[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature


View post   

File: 72 KB, 250x272, 1491653516820.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9359178 No.9359178 [Reply] [Original]

Which books did you stop reading midway through? Why?

>> No.9359230

>>9359178
Robinson Crusoe, it was just abit to religious for me

>> No.9359245

Woolf, To the Lighthouse - too difficult
Bulgakov - White Guard - too political, requires too much historical knowledge.
Toole - Confederacy of Dunces - it got old quickly.

>> No.9359314
File: 210 KB, 640x632, IMG_2686.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9359314

The blade itself by joe abercrombie after the first fucking line

>> No.9359342

Every Kafka novel, then went back, reread and loved them.

Death and the Dervish because all the similes, which nice in isolation made the thing seem overwrought when they all acem one after the other. I suspect that if I give it another read, I might like it.

About to abandon Saramago's Blindness. It's not really doing anything for me.

>> No.9359371

One Hundred Years of Solitude - too many family shenanigans I didn't care about

Crime and Punishment - a ghastly rigmarole

>> No.9359385

>>9359342
Death and the Dervish was great, you should finish it

Anyway,
I stopped reading whatever Umberto Eco book I was reading - the protagonist was annoying me and didn't make sense

>> No.9359425
File: 64 KB, 684x382, IMG_7412.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9359425

Fellowship of the Ring: Way too much exposition. Telling rather than showing some cool shit that happened before. (But we get long descriptions of what hobbits eat)

Pale Fire: am I supposed to read it through like a regular book? The commentary says shit like "see note on page 68." Then you go to page 68 and it says "see note on page 99." I had had five fingers holding separate pages in the book when I said "fuck it, ain't nobody got time for that." Inb4 pleb.

The Faerie Queene. WTF? English motherfucker. Do you speak it?

Finnegans wake. Because its finnegans wake.

>> No.9359454
File: 6 KB, 250x231, Eh.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9359454

>>9359178

I got exactly 33% of the way through Moby Dick (according to my Kindle Cloud Reader app) before succumbing to the whaling trivia.

>> No.9359469

>>9359245
I also did that to Confederacy of Dunces.

I was enjoying the read at first, but my opinion is that the book is much longer than it needed to be, so at aprox. 70% I just couldn't bring myself to read any longer. Maybe I'll try to finish it someday, though.

>> No.9359475

>>9359178
2666

too much for too little

>> No.9359479

American psycho, got to the point where he abuses the dog, too edgy for me desu.

>> No.9359490
File: 42 KB, 372x392, 1489613301411.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9359490

>>9359479
>too edgy for me desu

It's just a dog, faggot.

>> No.9359491

Sun and Steel.

>Why?

It was nonsense.

>> No.9359492 [DELETED] 

>>9359479
No actually dogs were harmed in the making of this book.

>> No.9359494

I couldn't bear to read any more of Altered Carbon after it looked like the main character was going to add a fourth woman to his harem, plus the word 'neurachem' had appeared for the 86th time in the book, I was counting, with still no explanation of what it is or how it functions.

>> No.9359501

>>9359479
He also tortured and killed humans, you may have missed that part.

>> No.9359503

I've only not finished reading one book. It was called The Source. It was absolutely fucking boring. I reread the first 20 pages three different times before I gave up

>> No.9359508
File: 1.87 MB, 650x750, 1491357217542.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9359508

>>9359490
>>9359492
>not liking dogs

>>9359501
that was later my negro

>> No.9359523

The sound and the fury. My teacher made us use a permanent marker to black out every single use of the word nigger because they were new copies for our year.

>> No.9359533

Nabokov's Ada. Didn't feel like it's going anywhere. I'm willing to pick it up again this year though

>> No.9359545
File: 675 KB, 1024x893, IMG_7589.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9359545

>>9359533
Stick with it. It doesn't ever go anywhere but it's a hell of a ride.

>> No.9359579

Confederacy of Dunces. I just could not stand the bits in the bar. I've read a lot of postwar American shit that just kind of yuk-yuks around but those sections were painfully dragged out and unnecessary.

>> No.9359594

>>9359314
Joe Abercrombie gets recomended alot on fantasy boards but he's complete shit.

