Popular/critically acclaimed books that you can't stand?

Swiper the fox

I enjoy reading this forum and take some book recommendations from it, I'm very interested to see what books you just couldn't stand despite them being praised at every corner, it would obviously be more educative for us if you hadn't just given up after a few pages,

I'll get the ball rolling with a couple I've read(and finished) recently
The Wasp Factory had it's moments but mostly it was rubbish in my opinion

Kevin Barry is a great short story writer but his novel City of Bohane is turgid despite winning some(at least one anyway) major awards.

Obviously we'll disagree on loads but this could be an interesting thread, maybe it's been done already and could be merged, didn't see anything!

Harry Angstrom

Swiper the fox wrote: »

I enjoy reading this forum and take some book recommendations from it, I'm very interested to see what books you just couldn't stand despite them being praised at every corner, it would obviously be more educative for us if you hadn't just given up after a few pages,

I'll get the ball rolling with a couple I've read(and finished) recently
The Wasp Factory had it's moments but mostly it was rubbish in my opinion

Kevin Barry is a great short story writer but his novel City of Bohane is turgid despite winning some(at least one anyway) major awards.

Obviously we'll disagree on loads but this could be an interesting thread, maybe it's been done already and could be merged, didn't see anything!

There's a similar thread here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054973999

Heart of Darkness is one that I'd put into that category. Conrad sucks the life out of it with his overly descriptive style.

Aenaes

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Finished it recently and it's not a bad book at all but I don't understand the hype seeming to surround it and I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone.

judgefudge

The Great Gatsby

Dull, forgettable. It was quite sad at the end but overall I didn't like it. Maybe I just didn't get it.

Savoir.Faire

I found Catch-22 to be one joke spread very thin over 400 pages.

Harry Angstrom

Savoir.Faire wrote: »

I found Catch-22 to be one joke spread very thin over 400 pages.

I was glad to finish that.... eventually. I don't think I'll ever revisit it.

Borboletinha

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Long hours I'll never get back. And I've heard he might win the nobel prize this year!

Harry Angstrom

Borboletinha wrote: »

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Long hours I'll never get back. And I've heard he might win the nobel prize this year!

Alice Munro won it.

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/alice-munro-awarded-the-nobel-prize-in-literature-29650399.html

Evenstevens

judgefudge wrote: »

The Great Gatsby

Dull, forgettable. It was quite sad at the end but overall I didn't like it. Maybe I just didn't get it.

Hear hear. Think I missed something there too. Odious spoiled characters. maybe that was part of the point.

byronbay2

Not acclaimed but EXTREMELY popular was 50 Shades Of Gray. I read a few pages but left it to the ladies after that. Very poorly written and edited, I thought.

judgefudge

Borboletinha wrote: »

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Long hours I'll never get back. And I've heard he might win the nobel prize this year!

Second this. First murakami book I've ever read and I fear I may never read another one. So long and drawn out and the ending was a cop out.

Borboletinha

judgefudge wrote: »

Second this. First murakami book I've ever read and I fear I may never read another one. So long and drawn out and the ending was a cop out.

I thought it was just me. Kept waiting for something exciting to happen, never did. Pages and pages of the guy cooking or the girl exercising.
I also make it a point if I hate a book to never read anything by that author again no second chances. The authors of A million little pieces and Every dead thing are also on my black list. The latter is apparently idolised in Ireland. Horrible badly edited book!

holliehobbie

I tried reading the Life of Pi and couldn't get past the first 4 pages!! Just couldn't get into it all!

OakeyDokey

I agree Catch-22 was boring and unbearable.

I also despised Catcher in The Rye.. A perspective of a bratty, overly negative teen.

Harry Angstrom

OakeyDokey wrote: »

I also despised Catcher in The Rye.. A perspective of a bratty, overly negative teen.

That's one of my favourite books

canadianwoman

Any book written by Maya Angelou. Blech.

Asbury Park

Beloved by Toni Morrison. This book's presence on the reading list persuaded me to ditch English at Uni - that's how bad I think it is. I concluded there was nothing these people could teach me about good literature if they thought this novel was worthy of study.

chasmcb

Keri Hulme's 'The Bone People'.

Swiper the fox

chasmcb wrote: »

Keri Hulme's 'The Bone People'.

