Regarding Chekhov, see what I wrote in my reply to Legolas.
Tom Send a noteboard - 24/10/2010 05:19:41 PM
*Jane Eyre
I like most of it. But it's too long and Jane is quite an annoying heroine.
*Wuthering Heights
Gah. Awful book.
Other books not enjoyed:
Chekhov's plays
Am slightly surprised. 
See above reply.
Anything by Hemingway
Totally agreed.
*Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
Quite.
Sholokhov's Quiet Flows the Don
... Is that about Aberdeen?
You're joking, I assume? Sholokhov got the Nobel Prize for this in what was an example of shamless Soviet pressure on the committee. Some parts of the story are interesting, even a bit controversial, but I just can't bring myself to enjoy it. There's something profoundly dissatisfying about it.
Ulysses by James Joyce
James Joyce is horrible. I should have included Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in my list.
I actually didn't mind Portrait of the Artist that much. I just felt that Ulysses was an attempt to do to literature what a Rothko or Pollack did to art (kill it by reducing it to nonsense). I got all the references - I'm quite sure of that - and my impression, as an elitist, was that Joyce was just being a pompous asshole but failed to demonstrate the requisite talent to be able to justify being a pompous asshole. If I wanted to parody it, I'd write a ten-chapter novel with references to the Aeneid about my last trip to take a shit, with each chapter taking a different muse as its title and a different writing style.
In the realm of genre fiction:
Jim Butcher's novels
I suppose they're not for everyone. You're the first person I've recommended them to who didn't enjoy them.
Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber
I've heard this from quite a few people.
*Hal Duncan's Vellum and Ink
I'm torn on Vellum. I remember liking it when I read it, but can definitely understand the criticism. I suspect I wouldn't like it if I read it again. Which I won't.
Flat characters, terrible plot, scattershot attempt at writing that ends up being just so much verbal diarrhea - wait, this is sounding like my criticism of Ulysses, but Duncan can't even really be pompous because he doesn't have the requisite knowledge.
The works marked with an asterisk are books that I could probably bring myself to burn
Shocking!
Not really.
Political correctness is the pettiest form of casuistry.
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*
OK, Rafonauts: name some books you hated.
- 23/10/2010 09:31:22 PM
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Catcher in the Rye-JD Salinger *NM*
- 23/10/2010 09:43:40 PM
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Yeah. I didn't hate that, but found it too mediocre to continue reading it. *NM*
- 23/10/2010 10:10:04 PM
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I third this book. Time spent in my life I can never get back. 
*NM*
- 24/10/2010 02:06:17 AM
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*NM*
- 24/10/2010 02:06:17 AM
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I honestly can't think of a single one.
- 23/10/2010 10:46:44 PM
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I am envious. I would like not to have wasted my time on those books I hated.
- 23/10/2010 11:30:57 PM
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I got tricked by my boss's recommendation into reading Twilight before it got huge.
- 23/10/2010 11:06:34 PM
1437 Views
Oh, my deepest sympathy! Is your boss an evil person?
- 23/10/2010 11:32:16 PM
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She's not and normally has great taste in books. I don't know wtf was up with her liking it so much. *NM*
- 23/10/2010 11:35:37 PM
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I didn't hate The Name of the Wind
- 23/10/2010 11:08:44 PM
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I'm so full of hate I hated Eragon without even reading it. 
- 23/10/2010 11:18:42 PM
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- 23/10/2010 11:18:42 PM
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You mean "promoted because kid wrote it and parents were publishers".
- 23/10/2010 11:56:50 PM
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It's a decent book, but not anything great, you fuckin' Soc. *NM*
- 24/10/2010 12:00:12 AM
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*NM*
- 24/10/2010 12:00:12 AM
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Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse *NM*
- 24/10/2010 12:08:24 AM
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*NM*
- 24/10/2010 12:09:03 AM
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*NM*
- 24/10/2010 12:09:03 AM
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*NM*
*NM*
*NM*
Agreed. Could barely get through it, have apparently blocked most of it from my mind. *NM*
- 25/10/2010 03:28:29 AM
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*NM*
- 25/10/2010 03:28:29 AM
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Hatred, thy name is Bronte.
- 24/10/2010 01:32:58 AM
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I'm very surprised about the Chekhov... not his plays, but other works, then? *NM*
- 24/10/2010 01:49:24 AM
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Vellum was one of the most overrated pieces of garbage I've ever read.
- 24/10/2010 02:09:15 AM
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Heh.
- 24/10/2010 03:14:27 PM
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Regarding Chekhov, see what I wrote in my reply to Legolas.
- 24/10/2010 05:19:41 PM
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*NM*
Hate is probably too strong for most books but I really disliked House of Leaves.
- 24/10/2010 02:15:39 AM
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Heart of Darkness. Only book I've fallen asleep while reading.
- 24/10/2010 09:50:26 AM
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I actually loved that - though Apocalypse Now! is definitely a(n even) better version. 
*NM*
- 25/10/2010 02:11:23 PM
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*NM*
- 25/10/2010 02:11:23 PM
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Everything by Stephen King
- 24/10/2010 10:35:36 AM
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He changed drastically after he 1) sobered up and 2) got hit by that drunk driver.
- 26/10/2010 11:03:04 PM
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The Magic of Recluce - L.E. Modesitt
- 24/10/2010 01:10:39 PM
1353 Views
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
- 24/10/2010 03:07:10 PM
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That's because it was written by an 18-year-old girl who, like Paolini, ...
- 24/10/2010 03:10:27 PM
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I assume when you say "affair," you mean "marriage?" *NM*
- 25/10/2010 02:40:46 AM
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Not at that point. The marriage came later, after his first wife died. *NM*
- 25/10/2010 07:59:00 AM
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Terry Goodkind
- 24/10/2010 03:46:16 PM
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Y YU HATE TARY??! YU TROLL!!....... *NM*
- 24/10/2010 04:43:08 PM
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*NM*
- 24/10/2010 04:43:08 PM
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Just to be contrary, mostly
- 24/10/2010 05:01:50 PM
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tary loves you even tho you h8 him. he'll kick your teeth in if you taunt him tho.
- 24/10/2010 05:28:43 PM
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moby dick and madame bovary. couldn't read more than like ten pages of either.
- 25/10/2010 05:24:36 AM
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To Kill a Mockingbird. Only book that's ever actually put me to sleep. Never even finished Ch1. *NM*
- 25/10/2010 07:03:25 PM
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Anything By Faulkner
- 26/10/2010 06:37:35 PM
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The difference being that Faulkner was evocative, and Jordan horrifically, stultifyingly mundane.
- 27/10/2010 03:44:18 AM
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My Antonia, The Color Purple, and The Grapes of Wrath come to mind. *NM*
- 28/10/2010 02:21:02 PM
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