(... and not because they were so bad that it was a relief to be done)
I've been reading The Last Unicorn. My attention's been up and down throughout the book -- I came close to giving up on it about a third of the way through, then got into it again, but now it's getting duller towards the end of the book. (Too much arbitrary magic going on, takes away from the plot and the characters.)
Even though it's been pretty uneven, I've liked bits here and there, there's some wonderful sayings and descriptive bits.
Usually when I know I'm not going to like a book I figure it out by the time I'm a quarter of the way through a book. There's not many books I can think of that I can remember having doubts about early on but then finding it to be worth it after all. GRRM's A Game of Thrones was one -- it took me something like 75 pages to get some sense of what was going on and then maybe another 50-100 pages to actually get caught up in the plot; if I hadn't already heard such good things about GRRM on Hatrack I might not have made it that deep into the book.
Any other tales of doubt and struggle and triumph? Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
LotR and Silmarillion are some of the most obvious choices for me.
Posted by plaid (Member # 2393) on :
Mm, yeah, back when I was 10 I read LotR (had read The Hobbit and loved it); I got bogged down during the White Council -- way too talky for 10-year-old me -- took me two months to get past it.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
I had to really push myself to get through the first 200 or so pages of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. It's not that the writing is bad - far from it - but it's as dense as anything I've ever read, including LotR (though not the Silmarillion). The payoff is worth it though, and the last couple hundred pages really flew by.
Posted by Joldo (Member # 6991) on :
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children was such a trial for me to read--and frankly, I didn't think it was all that great. Like a rip off of Marquez. Still, I was happy to have finished it.
Posted by adfectio (Member # 11070) on :
Although I've loved the rest of his Stuff, J.D. Salinger's Seymour: An introduction threw me for a bit. It was just a lot more difficult for me.
Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :
OK, time for an easy jab:
I was going to say Atlas Shrugged, but upon thinking about it, I am not glad that I made it to the end.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Shogun. That was a trial, but the payoff was incredible. I'd say Lonesome Dove, but that was a joy to read the whole way through.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I didn't make it through The Fountainhead. There were only so many 50-story buildings that I could take.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
Green Eggs and Ham. I'm not going to spoil the ending for anyone who hasn't made it through to the end though.
A Farewell to Arms, The Great Gatsby, and Sister Carrie, too.
Posted by plaid (Member # 2393) on :
I took a few years to get through Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel; I loved the book, it's just that it's a VERY long book, and halfway through when I got to a slow bit I got distracted by some other book... and it took me a few years to pick it up again.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
I really liked Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I'm a sucker for footnotes.
Posted by brojack17 (Member # 9189) on :
The first time I read Ender's Game, it took me forever to get through the part with Val and Peter on Earth.
Posted by anti_maven (Member # 9789) on :
When I read Excession byu Iain M. Banks, I was enjoying it as a good SF book, but the last paragraph of the last page turned it into a classic. I was travelling to work on the Tube, and I laughed so hard that my fellow passegners where shocked out of there stupor...
Another hard work, but worth are the Baroque Cycle books by Neal Stephenson. The ration of chapters to lying down in a darkened room to assimilate the information is roughly 1:2...
I have little patience with books that I'm not enjoying. The only time I've realy had to force myself to finish a book was Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. It was soooo bad I forced myself to finish it as a pennance for having bought it in the first place.
Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :
Stranger in a Strange Land.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
That's one that I'm not terribly glad that I made it through.
Posted by anti_maven (Member # 9789) on :
Mmm, not sure if that's one of Robbie's best. Despite being a "classic" and all.
Posted by plaid (Member # 2393) on :
Asimov's first Foundation book -- some of the first stories he ever wrote, pretty crude, things don't get interesting until the second book.
Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :
I think I am one of the only people who views Stranger as one of his favorite books. Maybe it's because it is my first Heinlein novel.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Les Miserables.
Posted by anti_maven (Member # 9789) on :
quote:Originally posted by JonHecht: I think I am one of the only people who views Stranger as one of his favorite books. Maybe it's because it is my first Heinlein novel.
