the second, it's really difficult to not read the third. You just want to know.

That pretty much summarizes the Millenium Trilogy. It's not great literature and there were a couple of major things that stuck in my craw, but you want to know what happens. I have zero interest in rereading the books.

I gave up after the 2nd book, there was nothing compelling in the 2nd book to make me want to read the 3rd. I still don't know why the fuss about this trilogy, I found the 2 books I read average at best, with the second worse than the first.

[sakura-panda]

Regarding the books from the OP:

I'm currently reading LOTR and according to my Goodreads entry, I've been reading it since last July. I'm not bored or not wanting to read it; I only read it when I know I'm going to be able to really pay attention, so I tend to read it when I have a block of dedicated time, rather than fitting it in when I have time to spare. This is not my genre and I found I kept losing track of people and places when I read it in my usual way, so I've adopted this more careful approach and am enjoying it more than I expected. I don't think it is a bad thing to stretch out my first read, considering how often many people re-read it.

I read Moby Dick and wanted to give it up about halfway through -- but I also realized that if I did, later on someday I'd have to go back and start from the beginning to read it all, and so read it to the end. It was one of those classics that is brought up so often in popular culture that I wanted to experience the original source. I'm both glad I did it and glad I won't have to do it again.

I've read both Wicked and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and liked them both well enough that I bought and read the next two books in each series. I confess that the Millenium series was entirely by audio CD; I have no interest in reading those books on my own but have listened to the series more than once.

I *think* I've read Eat, Pray, Love, but it didn't stick with me. I don't remember any more than "have read it" and "don't want to read it again."

I want to read The Casual Vacancy, but am on a book buying hiatus at the moment and I will need to stumble across a really super epub deal to get it anytime soon. I have a small backlog of purchased books that need to be read first.

I do not have any plans to attempt to read any of the other books. I'm not a book abandoner -- that is, I haven't given up on any book before I finished it. If I pick to a book to read, it is after I've done some research -- usually by picking up the paper copy and flipping through the pages a bit to get a feel of the writing (more reliable) or reading online reviews (less reliable) -- and have very specific reasons for choosing it; those reasons do not go away just because I'm struggling with the book.

[HarryT]

Three separate people in this thread now have referred to Larsson's trilogy as the "Millenium" trilogy. It's not really called that, is it, surely?

[issybird]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Three separate people in this thread now have referred to Larsson's trilogy as the "Millenium" trilogy. It's not really called that, is it, surely?

Well, no, but it is known as the Millennium trilogy.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I finish everything I start. Seriously. I am dogged, but I usually have a good reason I picked the book out to read in the first place outside of 'maybe this will be good.'

I finished Moby Dick.
I finished Ulysses.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by issybird

Well, no, but it is known as the Millennium trilogy.

Thank you. I know that standards of literacy are falling, but I was rather hoping that a book publisher would know that there are two "N"s in the word "Millennium".

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thank you. I know that standards of literacy are falling, but I was rather hoping that a book publisher would know that there are two "N"s in the word "Millennium".

Google seems to be undecided on the correct spelling, but this dictionary does contain the word "millennium".

If you spell it differently, you're redirected to a page called "Common misspellings".

A publisher should be able to look this up

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Three separate people in this thread now have referred to Larsson's trilogy as the "Millenium" trilogy. It's not really called that, is it, surely?

I read Dragon Tattoo, and while I finished it, I was annoyed with it for so many reasons I can hardly remember them now; I was shocked at the fuss over it. I posted something on the DorothyL list (I was active on it at the time), saying "WT...?" and a low-star review, for which of course I received snarky emails, because I'd had the nerve to NOT like it. I disliked the silliness of the coincidences and physical similarities; the avatar for the author being jumped by everything female {sigh}, the further silliness of all the comings and no goings in a small town with basically one road going unnoticed, and other aspects. I thought the creation of the other protag, Lisbeth Salander, was inspired. I thought the big "gotcha" against the (evil, of course) capitalist was incomprehensible and poorly-thought out. Some of this could all be translation, but I doubt major plot holes/points were.

