Why is it so hard to read a book when you dislike the main character?

zippi - if you are asking "if" then yes.
if you are asking who then kathy knows. And Pruni. And a few others.

uqd i am desperate to know

shiny - I'm not allowed to say! Some people here think I already mention it too much, allegedly... (That's despite 99% of people not having a clue.)

elastic - I love the way you assume from the title it's one of mine! It could well apply to the last one!

She's worse than a sap. I hate her. She is weak and vindictive and captures a strong man so that, by possessing his strength, she gets some sort of fantasy revenge against all those who have wronged her. And to top it all, she succeeds (through the machinations of the author) in emasculating her saviour by blinding him.

Thats what Nietzsche says about Christianity: the weak gain revenge on the strong by allying themselves with god -- and then, despising strength, they destroy god by crucifiction.

Jane Eyre is nasty.

I always thought Jane Eyre was an unrelenting sap. In fact all the Bronte sisters' books leave me cold, especially Wuthering Heights.

Oh, and one story is about a child murderer. Of course you dislike this character, but somehow you care for him and want things to work out well for him.

(And what about Hannibal Lecter. Those books are actually quite good, and I found myself championing him all the way!)

Preferred McEwan's early short stories, where as well as being unlikeable the characters were positively unnerving, frightening, shocking.

Oh yes, Enduring love, yawn.

however I am not bored by Robbie in Atonement, but that's because I've been lusting after James McAvoy in the film and haven't read the book.

McEwan's Amsterdam as well

Yes Fennel I have that problem with a lot of recent McEwan too (eg Enduring Love).
And the same with those recent Stephen Poliakoff dramas - had no sympathy with the billionaire because I just wanted to slap him with a wet mackerel and tell him to get over it.

Making people care about not-particularly-interesting characters is an enormous skill. Barbara Pym does it very well, or E.F.Benson - has anyone read the Lucia books? Mapp and Lucia are both awful people but you want Lucia to win because she has more style than Mapp.

Yes, and paradoxically one of the things that makes McEwan a good writer is that he is able to convey this kind of not-very-likable complacent professional -- the better the writing is in this respect the less the novel succeeds in engaging you.

fennel- yes agree with saturday review, endless description of posh consultant and his affluent life - eugh

I had to give up on Ian McEwan's Saturday because I really couldn't bring myself to care about an irritatingly successful affluent consultant type and his boring family.

I really like Jane Austen's Emma for all her flaws, and could put up with Emma Bovery, just about, but can't bear Fanny Price despite knowing we are supposed to sympathise with her passive simpering. It depends why you don't like them, IME, whether you can carry on with the book. I don't mind irritating opionated selfish heroes and heroines but get too angry with doormats.

hate martin amis, his dull turgid descriptions of vaccous toffs people whom i dont care about
jodi picoult characters insipid one dimensionsal who-gives-a-toss

One of the most interesting things I ever studied at uni was Sophocles' Antigone, in which Antigone argues with King Kreon over her right to properly bury her brothers who were killed attacking the city.
When we read it today it feels like Antigone is the heroine and Kreon is the baddie, but some scholars argue that for the Athenians, it was the other way round.
In occupied France Anouilh's version was performed to audiences of Parisians and Germans, and supposedly the French thought it was on Antigone's side and the Nazis saw it as being on the side of the king.

I thought of this when you mentioned Vanity Fair - a lot of the qualities in Becky Sharp (guts, determination, independence) might have been seen as unfeminine in the 1840s(?) but are very much admired today.

Same as most things written by Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho and Glamorama have deeply unsavoury characters which I couldn't bring myself to like or empathise with, didn't stop me loving the books though.

I find it harder to sympathise with the main character if he is merely weak, as opposed to nasty or whaveter. I really rate Super-Cannes, by JG Ballard, but the main character is so weak and odd I found the book very hard to get into initially.

Some of my favourite books have deeply dodgy people as their main character. Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair is completely immoral and a bitch to boot. But I found myself completely rooting for her (what does that say about me..!)

That's why I can't stand Martin Amis, His characters are just deeply unlikeable people and I end up not caring what happens to them!

This is a really interesting questuion and it made me try to think of books where the main character(s) aren't likeable. The only obvious one I can think of is Madame Bovary. I enjoy that book but I feel quite coolly towards it and her.

Plus, a lot of books by misanthropes like Kingsley Amis or William Golding.

I suppose we hve to care about what happens to them: we have to wish them either well or ill. In theory this means that you could equally enjoy a book where you hated the main character and wished them harm -- but then presumably you wouldn't empathise with that character, and would therefore feel detatched.

elastic !

Kingsley Amis once said something disparaging about Fanny Price, along the lines of he wouldn't like to sit next to her at a dinner party.

I think I'd choose Fanny Price over Kingsley or Martin Amis myself.

I'd give up personally but then I'm bad at reading at the mo. My books often go back unread to the library

Nah, he doesn't write them, he's just a librarian.