I feel the same way about Citizen of the Galaxy Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
quote:Originally posted by anti_maven: The only time I've realy had to force myself to finish a book was Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. It was soooo bad I forced myself to finish it as a pennance for having bought it in the first place.
My son loved "DaVinci", and got the rest of the Brown oeuvre. He highly recommended "Fortress" and wanted me to read it so that we could talk about it.
Horrible, horrible, dreadful. It made DaVinci seem intelligent, and that takes some doing. I was glad to finish it so that I didn't have to read it any more.
What I liked about "A Farewell to Arms", "Great Gatsby", and "Sister Carrie", were the framing of the story. For the first two, they are clearly planned to hang together, and not just made up as they go along. For the last, I really like to see where Dreiser's morality takes the characters.
Oh! And I'm so glad that I read "Angle of Repose" (Wallace Stegner) all through to the end. That is a masterwork.
Posted by sylvrdragon (Member # 3332) on :
I'm currently struggling through Silmarillion myself. Is it really worth finishing? Does it have any actual STORY?! So far it reads like a history text book.
The first book of the Wheel of Time series, "Eye of the World" started off so slow that I feared I wouldn't make it. I'm glad I did though.
The first time through "Speaker of the Dead" was actually pretty slow for me. Card's name on the cover kept me resolute though.
I was rather proud of myself when I finished Einstein's Relativity. I even think I absorbed a good portion of it. Granted, it took me a week or two AFTER reading it before I came to understand and accept the relationship between the speed of light and time. The chapter about clocks and measuring rods REALLY threw me through a loop. I remember going on about how the Propagation of the speed of light was the most senseless assumption one could make as it created so many paradoxes. I think Hawking gets the credit for driving that concept home for me.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:I'm currently struggling through Silmarillion myself. Is it really worth finishing? Does it have any actual STORY?! So far it reads like a history text book.
lol. It IS a history book!
If you mean is there any story like you're used to, like Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit, then, yes...sort of, in bits and pieces, but nothing so plain. I'd almost suggest reading the Narn first, the Children of Hurin, which was put together last year by Chris Tolkien. That has the story of Turin pretty fluidly. Other than the Lay of Luthien, it's the only really well put together story other than the narrative you get that overviews the history of the first age. Other than that all you are going to get are little short stories, like Tuor, and even then you have to read the Unfinished Tales to really find out what happens with him.
How far in are you sylvr? The opening stuff can be pretty slow, but, I think once the Noldor come back to Middle Earth it's pretty damned exciting! If you've already gotten there and into the first battles and still aren't enamored with it, then I'd consider stopping and reading the Narn separately. Cause if you don't like that, I don't think you'll like the rest.
Personally I love the Silmarillion. I never had a hard time getting through it. I did have a hard time with the Fellowship the first time I read it, but now I fly through it. The Sil is probably the hardest of the books to get through, specifically because it is a history book, but it's so rich in wonderful characters, great stories, and an emotional roller coaster. I love it just as much as the LOTR now.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by brojack17: The first time I read Ender's Game, it took me forever to get through the part with Val and Peter on Earth.
The first time I read "Ender's Game", there were no Val and Peter.
Posted by brojack17 (Member # 9189) on :
I read it in 1989 when I was in the 9th grade. It was the first novel I read that was not assigned to me. I was never interested in reading before and that book really got me interested in reading.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
War and Peace, Its a wonderful book but there are parts where Tolstoy gets really bogged down on the unimportance of Napoleon. I got to the point where I'd just skim through chapters going "yeah, yeah, Napoleon was just riding the tides of history. You made your point can we get on with the story".
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: LotR and Silmarillion are some of the most obvious choices for me.
I've never yet made it all the way through the Silmarillion. I think I've read all the sections now but never straight through cover to cover. However, I devoured the LoTR. I read it when I was 10 or 11 and couldn't put the book down.
Posted by Philosofickle (Member # 10993) on :
Les Miserables: got bogged down a few times but it is the greatest book in the world.