>> No.9359601

Shantaram - worst shit I`ve ever read.

>> No.9359603

>>9359594
Not the best fantasy writer, sure, but for me his books were a lot a fun to read.

>> No.9359617

>>9359603
Then you haven't read any good fantasy yet.

>> No.9359625

The Decline of the West

>> No.9359632

I stopped reading Don Quixote part way through because he was barely in it.

>> No.9359634

>>9359178
James Joyce, Ulysses. Tried it in my native language and realised it was a mistake. Ordered a copy in English, hope I will finish it.

>> No.9359635

On The Road

>lets drive to Denver
>lets drive to NY
>lets drive back to Denver
>lets drive back to NY
>lets drive back to Denver

>> No.9359643
File: 103 KB, 960x640, IMG_6122.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9359643

>>9359635
Well, it was truth in advertising at least.

>> No.9359645

The Tarkin book after I learned that the main conflict would be him trying to recover his stupid spaceship

>> No.9359646

moby dick

>> No.9359655
File: 109 KB, 500x703, IMG_4297.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9359655

My diary.

>> No.9359656

>>9359617
What would you recommend?

>> No.9359685

>>9359178
Atlas Shrugged - the bit where pre-teen heir Francisco comes back from stowing away on a cargo ship for months without telling anyone and hi father's only question is something like "did you work hard?" the book was full of shit like that up until then, but i just couldn't go on after that.

>> No.9359710
File: 1.96 MB, 338x256, lassiz is kill.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9359710

"The Millionaire Next Door" and "How to win friends and Influence people" both were providing pretty obvious information, just skimmed through them and got the key points.

>> No.9359717

>>9359178
Dune, I picked it up three times over the last two years and every time I lose interest at the same spot in the story at the failed assassination attempt on Paul with the Hunter seeker

>> No.9359785

>>9359655
"my diary" is the /lit/ equivalent of "muh dick" I suppose

>> No.9359790

The Holy Bible

>> No.9359800

>>9359655
desu?

>> No.9359805

I started reading about a dozen books on russian orthodoxy, stopped reading each of them 1/3 of the way through, because i realized that there is no salvation for me except in German Idealism

>> No.9359811

'It' by Stephan King

Just found I couldn't listen to any more back-story asides. His fiction reads like maple syrup, for every interesting scene or idea there would be chapters filled with backstory I couldn't care less about. He really does know how to paint a vivid picture, but really needs to know what is vital to the story and what is a clean cut waste of time.

I'm saying this as a writer who has never published a book before.

>> No.9359823
File: 49 KB, 254x400, image.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9359823

>>9359178
This book. My dad got it for me when I was 14 and told me it was a masterpiece.
Granted at this point I was fluent in English (he got me and English translation) but the book was too confusing for me

>> No.9359827

>>9359655
I still can't quite believe that's his girlfriend.

>> No.9359840

>>9359479
He also cuts the throat of a child.

>> No.9359942

When I first started getting into literature I read a lot of "must reads". After seeing a lot of "life changing" quotes about On The Road I decided to read it. 150 pages in and left pretty unsatisfied. I think the snooping I did beforehand may have ruined it for me.

>> No.9359956

>>9359178
La Caverna - José Saramago, too slow and i was feeling depresing by just suspecting the ending

>> No.9359968

>>9359533
It never actually goes anywhere.

>> No.9360303

>>9359425
> Dropping Pale Fire
> Dropping The Faerie Queene

Do you even read?

>> No.9360336
File: 709 KB, 720x540, IMG_0324.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9360336

>>9359178
Wizard and Glass by King. Fucking dragged on and on until I gave up. I've tried three times to get through it and can't do it....

>> No.9360367
File: 409 KB, 317x500, IMG_7113.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9360367

>>9360336
Get the audiobook. Frank Muller brought the story to life.

>> No.9360406

>>9359178
Canticle for Leibowitz

I got emotionally invested in the main protagonist and he was killed off for no obvious reasons.

>> No.9360461

I don't count nonfiction. I go through the parts that interest me and without guilt skip the rest.

