Critically acclaimed books you hate?

BLITZ_Molloy

Everybody likes different things so it's only natural that some people hate what are generally regarded as classic pieces of literature. I'm probably going to be a bit vague cos I haven't read these books in ages.

Catcher In The Rye
The protagonist is boring, pretentious and just drifts about in a morose angsty teenage fashion. He's a mopey, self pitying little tosser and I'd rather not listen to his moaning. The 1950's dialogue is horribly dated. It feels 10 times longer than the 250 or so pages.

Lord of the Rings
Admittedly I'm not a huge fan of fantasy novels in general, but the ones that I do enjoy like Wizard of Earthsea ramble less and make a hell of alot more sense. Gandalf is the only good guy who's able to take care of himself, yet he tends to feck off at various points for no reason, despite the ring being the most important thing to him. So you've got the Hobbits left to save the world by themselves, which they do through pure luck because they're utterly powerless, or because Gandalf decides to magically reappear and save the day.

ncmc

I totally agree with both of those and would also add: anything by Irving Walsh and Ulyssis (couldn't get past page 10 after three attempts!)

buttersbrady

Lord of the rings.
Rather be beaten with iron bars than attempt to read that sh1t again.

studiorat

+ 1
catcher in the rye - the only saving grace is when

that little prick gets a hiding

DapperGent

East of Eden is awful. Hated Great Expectations as well.

Tar.Aldarion

catcher in the bleh.
You need to read other to read other tolkien books to know where gandalf was.

FruitLover

ncmc wrote: »

anything by Irving Walsh

Never heard of him.

Cokehead Mother

The Pearl. WTF was that?

EamonnKeane

BLITZ_Molloy wrote: »

Lord of the Rings
Admittedly I'm not a huge fan of fantasy novels in general, but the ones that I do enjoy like Wizard of Earthsea ramble less and make a hell of alot more sense. Gandalf is the only good guy who's able to take care of himself, yet he tends to feck off at various points for no reason, despite the ring being the most important thing to him. So you've got the Hobbits left to save the world by themselves, which they do through pure luck because they're utterly powerless, or because Gandalf decides to magically reappear and save the day.

Aragorn can also take care of himself. And the hobbits save the world through the Power of Friendship, British Pluck and their Never-Say Die Attitude.

Shryke

Hate is a strong word but 1984 was just poor, dour and dull.
The Pearl definitely, though I haven't read it since I was in school.

I loved Catcher in the Rye.

Dades

Catcher in the Rye.

The Bridget Jones' Diary of angsty male teens.

monkey9

Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

I just finished it and God, it was a struggle. I really hated it and the thought of reading another one of his novels depresses me. It was just so boring! The same thing, repeated over and over.
I've read a few 'end of the world' type novels like I Am Legend and Girlfriend In A Coma and really enjoyed them, but this was just tedious.
I realise i'm in a minority here completely cos i haven't heard one bad thing about it. but it was a major disappointment to me

Shryke

I thought The Road was so so. It didn't do anything for me. I thought it was incredibely hyped by everyone but even so I didn't have high expectations. It didn't leave an impression. McCarthy is great though. I highly reccomend Blood Meridian for a very different kind of read. It's a western with biblical type narrative. Powerful stuff.

Oh ya, Jane Austin. Though I don't know if that's just because I'm a man. Probably not worth mentioning.

delop

'We need to talk about kevin'

And of course Joyce ( I must be thick, I just get his books, well only read 2)

SeekUp

Sandor wrote: »

Oh ya, Jane Austin. Though I don't know if that's just because I'm a man. Probably not worth mentioning.

Pfft. I'm a woman, and Jane Austen doesn't do it for me . . . the number of times I've tried - and failed - to get through Pride and Prejudice (and Emma) is shocking.

BenjAii

The Life of Pi, which won The Booker prize a few years back - insipid new age parable.

Did like The Road I have to say, as bleak as it was, you're never going to get a better description of a nuclear winter in literature!

Eoin

The Invisible Man for me. Well, I didn't hate it as such, but found it very hard going and just didn't enjoy it.

Edit: "Portrait of the artist as a young man". Really did hate that one.

meglome

Remains of the ****ing day... bored me senseless.

bullpost

The Sea By John Banville

Just didn't engage me at all.

Poloman

The bible

Lizzykins

My Name is Red is one of the few books I couldn't finish. Hated it intensely. Likewise Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was completely incomprehensible to me too. The reviewers raved about it. My name is Red won the Impac prize. Don't see how.

Rockshamrover

War and peace was a bit of a struggle.

phelixoflaherty

Monkey 9 re. The Road. That was one scary book, though the end was pure rubbish.

If books don't hold your interest they usually get the bin. The only exception to this is in secondary school.

Certain types of Irish books are uniformly disappointing. They just blather along. The Sea and The Heather Burning. Trapped with them on holiday.

Best ending ever was in The Periodic Table - Premo Levi.

shockwave

Catch 22....Load of tripe!

brianthebard

studiorat wrote: »

+ 1
catcher in the rye - the only saving grace is when

that little prick gets a hiding

Second that, thought it was terrible.

fasterkitten

The Gathering infuriated me.

HalloweenJack

Curious Incident of the Dog.

It wrecked my head. I didn't like the way it was written and I hated the protagonist.

Gaspode

Ulysses.

megadodge

The Pearl and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - While very well written in terms of style, the relentless misery, bleakness and hopelessness was nothing short of disgusting.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac - terribly dated and downright boring.

Anything by Jane Austen - 'Boring' doesn't even come close...

