A disappointing book you couldn't finish.

[bensonhedges 10]

Mine is a current one, I have been struggling for weeks to get started with David Mitchells 'Cloud Atlas'.

 

I've read loads of good reviews and it sounds like I'd like it but I've been reading the same pages loads!

 

I like to read in bed though and maybe this needs a little more attention?!

 

If anyone can advise whether to carry on or give it up, would be much appreciated.

 

This has never happened before, I finish every book just to see what happens! (well I haven't really started this so its a bit different really).

 

ChloeXx

 

I started Cloud Atlas and didn't much like it but the lad who lent it me said it was worth it so I perservered - it's a complicated structure but the first section is the worst. I say give it a couple more chapters.

[bensonhedges 10]

I can't not finish books, but I gritted my teeth through the majority of the line of beauty by alan hollinghurst. How the hell did this thing win the booker man prize?

 

True, and so very disappointng after his earlier stuff.

[ega05jeb 10]

There's plenty of books that I haven't finished. One was 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac. Supposed to be this mega beat generation book. I did like all the descriptions of him riding up the mountains, and hitching rides with hillbillies. I guess it was his overall attitude I never got on with, i.e. decided to become a writer and sets off with his man chums to seduce admiring women. Give me a break.

 

Others... 'Fury' by Salman Rushdie. Where (if memeory serves correctly) this brilliant precocious Cambridge student then academic from India seduces beautiful women half his age.

 

I love 'On the Road'. The book isn't fiction - thats the life that Kerouac led, which is part of the beauty of it. That said, if you liked the parts which didn't focus on the partying aspect of his travels so much you might want to look into 'The Dharma Bums'. It's a more catharthic experience, he lives in the mountains for a few months by himself, meditates, etc, and travels around a bit too.

[ega05jeb 10]

The most disappointing book I ever DID finish was “The Catcher in the Rye” by J D Salinger, lots of people rate this book as some sort of literary masterpiece but I thought it was terrible, I couldn’t identify with the main protagonist Holden Caulfield and the other characters were no better than cardboard cut-outs.

 

I was determined to finish it, if only to see it improve, but it didn’t. A major disappointment.

 

How old were you when you read it? I think the great thing about that book is that it connects to so many disaffected teenagers and young adults. I read it at least 5 times the first year I bought it, but I don't really find myself reaching for it anymore but thats possibly because I'm not a disaffected teenager anymore?

Still, I think the narrative voice of the book is amazing, and I'd recommend it to everyone although obviously its not to a lot of people's tastes.

[ega05jeb 10]

Oh, and my own choice would be 'Atomised' by Michael Houellebecq. From the reviews I'd read I was expecting something in the vein of a contemporary 'Nausea' - French intellectual author and all that.

Anyhow, I found the book was full of clumsy, clunking references which all stemmed to sex, and was basically a bit crap. Put it down three-quarters through.

[SleepyHead 10]

Also, I'm reading an Iain M banks book at the moment, and I love SF and fantasy and everything like that but I just can't get into this one.

 

Ooh - which one?

[kel83 10]

Consider Phlebas.

[SleepyHead 10]

Consider Phlebas.

 

*shudder*

 

Yeah - it's not his best book, that. The story's rambling at best and I got the impression he was trying to shoehorn as many ideas as he could into 300-odd pages. On top of that he's quite obviously nicked a great many ideas from other authors and hasn't quite made them his own yet (Larry Niven's "Ringworld" being the most notable).

 

Personally I think "Look to Windward" and "Player of Games" are the best 'Culture' novels if you're looking for a good read, but Excession is the best 'ideas' novel. The problem is that "Look to Windward" doesn't really make sense as a novel (and is nowhere near as poignant) unless you've read "Consider Phlebas" because CP sets up the background that's presupposed by LtW.

[kel83 10]

Yeah, I had the feeling I had to plough through CP before the other ones really made the sense the author wanted them to. I might try Excession next, because I like the ideas in CP, just not the way he goes about them. Thanks!

[discodown 11]

Lord of the Rings

 

I've tried to read that godforsaken book 5 times and never made it past the first 100 pages. Pages given over to discussing mushrooms and feet, stiles and fields. Pointless songs and a meandering plot that might get somewhere or might not.

 

JUST GET ON WITH IT!

 

I realise its just me and I await the onslaught but come on, say it with me. LOTR is self indulgent rambling dullness.

 

On the other hand the most disappointing book I managed to finish recently was Hannibal Rising

[SleepyHead 10]

Lord of the Rings

 

I've tried to read that godforsaken book 5 times and never made it past the first 100 pages. Pages given over to discussing mushrooms and feet, stiles and fields. Pointless songs and a meandering plot that might get somewhere or might not.

 

JUST GET ON WITH IT!

 

I realise its just me and I await the onslaught but come on, say it with me. LOTR is self indulgent rambling dullness.

 

On the other hand the most disappointing book I managed to finish recently was Hannibal Rising

 

You think Tolkein's bad, you should try reading some of Stephen Donaldson's stuff!