Books that have defeated you

[Queenoftheharpies]

Middlemarch.

I've tried reading it three times now, and enjoyed it right up to the point where Dorothea gets engaged to Casaubon. And then, for no reason hit a stumbling block.

It's always the same point in the story as well. I think it's when there's some protracted discussion of the corn laws / agricultural practice.

Has anyone else encountered this? A book you really want to finish but that just defeats you?

Little Women
Midnight's Children
I Capture the Castle
Captain Corelli's Mandolin

that Joanne Harris one set in France, with 'Beach' in the title...

Tom Jones. It was a set text for both my a levels and my degree and I tried, I really did but it is the only book that has ever defeated me.

Although it may be the way I get weird flashes of my old a-level teacher's face as he goes on about its 'earthy sensuality' to a group of sniggering 17 year olds that does it.

Agreed on Little Women, LOTR, also a Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore (just about got through Norwegian Wood although felt utterly depressed afterwards!)

Another one for captain corelli here. When I moved in wth DH he had a copy too - we had both started it and not been able to continue (one copy was put in a charity bag, the other is gathering duston our bookshelf).

Read catch 22 when i was a teenager but tried to re-read a couple of years ago and couldn't. Think I also read a lot of tolkien when young but could't do it now i don't think.

JeffVader - The Dubliners is a good intro to James Joyce. It's short stories, so if you don't like one you can just go on to the next one. I really like Evangeline.

ljhooray - I think you and I are the only people on the whole planet who have got (dare I say it?) bored with 'Little Women'. It crops up all the time on those 'books you must read' lists all the time.

Love in the Time of Cholera - really enjoy reading it, but just never quite make it to the end.

Having been pre-warned, I persevered with Captain Corelli, and loved Midnight's Children.

DH has Catch 22 as an audiobook, so won't attempt to read it!

LightSIND - totally agree, it's sooo tedious. Studied english Lit so it's not like I haven't done my fair share of the classics. I've just never understood why it's so popular.

I have joined a new book group. First meeting is Tuesday - and the book is 'Empire of the Sun' by JG Ballard. It is unbearable -the kind of book I would never, ever choose to read myself and I so want to drop it.

But that would make me look like a total twit at the meeting - epsecially as the organiser has emailed everyone saying how lovely it will be to introduce a new member!

LSIND - couldn't you just watch the film & wing it? (Can't believe I'm an English teacher & recommending this course of action)

donnie am reading THAT book am over half way through will let you know if I finish
feel like I have been thrown a challenge

the only book EVER to defeat me (3 times) is Vanity Fair!

panic by some author, both me and my mum wasted money on it, without realising it and we both thought it was crap and couldn't even get halfway into it. I think they both went to a charity shop.

Wilfred Thesiger by ALexander Maitland.

Well, I haven't given up on it just yet, just posted a thread asking if anyone has read it and can tell me it improves?!

I started to read LOTR before the first film came out, and got as far as the Chapter: The Council of Elrond. I read it about 4 times and could not get my head round the staid chapter. Then I watched the film and that got me through. I read FOTR in 3 weeks, TTT in one and ROTK in a few days. Thank god for the film getting me through!

I feel like a betrayer of womankind here but I have yet to finish an Austen book. I know all the stories but I cannot abide reading the books. Sorry!

Poisonwood Bible is one of my favourites. Jo's Boys always bores me to tears, despite loving Little Women and the other 2 in the middle.

Quite a few romances have defeated me. I get the first kiss, go 'awww' and then it gets out down and that's it.

I despise Thomas Hardy. I was forced to read 'Far From the Madding Crowd' for GSCE and spending 2 hours a week for about 6 months discussing a book that I would never have picked up in the first place almost made me suidical.

I would love to give Don Quixote a better chance but i can't even get beyond the first 3 pages before i realise i don't have the time for it.

And i just don't get Captain Correlli or the God of Small things

I must have started "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" 20 times. This was a few year's ago but I still remember the first chapter very well

Another Catch 22 over here

I love Possession & Wuthering Heights, & think that Lolita is well worth reading, although difficult to 'enjoy'.

I'm definitely refusing to read a word of this nonsense about Possession not being very good, though

You have to read it understanding Byatt's motives - she was proving that the Booker Prize is given to the most pretentious book of the year. It was a technical exercise. & the farcical ending(s) (such as the 'episode of Midsomer Murders') are mocking the reader - one of the messages of the story is that academics always want to know more about their study. It's a criticism of biography & its intrusive nature. But the readers of Possession are just as bad & want to know every last detail, to the point of reading complete trash in the hope of finding out just that little bit more.

I can't finish Beowulf. & haven't yet found the energy to force myself through Trainspotting, because I find it almost impossible to read in dialect.

I haven't started lots of the books listed here, but have wanted to. One day!

& oh, I totally despise Thomas Hardy too. Yeugh.

I enjoyed, if that's the right word, both Lolita and Trainspotting. The latter is hard going at first, you have to sort of put on an accent in your head as you read it, but once you get the rhythm it bowls along OK.

I started 'Our Mutual Friend' again last week and have read about 10 pages, before getting distracted by a copy of Private Eye, a recent gas bill, my how-to-be-pregnant book etc. etc. anything except what I'm supposed to be reading.

I know this is sacrilege, but Harry Potter. Wonderful ideas, but terrible writing. Made it halfway through the first one......hmm

There's only one book that has ever defeated me - I have an unfortunate affliction of being incapable of not finishing a book I start, even if I hate it...but Titus Alone (third in the Gormenghast series) completely nailed me. I enjoyed Titus Groan, struggled through Gormenghast but found Titus Alone completely incomprehensible and impossible to follow.

LOTR... I read about halfway through and just gave up...

Harry Potter-- I tried but i just couldn't get into it at all...

All Quiet on the Wester Front...

Jane Eyre... ugh no

twilight..though I did read it I skimmed through some of it and wished i haden't ... I'll take Spike or Angel or anyone of the mistery, burns in the sun, does not sparkle variety

there are loads of other soppy books that I tried to read but life is too short to read drivel.. hmmm well obviously not to short to read paranormal romances though

thats why Frizbe and I started our own book group .. so that we would choose the books and they be of the sci-fi/fantasy/horror/graphic/paranormal variety not just oprahs book club sort of thing!