I read that while travelling in New Zealand a few years ago, I don't think I've ever worked so hard or struggled so much while reading a book, it was such a relief to finish it that I followed it up with my only ever Dan Brown book.

cyclic

If you want to work unrewardingly hard through a fog of confusion, check out 'Gravity's Rainbow' by Thomas Pynchon.

LynnGrace

The Book Thief, I read most of it, but I struggled. Two books I read that are popular, but I couldn't wait to send to the charity shop, Room and We Need To Talk About Kevin.
Have picked up The Slap a few times, and considered it, but still haven't read it.

chasmcb

Swiper the fox wrote: »

I read that while travelling in New Zealand a few years ago, I don't think I've ever worked so hard or struggled so much while reading a book, it was such a relief to finish it that I followed it up with my only ever Dan Brown book.

Haha, and I see they've just awarded the Booker to Kiwi author Eleanor Catton, the first NZ writer to win the prize since Keri Hulme.

sudzs

LynnGrace wrote: »

The Book Thief, I read most of it, but I struggled. Two books I read that are popular, but I couldn't wait to send to the charity shop, Room and We Need To Talk About Kevin.
Have picked up The Slap a few times, and considered it, but still haven't read it.

I loved all of those!

But I did not enjoy Before I Go to Sleep by S J Watson. It got great reviews but I thought it was just so implausible and downright silly at times. While reading it I found myself muttering "rubbish... ridiculous... ohforgodsake"

LynnGrace

sudzs wrote: »

I loved all of those!

But I did not enjoy Before I Go to Sleep by S J Watson. It got great reviews but I thought it was just so implausible and downright silly at times. While reading it I found myself muttering "rubbish... ridiculous... ohforgodsake"

I got through Room and Kevin, but I didn't like them, if that makes sense.
I was reading The Book Thief on a flight home, and when I got home, I left it, never finished it. They were all very popular, I know. I think I have Before I Go To Sleep somewhere, haven't tried reading it yet.

minnow

cyclic wrote: »

If you want to work unrewardingly hard through a fog of confusion, check out 'Gravity's Rainbow' by Thomas Pynchon.

True! I'm currently on my third attempt to read it in 5 years, am 300 pages in but seriously considering jacking it in. It's become one of those books I now only want to finish out of spite. I cannot recommend it.

Hayte

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

There's a similar thread here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054973999

Heart of Darkness is one that I'd put into that category. Conrad sucks the life out of it with his overly descriptive style.

Conrad or Marlow or the framing narrator? Heart of Darkness is interesting because its very unclear who is telling the story. Technically, it is being told by an unnamed narrator aboard a steamer on the River Thames, so it is difficult to tell who is embellishing, the author, his protoganist or the narrator who tells the protagonist's story.

The entire novel is a conceit within a conceit where you are never sure who is telling the truth or what is real. You can never really tell whether Marlow's derisory opinions are his own, the author's or his framing narrator adding some spice to his yarn. Its like a game of chinese whispers and I believe this is deliberate.

It ties in to the wider implications of empire building, which involve exploiting vassal or tributory states, who are stripmined of resources, their people enslaved to enrich the capital. People in London go about their daily business so distanced from the cost to human life and dignity in the Congo that it leads the reader to question where the metaphorical heart of darkness is. The implication is that it is London, not the Congo Basin but depending on who you ask and what perspective they have, it could be either.

It is possible to play the game of chinese whispers until the message never gets out intact. Who is telling the truth? Who is embellishing? You know less at the end of the novel than you do at the beginning because all the information you get is from second and third sources, none of it verifiable. I thought it was a brilliant exercise in how to misdirect, miss the point and in so doing, perpetuate a great evil.

r3nu4l

I wouldn't say that I can't stand it but Cormac McCarthy's The Road was very highly overrated. It was good but not that good!

I'd disagree over the Wasp Factory, I loved that one, same with Catch-22

Pretty.Odd.

The Book Thief, could not stand any part of it at all!

donkey_kong

I found Catch 22 stunning in places, though large parts of it were a chore to get through.

Am I the only person here who absolutely hated Kerouac's On the Road?

I recently reread Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, I think it has aged very badly.

longshanks

Shantaram.

