/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5224866]

ITT: Books you started, but never finished.

And never will.

[Anonymous No.5224881]

honestly i just couldn't get into it. i felt like all i was doing was memorising dates and shit

[Anonymous No.5224887]

It was so absolutely disgustingly terrible. I feel ashamed.

[Anonymous No.5224900]

Pure dribble

[Anonymous No.5224909]

>>5224900
>tour de force

[Anonymous No.5224925]

>>5224881

i was the same way, it was such a chore until i just packed it in.

[Anonymous No.5224938]

>>5224900
Where's your trip, ebolakid?

[Anonymous No.5224940]

>>5224881
>>5224925
[insert joke about your mother's sexual habits and my relation to them here]

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.5224954]

>>5224881
>>5224925
How about you just watch the tv show.

[Anonymous No.5224977]

>>5224954
i might do, i hear it's pretty good

i swear, i was so sure i was going to love the book.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.5225064]

>>5224977
Odd. While at a book store I read a short story of his set in Nero's time. It read as breezy and amusing as the BBC production.

[Anonymous No.5225240]

I was young and stupid, but not stupid enough to finish it. But I still read The Da Vinci Code and whichever one it was with the hooker who ices her nipples and shoots a fat guy or something.

[Anonymous No.5225247]

The only book I regret buying.

[Anonymous No.5225256]

[Anonymous No.5225270]

I bought this a long time ago because me and my grade-school friends were obsessed with the 1998 Rainbow Six game. Pretty ashamed. I know it's just mindless military-boner genre fiction, but I feel like I've still got to finish it one day.

>that was 16, almost 17 years ago
Damn

[El negro Duraczek No.5225292]

This bullshit. I feel ashamed... 3,25 in godreads lel.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.5225293]

>>5225270
Yeah! I read part of Debt of Honor. Got a hold of it free, and I loved the films, but woh, bone dry... You don't have to finish it, anon.

[Anonymous No.5226015]

>>5224866
I really hate using the term "reddit-tier" and all that shit, but for this book, I think its pretty fair.

>>5225247
>Everyone I know calls this shit
>"can't be THAT bad"
>mfw everyone was right

>>5225270
Okay, now if I were to call anyone genre fiction cancer, it would absolutely be Tom Clancy, with Clive Cussler in a close second

[Anonymous No.5226056]

I read 4 pages and then threw it in the trash.

[sage goes in most fields No.5226082]

>>5226056
How come?

[Anonymous No.5226094]

>>5226056

From the sound of it, it would've faired just as well if you read it.

[Anonymous No.5226096]

Finished the part about Vronsky's horse race and figured, "welp, I know how this will end". Also Konstantin was a fucking bitchass nigger faggot, and if I had to listen to his autistic musings for one more second my eyes would bleed.

[Anonymous No.5226097]

>>5225256

This is waiting on my bookshelf, what made it so terrible?

[Anonymous No.5226108]

It just took forever to go anywhere. I got a quarter of the way through it and I couldn't stand it anymore.

[Anonymous No.5226112]

[Anonymous No.5226124]

>>5224866

probably the Magus by John Fowles. I've tried reading that book three times after one of my therapists recommended it. I even made it most of the way through but gave up. I just couldn't handle all the intrigue. "Is it all made up, is it true? What's real and what's illusion? Teehee I'll never tell, maybe you'd be better off reading the one about the basement rapist, you'd probably relate to that one more."

[Anonymous No.5226143]

>>5226112
I started reading this.

Why tho?

[noko No.5226151]

>>5226112


>this book helped me stop believing sci-fi bullshit

[Anonymous No.5226195]

>>5226015
>I really hate using the term "reddit-tier" and all that shit, but for this book, I think its pretty fair.

Concurred on all points, anon. I enjoyed Hitchhiker's guide for the novelty, but shortly into Restaurant I started loathing the characters, world, and humor. I watched the terrible movie after reading the first book, and I think it might have had an influence.

Pic related is another book i've given up on. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Burroughs, and consider him a hero, but this book slowly devolves into endless gay sex ramblings and fractured thoughts.

Burroughs is a bro but sometimes I wish he'd try for some structure. I know that sort of defeats the purpose but ehh...

