Famous books you never cared for/understood the appeal of?

It was heat of the moment, Spencer. I think I did my bit for the Australian economy purchasing 'Life of Michael Peterson' - and reckon about eight copies of 'Morning Of The Earth,' various formats.

 

I am re-reading The Secret Life of Bees, and I actually really like the book, especially as I go deeper into the story. But somehow, I do not connect well with the protaganist in the beginning. The character of Lily Owens is a little to neatly constructed for me to really connect with her.

 

Didn't realize there was already a thread for this. Well, I typed it up, so I might as well post it here.

I got halfway through Eye of the World and found it to be so atrociously bad that I had to stop. Here's why:

1. There is so much Tolkien imitation that it becomes distracting, even though I only read the Fellowship once as a kid and can't remember most of it. Even the plot so far is a beat-for-beat ripoff. It definitely crosses the line from tasteful homage to shameless plagiarism.

2. Jordan uses a lot of fantasy tropes, but writes them extremely badly. He has a group of the major characters form to journey to the Magical City Across the World, but the way he does it defies logic on any level. We don't know why they are going. We don't even know who these people (a group of random kids from the Shire and some random bard) are. Tolkien's Fellowship had a very clear goal and was constituted of important people in Middle Earth who all had reasons to want the Ring destroyed.

It gets worse. He has orcs that seem to be no match in combat for any of the main characters despite being described as deadly. He has a character unconsciously shout an ancient battle cry due to him unknowingly being a king or whatever. He has the main character actually be a baby taken by his father from the battlefield- and the way he reveals this is his father speaking in a delirium to no one in particular (he just happens to describe precisely what happened, and his son just happens to be there to hear). He reveals another character to be "halfway between the wild and man" and therefore having the innate ability to speak to wolves, despite him having zero personality traits to suggest that. All of this is justified by the Gandalf-expy's notion of destiny: everything is the way it is meant to be. Seriously, that's the justification she gives for allowing most of the people to join in the first place. And Jordan can't even let that be; he has a mystic who can see the future come up to them randomly and give them pointless hints about the destinies of everyone to affirm that they are indeed meant to be together. As if we weren't clear about that.

Worst of all, these aren't even done in a sensible order. It's just one random trope stacked on another. The main characters all have dreams of a known villain character chasing them but after they realize this the aforementioned mystic comes and tells them things, and they just never get around to dealing with it. Nynaeve is left behind in the Shire but catches up with them in the equivalent of Bree, making a mockery of all their precautions. Why not just have her come in the first place? It wouldn't make any less sense than how the others joined.

3. Jordan is overly descriptive in general (forgivable) and his dialogue is absolutely terrible (less forgivable).

4. Everyone in the books behaves like an idiot. The mystic makes a prophecy out loud despite them not even using Moiraine's real name due to being in a hostile city, Rand doesn't believe his father's delirious rant because it would be plot-inconvenient to have him know it at that point, Mat and Rand believe some random guy in a deserted city when he tells them he has lots of treasure for them (and Moiraine neglects to inform them of any danger), and there are a dozen other smaller annoyances.

I've often heard the Wheel of Time series compared to A Song of Ice and Fire, usually due to things like "size, cast, and depth of plot." I can't judge what I haven't read, but based on what I have, Robert Jordan was GRRM's mentally handicapped cousin who only ever read Lord of the Rings.

I do not recommend.

 

Twilight series, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Vampire Diaries. Probably not the books you were looking for but thy really are overrated and bland. I tried reading all three of these books but they're basically dull in tone and character.

 

Ready Player One.

I mean, I get why people like it. It's adventurous, it's nostalgia inducing, it's an easy read, it's filled with cool clichés and a relatable character (if you're a 16 year old white male).

But it's SO. POORLY. WRITTEN.

 

Probably read it literally (old meaning) a dozen times...

 

Yeah, I found this. I stopped after twenty pages or so. I'll wait for the film. I love sci-fi in general, but I have to try really hard to avoid some of the worst excesses of the bad writing that often (but by no means always) turns up. The Three-Body Problem was a recent example of this for me. Great ideas, terrible execution (imo).

 

This may have been mentioned (in 17 pages of discussion!), but: Moby Dick. Those ponderous sentences! I get that that was the style at the time. And I get that it broke new thematic ground. But for me that ground is no longer new, and I have to actually read those sentences, at the end of which a full stop seems like an oasis. I love classic fiction at times, but I don't want to put myself through that (I gave up half way).