Catch-22, - didn't find a single thing funny and actually hated the author for making fun out of war.
Last from His Dark Materials, - forced myself through 2nd one, saw where it was going early in, threw it away.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, - i quite liked it at first, but then it started to drag and drag by the time of Spanish excursion. Way too long for the genre.

>>9359594
True, wish I could put him on the list, but I went through Blade Itself.

>> No.9360464

Brisingr was the first book I ever stopped reading because of quality. I was twelve. I don't know what Paolini thought he was doing with the Dwarf politics, but he certainly wasn't doing it well.

>> No.9360544

>>9360406
He was killed off because nobody lives forever.
I recommend giving it another shot with the realization that it's a book about time moving on, and that's too much for one person's lifespan to illustrate.

>> No.9360549

>>9360464
Wasn't he like 19 when he wrote it? I'm not sure he knew what he was doing either.

>> No.9360691

It and Infinite Jest

>> No.9360719

>>9359454
>>9359646
Why?

>> No.9360725

>>9359245
Felt that way with Dunces as well, finished it tho, but damn did that get old FAST

>> No.9360759

>>9359178
Naked Lunch

The most worthless words put to paper.

>> No.9361487

Lisey's Story by Stephen King.
It constantly flashed back to this one memory of Lisey's where she and her husband were hanging out under some trees during a snow storm, back to her life for a chapter, then reexplaining the same memory again but with a bit more detail and last a few minutes longer for a chapter. This literally went on for 12+ chapters. I put the book down at an admittedly exciting part. But I was halfway through reading about that one memory before I realized sick I was of the repetition.
Cover was cool as shit though.

>> No.9361510

On the Road.

>and then we did this
>and then I did that
>and then we ate this
>and then he fucked that

Fucking boring.

>> No.9361520

>>9359178
War and Peace

I didn't even make it 1% of the way. I knew I would hate it by the way the characters were first introduced, and I don't care enough about history to be wowed by verbose fashion description of some cunts.

>> No.9361528

>>9359479
>American Psycho
>abuses the dog

America is a pet obsessed culture so injuring any animal, but a dog in particular, is considered vulgar to the point of, or perhaps beyond CP; because they're just so "innocent".

>> No.9361541

>>9361528
Are you retarded?

>dog gets shot in an average work of fiction
Oh damn how could they do that. ( Never think about it again, remember it when you finish the book when you see a meme about it)
>child porn is displayed in an average work of fiction
You what the fuck is wrong with this guy detailing child porn so intensely. This guy is a serious pedophile. I think it's trending on twitter.

Stretching your metaphors that thin only makes you look like a tard.

>> No.9361542

>>9359178
A game of thrones.
Somehow I hate the writing style ("he responded angrily" as example) and I hate the word it's set in.
Not for me.

>> No.9361546

>>9361541
Rewrite this post anon.

>> No.9361651

museum of innocence. got boring.

>> No.9361671

>>9361541
kill yourself

>> No.9361701

>something happened
got a little over halfway. not sure why i stopped reading it, will probably go back to it eventually.

>anna karenina
maybe a 1/3 in, just found it fucking boring

>steppenwolf
halfway through, will probably go back and read it.

>white trash: the 400 year history of class in america
just not what i was expecting

>> No.9361709
File: 61 KB, 510x680, suicide collectors.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9361709

The Suicide Collectors

The cover art looked awesome, and dude had a good idea...he just fucking knew nothing about world building, character development, or proper responses to situations.

Like, I literally felt like I was reading something that I would have wrote when I was 14.

And then, to top it off, I flip to the back to get a look at this motherfuckers face, and it says this author had not one, not ONE, but TWO fucking majors in english.

I literally started laughing and put the book down right then.

>> No.9361713

A farewell to arms

>dude eating spaghetti and drinking wine in the alps during WWI lmao!

Also, hemmingways caveman-tier prose is fucking grating

>> No.9361782

>>9360461
Catch-22 gets serious later on, as the characters start hitting the war more in earnest and we start seeing all those plots pay off... It's well worth finishing, and one of my favorites.

>> No.9361783

>>9359425
If you unironically use the term "show don't tell" in the context of literature (At all really) you need to read more broadly and deeply.

>> No.9361948

>>9359245
I'm reading To the Lighthouse now for uni, and I feel like there's a lot I'm missing. How did you get?