LOTR: Let's face it. TTT is a slog. It is. Basically, Frodo and Samwise trudge. And trudge. And, wait! Do more trudging. Then something happens. then back to trudging. Occasionally, something happens elsewhere. Oh, wait: back to the trudging. When I say it's a slog, it's a slog in more ways than one. I did of course read them all, (it was practically required reading in the 60's), but Twin Towers was not my fave, by a long shot. (Only slightly less annoying than the hundred or so pages wasted on Tom Bombadil, in Fellowship.)

Crime and Punishment: Finished it. Oish. Thanks, but....felt more or less whiny to me. I know, I know...what can I say.

Have never tried 50Shades. Not my cuppa, from what I understand. Haven't tried Rowling's other novels. I read the HP books and, heresy: for once, I thought the movies were, in many ways, BETTER. Certainly I thought the first movie was far superior to the first book (of course, it had the advantage of being able to borrow from the later books in terms of world-building). So, while I think she has an amazing imagination, I don't truly think that Rowling is an amazing writer, per se. That doesn't inspire me to buy her adult fiction.

On Joyce: I go back and forth in my thinking about him. The literati would have us treat him as a god. I find it hard to pick up Ulysses, mostly because he gloated about how long we'd be arguing about the work. I've been through it, because I felt I must, but...as I said, I'm ambivalent about it. And before everyone leaps to tell me how brilliant it is, yes, I've read those arguments, too, thanks.

I pretty much finish everything I start, but I have become better about skimming a first chapter to see IF it is something I really want to pick up. ;-) Life is short!

Hitch

[tdonline]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

And, you've got the people who are not into reading fantasy and still try to read LotR because they "should read it", or because they saw the movies and thought to just have a go at the book. These people will invariably fail to finish it.

Me to a T. I wanted to read LOTR before I saw the third movie. I also loved the Hobbit though, albeit I read it many years before LOTR.

I did read Harry Potter for the same reason--well after watching the movies and I enjoyed them. Granted this was during the ebook/audiobook era. LOTR was during the good old fashioned deadtree period.

[tdonline]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thank you. I know that standards of literacy are falling, but I was rather hoping that a book publisher would know that there are two "N"s in the word "Millennium".

My failing, not the publisher's!

About the top abandoned classics, the only two I can see good reason for abandoning are Ulysses and Atlas Shrugged. The first because it is a difficult read and the second because it's a piece of cr__. Catch 22 is a hilarious black comedy about war and the anti-communist paranoia of the 1950s. Moby Dick is a classic for all the reasons that books become classics. The Lord of the Rings is worth a read, but hopefully to be done as an adolescent. Any earlier and it would be incomprehensible and much later and frankly it begins to seem silly. To those who mentioned The Brothers Karamazov, that's a great book, Maybe better than Crime and Punishment.

Those Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books I can understand giving up on. Not for difficulty, or bad writing, it's just that the central female character soon becomes an immortal superhero, like a comic book. What will she do next? Crack into the NSA and bring about world peace while beating the heavy weight champion of the world to a pulp with one arm broken?

[issybird]

I loved Ulysses and Moby Dick, but they are rather a slog. Catch-22 is pure fun. I did abandon LotR, even at the right age for it. So not my thing, at any age. Knowing about Atlas Shrugged is enough.

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

Those Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books I can understand giving up on. Not for difficulty, or bad writing, it's just that the central female character soon becomes an immortal superhero, like a comic book. What will she do next? Crack into the NSA and bring about world peace while beating the heavy weight champion of the world to a pulp with one arm broken?

Well, they were badly written, too, in addition to being absurd. But I admit it, I kept turning the pages just the same. Sheer rubbernecking.

[xg4bx]

All the hatred for Ayn Rand makes me even more curious to read her work; someone who inspires such vehement opinions must be doing something right.