Books you just didn't "get"

gaf1983 · 29-11-2005 1:44am #1

We've all read them. Those lists of Books You Must Read Before The Apocalypse - the lists themselves, I mean, not the books. Now I was just wondering are there any others out there who've read books that are highly commended by many others, or would be categorized as a classic, but for one reason or another you didn't understand why it was so highly thought of or the main theme/life-changing message just flew right over your head?

Here are my books that I didn't get what all the fuss was about:

Catcher in the Rye - JD Stalinger

L'Étranger - Albert Camus

What is to be done? - VI Lenin

Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre

John · 29-11-2005 1:47am

gaf1983 wrote:

Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre

Didn't get this at all. It was very poor altogether.

The Idiot by Dostoevsky did nothing for me either. I finished it and all but it really did nothing for me but kill any interest I had in reading anymore Dostoevsky.

finlma · 29-11-2005 9:52am

gaf1983 wrote:

Catcher in the Rye - JD Stalinger

Thats my favourite book of all time.

For me it has to be The Alchemist - Paulo Coehlo.

Each to their own I suppose.

Bard · 29-11-2005 10:09am

I didn't see what the fuss was about the Discworld novels to be honest.

Dades · 29-11-2005 10:49am

finlma wrote:

For me it has to be The Alchemist - Paulo Coehlo.

I second The Alchemist.

It felt to me like an extra long Sunday sermon.

Closing Doors · 29-11-2005 11:01am

Bard wrote:

I didn't see what the fuss was about the Discworld novels to be honest.

Couldn't even finish one myself!

finlma · 29-11-2005 2:25pm

Bard wrote:

I didn't see what the fuss was about the Discworld novels to be honest.

I read half of one book and thought it was rubbish. For children like Harry Potter is.

p.pete · 29-11-2005 6:11pm

In defence of discworld if ye didn't read the whole book then I don't see how you can say you didn't get it. Fair enough if it's not your cup of tea.

I once read through half a page of David Eddings before having to put it down, I wouldn't say I didn't get it though.

Karoma · 29-11-2005 6:16pm

Any Kerouac.. maybe it's lost in translation (i.e. American -> English) .. or, i suppose,by American standards ..he's up there.. still ****.

Mr E · 29-11-2005 6:29pm

George RR Martins books. Bored me silly, yet everybody raves about them.

dudara · 30-11-2005 9:57am

There's a whole lot of books that I just didn't "get"

1. The Catcher in The Rye, J.D. Salinger

2. On The Road, Keraouc (?)

3. Catch 22, Joesph Heller

4. The English Patient

All of the above just seemed average to me. None jumped at me and caught me by the throat the way that other books have.

gaf1983 · 30-11-2005 11:21am

I remember sometimes in school when we were studying a novel I would have completely missed something when I read it on my own but then the following day someone would say something in class about it that would really strike a chord with me but I just overlooked whatever aspect it was when I was reading it myself.

I thought Catcher in the Rye had nothing really wrong with it (although it's a good 8 years or so since I read it) - basically a story about teenage misfit indulging in a weekend of debauchery - was there anything more to it? As the last poster said, I also found it to be a bit average, what was supposed to have jumped out at me?

pbsuxok1znja4r · 01-12-2005 2:56am

Baudelino - Umberto Eco; this book just felt like I was on drugs, and not in a good way.

The Power And The Glory - Graham Greene; IDK, it just never really 'grabbed' me nor made me think about it. I was probably a bit too young when I read it though.

Ulysses - Joyce; Don't get me started.

Tiriel · 01-12-2005 3:16am

dudara wrote:

3. Catch 22, Joesph Heller

oh I am sooo glad someone else wasn't impressed with this. Trying my best to read it at the moment, it was given to me to read by someone who loved it.. and it has been painful trying to get through it. Only just reaching half way.. and I'm not sure that I can keep going!! Wierd thing is that it has great reviews, and people seem to love it. It just does nothing for me at all.. boring.