>> No.9362027

>>9361701
>anna karenina
you have triggered me
that book was phenomenal; part seven and eight made up some of the best literature I have ever read

>> No.9362053

>>9359601
lmao
my gf's mom got me this for christmas
haven't opened it yet
why is it shit?

>> No.9362057

Virginia Woolf's The Waves. Can't handle that horrific writing style

>> No.9362060

>>9359475
This. Fuck The Part About The Crimes.

>> No.9362065

>>9359475
you made a huge mistake, anon. everything that matters in that book happens in the final part.

>> No.9362069

>>9361510
Same read it but don't get the hype. I did like the scene where he was sleeping in a rainforest in Mexico though

>> No.9362072

>>9362053
>reads first page
nvm no need to respond

>> No.9362122

>>9361948

You mean how far did I get? Like 40 pages. I've managed to finnish The Years and I've enjoyed Mrs Dalloway but this one seems to be a lot more difficult.

When I read analysis in between chapters, it was obvious I had no idea what was going on so I had to drop it.

>> No.9362187

To kill a mockingbird, dropped it on fucking page seven.

Bitch could barely write

>> No.9362188

>>9359601
Maybe try Harry Potter
>>9362053
The first page is a shit representation of the book. Read 100 pages of it, see if you think the same. I liked it a lot

>> No.9362203

>>9359178
Resurrection, or whatever it's called in English, by Tolstoy. The first quarter of the book is really nice, but then it starts to feel like it's all disconnected and written without any real sense of direction in the development of the plot and the characters.

That raep scene with the thawing river though, that's some good shit.

>> No.9362210

Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum - too hard
Dante, Divine Comedie - too hard
Zola, L'assomoir - around page 50, I found it depressing as hell

Mind you, I tried reading those at 16. More recently:

The Master and Margarita - absolutely confusing
Infinite Jest - gave up around page 700
A few self-help book that were unbearable to read.

>> No.9362219

>>9362210
Just slog through the Master and Margharita if it's confusing at first and enjoy the writing. Then read it a second time and enjoy it as a whole. It's really worth it anon, I swear.

>> No.9362231

>>9359178
I think maybe the 4(?) book in the dark tower series, just turned into complete bull shit

>> No.9362243

>>9359823
Dig it up and go back to it. It's masterpiece.

>> No.9362264

>>9362210
must suck being a brainlet

>> No.9362268
File: 441 KB, 1200x1600, scr0001.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9362268

>>9362243
>>9362210
Also, get annotated one. The confusing bits are mainly down to soviet references that were obvious to anyone at the time.

>> No.9362342

>>9359178
Watership Down

Fucking rabbits.

>> No.9362438

>>9359178
i stopped reading white noise because the philosophical dialogue is nothing you can't get from a fucking seinfeld opening

>> No.9362562

Norwegian wood. I was on page 60 when it hit me that I was reading Murakami repeat himself over and over again while jerking off to Western books/music. The composition is so ugly and repetitive that I struggle to imagine why anyone would like this.

>> No.9362689

>>9359178
Guns, Germs and Steel and To Kill a Mockingbird.

they both sucked shit.

>> No.9362697

>>9362210
>Infinite Jest - gave up around page 700
there are like 200 pages to go. how can you give up after getting that far?

>> No.9362702

gravity's rainbow, i gave up after around 400 pages, but i was younger then, and really wish i stuck it out. I plan on trying it again this year.

>> No.9362710

>>9362702
This, and every vollman novel

>> No.9363522

>>9359230
faggot

>> No.9363565

>>9359635
Same

>> No.9364063

>>9362562
Hey, me as well. I remember getting triggered by a very shallow reference to a Dostoevsky book

>> No.9364170

I stopped reading Tale of Two Cities at like 4/5th of the book cause I got bored.

>> No.9364412

Atlas Shrugged, after she gets to the magical island, I was just kind of spacing out on the whole thing. I wanted to continue reading, but at the same time I had lost the taste for the book and for novels in general, I stopped reading books in general for a while, but I took to nonfiction after that.

