Haha. That's probably how he came up with the word in the first place. Or maybe he came up with the word after tasting his wife's cooking. Who knows?
The Count of Monte Cristo was tough---not to mention L-O-N-G. I don't know what it is with books with a bajillion characters and subplots. I suppose some people find them interesting or stimulating, but they annoy the !@#$ heck out of me. But then, on the other hand, I'll read something like 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy and be absolutely blown away by how simple and perfect it is---and feel that all stories should be told like this. Diff'rent strokes for different folks, I guess.....
I read Big Sur and got through it, though it was profoundly depressing until the very end, and even then it seemed like the ending didn't really resolve anything.
I just got through re-reading Red Badge of Courage and got a lot out of it, though I can see why it's a struggle for some. Moby Dick is one I have tried to get through since 1970 and just can't do it. I got through 1/3 of it, and in that third there were many very enjoyable sections, but he lost me when he changed focus/direction even though I knew he'd get back to the story eventually. A little too religious for my taste as well. I started Gravity's Rainbow and was able to admire it and put it down without considering picking it up again.
I have a question to anybody that's read Gravity's Rainbow. Is it actually enjoyable to read it? Is admiring the craft that went into it the same as enjoying the contents of the story/subject matter? I'm thinking of picking this book up soon and having a go at it.
I read Gravity's Rainbow in a week. I freaking loved that novel. But I have a very particular taste. Part of the fun with Gravity's Rainbow is really seeing where the ride goes. I don't think I understand the ending, but it is one of the best, most funny, and most intense things I've ever read - I don't even think I understand the novel as a whole. I think it has something to do with Pynchon's time with the Minuteman missile project, and might have something to do with MK Ultra, but ... I don't know, it's a toughe.
Some people seem to get very angry at books which don't follow linear, conventional plots. It seems to upset some readers of GR. I don't think it would bother me if I can enjoy the diverse stories in the moment, so to speak, but I'd also like to see some sort of cohesive meaning having come to the end of the book. Would you say GR could be considered as a book of short stories? (I read somewhere an author saying that it's more like a short story collection rather than a novel)
Ergh! Kind of. My first reaction was to say that that idea was ballocks, but on more reflection I guess I can see where that author is coming from. I would instead think of Gravity's Rainbow (and all Pynchon novels really) as a kind of like riding a roller coaster while on acid. At times it'll seem tedious, you'll not understand what is even going on half the time, but you just have to get to the end to really get the full force. One thing that Gravity's Rainbow isn't is a book you can switch between chapters of like a collection of short stories would imply, and while it has a linear plot, it's far from conventional. The point is about two guys going across war-ruined Germany in search of a unique missile, and getting to it before the Russians do, but this doesn't stop tangents from happening like stealing pot from Micky Roony, and dressing as a pig to infiltrate a German beer festival, a man who can only cum when he hears the bang of an explosion, and many many more!
I don't generally abandon books once I've started reading them, some gritty determination comes into play to see it through to the end. Books that I've forgotten to finish, on the other hand... the first one to come to mind is 'The Dark is Rising' series, which I got quite far into before forgetting about entirely. Possibly because I only have the collection of books in one single massive book, and it's a somewhat intimidating read. That said, I'm about to dive back in - remembering has left me no excuse. The irony is I'll likely have to start from the beginning now in order for it all to make sense. Wish me luck!
Much more than just that happens. You know the film Trainspotting? Where one of the characters dives into a toilet. It's a reference to a similar scene in Gravity's Rainbow. No, seriously.
There are a few books that I did not finish and only one of them stands out in my mind. The Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a good story. I only got half way through but I got bored by the political part of the book.
I didn't manage to finish Foucault's Pendulum. The other Eco books I've read managed to be incredibly clever, expect a lot of the reader but still keep the story moving - that one just didn't seem to be going anywhere. I did get through Ulysses, though it took me ages. Finnegan's Wake is still sitting on my bookshelf. I don't really feel man enough for that one, yet. I second that. Just bought it
James Rollins's "Subterranean". The technical and logical errors made me grind my teeth. Also David L Golemon. I forced my way through the first two books of the Event Group series but had enough when I got to "Ancients". The logical and technical errors were just mind destroying. Various modern Fantasy novels.
Gone Girl! I find it incredibly boring. I mean I'm at page 100 and still nothing has really happened but a disappearing wife and tons of backstory. I know everyone says that it gets better in the second half but I really can't bring myself to pick it up anymore, so I guess I'll never get there. I don't think people should have to read 250 pages to get to the part where something actually HAPPENS.
This is exactly the response I had to Stephen King's The Stand (unabridged edition). I found myself more than 300 pages into it, with another 900 or so to go, and still nothing important had happened. Just tons of digressions and backstory on characters who were boring to begin with. Dull, dull, dull. I packed it away in a box with some other boring books and lost the box somewhere, and I don't even care that I lost it.
Dean Koontz, The Darkest Evening of the Year. I love mid-career Dean Koontz. Watchers, Phantoms, Strangers, Lightning. But not long after From the Corner of his Eye he tanked. Apparently no one had the balls to tell him his work needs editing.
Lot's of interesting feedback so far. My all-time biggest "fail" is Paradise Lost. I've tried three times now, but that book is just a monster of classical allusions and sophisticated/elevated language, as was expected of poetry at the time, I suppose. It's got a marvelous story, and I've read a decent chunk. However, I almost always fall asleep or get lost ha ha. The Lord of the Rings is similarly meticulous and just plain slow in places. It's a push, but I hope I can make it through the end. The most embarrassing one for me has to be Nineteen Eighty-Four. It really is a good book, but I keep falling asleep. I think I need to change my reading time to the morning, instead of mid-afternoon. I also get so busy with class work, but I am making headway. I just feel bad because I have a shelf full of unread books that are on my reading list.
This entire question kind of falls apart for me when you state "great books," because that instantly makes it a synonymous term to mass-interpretation, which I don't approve of. - Not saying I don't approve of mass-interpretation, but I probably do, but what I'm saying here is that I don't think the question should be limited to it. Anyway, I'm going to pretend I didn't read that part and answer thus: There's very few books I've decided I "won't" read that I started reading, but there's some I've had to return to and then some I simply decided I'll read them later. Examples of books I started reading that I haven't finished yet is "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, the bible and "In the Name of the Wind", which was recommended to me, I'm not actually sure I'm going to finish that one, so there's that. A book that I had to revisit twice to get through was "The Trial" by Kafka, and shit am I happy I did. It does get a little hard to read toward the middle of the book where most of what is happening is both too confusing and too tedious to get through easily, but when you get past that part and get onto the more interesting ending sequences of the story, then it just gets better and better. It's really a book I recommend.
I have another one: Emma by Jane Austen. I don't even know why, I just got so tired of it. I read half of it or somewhere around that, but really, it took me months, and reading it felt like homework, the kind I couldn't even bring myself to do. *Ashamed* I know it's almost illegal to not like Jane Austen... I'll try another one of her books at some point.
@Tesoro, this might be unfair of me, but I've never read Jane Austen and I probably never will. My sister read all her novels and said, "She's good, but all she writes about are young women trying to get married to well-off men." This strikes me as just about the opposite of what I'm interested in reading, so Austen is not on my to-read pile. I'm probably missing out on some great writing, but there it is.
Yes, I totally agree with your sister. And for me, personally, that was not enough to keep me interested.
The Anatomy of a Killer I forget who the author is but I have trouble making it through the first few chapters. It just doesn't keep my interest.