Asbury Park

donkey_kong wrote: »

Am I the only person here who absolutely hated Kerouac's On the Road?

No, you're not alone there. Kerouac used to say he wrote the novel in three weeks on one long roll of typing paper. The story is not exactly true, but the first time I read about it I thought "yeah, and it tells." An awful pile of sh..e if I do say so myself, so it might have been more appropriate if he'd written it on toilet paper.

MissFlitworth

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro. Found the 'omg!!' twist to it eye rollingly thick and they were all such a pack of moany holes. Probably didn't enjoy it because it was all about my least favourite type of person - people who complain but do nothing to change their situation. It's been a while since I read it but there was something about his style of writing, some way he begins chapters that I can't for the life of me remember but irritated the hell out of me when I read any of his books.

emeraldstar

MissFlitworth wrote: »

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro. Found the 'omg!!' twist to it eye rollingly thick and they were all such a pack of moany holes. Probably didn't enjoy it because it was all about my least favourite type of person - people who complain but do nothing to change their situation. It's been a while since I read it but there was something about his style of writing, some way he begins chapters that I can't for the life of me remember but irritated the hell out of me when I read any of his books.

Terrible, IMO. It's been so long since I've read it that, tbh, I can barely remember what it was that I didn't like about it - unsympathetic characters, perhance - but, my gosh, that was a book that was a struggle to get through for me.

Harry Angstrom

emeraldstar wrote: »

Terrible, IMO. It's been so long since I've read it that, tbh, I can barely remember what it was that I didn't like about it - unsympathetic characters, perhance - but, my gosh, that was a book that was a struggle to get through for me.

The problem is, a lot of writers only have one good book in them. Ishiguro's was The Remains of the Day. They then try to recapture what they don't have anymore, ie one good idea.

Harry Angstrom

Hayte wrote: »

Conrad or Marlow or the framing narrator?

Conrad. He's quite possibly the most boring writer I've ever read. Unless there's something better than Nostromo, Typhoon and Heart of Darkness out there.

Frank Lee Midere

I like Never Let Me Go and if you think the protagonists could easily have done something about their situation you read it wrong. ( that's not all - the story operates at a deeper level - it's about how most humans accept their subaltern position in society, how they may feel pride in it which is why it is similar to Remains).

I didn't like Mantel's acclaimed Wolf Hall. And I read it when it was on the short list. I assumed it was a compromise vote but she's won again. I didn't like the writing, I didn't like Cromwell or find her internal dialog believable, and she massively overused pronouns. You had to re read her pragraghs to work out who the he taking to him is, who the he who just came in is, which he is talking to which him.

dx22

The Life of Pi - gave up after 1 chapter

LynnGrace

This is one from the 90's, Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend. It was very popular at the time. I tried and failed to read it.

GastroBoy

Can't stand any books by Ross O' Carroll Kelly. I just don't understand how people like that rubbish.

minnow

r3nu4l wrote: »

I'd disagree over the Wasp Factory, I loved that one, same with Catch-22

Me too, I loved both. Also really enjoyed the writing style of IQ84, it takes a while but is a beautiful read IMO.

coldcake

longshanks wrote: »

Shantaram.

Have to say I enjoyed this.

Ipso

GastroBoy wrote: »

Can't stand any books by Ross O' Carroll Kelly. I just don't understand how people like that rubbish.

Reported.

donkey_kong

GastroBoy wrote: »

Can't stand any books by Ross O' Carroll Kelly. I just don't understand how people like that rubbish.

Out of interest are you from South Dublin? Maybe those who aren't plugged into that bubble don't realise how good a parody it is? When the series was at the height of its popularity I was never into it but I revisited after several years in UCD and really enjoyed them.
As the series has progressed, I think its now at a stage that a new reader couldn't pick up the latest book and enjoy it, but existing fans are already invested in the characters and long running plots etc.

confusticated

LynnGrace wrote: »

The Book Thief, I read most of it, but I struggled. Two books I read that are popular, but I couldn't wait to send to the charity shop, Room and We Need To Talk About Kevin.
Have picked up The Slap a few times, and considered it, but still haven't read it.

Don't. One of the most pointless books I've ever read, supposed to open up all this discussion of rights and wrongs...but I didn't care about even one character in it.