Before that, Grapes of Wrath, I remember reading the first chunk of it, and then by the time I got to the end, I realized I hadn't been paying attention, my eyes were just scanning the pages. It was a lot of small type, extremely thin pages, the thinnest pages I've ever seen in a book before in my life, they were thinner than kleenex, and the book was still thick as fuck. I remember on the way to California they got to some stop that had running water and showers, and I felt envious of them, that they had things to look forward to, because I'd have nothing to eat all day until I got home, and even then the best I'd have is a bag of microwaved popcorn. It was that or the shelves of canned vomit-flavored string beans and lima beans that mom always kept stocked. I felt the same as I did when I watched Taxi Driver. I envied their lives because at least something happened in them, they had aspirations, even Travis Bickle lived on his own and got to drive a car all night. I was locked in my room all night even when I was 20 years old. So I didn't really get it until later when I finally got a job and moved out.

>> No.9364453

>>9364412
Oh yeah, and The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, back when I was 13 or 14. I read some, and it had a lot of nonsense sentences and I didn't know what it was supposed to mean. I didn't know what it was supposed to be about or why I was supposed to care. Now if she had gotten me The Right Stuff (or at least showed me the movie first and then gave me the book) that would've been way better for me in the long run.

>> No.9364470

Dracula. I have no idea why. I was enjoying myself.

>> No.9364503

>>9362065
then it really isnt worth my time

>> No.9364504

>>9362219
I know its been said before but it's so much more beautiful in its main language, first I read it in English and loved it but now I'm reading it in Bulgarian (similar to Russian) and it's a lot less awkward and well written.

>> No.9364519

infinite jest, not even memeing

>> No.9364526

>>9364412
i stopped reading atlas shrugged at exactly the same point... weird coincidence.

>> No.9364539

>>9359178

A Farewell to Arms

I asked /lit/ where a good place to start reading fiction might be, AFTA and there seemed to be a pretty unanimous consensus that it contained a good plot and good prose. Mind you this is after years of reading history and academic science texts.

I tried really hard to get through it, but I just don't think I'll ever enjoy fiction. I'm not one for the sentimental.

>> No.9364569

>Johannes Cabal the Necromancer
trying way too hard to be funny. did not enjoy it one bit.
>Dante's Divine Comedy
mind-numbingly boring. couldn;t get through past 5 cantos.

>> No.9364598

>>9359178
One of the Walking Dead novels. Was doing some shit like calling an M1 Carbine an assault rifle or swapping between M1 Carbine and M1 Rifle which are two separate designs. Simple shit, but that shit annoys me. I still think it's a miracle I got through that first Resident Evil book! Exchanged clip and mag willy nilly, in fact seemed to sort of think that it was 'loaded clip' and 'empty mag' as though that's where the difference is. Also, saying "'copter" instead of "chopper" or "helicopter". For some reason that annoyed the piss out of me.

Yes, I am from /k/.

>> No.9364691

>>9361713
Same, I can't stand his need to describe every little thing the characters do and say, almost as if he's trying to mimic real life.

>> No.9364715

Dance Dance Dance. Anything by le Carre. I want to like him. Its just a fucking slog to get through his work.

>> No.9364718

>>9360759
Heresy

>> No.9364726

>>9360719
Becauses pages upon pages of whale trivia that's also outdated.

>> No.9364738

>>9362243
No it's not. I've even read it in Russian and I speak it as a second language, so it's like I didn't get the references. It's just shit.

>> No.9364743

>>9359245

The first two are short books, how can you not finish them? The white guard is brilliant

I only give up on books over 500 pages

>> No.9364779
File: 86 KB, 640x640, IMG_4971.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9364779

>>9359245
>To the Lighthouse
>too difficult

>> No.9364783

>>9364598
Jesus, there are Walking Dead novels? What would the point of that be? If you don't get enough soap opera drama (with background zombies) and insanely idiotic decisions on behalf of the characters from the comics or TV show?

>> No.9364793
File: 76 KB, 640x640, IMG_5392.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9364793

Really feeling the urge to drop Amor en los tiempos de cholera.

Is there something I'm not getting?
It all feels really excessive in a dull way. Like some kind of pretty building that once you go into you see that it's empty inside

>> No.9365023

In Search of Lost Time. In my educated opinion it was boring poop trash.

