Books You Had to Put Down

Despite several attempts, with different books, I have never been able to finish anything by Michael Crichton or Tom Clancy. Their styles just don't work for me.

MM

I put down Eragon for obvious reasons. Longfellow's translation of The Inferno, but picked up a bloody 20th century translation and eventually finished it. The Jungle because the beginning is so boring, though I plan to finish it someday. The Brothers Karamazov because the sheer size of it terrifies me.

Michener's Hawaii, Michener's Texas, Michener's... anything. Gack, someone EDIT the man, please!

Carlyle's French Revolution. I never thought it was possible to make revolution, murder, blood, sex, and introgue boring. But he did it. I keep it on my shelf for the rare nights I can't sleep. 2-3 pages of that, and I'm snoozing.

Clive Cussler's Sahara. I hate being condescended to.

callalily61 said:

Clive Cussler's Sahara. I hate being condescended to.

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Didn't Cussler insert himself as a character in one of his books to help solve the mysery?

I'm not sure whether the word 'notable' applies, but I have put down both books I tried to read of a certain Mr. Brown's. I also gave up on Stephen King's Dreamcatcher (I think that was the title). As soon as I suspect little men in spaceships or any manifestation of same, I'm gone. I didn;t enjoy his Tommyknockers for the same reason - although I did finish that one. You see - I'll suspend my disbelief for almost anything - but when those little aliens start infiltrating - I dunno, I just can't get enthralled.

I got all the way to the last twenty or so pages of Lord of the Rings, too - and then I left it on the bus by accident, and I never shed a tear. It was one of the books, back in the 70s that I thought I should read. When the film came out I hadn't a clue what was going on. I must have read the book in sort of dream state, imbibing nothing of the long convoluted story.

As for historicals - I really have a huge problem with Simon Scarrow. No matter how hard I tried with his first Under the Eagle, I could not imagine myself anywhere near an ancient Roman, and after I'd read similar passages over and over about bashing and slashing similar parties of barbarians, I just gave up.

But the all-time worst was not a work of fiction. It was an academic, post-modern, deconstructionist tome called Reading Roman Women by Suzanne Dixon. Gods, I tried - I really tried. I can usually swallow monographs for breakfast, but this is such a piece of mush with its high-blown fallacious theories that tell us absolutely nothing at all about Roman women. I started the thing three times but threw it down in disgust.

Cybernaught said:

Didn't Cussler insert himself as a character in one of his books to help solve the mysery?

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In several of his books there is a minor character, always different, one scene, whose physical description matches Cussler's own. Kind of like the walk-through appearances by Hitchcock in his films. In the Dirk Pitt books there is always a classic car, owned by Cussler, photo on the back cover of the hardbacks.

He is very charming in person, BTW.

MM

Anything by Chuck Pahlaniuk. I am mystified by all the love he gets.

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kozinski. I not only put it down, I also walked outside holding it between a thumb and a finger and dropped it in a dumpster in the alley. Ugh, ugh, ptui.

Stephen King's Cell. Boring, predictable. I did read it halfway through. No, skimmed it. Didn't bother recycling it at the library book sale. Trashcan meet book. Book meet trashcan.

Kerouac, On the Road Again. Yep. I get it. I'm in the minority on this. But, I got about 15 pages in. And that was that.

American Gods, believe it or not. Just.Cannot.Get.Into.It. Ugh. Bo-ring.

Jason said:

Kerouac, On the Road Again. Yep. I get it. I'm in the minority on this. But, I got about 15 pages in. And that was that.

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Ah - I read the original On the Road. Again - this was back in the 70s (I think I must have passed that decade in a total stupour) and I read the thing purely because it was one of the big influences on David Bowie. Now this is not a good reason to read a book, guys and gals, when you're 15 and in love with Ziggy Stardust. Can't remember a word of it. I must try to read it again one of these days.

I put down the full, unabridged version of Moby Dick. I was about halfway through. A year later, I picked it up again and finished it.

And my opinion is, if there's one book that ought to be abridged, it's Moby Dick. Srsly.

callalily61 said:

Michener's Hawaii, Michener's Texas, Michener's... anything. Gack, someone EDIT the man, please!

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LOL--You beat me!

Ever read this?:

Review by John Leonard, NY Times, June 30, 1981:

"WHAT must be said for James A. Michener is that he wears you down. He numbs you into acquiesence. Page after page of pedestrian prose marches, like a defeated army, across the optic tract. It is a Great Trek from platitude to piety. The mind, between the ears, might as well be the South African veld after one of the devastations of Mzilikazi or the ''scorched earth'' policy of the British during the Boer War. No bird sings and the antelope die of thirst."