[Anonymous No.5226257]

Gonna get called a pleb for this but I don't give a fuck.

I've tried reading it 3 times, can't do it. I absolutely hate local color and this book is nothing but that. The notes at the end of the book are almost as long as the main text...flipping to the back 4-5 times per page is unbelievably frustrating.

[Anonymous No.5226276]

>>5226096
>hating Konstantin
>pleb detected

[Anonymous No.5226310]

>>5226257

>I absolutely hate local color and this book is nothing but that.

'Dubliners' is nothing but that. But if you seriously think that 'Portrait' is nothing but that then you're quite honestly a subpar reader.

[Anonymous No.5226478]

>>5225256
Same here. Also "The Circle" by D. Eggers, I believe his name was. Went into the trash halfway.

[Anonymous No.5226493]

>>5224881
which is funny because that's a more accurate summary of count belisarius rather than claudius

[Anonymous No.5226507]

>>5226056
The trash you say?

[Anonymous No.5226551]

Can't read this shit

[Anonymous No.5226611]

>>5224866

[Anonymous No.5226625]

>20 pages in
Nope

[Anonymous No.5226659]

Tom Bombadil.

It's a pretty short book, but I only got up to beer part. I don't know why, I felt like killing someone while reading this.

[Anonymous No.5226669]

>>5226611
...why?

[Anonymous No.5226720]

[Anonymous No.5226920]

>>5226625
Wise anon. Choke becomes incredibly shitty towards the end. It feels as though Palahniuk ran out of mileage with his premise and goes off on a long scatalogical riff about the second coming of Christ. It's shit (pun intended).

>>5226720
I second this. I'd never gotten into this show until dating an ex-gf who watched it. We both enjoyed the show (for a time), so I got her the book (GoT). She couldn't read it though. She didn't care for the writing. I didn't want to have wasted my money, so I tried to read it instead. I concurred with her assessment. Martin is trash.

[Anonymous No.5226925]

>>5224866
Really? This Book is Hilarious. I'm willing to bet you never got to the best part, the restaurant. There's a bovinish creature that is bread to want to be eaten and before he offs himself he says to a horrified Arthur teasingly "I'll be very humane" and winks.

[Anonymous No.5226937]

>>5224866
>>5225256
I second these

>>5225247
>>5226096
I have these so I'm worried

[Anonymous No.5227010]

>>5224866
I picked up the hitchhikers guide books (the first three in one volume) at random when I was a kid and I had finished all the star wars books in the library.
As a kid of probably 12 in the mid 90's I thought it was pretty great, I distinctly remember finishing it in one day, reading it in restaurants and the shopping mall. At the time I thought it was amazing. I still credit it with getting me to try stuff outside my comfort zone.

Now, twenty years later it's image has been ruined with a shit movie, reddit overselling it, and an unneeded sequel that I couldn't stomach.
It's really kind of sad.
Restaurant IS the worst of the original five books though and the Dirk Gently books are better than all of them.

[Anonymous No.5227035]

>>5225240
I read some of this for a cheap thrill until i was surprised by just how incredibly boring it became and then put it down for life

[Anonymous No.5227061]

>>5226937
Don't get worried just because I didn't like Anna Karenina. There are droves of people on this site who think Tolstoy is the bee's knees and that I'm an "pleb" for not appreciating him. Read it and judge for yourself.

[Anonymous No.5227208]

>>5224866
>>5226015
>>5227010

I first read Hitchhiler's in middle school, and man I remember laughing at that book like no other. The series really got me into reading by showing me that words could actually be funny and relevant to what I considered "my life."

At this point, I remember the series fondly although I completely understand the "reddit" connotations.

[Anonymous No.5227457]

>I enjoyed House of Leaves a few years back, let's see what Danielewski has to offer now!

>oh this looks interesting. Different to say the least

enter Finnegan's Wake 2.0 with a shit storyline and the unbearable need to physically flip the book around every eight pages or so.

it was an okay idea I just wish he didn't fucking butcher it with the >2deep4u #streamofconsciousness

[Anonymous No.5227468]

[Anonymous No.5227867]

[Anonymous No.5228048]

>>5227457
when I was reading house of leaves it felt like I could pick the exact moments danielewski took a break for a toke.

