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[fajrdrako]

From March 19, 2009: What’s the worst 'best' book you’ve ever read — the one everyone says is so great, but you can’t figure out why?

Easy: Moby Dick. I'd heard great quotes from it on X-Files and Star Trek and it sounded brilliant. So only a few years ago I sat down and read it cover to cover, and haven't been so bored (or frustrated) by a novel since Ivanhoe. But I understand why some people might like Ivanhoe, or, rather, might have done so in the 19th century. Moby Dick? I just didn't get it.

It quotes well, though. Ignorance is the parent of fear.

It was a sharp, cold Christmas.

Comments

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

Wuthering Heights. Romantic? They hated each other!

At least it wasn't as agonisingly boring as Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Romantic? They hated each other!

Yeah. That's a weird one. The only good thing about it was that one of the movies had Timothy Dalton.

The only thing I remember about Tess of the D'Ubervilles - and I never read the book, just saw the movie - was how beautiful Nastassja Kinski was.

(Shallow, me? I like a good book or a good story, but I like beautiful people too.)

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Tess is excellent, if heart-breaking. I like the film, but no film or TV version has done it justice: they are all too kind to the vile Angel, and don't see through Alec's 'bad boy' pose. (Alec is very, very bad for my h/c complex!)

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

The fault there is in the marketing (often exacerbated by soppy film versions). Wuthering Heights isn't a romance: it's a dark tale of revenge and property and madness.

Tess is fascinating and tragic, I find: it exposes the cost of body/spirit dualism. I find it distressing because it costs the life of one of Hardy's most delightful and good (and entirely unstuffy) young men.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Marketing is often a problem. The movie-makers may understand what they have, but the marketers go for - something else entirely.

I do plan to read Tess eventually. Not sure what I'll think.

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

If it had been marketed to me as dark revenge and madness, I would almost have certainly enjoyed it a lot more. I prefer revenge and madness to romance any day :D

Bit like the Jim Carey movie, The Cable Guy - if it had been marketed as a homoerotic stalker-thriller, instead of a comedy, it may not have been panned so badly.

[dejla.livejournal.com]

Moby Dick is a difficult book. I can't say I like it, but I appreciate it. I think it does quote beautifully, and uses language as if it's poetry, not prose. The imagery is fascinating. But it's not a book I go back and reread, although I'm not sorry I read it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes. Parts of it were very clever, with excellent word use. But I couldn't make a smooth story in my head; it just didn't work. I'm not sorry I read it, but I can't say I enjoyed the experience. I just enjoyed the good quotes!

[dargie.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha, I liked Moby Dick once I got into it, but there are other "great" books I've thrown across the room. What grabs you, grabs you.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

What grabs you, grabs you.

So true! Lots of people don't like Dickens, whose stuff I love.

I chuckled when I saw that the first set of people answering this question on the 'booking' site all mentioned Twilight. The moral of the story: you're not going to automatically like a book just because it's famous.

[dargie.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention Dickens because I've never seen the allure. LOL

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

My first thought was *anything* by Joseph Conrad. But Wuthering Heights (never could finish it, BTW) fits the bill, too.

On a more modern note: A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews. It got all these awards and wonderful reviews, but it gave me the creeps.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My first thought was *anything* by Joseph Conrad.

LOL. I don't think I've ever tried to read Conrad. Don't feel in a hurry to do so, either.

Wuthering Heights

It's so turgid.

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews. It got all these awards and wonderful reviews, but it gave me the creeps.

I quite enjoyed it, but I'll agree that it was creepy.

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

I hate 'Wuthering Heights' (in common with others on your flist, I see). I wanted to slap every single character in it and I have no idea why an abuser like Heathcliff is held up as a romantic hero.

I also detest 'Lord of the Flies' quite a lot.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I have no idea why an abuser like Heathcliff is held up as a romantic hero.

He isn't a romantic hero, and it's a gross misreading of the text, fuelled by the 1939 film, that has turned him into one in popular culture. He's horrible.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Given the popularity of psychological horror these days, perhaps we have an opening for a total switch of genre.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The characters in Wuthering Heights are all eminently slappable. Catherine made me roll my eyes.

I liked bits of Lord of the Flies but it was no kind of favourite, and I probably wouldn't have read it at all if it hadn't been assigned in high school.

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

I loved Lord of the Flies, but I was six when I read it. I think it appeals to that age group - it's more of an advanced reader for tots.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Anything by:
Jane Austen;
D H Lawrence (impossible to take seriously before, never mind after, Cold Comfort Farm);
Charlotte Brontë - the least talented of the family, but sadly the longest lived.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I have mixed feelings about Jane Austen because I liked Persuasion; but I never understand her popularity. Agree absolutely about D.H. Lawrence, largely because he wrote about women as if he thought he was an expert in the subject, but writes as if he never actually met one. Which is weird, because we know biographically, he did. He must have never actually listened to one.

Charlotte Bronte, I like; Jane Eyre is one of my favourite books, and I loved Shirley too. The others... I've mostly forgotten.

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

Oh, I adore Cold Comfort Farm. That it makes it impossible to take DH Lawrence seriously is just the cherry on the cake of its wonderfulness.

I like some of his poetry though.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I was an English major. I have read a lot of lit-ra-choor. A lot of it falls into this category.

But my ex loved Moby Dick. At one point he got his hands on an audiobook version of it, and we listened to it. All 26 cassettes. My brain was leaking out of my ears by the time that sucker went back to the library.

It's amazing to me that I still like audiobooks, when I think about that...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I have read a lot of lit-ra-choor. A lot of it falls into this category.

Sad but true.

At one point he got his hands on an audiobook version of it, and we listened to it. All 26 cassettes.

My goodness. Did that enhance the book, or was it as unbearable as it sounds?

My ex and I pretty much agreed on all novels except Lord of the Rings - which I loved, and he hated.

[xinef.livejournal.com]

Getting away from "classics", one that comes to mind immediately is "Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin. Something about her writing style just leaves me cold. I rarely start a book and don't finish it, but have done so with at least a couple of hers. I just can't get into them.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Interesting - since I love LeGuin's writing style. But there are many popular writers I just can't read. My brain glosses over Andre Norton as if she were writing in another language, and I can't even figure out what's going on. I have no idea why. I gave up trying.

I don't read many of the 'classic' SF authors, though - I find them dull. There are exceptions.