/lit/ - Literature

I knew beforehand that it wasn't a good book, I wanted to read it out of curiosity since it was influential in posterior books like Dracula and stuff, but what a clusterfuck.

the castle by kafka
didn't even bother finishing, and I was well over halfway.. it drained me

Ishmael. I got halfway through but I kept getting pissed off at the narrator.

>>4461673

but laszdawg has never written anything bad tho

silly goose

total ew
tried teh ridin twilight, n still better dan dis
a frikin borin cancer of cells
still donno why hated it dat much
http://www.vampires-sorcieres.fr/images/upload/livres/zoom/eternels_01_evermore.jpg

The Portrait of Dorian Gray. I couldn't feel anything but absolute hatred and disdain for all of the characters (even though that might have been the point).
And I've liked to see a glimpse of some of the evil things Dorian Gray did during the eighteen years that the book just skips.

Everyone I talked to irl hyped the shit out of Catch-22 and it was total ass. It remains of the few books I've never finished.

>>4461783

the problem a lot of people have with catch-22 is that it's one of the few books you read when you're just starting out, but as a piece it requires the kind of concentration a more experienced reader has, so many people try it before they rightly should be and give up on it

Nausea, oh the horror, reading a page and asking myself what the fuck did he just say, realize that nothing happened. Especially in french it's a pain in the ass.

Moby Dick. It's not even that I hated the story or anything about it, but I've gotten halfway through it, twice, and just had to stop. I've read longer novels, I've read harder reads, yet Moby Dick still remains my Moby Dick.

>>4461810
same here. Even the audiobook couldn't hold me past the 65% mark

Brave New World, yawned my way through it tho

I was excited when I finally got a .mobi of "Women and Men" by McElroy, but it just ended up being this turgid, disgusting mess.

No wonder he doesn't want it reprinted.

1984

time machine. jesus man, i'm not 12

tfw i thought i will hate werther and it ended up as one of my fav books

>>4463026
>time machine. jesus man, i'm not 12

So, you read a book written for children and your complaint is that it insults your level of intellect and maturity?

>>4463029
i didn't see any 'for 12 year olds' sign on it

>>4461673
I'm going to read this book sometime this month. I doubt I'll dislike it though, as I absolutely loved previous works of his I've read.

I was very excited to read Celine and was disappointed by Journey To The End of the Night. I'm still going to read Death On The Installment Plan but without the anticipation.

Sherlock Holmes.
Man the books are so shitty.

>tfw i thought kafka will be cool
man i was in for a surprise

>>4463030
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/time-machine#cart/cleanup

>Reading Level
>Grade level Equivalent: 7.1

12 year olds.

fight club

moby dick and the idiot
would still reread

>>4461808
>>4461779
plebs don't need to apply

Crime and punishment, it's been ages and I can't remember what it was that I really didn't like but I remember not getting any enjoyment whatsoever.

>>4463079
see >>4463074

>>4463080
But all those books are pleb tier.

>>4463083
see >>4463074

I feel bad.

>>4463121
>filename
so edgy

>>4463162
>counter-edgy anti-atheism brigade is online
uh oh

>>4463025

I gave McElroy a try with his new book "Cannonball". Prose is completely shit. It reads like an amateur imitating Pynchon.

>>4463085
I liked it. It was his first full length effort. Age of Reason is better.

>>4463121
Yeah. Never lives up to the hype.

>>4463041
I feel the same, I had very high expectations about his works and they turned out to be the dullest things I've ever read.

>>4461765
one of the best books of the last 200 years

>>4463204
;0

Neuromancer.

In hindsight, it was OK, but at the time I was expecting ti to be some mind-blowing genre-defining piece of science fiction and it was just some mostly entertaining genre trash that managed to predict some things very well.

>>4461765
>>4463205
I guess this goes for everyone ITT but sometimes you have to adjust what you think the work is supposed to be to what it is.

I read The Castle, and felt drained, frustrated and yes, no one can finish it, it has no ending. Loved it.

>>4463216
ikr not liking something is impossible, you just have to adjust what you think

>no one can finish it, it has no ending.
such deep ^_^

>>4463220
It literally has no ending you dumb faggot

>>4463228
yes it does, it ends when you read the last page you tremendous cunt

>>4463041
Agreed.

>>4463230

The pages may end but that doesn't mean the whole story has a resolution and there is any good closure to everything you astounding cockjuggler

>>4463238
that doesn't mean you didn't finish reading the book you colossal fuckface

>>4463230
I don't know what I expected a person who says things like "such deep" to reply like, but there it is.

>>4463240
fuck off loser

>>4463220

The Castle not ending is kind of appropriate in a way. The reader is like K. wondering if he's ever gonna get in that fucking castle.