[Anonymous No.5228074]

>>5226925
Hahaha, I completely forgot about that part. It's a shame the book is promptly associated with reddit of late, it's a well crafted book that showed me as kid the importance of wit and language.

[Anonymous No.5228410]

[Anonymous No.5228529]

>>5228074
Who gives a shit what some autistic faggot spams about reddit? People talk about fucking Harry Potter and Game of Thrones here.

[Anonymous No.5228542]

>>5228074
>the book is promptly associated with reddit of late
Wut. Most people don't have the slightest idea what reddit is. Hell, I come here reasonably regularly and even I don't know anything about reddit beyond 'it's a website that 4chan people don't like'.

[Anonymous No.5228563]

>>5224866

[Anonymous No.5228565]

>>5224866
Disgusting pleb shit

[Anonymous No.5228574]

>>5228565
I tried 5 times to read this one and each time I got so bored I started daydreaming instead of reading.

[Anonymous No.5228589]

>>5228574
IIRC the Discworld get good with 3 and especially 4- the first two books are noticeably worse. It may just be that they're not for you, though.

[Anonymous No.5228598]

>>5225240
heh I actually loved this book

[Anonymous No.5228624]

dead souls

[Anonymous No.5228696]

Lord of the Flies. I just already knew where it was heading and what the main theme of the book was so I couldn't be bothered to finish it

[Anonymous No.5228752]

>>5228696
Did you at least get to "Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Bash him in!"?

[Anonymous No.5228811]

>>5227468
Now I felt this way about AK but I couldn't stop reading War and Peace. I gotta say, I enjoyed reading that more than playing most games I've played.

[Anonymous No.5228828]

>>5224866
Started it three years ago. I'll finish it one day.

Or I won't. It really doesn't make a difference/

[Anonymous No.5229742]

>>5228624
nikolai pls

[Anonymous No.5229774]

damn, It was boring...

[Anonymous No.5229795]

>>5225247
It's an easy pick. Bet plenty of people here did this. But yeah, probably one of the few books where I tried to stay as open minded as I could and still could find practically nothing of value in a sea of some of the most hamfisted and self righteous proselytizing. Maybe someday I'll read The Fountainhead which is shorter and (I've heard) better, but never again that turd.

[Anonymous No.5229796]

>>5225247
Same, I still have it because I use it as a brick but indeed... it's as bad as people said it was. I thought I could get at least one or two things out of it but nope, just lame.

>>5226257
First time I read it I did it without notes and shit, I got quite a lot actually and checking annotations on the second read wasn't a chore precisely because I enjoyed the first time.

>>5228410
Funny, I actually can't get enough of this guy.

>>5228565
I loved it as a kid. Now it feels a bit childish with all the extraterrestrial species and shit, but maybe nostalgia goggles keep it good for me.

[Anonymous No.5229810]

>>5226478
Haven't read The Circle, the concept sounded lame, but I've enjoyed some of Eggers' other stuff like A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Zeitoun. What was The Circle's problem?

[Anonymous No.5229814]

>>5225270
Of the handful of Clancy books I read in my teens, and the few I've read more recently, Rainbow Six is the easiest to get into.

The plot is simplistic and lends itself well to the video-game story structure.

If you couldn't finish it 1) I wonder how far you got and 2) don't recommend you read any Clancy or Ludlum.

[Anonymous No.5229825]

>>5227010
What was wrong with the movie? I don't remember it very well, but I remember liking it. If it's just that it didn't adhere to the books loose plot, that doesn't even make sense since it was originally a drastically different radio play and has been adapted like 10 times to Perry much every imaginable medium, with plot differences each time.

[Anonymous No.5229840]

>>5224909
I rofl every time I read the shit they splatter on the front of covers these days

[Anonymous No.5229846]

>>5226720
this

i'm not happy about it though, i wanted to fell in love with the books but..

[Anonymous No.5229850]

>>5228828
I literally just finished this, took me about a month noncontinuously, and I'm not even that persistent a reader (or at least not since the Internet whittled my attention span to a raw nub). At no point in the book was I really apathetic to what was going on, even when it was something that didn't seem to have much relevance to anything in the plot. Maybe you just have to be in a specific kind of accepting, non-needy, obsessively analytical mindset.