 

I keep pushing back on that one. To each their own, but I absolutely love Moby Dick. The thing that sells it for me is the chapters on the mechanics of whaling, but the story is pretty cool too.

ETA: Middlemarch, on the other hand, made me want to jam a screwdriver into my eye socket...

 

Yeah, Moby Dick is a great book

 

I agree there is almost certainly a great *story* in there, but I get particularly taken out of things by a *telling* that annoys me. I find it very difficult to care about the story if the prose itself is problematic. Long sentences are a particular issue for me; I often find myself drifting, and losing the thread. When I've spent a whole page re-reading most of its sentences just to get them, I'm not sure any story could be great enough to keep me.

 

Actually, to me it is the prose and how the story is written that makes the book great. Anyone could write the same basic story. Not anyone can write it like Melville.

 

Well, many people agree with you that it is a great book, for a variety of reasons. MMV. That prose isn't the prose I want to read, for myself.

What classics do you dislike yourself?

 

I like a lot of classics. I found Swann's Way (Proust) slow to get through. Not that I didn't appreciate the writing, but it didn't always hold my interest. Also, Thomas Mann has never really held my interest.

 

Yeah, I found that with Swann's way, actually. Some passages that were beautiful, but a chore overall. Thomas Mann is somebody who's on my list to read...

 

Owen Meany. Had to Sparknote that one.

More like "A Prayer For Foxxx; Hopefully He Passes the Test".

Glad that's over with.

 

Both of the following have been mentioned numerous times in this thread, and yet I actually do find both appealing despite my struggles with them.

Moby Dick. I've tried several times, but I've never managed to finish it. I actually find it intriguing, including the descriptions about whaling and the sea and the determination of the captain. The diversions about whales and the industry are interesting as well, and the sermonizing is somewhat less so. Somehow I keep getting distracted from it but maybe I will finish it someday. I think it was Garrison Keillor that referred to Moby Dick as the most famous book that almost no-one has actually read.

Harry Potter. It took me several years to warm up to these. When the books started appearing in the mid to late 90s I refused to read any of them or see the movies because I perceived them as a second or third rate presentation of magic, fantasy, or medieval concepts further dumbed down for children (I was studying medieval literature at the time so perhaps I was taking myself way too seriously). In 2005 I broke down and watched Goblet of Fire and enjoyed it. I gradually became interested enough to see the other films and along the way, I read the final book because I could not wait for the second film installment of the Deadly Hallows. Last year I finally listened to the entire series on Audible and was impressed; I found myself coming up with excuses to drive somewhere or vacuum another room just so I could listen to another installment. I wonder how a second reading will go for me. This makes me reconsider others that I have been avoiding, like Hunger Games.

 

Well I started reading to kill a mockingbird and couldnt get into it but I didnt try very jard since, if I csnt get into it in the first two pages I set it aside. With this one I read a good 8 pages or so since its a classic but I guess I really dont care that much for farm people from alabama

 

I feel you. Atticus was a great character, but I couldn't force myself to read it.

 

Im glad im not the only one, even though I cant even remember who atticus was

 

Forced to read it in high school, but I only remember enough to see the parallels between TKAM and A Time to Kill.

 

LOL! Agree 100%. Apparently, this book was originally a Twilight fanfiction. I mean, it's one bad book made from another bad book - what do you expect?

 

Divergent by Veronica Roth. I only read the first book in the series and it bored me to no end.

 

I've just struggled through The Honorary Consul by Graham Greene and it really was a struggle to turn every single damned page.
It's the first book by GG that I've read and it's said to be his favourite, but I honestly didn't care for any of the characters, apart from maybe a little misplaced sympathy for Charley Fortnum and his measures, but that's about it.
Living in Buenos Aires as I do, I was hoping for more of a flavour of the place, albeit he was writing about Entre Rios, but I couldn't feel it.
The plot, such as it was, was weak and practically nothing jumped off the pages.

 

Lord of the Rings.

I know, I know, I'm a terrible nerd, but I was just so bored. I didn't care about any of the characters, and Tolkien seemed too in love with his own world to just tell the story. It was also too slowly paced for my taste, and frankly, I'm not that into most high fantasy.