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Original poster

Which book has defeated you?

307 replies

xsquared · 03/01/2019 23:43

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!

OP posts:
toomanysmallpeoplecallmemom · 04/01/2019 18:41

I don't often give up on a book even if I get to the end wishing I had but A suitable boy I just couldn't get into, I tried twice, got as far as the middle the second time but couldn't go on! I gave it away in the end!

bigKiteFlying · 04/01/2019 18:46

Les Miserables.

Fingersmith – Dsis bought that one tried skim reading but still gave up.

Jules Vern Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – odd as I’ve read his other but may have been the translation I had.

Crime and Punishment
Anna Karenina - I think I have an issue with Russian authors as I'm sure there are more.

Heart of Darkness
The Catcher in the Rye

Miljah · 04/01/2019 18:58

Silmarillion
A Man called (named?) Ove
Cloud Atlas
Wolf Hall
Dr Strange and Mr Norrell
The book thief
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
A thousand splendid suns
Terry Pratchett

I had several goes at LOTR (in 1977..! aged 14)- discovered the trick was to skip the first chapter as I already knew it!

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Books
BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 04/01/2019 19:01

I've remembered another one, the first Game of Thrones book. I would never have tried it except that it was so strongly recommended to me by several people. I think I got about a third of the way through it but I was struggling with all the brutal injury and death, then one of the wolves died and it was just a death too far so I stopped.

diamantegal · 04/01/2019 19:29

Another vote for Ulysses. Nothing needs to be that complicated.

I've also tried and given up on A Suitable Boy twice, but I think that's because it's too big to carry around and I tend to do most of my reading on the train - tried reading it at bedtime but kept falling asleep before I could get into it. So I will go back to it at some point.

I have read War and Peace and Les Miserables though. At lest I've read all the words. Not sure I remember much about what actually happens...

Nanasueathome · 04/01/2019 19:44

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

Lollicent · 04/01/2019 20:04

A Suitable Boy, tried to read it several times but it just goes on and on and on...
But I loved The Goldfinch and Catcher in the Rye.

BlackPrism · 04/01/2019 20:07

Anna Karenina. Just couldn't be added with it.

BlackPrism · 04/01/2019 20:08

Adam Bede is much better than middle arch though

cortex10 · 04/01/2019 20:09

Wolf Hall for me too

CharDeeMacDennis · 04/01/2019 20:13

It's Middlemarch for me, too.

I absolutely love Catch-22, though. My brother was doing it for A-level when I was 15 and left it lying around. I was bored so picked it up... game over, totally hooked, never read anything like that before. I must have read it a dozen times in my late teens and 20s. Am 39 now so it's been a while - might treat myself to another read this year!

TheLazyDuchess · 04/01/2019 20:23

Wuthering Heights, it just doesn't do it for me at all, have never managed to finish it.

Xenadog · 04/01/2019 20:28

Wolf Hall and A Prayer for Owen Meany. I tried so hard to finish them both and I really wanted to like them but for the life of me I can’t think why they are considered so good. I don’t give up on many books but these two I did.

If anyone can explain why either book is any good I’d love to hear.

Ietthemeatcake · 04/01/2019 20:33

Midnight's Children is the only one I've ever given up on, took forever for the plot to go nowhere.

groundcontroltomontydon · 04/01/2019 20:34

Confederency of dunces was probably the only one I gave up because I hated it so much.
I love that book. Took me a few attempts to get into it though.

umpteenpinecones · 04/01/2019 20:39

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Two or three by Thomas Hardy, I have tried but I can't get on with them at all

Wild Swans

Wuthering Heights

Threehoursfromhome · 04/01/2019 20:41

Madame Bovary. I got about 80 pages in, she'd stopped to sit down somewhere on the way home and the narratine spent three paragraphs describing the moss on the rock she'd sat on. And I'm sure it was a beautifully written three paragraphs, and I realise readers had different expectations about pacing back then. But still, it was three paragraphs of
moss
on
a
rock.

I should also have another go at Middlemarch one day, I think with that one the trouble was I'd done a whole slew of nineteenth century English novelists for A level: the Brontes, Gaskill, Hardy, Austen, Dickens, and couldn't face any more, rather than the book itself.

Threehoursfromhome · 04/01/2019 20:51

I loved A Suitable Boy, but I was doing nightshift at the time. As nothing else was open at 'lunch' time, and we had to have an hour''s break I chipped away at it over a month. It's so big otherwise that without dedicating a daily session to it, I'm not sure how else you'd finish it.

That was the year I also finished David Copperfiel, Dombey and Son,, Bleak House Little Dorrit: and Our Mutual Friend. There wasn't much else to do on nightshift before broadband.

MrsWithwithers · 04/01/2019 20:52

Mine is The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I have tried several times but it is so boring! I am surprised it hasn’t been mentioned already!

Tw1nsetAndPearls · 04/01/2019 20:52

Will Self Umbrella.

rightreckoner · 04/01/2019 20:55

Glad to see some other Anna Karenina deniers on here. Stop going on about agricultural methodology in 19th Century Russia - please.

Got through Middlemarch but barely. Didn’t get the love at all.

midsomermurderess · 04/01/2019 20:56

100 Years of Solitude. And I only got through White Teeth by skimming every third or so of the last scores of pages. I also agree with A Suitable Boy: twee, simpering, interminable nonsense.

AnneElliott · 04/01/2019 20:59

I also loved Middlemarch and have read it several times.

Books I failed to complete were:
Wolf Hall
Ulysses
Lord of the Rings

RowenaCoxwell · 04/01/2019 21:00

Middlemarch-tried to read it last year and gave up, I can’t imagine going back to it.
Cloud Atlas- didn’t get past the first page.
Time Traveller’s Wife
I soldiered on with Catcher in the Rye because I thought it was supposed to be such an amazing book so I was convinced that every page turn was going bring me to the brilliant bit, but there wasn’t one so I wished I’d never bothered!

Bathbombs · 04/01/2019 21:07

Glad others gave up on the hobbit and captain Corelli too!
I think omen of my proudest achievements is that I dragged myself though les miserables. I will admit to turning the pages (and pages) about the sewers a couple at a time Blush

I know it’s hated but I loved the time traveller’s wife. I sobbed uncontrollably even though I could see objectively that it was ridiculous.

I recently stopped a short way into ‘the road’ but will give it another go soon