>> No.9365034

>>9359371
Don't worry. García Marquez is severely overrated and a shit writter.
I tried reading 5 different novels (native Spanish speaker) and I couldn't bring myself to finish any of them

>> No.9365035
File: 1.58 MB, 320x240, 1454870745192.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9365035

>>9359245
10/10 best reply on lit

>> No.9366134

Anna Karenina

Got 150 pages in. I like the prose but the story is so boring and antiquated. I might come back to it at some point though.

>> No.9366148

In recent times:

Lord of Light by Zelazny, because it was shit
Don Quixote, because I'll read Part 2 after I finish off a few other long books

>> No.9366150

>>9362562
It felt like a John Green novel aimed at slightly older audiences. Easily my least favorite Murakami

>> No.9366152

>Notes from Underground
The narrator's digressions and ramblings were unbearable.
>The Catcher in the Rye
The rape scene was just too much desu

>> No.9366163

>>9360367
Every audiobook in the series is unlistenable after that. The guy has a fucking lisp

>> No.9366169

The Illuminatus trilogy. There's a part where both the main character and his love interest both fantasize about having sex with black members of their respective opposite sex and they come to terms with it together by sharing an epiphany about how white people ALL secretly have jungle fever. Then later on some guy realizes he blacked out during his being sodomized before being kidnapped and I'm pretty sure it's revealed he liked that too.

I really was enjoying the series before the bizarre sexual accounts too, but the story was losing momentum at the same time and I just couldn't bare it anymore. I'm really surprised /pol/ never mentions it.

>> No.9366173

>>9359178
couldnt get through Catch-22

>> No.9366184

Stranger in a strange Land-- the story went nowhere and there was more sex than plot in the book. I was almost done with it, when I got sick of it.

Crime and Punishment-- because I had too little time to finish it and was working on other books. Maybe I'll get around to it soon.

>> No.9366192

>>9359230
>to
Its too*
-_-

>> No.9366193

>>9364743

If a book is worth my time I'll finnish it, if it isn't, i'll drop it. Length isn't part of the equation. It's a very rare thing that I don't finnish a book, there's literally only those three plus the bible in the last couple of years.

>> No.9366205

>>9359601
Explain? I have the audiobook and I want to label him as an arrogant mysticism cum swallower etc b/c that's the vibe I get but I don't have any hard evidence. Confirm/Deny?

>> No.9366215

>>9359685
You are a looter and society has no use for your lethargy.

>Cue 65 pg monologue

>> No.9366265

Nausea,

because I am a pleb with a weak stomach and it left me feeling scared, alone, and hopeless to the point of suicide. Which is the part of the deal I guess. Also it's slow reading and despite being a short book it was taking me a while to get through it. Picked it up again yesterday though.

>> No.9366279

>>9361948

You have to make it to the third act, but it's a hell of a slog

To the Lighthouse is similar to Our Town, with masterful, horribly boring, but well metered prose.

someone call me a pleb pls

>> No.9366285

Utopia from Sir Thomas More, I had to read it for school. Maybe I would like it now

>> No.9366431

The Magic Mountain. I was enjoying it, but I had to leave the city to go to a tuberculosis sanatorium so I couldn't take the book

>> No.9366492

let's face it


gravity's rainbow is just pureile trash. it makes no sense and is the equivalent of a middle-schooler slinging their emo fringe from in front of their eyes and talking about the nihilism of society.

>> No.9366587

>>9359178
Stopped Malazan series half-way through.

Most of the characters were really fucking cool. Too bad the plot itself was distorted to hell and back. I often hear people saying they enjoy it for how it doesn't spoodfeed you everything, but it was too much for me.
Not to mention the books were just bloated with pointless pages with literally fucking nothing in it.

Still on the fence whether it was a waste of time or not.

>> No.9366917

>>9365034
This

>> No.9366927

Tender is the Night

>> No.9366931

>>9364691
:^)

>> No.9366935

>>9362268
this is hilarious

>> No.9366948

>>9366492
yeah, that's basically all american lit

>> No.9366993

>>9359178
the savage mind because levi-strauss was a neocon

>> No.9367004

>>9366993
wait nevermind he was a socialist... maybe i should give it another go

>> No.9367010

>>9359178

I'm having a stinker of a time with Humboldt's Gift. Halfway through and Bellow's filled out a shedload of characters, but it still feels like little is happening - glacial plot interspersed with long, rambling philosophizing.

