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Which works of "great" literature have you given up on???

195 replies

ItalianJob · 01/04/2006 16:17

Couldn't get past page 100 of Mill on the Floss (no one else in my book group could either!!). Felt that I really didn't need to see any more examples of gratuitious violence to animals to get the idea that Maggie was good and Tom was nasty.

OP posts:
Pruni · 03/04/2006 12:53

Moby Dick.
Three pages in, I realised life's too short.

Failed to read The Mill on the Floss at school, same reasons. Also Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Beowulf is another one I couldn't be arsed with, despite studying Old English at university.

thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat · 03/04/2006 12:54

i think I lasted about a page with Ulysess. I stuck out a 1000 Years of Solitude and really not sure it was worth it

moondog · 03/04/2006 12:56

Tha Master and Margerita Yaaaaaaaaaaawn......

moondog · 03/04/2006 12:57

Margarita (so boring can't even spell it right)
Semi classc 'I capture the castle'
Feck all happens!!

JackieNo · 03/04/2006 12:57

Never managed to get more than a few pages into Tristram Shandy, but did grit my teeth and make it all the way through Ulysses.

roosmum · 03/04/2006 13:05

finnegan's wake - barking mad!
chipmonkey - joyce said it took him 14 years to write it, & that it should take 14 years (!) to read it Grin hmmm...

pruni - try seamus heaney's beowulf, it's top & v. readable.

Clary · 03/04/2006 13:25

Fascinating thread.
I vote for Middlemarch, gave up when nothing had happened after 200pp. I was about 18 tho. Is it worth trying again?
See lots of Dickens on here too. Hate Dickens with a passion tho have finished about 4 of his books.
Captain corelli, now that I have about five goes at. Littlefish, try skipping all the bits about Mussolini.
Not that it's as amazing as everyone says, even when you do get into it, IMHO.

expatinscotland · 03/04/2006 13:28

in answer to your query about middlemarch - is it worth it to try again?

no.

Cappucino · 03/04/2006 13:29

okay then chipmonkey what is Ulysses about? I read it at college, even concocted some presentation about it, but never got the faintest idea wtf was going on.

I've never seen the point of Dickens, I've tried, but it's dreadful. Was forced to read A Christmas Carol for book group this year and it turned me into Scrooge, it was so bad.

Did like George Eliot though. And read War of the Worlds and it was fantastic.

moondog · 03/04/2006 13:29

Oh Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Shite!

singersgirl · 03/04/2006 13:50

Never liked Dickens (though I've read most of them through duty), struggled through "Middlemarch" and don't think I managed "Daniel Deronda".
Have given up on Thomas Pynchon but library shut till tomorrow so will have to read DS's "Horrible Histories".

suzywong · 03/04/2006 13:51

Me too with the Dickens, I think that's one of the reasons the people interviewing for Goldsmiths showed me the door PDQ. Although spacedonkey assures me the tv adaptation of Bleak House is spiffing

Chandra · 03/04/2006 13:57

Elbell, is was a bit more obscure than you imagine. It was about how to allow the reader to take the lead, and keep them interested in the argument, in the abscence of a narrator. A principle to be applied to e-environments
(have you yawned yet? Wink)

brimfull · 03/04/2006 13:57

The Brontes....yawn

A.s Byatt possession....couldn't get into it.

Mill on the floss...shite!

Chandra · 03/04/2006 14:03

Oh the Brontes!

Read Wuthering Heights as a teenager, now when people back home ask me how is life abroad I just mention...

Have you read WH? well, that's were I live! (Do I hate the winter in small villages or what? Grin fortun ately we have moved to a more populated area since, the isolation was eating me in especially, without the half-a-caveman wandering nearby which would have been far more interesting than those boring ducks! Wink)

Pruni · 03/04/2006 14:08

O god hadn't thought of Captain Corelli's Mondolin as a classic.
Lots of people see the good in it but I hated it. (Well, the half that I read.)

Ditto something else by Gabriel G Marquez, I forget the name, v popular.

I did love The Master and Margarita though. And Dickens - fantastically biting wit - really worth it IMO.

Expat's summary of WH is a classic. Chandra - am PMSL at the idea of half a caveman wandering round your neck of the moors. Grin

moondog · 03/04/2006 14:22

Pruni,neither do I (see it as a classic)
I might try The Master and Margarita again seeing as I rspct U but am not holding my breath.
Last time I tried,we were living in Moscow ffs and I even went to find the pond that featured.
Even that didn't work.

hulababy · 03/04/2006 14:24

Dickens - just can't get on with them.

motherinferior · 03/04/2006 14:24

I disagree about most of these. WH v fabulous. Ditto Floss and Middlemarch.

Emma7 · 03/04/2006 15:38

Wuthering Heights is my favourite book so disagree with that one.

Can't get into Lord of the Rings - have given up now (can only just sit through the films) but DH loves it (maybe it's a bloke thing.)

Dickens - I just don't get it. Had to write an essay on Bleak House for my English degree and tried so hard to read it but in the end bought York notes and just read the juicy bits Blush!!

Never tried to sit and read the Bible so no comment on that one.

pooka · 03/04/2006 16:00

Lord of the Rings. Got fed up with all the songs.

expatinscotland · 03/04/2006 16:05

oh god! in first year at uni, i chose a year long honours english course w/a particular professor who offered an amazing book list. i mean, wonderful, stuff from all over the world. was SO chuffed!

first semester went brilliantly.

second semester, the prof reveals he's a joyce scholar, and how many of us would care to scrap the book list in favour of a delightful semester of portrait of the artist as a young man, ulysses and finnegan's wake. all these numpties, keen on nothing more than kissing arse to get a good referee, raise their hands.

well, i don't read things that require a guidebook to decipher.

i was assigned a ten-page essay to write about something from ulysses - i can't remember what.

i proceded to get drunk and stoned and make up a bunch of complete nonsense all night whilst toking off a bong and swilling rum and coke.

got top marks.

:o

moonshine · 03/04/2006 16:06

Trollope - boring and maddening at the same time.

layla · 03/04/2006 17:14

Oh dear,I loved the book of Captain Corelli's mandolin.The film on the other hand was shite.Penelope Cruz couldn't act and spent the whole of the movie pouting'what for?.Couldn't see this annimated character that the book portrayed being Nicholas Cage.Not good.

The book I did try to read honestly but had to give up on was Anna Kerenina.I just couldn't get a hang of all the different names and got fed up with going back pages to see who was who.

dinosaure · 03/04/2006 17:16

I have twice tried to read Crime and Punishment and made it to the end of the first bit, but baulked at the second.

And have never even attempted any other Russian lit. Much to DH's contempt, cos he thinks he's good cos he's read Oblomov.