Books that defeated you!

Ulysses by James Joyce. Bits of it were ok but not an enjoyable book.

nanna8

Ulysses by James Joyce. Bits of it were ok but not an enjoyable book.

Came here to say the same thing! War and Peace too. Got 1/2 way through and thought, why am I bothering?

The Magus John Fowles

Despite enjoying some of the descriptions of the fictional Greek island and friends raving about it, I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. I tried to read it in my teens; maybe I would appreciate it now but really life's too short 😕.

A Suitable Boy

In my youth Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome. And now, any book written in the present tense. I am just unable to process a whole book in the present tense and it is my bete noir. I would use the present tense in narrative if I were describing feelings of flashback but not a whole novel. There is something for me so satisfying about the past tense, almost like a fait accompli which I can observe from a place of contemporary comfort.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin
I tried and tried and tried!

The Hobbit and Watership Down. Everyone seemed to be talking about them and enjoying them at the time I read them and I couldn't understand the attraction of either. I kept wondering what it was I was missing in both novels and never found out.

Three Men in a Boat for me too.

Also The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. Read his other books but this one was too much for me

War and Peace

I loved The Magus! I found The Idiot by Dostoyevski impossible to finish.

suninthewest

The Hobbit and Watership Down. Everyone seemed to be talking about them and enjoying them at the time I read them and I couldn't understand the attraction of either. I kept wondering what it was I was missing in both novels and never found out.

Those are two of my favourites! I have to admit that no book has ever 'defeated' me - once I start a book, I have to finish it, no matter what. There are some I maybe didn't particularly enjoy or forgot almost as soon as I'd read them, but I never give up until I reach "the end".

I hated Cloud Atlas, I only finished it because it had been a present.
I gave up on Catch22, but I very rarely abandon a book, and I feel I’ve failed myself if I do.

Oh yes, and of course The Hobbit, thanks for the reminder suninthewest

Ulysses again. We had a tutor at college who urged us to read it. Why ?

Any of the Tolkein books, I just can't get my head into fantasy books. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, I would have issued a Fatwa on him for writing pretentious, unreadable books .

I just don't persist with books now; life is too short, and there are too many wonderful books to be read and enjoyed, so if they don't engage me within the first chapter or so, off they go to the reject pile.

Oh, and Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys, am A level text, and awful.

I do usually finish a book but must agree with LRavenscroft that books written in the present tense are so irritating that, if I start a book and find it's in the present tense, I delete it at once. It's fundamentally inaccurate - it's as though the writer is trying to scribble along as the story unwinds. Just no.

I couldn't get into Catch22 either - it seemed to go round in circles.

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, is the only book that I have not finished.

I didn’t like any of the characters found the plot uninspiring.

What I do think having reached the age of 77 that life is too short to persevere with books I don’t like - so I don’t.

Anything by Martin Amis and most of Dickens, A Christmas Carol excepting.

I do not read sufficient novels to talk about more modern books. I enjoyed War and Peace and the Tolkien books. That was a surprise because generally I loathe SF or Fantasy.

I did read and enjoy Possession by AS Byatt, athough it left a funny taste in my mouth, but my attempts to read any of her other books was a total failure.

Another one floored by Ulysses and War and Peace.

Also The Satanic Verses; and Wolf Hall.

NotSpaghetti

^Captain Corelli's Mandolin^
I tried and tried and tried!

I remember it well. I gave up on my first attempt, then thought I'd give it another go, reading one short chapter a day. It wasn't long before I got so much into it, the one chapter a day rule was forgotten, and it ended up being one of my best ever books of all time.

Ones I gave up on and never went back to include The Time Traveller's Wife, anything by James Joyce, and Wolf Hall.

Any Harry Potter I just can't make myself.
Ulysses at school. We had to study Portrait of the artist for A level and it was torture. Describing someone on the toilet,why?
I also find Dicken's hard going especially "Hard Times and it was an A-level text. His characters are larger than life to me more like pantomime characters.

Having read most of the series I gave up with the final part to date of the Game of Thrones.
The TV series began and everyone was talking about it in the staffroom. I didn't watch it as I don't have the TV channel. It seemed there were so many variations to the story.