Will likely continue, though, but I can't imagine it'll be memorable.

>> No.9367081

Perdido Street Station, abhorrent (though in fairness I dropped it more like a quarter the way through). The main characters were both too-cool-for-school tryhards that I feel were projections of the author's ego, the politics were even less subtly injected, that circus bit being maybe the most tasteless thing I've ever read, and the setting in general just seemed contrived. Oh the dude has a girlfriend and she's just like a human except she had the head of a fly, yeah open the first chapter about implied blowjobs from her, so hot. He even describes the skyline and streetlights as violent multiple times which gave me the impression he looked at a real life sodium lamp, then looked at a color wheel, then picked the opposite color. "lol reversal of tropes".

>> No.9367100
File: 106 KB, 590x571, Untitled-1.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9367100

>>9367081

>> No.9367227

>>9359178
Stranger in a Strange Land
When the man from Mars stopped developing as a character and became a ham-fisted messiah my eye's couldn't stop rolling, thus making reading nigh impossible.

>> No.9367277

>>9359178
Slaughterhouse 5. Jesus the prose is so annoying

>> No.9367303

>>9359840
don't remember that part, are you sure it's in the book?

>> No.9367308

I know it's a meme now, but Infinite Jest. Just couldn't do it, it wasn't going anywhere

>> No.9367314
File: 764 KB, 2000x1846, 1438623286311.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9367314

>>9367308
>it wasn't going anywhere
you are wrong

>> No.9367916
File: 142 KB, 665x997, 12493573-standard.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9367916

i was already annoyed by the fact that the plot was an assemblage of piously cool things (70's art scene, motorcycles, tribeca lofts, italy), then soured on the narrator being a literal mary sue. gave up after a sentence referring to photographs as the detritus of existence

>> No.9368283

>>9359479
Came here to post this.

>> No.9368293

>>9364793
That's García Márquez for you.

>> No.9368339

>>9359178
Non-obsessive-compulsive readers are fags.

>> No.9368341

>>9366927
Couldnt handle the dick, huh?

>> No.9368378

The divine Comedy; Because it was too fucking difficult. Couldn't even pass the first page.

The Ilidad; I gave up at page 300, Catalogue of Ships part was too tedious.

Don Quixote; I gave up at page 260, but i might give it another try.

A Clockwork Orange; Left it at page 50. Nadsat was too much for me.

>> No.9368389

>>9359523
Never liked that one anyway, but too bad you had to desecrate the book and then read a ruined version of it.

>> No.9368392

>>9360759
Came here to say this as well.
"B-but you can read the chapters in any order and it doesn't matter XD"

>> No.9368396

>>9359178
120 Days of Sodom, went in almost completely blind, stopped about 10 pages in.

>> No.9368404

>>9362187
Ahh, give it another chance. It's just a fun cute novel. It doesn't deserve it's unending shills in the public education system but it's not bad. Atticus and Scout are pretty great characters for what it is

>> No.9368434

I stopped reading La philosophie dans le boudoir when one of the educators goes on a lengthy rant why the church is bad. I expected a seduction of mind and body and I got an endlessly tiresome suite of rearrangements of bodies and "morals are bad mkay". I also think reducing a woman's purpose in life to "Qu'elle se fasse foutre" is pretty misogynistic.

>> No.9368437

>>9359594
Fuck you I like him.

Mistborn - now fuck that. I tried to get through the first few pages, but gave up when the author called a door to a shitty little hut a "portal". His prose reads like some dickhead just wrote some stuff down in Word and went through it with the acronym function to make themselves sound articulate. Is Robert Sanderson's writing usually like this, or is Mistborn just a dip in quality for him? I haven't read any of his other books.

>> No.9368467

So far, only Franz Kafka - The Castle.

It just didn't appeal to me at all and the reading felt more like a chore than something I'd enjoy.

I'll probably try to pick it back up later, because I hear a lot of people saying Kafka is great, but so far I didn't get the appeal.

