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

[Swedes2Turnips1]

In spite of really lovely writing I am struggling. Any advice?

(I think Kathy is a 6 maniac)

some of my favourite books are about characters I positively detest. The question is whether you're meant to like them or not. If you're meant to like them and you don;t then the book hasn't done its thing (for me - Time Traveller's Wife - thought the characters were boring) however books where you're meant to dislike the lead character(s) require, imho, a particular talent - and if they succeed in being good, they are really good - The Bonfire of the Vanities and most of Martin Amis' stuff.

I see Bonaventura beat me to it with the Martin Amis reference. I do think it's harder to write a (good) book about someone most people find it difficult to relate to. Though I suspect I would find it difficult to relate to Martin Amis

I think with Emma too - you're meant to find her annoying

Oh no, I like Emma. She's so patient with her ridiculous father, and really, wouldn't any of us have wanted to tease Miss Bates?
I hope that's the Emma you meant, btw.

Didn't Jane Austen describe her as a character 'whom no-one but myself' will like?

Yes, but she didn't know it would get on the A level syllabus. And she was writing at a time when The Mystery of Udolpho was the sort of thing people wanted to read.

LOL!!!

Excuse me but is UQD an author??!! (Or does he just lend out books he owns??) Re Elasticwoman's comment.. second on thread..

I think Hatwoman has hit the nail on the head about me being meant to like this character. I don't and I can't and I am supposed to.

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

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

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.

elastic !

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.

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!

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..!)

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.