Which book has defeated you?

[xsquared]

Inspired by the top 100 thread, I thought I'd start a thread about books that you've tried reading, perhaps more than once, but given up on.

For me it's bloody Middlemarch! I'm 39 now and I started reading it around 15 hopefully in time to do an English essay about women's roles in 18th century literature, which was met with a "whoo" from my teacher at the time. She was right though.

Tried reading it again in my early 20s but was distracted with The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
Tried again at least twice more, probably on holiday somewhere and I think I've got to admit defeat. I don't seem to get much further than shortly after Dorothea marries Casauban.

I got half way through War and Peace when it was televised but lost interest when the series finished. I may try it again this year!

Another one for Catch 22. I really want to get into it and read it, but it defeats me every time.

As for Moby Dick, I slogged through that bastard. My advice if you are struggling, stop wherever you are in it and skip to the last three chapters. You’ll get the whole story and haven’t missed anything!

Middle March is my absolute favourite ever book, but I think you click with it or you don’t

Catch 22 has defeated me

Another one for Captain Corelli..... thought it was just me!!

Bird box. Started reading it ages ago and just got sooo bored of this mysterious evil thing. It just didn’t go anywhere yet everyone was raving about it.

I quite liked Captain Corelli but not any of the other books. I second The Hobbit, felt this had to be read when I was younger, now I realise...it really doesn't. I also liked Catcher in the rye, but ones that I just can't get through are Dickens. God I hate Dickens.

I started Vanity Fair and lost interest but mean to go back and have another go.

A book called "Mason and Dixon" by Thomas Pynchon which was hailed as a masterpiece when it was published in the 1990s. I found it incomprehensible and gave up part the way through when I found I had no longer had any idea what was going on.

The older I get the less patience I have for books I am not enjoying,

Capitan Corelli
Pride and Predjudice - the dc set it fir me as a “Summer Reading Chslkenge” because I’d never read any Jane Austen, never been so bored by a book!

War and Peace
Pickwick Papers - I was doing quite well but put it down "for a break" and never went back to it. I don't get on with Dickens generally and have probably only read two or three.
Loved Shadow of the Wind. Loved LOTR and Hobbit, but I am a fantasy fan. Nearly gave up on about Book 10 of the Wheel of Time series but ploughed through because I'd invested too much at that stage.
First time I read Wuthering Heights I loved it. Went back to it years later and found it v dull.
Loved The Goldfinch
Got on fine with Owen Meany, Catcher in the Rye and Catch-22.
Jane Austen generally bores me witless.
Don't go a bundle on Hardy and I've never bothered to try either Mill on the Floss or Middlemarch, though I did like Silas Marner (all Elliott??).

I’ve been trying to finish Pride and Prejudice for 29 years.

It never gets any better.

I've tried Catch 22 a few times , over the last 40 years or so & have never managed more than about 20 pages.

Also The Buried Giant. It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t finish it; it was more that I wouldn’t, as I didn’t want to waste one more second of my precious eyesight on reading such unmitigated shite.

Maybe I need teenage angst to cope with the classics!

Flapjackfairy - I'm sure you're right. As a teen I read and loved so many of the books people say they have struggled with - Middlemarch, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, all of Thomas Hardy, the Brontes etc etc. And I read Wuthering Heights dozens of times. Did Madame Bovary for A level and loved it.

Definitely think teenage angst helped! As did the lack of smart phones and multiple tv channels!! Nowadays I find it very difficult to finish a book and I'm more likely to be looking at my phone or Netflix at bedtime than reading a good book

Middlemarch contains one of my favourite quotes -

"If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity."

Maybe I need teenage angst to cope with the classics!

I think you've nailed it, I was reading this thread last night and thinking I'd read a few of the classics as a teen and loved them but find them unreadable now.

Book thief

The Silmarillian.
I’m a huge LOTR fan but I’ve started this book about 40 times and just can’t do it!

A Thousand Splendid Suns. It's too harrowing for me. I've never been able to get past the stoning scene.

MrsTerryPratchett I've always wondered how to get through Moby Dick. It's my book-nemesis.

Any Dickens novel - I just can't Wade through the sentences that last for an entire paragraph.

Hitchhiker's guide - lasted about 2 pages.

I like a good crime novel but a colleague passed on a couple of DCI Banks ones and I have found the characters very hard to care about.

I've just borrowed Shirley by Charlotte Brontë from the library as I fancied another mid-19th century romance after reading North and South twice (I watched the TV adaptation for the first time in the run up to ovulation and I am now completely in love with Richard Armitage.... and pregnant 🤔). Finding Shirley hard going thanks to a bit of a dull opening. Wuthering heights is ok although if you've read the first half you've read the best bit.

I limped through Les Miserables because I honestly wasn't expecting a French history lesson when reading it but managed to persevere because the story was incredible.

Catch 22 despite being a short read by my standards has defeated me several times. It's like reading the ramblings of an incoherent drunk, there's no story or rhythm to settle on. I might just pretend it's a company policy I have to slog through and just get on with it so it's not a blemish on my reading history!

Yup also the Silmarillion. I think Tolkien just disappeared up his own arse into his own world and forgot that not everyone reading would be an Oxford academic obsessed with languages and Celtic history. We just want a good story!

The Silmarillion (loved LOTR, so this one surprised me)

I'm a LOTR obsessive, and loved finding the stories that are referenced in the LOTR series. But, damn, it is not easy going; I think because it's more of a history in deipersed with occasional (and jumpy) sections of traditional story narrative. A bit like Fire and Blood - the GoT prequel (but even more so).
There's a YouTube channel called Men of the West where a guy called Joistin runs thru character histories and major events - it is super helpful to getting a grasp of the whos and the what whens. Tolkien gateway website helps too.
Get thru the Simlarillion though and you get a small peek at just how big a world Tolkien crafted. A contemporary reviewer once said he'd created something more akin to the development of an entire people than a single author - and as a frustrated/failed writer I bow to the epic scale of his work.

The Hobbit, First tried reading it when I was at school couldn’t get past the first few pages. Tried again a couple of years ago and remembered why I didn’t read it first time round

Time Travelers Wife

Wuthering Heights

I did finish Atonement but realised that I’ll never get that time back

Gotstuck I read A Thousand Splendid Suns, it is harrowing but I persevered with it and I’m glad I did but I’ve never picked up The Kite Runner, that’s still on the shelf

I love Catcher in the Rye.

Couldn’t finish A Suitable Boy, the Hobbit or Lord If the Rings (can’t remember which one I attempted) and Catch 22 - hated it - I think it’s supposed to be funny but I didn’t get it. Couldn’t get beyond first few pages of terry

Practchett.

Catch 22 is my nemesis.