"And yet Mr. Michener is as sincere as shoes. In ''The Covenant,'' as in ''Hawaii'' and ''Centennial'' and ''Chesapeake,'' he takes the long view. He begins 15,000 years ago and he stops at the end of 1979. He is going to make us understand South Africa whether we want to or not."

Complete review:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E03EFDB1039F933A05755C0A967948260

Lisey's Story by Stephen King. I only got through the first couple pages before my eyes rolled back in my head and I put it down. And I love, love, love Stephen King. I'm sure I'll try it again at some point but it just didn't grab me.

LOTR. I tried. I really did. I got about halfway and just gave up. I probably should have read it before I saw the movies...

There are a surprising number of King fans at AW. Maybe I should give him another try.

Oh, and The Lovely Bones. I may have to turn in my woman card for saying this, but I had to put that one down.

JoNightshade said:

I put down the full, unabridged version of Moby Dick. I was about halfway through. A year later, I picked it up again and finished it.

And my opinion is, if there's one book that ought to be abridged, it's Moby Dick. Srsly.

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I forced my way through Moby a decade or so ago, and agree completely. I remain mystified as to why Melville is so acclaimed, and in particular why this is acclaimed his masterpiece. For the uninitiated, a spoiler: Everything in this 500 page book happens in the last 20 pages. It is the longest short story ever written. But I know a lot more about sperm whales than I did before I read it.

Other than that, my nominees:

Anything by Charles Dickens
Anything by Thomas Pynchon
Anything by Tom Robbins

caw

I got about a hundred pages into Bolano's Savage Detectives before dropping the goofy thing. I cannot get into the erotica aspects of...well anything. In fairness to Bolano, the book is well written and the main problem was that I was expecting something other than the one thing that will drive me from a story in every instance.

I managed a hundred or so pages of Erickson's Gardens of the Moon before giving up and shrugging at his acclaim.

I actually read The Darkness that Comes Before, by Bakker, but am not interested at all in the rest of his work in that series. Everyone loves Bakker but me.

Pillars of Creation, or whatever Goodkind book it is that ditches the main characters completely and only comes back to a MC PoV at the end. Threw it against the wall a few times because I wasted the money on it, and then skimmed through until I found the bit at the end where the new characters (introduced in that book, the eighth or ninth of the series) confronted the series' MC. What a waste of money. Yes, I continued to read (and buy) the rest of the series.

I usually read everything I start. I'm nosy--I have to know how things end. I feel guilty ditching a book, even if I hate it.

blacbird said:

=I remain mystified as to why Melville is so acclaimed, and in particular why this is acclaimed his masterpiece.

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Once you strip out the Whaling Encyclopaedia (which I'll grant you is four-fifths of the book), there's a great story, beautiful language and narrative techniques decades ahead of his contemporaries.

Anything by LHK after Obsidian Butterfly - I got halfway through the next disastrous book on the sheer momentum of disbelief, but I did have to put it down.

King's rewritten Gunslinger. I read the original when I was in 8[SUP]th[/SUP] grade and fell in love, but after getting to the end of the Tower series a few years ago I realized I'd lost the first book, so I bought it again...and discovered he'd rewritten the beginning his first book so it matched the ending of the last one. I mean, come on.

Gotta go with Cell too - I felt like he just decided to modernize The Stand.

The White Guard, by Bulgakov. I loved Master & Margarita, so I was a little surprised to be completely uninterested by chapter 2. I'm going to try again in a year or so, just to make sure I wasn't in some weird mood or something...

I always get exasperated "WHAT?" from this but Catcher in the Rye It just never worked for me.

I don't know how notable it was but Stephanie Klein has gotten lots of critic love and I hate her. When I was writing my memoir I read every memoir I could get my hands on. I didn't get why I should give a *&%^ about a self-absorbed woman who becomes a total tramp.

The Chinese Wall by Franz Kafka. First 100 pages where good until you hit where the story becomes more and more fragmentary and every half page seems to be another different story

Pride and Prejudice by none other than Jane Austen. As a writer, I feel like I'm supposed to appreciate her, but no matter how many times I pick it up to try and read it, I cannot get into it. Everything seems so frivolous to me. I do not doubt her writing skills; they are amazing. It's just a frivolous plot. Doesn't enchant me or make me question life. I can't relate to anybody.