Didn't like Catcher in the Rye either.

JohnMearsheimer

I disliked Shantaram, I've never come across a more unlikeable main character in a book. I wasn't mad about The Alchemist or Tuesdays With Morrie either.

On the other hand I really liked The Book Thief, The Road and Catch 22.

LynnGrace

confusticated wrote: »

Don't. One of the most pointless books I've ever read, supposed to open up all this discussion of rights and wrongs...but I didn't care about even one character in it.

Yes, I think the fact that I have picked it up, in bookshops, and left it down more than once, even when it is on a special offer, tells me I won't ever read it.

Hayte

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

Conrad. He's quite possibly the most boring writer I've ever read. Unless there's something better than Nostromo, Typhoon and Heart of Darkness out there.

Thats fair enough but I would encourage you to give it another shot.

Its really difficult to tell whether its Conrad, Conrad's framing narrator or Marlow who is speaking. In parts you can consider it almost biographical because the logistics of Marlow's journey are similar to one made by Conrad in 1889. The trips back and forth between London and Brussels. The first leg of the voyage from from Bordeaux to Boma, then from Boma to Matadi and from Matadi to Kinchassa.

But Marlow and Conrad are not the same person and their journey is different in alot of ways. Some of it is highly likely to be fabricated, other parts are skipped over or the time compressed or expanded. I don't think anyone knows his motivation for doing so.

It is highly unlikely that Conrad believed what Marlow (or the narrator) says about the pointless explosions in Matadi. They were building a railway and the purpose of that is clear when you see how arduous the voyage from Matadi to Kinchassa is on foot.

In the novel, Marlow (or the narrator) describes it as a grove of death, which is not far off periodical reports around that time period suggesting as many as 150 Congolese forced labourers were dying per day to smallpox and dysentery. But if you read Conrad's diary, the only bad thing he says about Matadi is that people habitually spoke ill of each other.

We know from Conrad's diary that it took him over a month to walk some 200 miles over rough terrain from Matadi to Nselemba and that his expedition was beset by illness. He mentions a man named Harou who was "vomiting bile in enormous quantities" and had to be carried in a hammock for part of the journey, the burden of which nearly resulted in a mutiny. But in Heart of Darkness, Marlow skips over the experience of this journey in only a few lines and shrugs it off as being largely uneventful.

The motivation for writing, the decision to stay behind multiple narrators and a possible alter ego are still a mystery to me, so I find it a fascinating puzzle. I think its wrong to say its a realist work too because of how unreliable every source of information is except for the loose structure of the voyage which is partially based on the author's first hand account.

I also find it difficult to read Heart of Darkness without also reading Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart". They are standalone works and very different in subject matter, tone and perspective but whenever you read about any experience of colonialism it is impossible to ignore the very skewed power relationship. "Things Fall Apart" shifts the balance of power by giving a wronged people the right to represent their own history and their own fate. It makes people of marionettes and it is brilliant in a similar way that Jean Rhys makes a human being of Bertha, the Creole woman in "Jane Eyre" who is disturbingly imprisoned in Rochester's home.

I dunno. I find that the subject matter and the method has stayed in my thoughts for a long time. I don't think it will ever go away.

cloudatlas

'The life of Pi', I found it to be very flat, stupidly simplistic style and unchallenging. Khaled Hosseini 'The Kite Runner'. I've read widely and watched a lot of foreign film so I am unsurprised by the direction that this book took, I didn't think it was paced well and it was quite dull.

prettygurrly

Swiper the fox wrote: »

I'll get the ball rolling with a couple I've read(and finished) recently
The Wasp Factory had it's moments but mostly it was rubbish in my opinion

When I saw the title of your thread that's the book that came into my head...I still don't know if I particularly liked it or not. Years since I read it and I was sad when the author died but nyeh

prettygurrly

My contribution is Midnight Children by Salman Rushdi...I have about 150 pages left but haven't touched it since I got back from hols at the start of September...maybe a long flight to Buenos Aires will let me finally finish it and then I can leave it in a hostel somewhere. His style of writing is just so unbelievably tedious and I still can't quite remember what's happened...350 pages in!

Mince Pie

100 hundred years of solitude. I could feel myself going grey reading it.