>> No.9368482

>>9366173
me too the first time, but I read it again years later and was blown away by the last chapters

>> No.9368514

>>9359178
Dostojevsky - Devils
The dude bites some dudes ear i guess ?
Anyway not my style of read

>> No.9368524

>>9359491
I think it's target demographic is (wannabe) bodybuilders. I mean I've never read it but that's what I assume.

>> No.9368534

>>9359523
This fills me with fury. I'm sorry you had a retard as a teacher.

>> No.9368542

>>9359625
Why is that? Its girthiness is currently sitting on my bookshelf intimidating me.

>> No.9368549

>>9368467
That's the only one i didn't get through and i loved Kafka's other work. Grab some of his short stories, and if those appeal to you, go for the trial or amerika.

>> No.9368565

>>9368434
Speak english, nigger.

>> No.9368681

>>9366205
I can confirm.

>> No.9368754

Anything by D.H. Lawrence. It's not even that I think he's a bad writer, I just don't like his style. It's hard to explain and I've never really tried to rationalize it.

>>9359635
I love that book, but I could see how one would find it dull if you don't find Dean exciting or interesting at all. Same with The Catcher in the Rye, really.

>> No.9368788
File: 63 KB, 640x640, 933085-moby_dick.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9368788

>>9359178
>Moby Dick
>fucking encyclopedia about boats and shit

>> No.9368886

Old Man and the Sea- Too Long
Gravity's Rainbow - Nothing happened for like, 100 pages
Finnegans Wake - Prose was too simplistic, it felt like a robot was reading to me.

>> No.9369054

>>9368788
>Moby Dick
>Fucking encyclopedia about boats (and potentially shit)
Only makes me want to read it more... save for the 'shit' portion. Guano?

>> No.9369081

>>9361528
stop trying to justify your lack of empathy Autismus

>> No.9369195

>>9368788
>Not being a whale fetishist
Just get off /lit/

>> No.9369202

>>9368886
Underrated post

>> No.9369314

>>9368754
How hard it is from a non-native english speaker to approach his novels?

>> No.9369339

>>9359178
A literary critique dissertation on Joyce, but I did so because the analysis on Ulysses was basically a resume of Gilbert's essay. The book in itself was good.

>> No.9369362

>>9359425
Why don't you get an anotated edition of The Faerie Queene? Also, read Pale Fire without the notes, then follow them afterwards,

>> No.9369413

The Kite Runner


>had to read it for highschool
>got the rape scene and jerked off to it and then just never finished the book

>> No.9369480

I've read Ada (when I was 14), The Dark Tower series, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Masters of Rome, The Name of the Rose, etc., to give you an idea of what I liked.

I could not and still cannot STAND Great Expectations at all, I read a third of the book in 9th grade, burned my copy with a blowtorch in the garage, and guessed for every test and made shit up for every essay. Teacher was weirded out but probably didn't care anyway and knew I deserved to pass.

>> No.9369712

>>9359178
Infinite Jest, it was absolute shit. I hated the story, hated the characters and the prose. Overall was shit.

>> No.9369794

I stopped "Three Hundred Million" about 50 pages in, got pretty bored of it.

Then a friend borrowed it, never to be seen again

>> No.9369807

>>9359523
That's bullshit. We're not supposed to ignore history, were supposed to look back at it. Just read Light in August last semester and we went all in on the Blacked storyline.

>> No.9369838

>>9360759
Completely agree anon. Perhaps it was shocking for its time, but now it just reads like one long, tiresome edgy shitpost from /b/

>> No.9369928

Beloved by Toni Morisson
ive tried to read it twice but the atmosphere really makes me not want to read it? not sure how to describe it
dont really wanna try again desu

>> No.9370089

Lovely, dark, deep of Joyce Carol Oates
That book isn't thrilling and She is the american Corin Tellado

>> No.9370806

>>9359178
The Jews and their lies.

>> No.9370822

>>9370806

why

>> No.9370846

>>9359178
George Orwell's 1984

I looked into the movie and got spoiled by the synopsis.

So mad, I was actually enjoying it quite a bit.

>> No.9370869

>>9370846
here's your reply