Anything by Shakespeare - 'Hatred' doesn't even come close...

hatful

+1 The Sea John Banville was very hard going for very little reward.

skybluejay

Totally agree with Pride and Prejudice and Lord of the Rings... ugh.

I can't stand Tom Wolfe - I really hate the way he writes.

In recent times I've encountered so many people who've read Catcher in the Rye and reckoned it was massively over-rated. I adored the book when I read it, but I was about 14 at the time. I wonder is it a book you can only really relate to when you're an angsty teenager yourself?

Dades

skybluejay wrote: »

I can't stand Tom Wolfe - I really hate the way he writes.

In recent times I've encountered so many people who've read Catcher in the Rye and reckoned it was massively over-rated. I adored the book when I read it, but I was about 14 at the time. I wonder is it a book you can only really relate to when you're an angsty teenager yourself?

Must be. I was well out my teens when I hated it.

In my teens I was too busy reading and re-reading Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities.

buck65

Anna Karenina - booorrriiinnng
Ulysses was ok (read half)

skippy26

catch 22
dubliners
tender is the night

Chinafoot

fasterkitten wrote: »

The Gathering infuriated me.

Oh god! I hated that book. It was a real struggle to finish it and all I kept thinking was "what a selfish, self-indulgent, moany cow".

North and South was another one for me. She was SO irritating.

john77

Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes. Someone wrote a review of it on Amazon wishing that they could sue the writer for wasting their time. I'm sorry I hadn't read their comments before picking up the book.

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk wasn't quite as bad but still i thought it'd never end.

The Sportswriter by Richard Ford was also a huge disappointment.

theCzar

I read Catcher in the Rye recently and didn't think it was so hot, not bad... just not that memorable. I also had a hard time getting through My Name is Red, I liked the idea of the book and the way the story was told but I couldn't get into the asian minaturist painting stuff and found myself willing it to end so I could find who-bloody-dunnit.

K4t

I think it's become common, even popular among literary snobs to bash 'Cather in the eye' :rolleyes:

eVeNtInE

This post has been deleted.

Zaph

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway - possibly the dullest, most boring book on the planet

Of Mice and Men/The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - close runners-up to Hemmingway

Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre - proof that just about any old shíte can win a literary award these days. I kept reading in the hope it would get better. It didn't.

cautioner

Catcher in the Rye = bollocks.

I'm really pleasantly surprised that it's been mentioned so much in this thread, always thought I was the only one who didn't see the big deal.

Greyfox

BLITZ_Molloy wrote: »

Catcher In The Rye
The protagonist is boring, pretentious and just drifts about in a morose angsty teenage fashion. He's a mopey, self pitying little tosser and I'd rather not listen to his moaning. The 1950's dialogue is horribly dated. It feels 10 times longer than the 250 or so pages.

Lord of the Rings
Admittedly I'm not a huge fan of fantasy novels in general, but the ones that I do enjoy like Wizard of Earthsea ramble less and make a hell of alot more sense. Gandalf is the only good guy who's able to take care of himself, yet he tends to feck off at various points for no reason, despite the ring being the most important thing to him. So you've got the Hobbits left to save the world by themselves, which they do through pure luck because they're utterly powerless, or because Gandalf decides to magically reappear and save the day.

I'm absolutely delighted to see this post as I couldn't agree more!

I think with catcher it comes down to wheter or not you liked Holden and I didn't like him as all he did was whinge and moan...no wonder he had no friends...he slags all these peoplle off calling them phoney that he meets on his journey but it's clear that all these people would of thought that he was a complete loser!

I absolutely love fantasy books but for me the Lord of the Rings is very, very overratted. The descriptions of things went on and on and on and on...I don't care about trees, mountains, rivers, caves etc I care about bleedn characters...the pages and pages of descriptions drove me mad as their were times when you were reminded that its a very good initial plot or that Gollun was a good character but their were no plot twists or surprises, Sauron didn't do a lot in the end and Sam never stopped moaning!

Charles Dickens's books are almost as boreing as the ultra reliable sleeping pills known as Ulysees!

missmatty

Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Had it for the LC and absolutely HATED it, most depressing pointless book ever

Hermy

I thought The Great Gatsby was terribly overrated. I was expecting something really memorable and instead it was utterly forgetable.

nervous_twitch

I read Catcher in the Rye when I was about fourteen as well; I thought it was the bees knees back then.. now I'm afraid to re-read it in case I hate it.

+1 for The Road. Perhaps my expecations were too high after hearing all the semi-orgasmic adulation it received, I just found it dull and entirely forgettable.

Phototoxin

Shadowmarch (its a trilogy apparantly.. waay too drawn out)

Dan Brown in general.. just a toser who basically writes tabloid level stuff.

Priestess of the white

Terry Pratchett.. can see the attempts to be funny and it spoils it. Also not interesting.

Didn't like Philip Pulman - His Dark Materials.

victoriaa

the great gatsby by fitzgerald.

leprehaungirl

The Gathering was god awful.. I battled through it then gave up about 75% in. Just couldnt hack it.

Its been said that if you read Catcher in the Rye after the age of 16 you'll hate it... although before hand you'll love it. I read it when i was 12 and liked it although must pick it up sometime again to see!

IronMan

I found the master and the margarita to be a very difficult read. Like many Russian novels, it may have been down to the translation I read.

The_Minister

Phototoxin wrote: »

Terry Pratchett.. can see the attempts to be funny and it spoils it. Also not interesting.

Smack.

The_Minister

cautioner wrote: »

Catcher in the Rye = bollocks

That need to be a t-shirt.