I agree that it's a slog, but I still enjoyed it. It truly is like a very long nightmare.

>>4463241
Back to school soon, you excited?

>>4463239

The book but not the story. A story can span books. How fucking stupid are you to not even get this, you abominable bumdriller?

>>4463250
who the fuck made a distinction between book and story besides your full damage control? read the first post and then blow me you ugly faglord

>>4463254
>Damage control

I'm not even the first guy you replied to you assfaced thundercunt

>who the fuck made a distinction between book and story

That's the fucking idea blithering half-witted bellend muncher.

>>4463267
the first guy said he couldn't finish the book

and then that retarded faggot came in and said hurr yuo cant even finish it :333 im such a clever deep faggot

and then you, you buttpained dickslinger

>>4463274
So you're saying there's at least four people who think you're a complete sperglord?

>>4463274
Dick-butt, honey, "it has no ending" means just that. It stops as all things must, but the author stopped writing it and never came up with a proper end to it. Poetic or literal, it has no ending. Now please zip your pants back up.

>>4463274

Contain all that rage, fruitcake. I don't think trying to explain to you why will help.

>>4463290
>i couldn't finish it
obviously meaning that he couldn't finish the book
>HURRRR YOU CANT FINISH ITT :3333
obvious tryhard trying to sound deep how he interprets words in so many way

long story short - you're all cockmunglers

On the Road

so monotonous. Stopped half-way through

>>4463318
When I read On the Road, I kept thinking "hmm...this seems to be the same chapter 24 times in a row..."

>>4463332
Which was fine by me, since I loved it from the first chapter onwards

I am huge devotee of G. K. Chesterton and I've read tons of books by him. I recently started The Everlasting Man, which is by far his most famous work, and I really think it's inferior to almost everything else he wrote.

>>4463332
How similar is it to other works of Kerouac?
I am reading the Dharma Bums right now and I'm enjoying every sentence.

started off promising and it's turned into a slog. good thing it's only a hundred odd pages.

>>4463412

>>4463404
Bums is very different from On the Road, both in terms of content and overall coherency of the text. Bums feels complete and self-contained, whereas On the Road could have been 9,000 pages or 20 pages, all about the same as the text is now.

>>4463404

dharma bums is like the better version of on the road. on the road is way too long for its own good, and the hero is nowhere near as cool or likable as japhy.

>>4463415
>>4463474
Okay, cool.
And are there other works of his that are worth reading?

>>4463041
>>4463203
>>4463237

:O how could you??

But seriously i'm surprised. I can't think of a kafka story I read that I thought was "boring." Maybe other flaws, but never uninteresting.

>>4463624
i didn't find it boring, but i found it uninteresting, unimpressive, and underwhelming. (which i guess could be summed up as boring bysome)
didn't help that the prose of the translation i read was just average

>>4463652
It's not like his prose in original is anything special anyway

>>4461799
>as a piece it requires the kind of concentration a more experienced reader has
I loved Catch-22 but I would not say that this is the case at all.

Girl with the dragon tattoo

>>4461673
I thought this was ingenious.

Also, Infinite Jest.

>>4464711
Your fault for getting excited over a bestselling thriller

Felidae was such a let down.

I had so been looking forward to reading a macabre murder mystery about cats, but it was just awful. I mean, there was no mystery, the protagonist never deduced anything, he literally stumbled into one clue after another.

And the animated adaptation was even worse. Barring the intro song and this scene with Gregor Mendel.

ITT: /lit/erati insult each other with /b/-tier epithets.

>>4463041
>>4463237
>>4463624

Kafka, despite being one of my favorite authors, has always been more fun to reminisce than to read for me. His writing style is so flat it's offputing, but upon re-reading/discussion it proves itself.

I put off reading it for years. I liked Junky and Queer and loved the beginning of NL which I read a few times. I finally got to it like two years ago and was either forcing myself through most of it or skipping entire paragraphs/pages. I gave up with like 20 pages left unfinished.

>>4461810

Cool. What did you think of Moby-Dick?

>>4461673

-The Stanger

I find it hard to believe that something which I found so tepid could be so 'life-changing' for some people.

I find Kafka (in general) quite dull to read through as well.

>>4465642
same sentiments here

>>4465642
what is the advantage of using tepid over lukewarm

>>4461673
He doesn't actually cover a boring topic or anything like that, is just the way he fucking words it, i hate Lipovetsky for being such a pretentious shithead.

>DOCTOR SLEEP
>WHAT A FUCKING LET DOWN
>DAMN MARRY SUE PROTAG GARBAG
>SCREW YOU STEPHEN KING