Laguna · 01-12-2005 3:26am

I don't think the "Da Vinci Code" is as half as good as so many think, Dan Brown is documented to be a creative writing professor at harvard and I felt I could almost see the standard formula he used to write this book, everything was too convenient, characters were able to decipher indecipherable clues and pointers in a matter of seconds, no matter how obscure.

This book is structurally identical to his other book "Angels & Demons", there's the love interest who happens to be a specialist in the field the book deals with, the evil/bad guy perpetrator ends up being the person who is closest to what you'd regard as the good guy, the assassin in "Angels & Demons" is Silas in "Da Vinci Code" in all but name... It reminds me of the saying "If 100 people like a painting, it's ****", I think Dan Browns books are so well received and sell millions is because they're simple and easy to digest, with tidily implemented plot points with no amibiguity.

John · 01-12-2005 3:35am

Dan Brown does my nut in. Especially his idea of a chapter being 2 pages long. That and his characters are as two dimensional as they come.

As for Catch-22, I loved it. It seems to be one of those books that you either want to marry it or bury it in the garden down by the shed out of sight.

Dades · 01-12-2005 10:28am

Laguna wrote:

I don't think the "Da Vinci Code" is as half as good as so many think ... I think Dan Browns books are so well received and sell millions is because they're simple and easy to digest, with tidily implemented plot points with no amibiguity.

I don't think anyone has ever suggested they are masterpieces. They are the literary equivilent to a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. The original airport novels.

But you have to give a certain amount of respect to the man that wrote the best selling adult fiction book of all time.

Oh and Catch 22 was one of the funniest books I ever read.

John · 01-12-2005 1:05pm

The Atheist wrote:

But you have to give a certain amount of respect to the man that wrote the best selling adult fiction book of all time.

I've no respect for people who put out crappy blockbuster movies that do well nor crappy songs that sell well so why should I have respect for the literary equivalent?

gaf1983 · 01-12-2005 6:25pm

John2 wrote:

As for Catch-22, I loved it. It seems to be one of those books that you either want to marry it or bury it in the garden down by the shed out of sight.

It was love at first sight with me.

My copy's buried at the end of the garden beside Chopper The Labrador RIP.

"Yossarian - the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word subversive itself. It was like sidicious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, facist, and Communist. It was an odious, alien, distasteful name that just did not inspire confidence. "

Amazotheamazing · 01-12-2005 8:14pm

Loved catch-22, didn't really get On the Road though, it was fine I suppose.

Desmoulins · 01-12-2005 8:56pm

scouser.tommy wrote:

Baudelino - Umberto Eco; this book just felt like I was on drugs, and not in a good way.

Ulysses - Joyce; Don't get me started.

Umberto Eco in general, and Joyce too. Boring, just so painfully boring.

I loved Vernon God Little though.

The books I really don't get are:
'Middlemarch'- George Elliot
'War and Peace'- Tolstoy- I've tried to read it about 6 times, its imposssible.
and all the 'Harry Potter' books. He's a kid with a scar. Its as over-rated as Dan Brown.

johnny_ultimate · 01-12-2005 10:17pm

There's not many I didn't get - I suppose Discworld (which i admittedly didnt finish) would be up there. And while it doesn't really make any 'ones to read before the Apocalypse' lists, How Many Miles To Babylon which I just did in school. Oh yeah and Ulysses, which I just stopped comprehending around 150 pages in.
But On The Road and Catch 22 are in my top three books ever. On The Road just makes you want to do something, and catch 22 is the funniest, most laugh out loud, completely genius book I've ever read (next to Fear and Loathing)

ratboy · 01-12-2005 10:21pm

johnny_ultimate wrote:

There's not many I didn't get - I suppose Discworld (which i admittedly didnt finish) would be up there. And while it doesn't really make any 'ones to read before the Apocalypse' lists, How Many Miles To Babylon which I just did in school. Oh yeah and Ulysses, which I just stopped comprehending around 150 pages in.
But On The Road and Catch 22 are in my top three books ever. On The Road just makes you want to do something, and catch 22 is the funniest, most laugh out loud, completely genius book I've ever read (next to Fear and Loathing)

What's there not to get about How Many Miles To Babylon, its plot is fairly simplistic, actually most people over the age of 12 would have no problem comnprehending it.