The Silmarillion: first time I read it, it was awful, now I love it.
Wheel of time books: wait, never mind, I'm not glad that I wasted my time on them.
Lonesome Dove: I'm happy I finished it, but I probably wont read it again.
The Odyssey/Iliad: Love them.
The Aeneid: Can't stand it.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
The Critique of Pure Reason would be #1 for me.
Posted by Epictetus (Member # 6235) on :
The Once and Future King took me a long time to get through when I was a kid, but I'm really glad I read it.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by JonHecht: I think I am one of the only people who views Stranger as one of his favorite books.
You're not.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by JonHecht: I think I am one of the only people who views Stranger as one of his favorite books. Maybe it's because it is my first Heinlein novel.
I liked it a lot, myself.
Posted by Darth Petra (Member # 11464) on :
Shadow Puppets. It took me so long to finish.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
I'm glad I finished Ulysses when I read it for a class in college. I'm not sure I got enough out of it as I should be able to get out of a novel of that length to justify reading it.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus really bogged me down for the first five chapters or so (there seemed to be so much backstory that I was about to give up on it, when it suddenly all clicked together and got interesting.
Now it's one of my favorites
Moby Dick really drags in places too
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I'll second Pastwatch. Speaker For The Dead felt like hard labor at first to read, but once I got through the first 1/4th of the book I really started enjoying it.
The first book I was glad I got through was a biography of Mozart. It was the first adult book I had ever read, it was also the longest book I had ever seen. I don't think I could say I really loved books until I read that one.
Posted by Lime (Member # 1707) on :
House of Leaves. About halfway through it really ramps up the circular footnotes and formatting trickery; if it hadn't been so intensely fascinating there's no way I would have finished it.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
I just finished Les Miserables (unabridged) and I think it would have been better abridged. It was ok, but not great, but I'm glad I finished it.
Moby Dick, hands down, is the greatest book I've ever read. The first time I tried I didn't make it through, but the second time I "got it" sometime before Queequeg and Ishmael signed onto the Pequod, and then after "Midnight, Forecastle" I couldn't put it down.
I'm glad I made it through LOTR too, but not because it's deep or important.
I'm glad I got through The Origin of Species. The plot was a little thin, but it was well written.
The Satanic Verses was well worth reading.
The one book I've had the hardest time making it through was the Bible, but you really can't read Moby Dick without the Bible on hand for reference.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa:
quote:Originally posted by brojack17: The first time I read Ender's Game, it took me forever to get through the part with Val and Peter on Earth.
The first time I read "Ender's Game", there were no Val and Peter.
Pwned!
Posted by Threads (Member # 10863) on :
I've never made it past the first 30 or so pages of the Silmarillion Posted by Flaming Toad on a Stick (Member # 9302) on :
'The Sound and the Fury' by William Faulkner. One of my favourite books, but it took me SO FRACKING LONG to get through it the first time. Now I breeze through it in an afternoon.
Posted by katdog42 (Member # 4773) on :
It took me forever to get into "The World According to Garp" by John Irving. However, I absolutely loved it once it was over.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Norton's European History--I didn't know Eastern Europe had a history before that.
(hhhmmm, nobody's mentioned "The Bible")
Machiavelli's, "The Prince", but then I just enjoyed the looks on peoples faces when they saw me reading it.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:(hhhmmm, nobody's mentioned "The Bible")
Check my post, above.
Posted by Architraz Warden (Member # 4285) on :
Glass Bead Game. One of the deepest books I've ever read, but it was a fight to keep reading early on.
Very rewarding in the end though.
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
The Book of Mormon.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:I'm glad I made it through LOTR too, but not because it's deep or important.
What a strange (intentionally provocative?) qualifier:)
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
LOTR
Sundiver by David Brin
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:What a strange (intentionally provocative?) qualifier:)
That's me. Strange, and intentionally provocative.
Actually I merely meant that LOTR is too much of a cultural icon not to have read it.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
He didn't say it wasn't deep or important, just that those weren't the reasons he's glad he read them.
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