[Anonymous No.5229855]

>>5226056
WHY? I was planning to read that book and have it at home at the moment.

[Anonymous No.5229862]

>>5226310
>>5226257
...local color?

[Anonymous No.5229865]

>>5226056
Uggh. I was required to read this in high school it was honestly some of the worst drivel I've ever read.

[Anonymous No.5229870]

>>5226056
>>5229865
Have you read Blood Meridian? What did you think of it?

[Anonymous No.5229871]

Tried to finish this 3 times just wasn't happening

[Anonymous No.5229887]

>>5226920
>Martin is trash.
Gets considerably better quite quickly. Unless your tastes are quite specific I think it's safe to say you missed out.
>>5228574
Try some of the others in the series.

[Anonymous No.5229893]

>>5229855
>>5229865
it's not his best, but hardly drivel
>>5229870
this right here

[Anonymous No.5229956]

>>5228565
I kinda liked that model of gravity and day/night system, it was just so cool.

[Anonymous No.5229968]

>>5229795
The Fountainhead was a bit tiring to read, but it had its enjoyableness and was motivational in a way. Of course the people in it were strange as ever, which never felt comfortable in my head.

[Anonymous No.5230012]

I got about half-way through before I realised my life would be better if I didn't finish the book.

[Anonymous No.5230073]

>>5224866
The restaurant at the end of universe is just awesome if you like universe and tripping. I liked read it.

[Anonymous No.5230086]

pretentious monotonous garbage

[Anonymous No.5230119]

>>5228048
Yeah I felt the same. I really only enjoyed the labyrinth sequences and only parts of the intermediaries. I thought he had potential but after this I probably won't be buying any of his newer books

[Anonymous No.5230120]

>>5230073
I have to reread the series sometime, I read it once in 5th grade and a lot of it probably went over my head. All I can remember now is the Earth getting beat the fuck out to make way for a space highway, jumping at the ground and missing, and some cunt named Zaphod.

[Anonymous No.5230133]

>>5224866

happens everytime i try to like King

[Anonymous No.5230141]

>>5224866
I didn't even get past the first chapter. It was just inane and unfunny.

[Anonymous No.5230191]

>>5229865
> I was required to read this in high school and it was bad
I wouldn't exactly put too much stock in that kind of statement regarding any book.

[Anonymous No.5230199]

>>5230086
When did it become acceptable to criticize things as pretentious?

[Anonymous No.5230224]

>>5230199
Since always. The thing is that book isn't pretentious. The person calling it that is. 9 times out of 10 the person calling a book "pretentious" is in fact themselves pretentious in assuming that their uneducated dismissal of something amounts to a worthwhile criticism.

[Anonymous No.5230262]

>>5225247
>mfw I read Atlas Shrugged in two days
>mfw it was the best book I've ever read, and still is
>mfw plebs will never know the understanding it brings

[Anonymous No.5230264]

>>5230133
did you stop at the gangbang?

[Anonymous No.5230275]

[Anonymous No.5230302]

>>5230086
You're just a phony.

[Anonymous No.5230311]

>>5230262
Can you elaborate? I've been thinking about reading it.

[Anonymous No.5230615]

>>5224866
Fucking horseshit and drooling narcissism.

[Anonymous No.5230619]

>>5226097
See >>5230615.

[Anonymous No.5230627]

>>5230311
He's trolling. 75% of /lit/ hates Ayn Rand and the other 25% are simpletons with no taste for artistic prose.

[Anonymous No.5230631]

>>5230311
me too, it's like i'm getting a little rand-curious, i mean everyone says the characters are flimsy but plebs say that about gravity's rainbow too and everyone says the ideas are a mixture of evil and stupid but plebs says that about nietzsche too so it's like ... damn i might be missing out on something great

[Anonymous No.5230638]

I've read some boring shit and finished it, but this seemed like it was going nowhere and going there so slowly that I couldn't do it anymore.