Dades · 02-12-2005 11:24am

John2 wrote:

I've no respect for people who put out crappy blockbuster movies that do well nor crappy songs that sell well so why should I have respect for the literary equivalent?

Are you that much of a creative snob? To get any script made or any book published is an achievment in itself - and more than most of us here will ever do.

John Eddison · 02-12-2005 1:17pm

The Atheist wrote:

Are you that much of a creative snob? To get any script made or any book published is an achievment in itself - and more than most of us here will ever do.

Hmm, I would say that many writers of music or books, as well as many makers of movies, lack the distinction of possessing a good self-criticism. The most of the rest of us concede that we are not good enough at it, and have the good sense of not drowning the literary, musical, or cinematic world in trash.

The sad truth is that the more people show respect towards, or make, just anything the more "just anythings" is published.

That has actually led to this current phenomenon that many literary fields are becoming narrower and narrower, the real artists can't find publishers for their works anymore, everything is becoming dull, and devoid of diversity. Fantasy fiction already has. This is particularly distressing, since fantasy has traditionally been a genre from where you could find the most eccentric visionaries, even geniuses, or simply the writers who didn't much care for literary trends, or what sells well, but wrote their own stuff like true artists. In the first half of the 20th century there were, to name but a few, such unique artists--masters of their trade, true fantasists, each with his own distinctive style, complete with a lot to say about meaningful subject matters--such once renown yet now almost forgotten writers as Lord Dunsany (W. B. Yeats, and Arthur C. Clarke, among many, many others, adored him), James Branch Cabell (who was, among many other things, the favourite author of Mark Twain), E. R. Eddison (whom Cabell considered the greatest "pure fantasist" of the time, and of whose "Mistress of Mistresses" an Irish novelist, poet and historian James Stephens wrote: "From whatever heaven Mr. Eddison comes, he has added a masterpiece to English literature."). The second half wasn't without its share of new writers of almost equal, if not equal, artistic significance, but the last ten years have been a steep downhill.

Branoic · 02-12-2005 2:26pm

The only Umberto Eco book I've read is Foucoult's Pendulum, and I gotta say I really enjoyed it. The intelligent man's Da Vinci code. That said, I perfectly enjoyed the Da Vinci Code too, it was diverting fun fluff. Although 'Angels and Demons' is better.

Also, I though Vernon God Little was excellent. I really really felt for the poor b*stard towards the end of the book.

I will, no doubt, get lynched for this, but the book I really just didn't get was....yes.....LOTR. :eek:

I really enjoyed the films, but I read the book many many years ago and it just irritated the FCUK outta me. Like I say, i like the films so I like the plot and the characters and the world he created, but his style of writing, with all the endless songs and poems, just bugged the hell out of me. I can fully appreciate that it's considered a classic and I can understand why, but it just didn't do it for me. I'll stick to George RR Martin.

John · 02-12-2005 5:11pm

The Atheist wrote:

Are you that much of a creative snob? To get any script made or any book published is an achievment in itself - and more than most of us here will ever do.

It's an achievement but it doesn't mean it's good. It just means that the publishers think it will sell. Dan Brown sticks to a formula and it's safe, people will buy it and yes it works as brain candy but I don't have respect for brain candy. A junior cert student could probably rival it. I am not a creative snob, I have standards but I don't boycott all bestsellers and all blockbuster movies. I just value quality over anything else. Dan Brown is not quality. Quality involves having characters you care about, a decent plot, some writing skill (being Shakespeare is not necessary) and some orginality.