[Anonymous No.5230644]

>>5230311
I would consider it essential if you want to get into any sort of philosophy or economics, even if you dislike the sort of blunt approach Rand has. It was from both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead I came to realize that the individual is the source of all value and it is our wants and our preferences that give us meaning in our lives. In this we see the true beauty and value in freedom: If I wish to pursue my desires unhindered by others, I must reciprocate that principle onto them. If I want the freedom to do as I wish with my life, I must give others that freedom as well.

In realizing this I came to achieve a great personal freedom, which is the most important, far more important than freedom from government. I realized that I do not need to judge myself by the opinions of others, nor should others by mine. The jealousy I used to feel for people who had more than me seemed to bleed away, not in the sense that I still wanted the things that they had, but that I no longed felt any sort of animosity towards them for having it.

[Anonymous No.5230661]

>>5230631
The difference here is that plebs are the ones who are defending Rand.

[Anonymous No.5230670]

>>5228074
>>5226925
>>5224866
listen to the radio series

[Anonymous No.5230726]

>>5230644
Sounds good. But still, don't you think that she ignores the way individual itself is actually depended on cultural structure of thought and life? I'd say you have to go one step further and become active and creative, become insane from the perspective of society to really be free of any power over you.

[Anonymous No.5230808]

>>5230726
The individual operates in society out of a pragmatic need, not a moral one. It is far more beneficial for us to work and cooperate together to achieve things - that is the power of the division of labor. Galt didn't just bugger off into the woods and tinker with his machines, he worked to establish a society in which the values of freedom were respected.

Society only has power, moral power at that, to the degree which we impart to it. If I feel the moral duty to pay my taxes and respect the laws of my country then I'm probably going to do so. But if I were to recognize that the people in power are just charlatans in suits who do nothing but interfere, steal and exploit, at best I am going to adhere to the rules imposed on me out of utility, not out of duty. Even though I strive for freedom, I am far more free outside of prison than inside of prison.

Of course when I talk about freedom from society, I do not mean a rejection of it. We want to live in a world of cooperation and camaraderie and solidarity and whatever else you would like to call it, but the only way we'll ever achieve that is by coming to realize that society begins and ends at the individual, and by adhering to rules based in abstract concepts that have no grounding in reality (family, government, religion, country, race, etc.) will only lead people to error, unhappiness, confusion, anger, hate and a whole smorgasbord of bad things.

[Anonymous No.5230827]

I felt like I was missing out on a lot of the dry humor they were using because I didn't live in Japan during the Meiji Restoration. I kind of want to finish it, but it's kind of a bore as it stands.

[Anonymous No.5230876]

>>5230808
I think what they were alluding to was some kind of structuralist anti-humanism, not the pragmatic value of cooperation.

[Anonymous No.5230880]

>>5224866
Bret Easton Ellis stuff.

Too vapid.

[Anonymous No.5230884]

Atlas Shrugged
Infinite Jest
Bible

[Anonymous No.5230887]

>>5230264
spoiler tags asshole

[Anonymous No.5231053]

>>5229850
I loved it but there were some parts that were a real slog. The extended description of ETA's underground tunnel system near the beginning and the two 'ebonics' sections are probably chief amongst the quitting points for people trying to get through the novel. The story of JOI's inspiration for annular fusion is also interminable. And most of the stuff with Joelle van Dyne (including the lengthy description of the school's brain-shaped radio station...)

[Anonymous No.5231312]

speaks for itself

[Anonymous No.5231905]

>>5230631
Ayn Rand is like Nietzsche but for trust fund kids instead of glorious Ubermensch, plus she's ridiculously misogynistic (The main character in Atlas Shrugged rapes a lady I think but it's not treated like it was a bad thing, plus in Anthem the only female character exists to suck Prometheus' dick) and formed a cult around her basic-as-fuck 'philosophy'.

Or, to phrase it a better way,

"St. Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabokov, Isaiah Berlin and Ayn Rand. The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both."

[Anonymous No.5231938]

>>5226108
Pleeeeeb, I read that in 10th grade

[Anonymous No.5231956]

>>5230133
>mfw I read this in 6th grade because I wanted to be 'mature'
Shit was wack, plus it's unnecessarily long and kind of a rip off of Lovecraft, with pedophilia/child abuse/2sp00kyness taking up more than anyone wanted.

[Anonymous No.5231975]

My library