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Messages 1 - 68 of total 68 in this topic

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Jul 21, 2014 - 09:41am PT

Randisi, I hate to agree but yer right. I was also not taken with One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Maybe it hit too close to home.

MH2

climber

Jul 21, 2014 - 09:46am PT

The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, made famous in 1961 by

The book was a big disappointment.

The Larry

climber

Moab, UT

Jul 21, 2014 - 09:46am PT

It would take me a hundred years to finish that book.

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Jul 21, 2014 - 10:10am PT

The Larry, try reading it out loud to yourself. That sometimes works.

Steppenwolf left me wondering why I'd bothered with it. I was fine with Siddhartha.

For those of us with silver hair now, During our adolescence in the past, we were delighted by the beautiful novel Siddhartha by Herman Hesse the great, a novel in Which He sang the praises of humanism, in the pursuit of Eastern mysticism. In short the work was a lyrical symphony. however it In my case, it always reminds me of his other excellent and unique book Which is Der Steppenwolf, a novel That still captivates me today. When I was 17 years old I read it for the first time, but I did not know how to decipher its contents. Now that I Have Decided to reread the book, I can identify identity With the more tormented and central character of the novel, the melancholic and misanthropic Harry Haller.

Der Steppenwolf is a book to be read not just once, but to be re-read and be reflected upon. The character is a creature That has Chosen solitude as an antidote against the masses and the mediocrity of life. Portrayed as He is not unsympathetic but rather antisocial. The character was happy During a point of time in his life, living a conventional life and in a marriage bourgeois. One day all that disappeared and I Began to enclose himself and it is when yo have discovered the abomination of the society in Which I was living. 've Realized In his solitude how easy it was to manipulate human beings. 've Realized That the Citizens of a nation prone to Employing Were Not Their devices in pursuit of a critical thinking against the powers that be. Clearly The book was a critique of the rise of Nazism.

The book by Herman Hesse is of an astonishing relevance to the current deplorable situation in Europe, where in its crude and selfish societies, soccer and trashy TV programming routine and vile occupy the lives of many. The thoughts of Harry Haller, the protagonist of the novel, is synthesized in annotations like the following. He Also Noted...

The foregoing was a translated Google critique from a Panamanian who obviously knows more than I.

I had a hard time with this book for some reason. It left me cold.

Siddhartha, no problemo.

raymond phule

climber

Jul 21, 2014 - 10:25am PT

"Born to run" really disappointed me. I really cant understand why, in my opinion, such a bad book managed to be so popular.

I started to read "steppenwolf" some months ago but I didn't finish it...

RyanD

climber

Squamish

Jul 21, 2014 - 10:27am PT

The Bible

The Larry

climber

Moab, UT

Jul 21, 2014 - 10:42am PT

I thought this one was gonna be a winner but it was a bit pessimistic.

Mike Friedrichs

Sport climber

City of Salt

Jul 21, 2014 - 11:07am PT

Naked lunch. Just couldn't somehow get through it.

Braunini

Big Wall climber

cupertino

Jul 21, 2014 - 11:11am PT

RyanD beat me to it

Atlas shrugged

Park Rat

Social climber

CA, UT,CT,FL

Jul 21, 2014 - 11:11am PT

The Art Of War by Sun Tzu

StahlBro

Trad climber

San Diego, CA

Jul 21, 2014 - 11:14am PT

Heart of Darkness

I actually though Apocalypse Now was a better story.

Peter Haan

Trad climber

Santa Cruz, CA

Jul 21, 2014 - 11:17am PT

Overly voluminous and flabby, The Naked and the Dead. Written by a very young Norman Mailer in fifteen weeks and at the age of twenty-five (1948). It is 731 pages long. He thought the book "was possibly the greatest book written since War and Peace

Gore Vidal wrote,

My first reaction to The Naked and the Dead was: it’s a fake. A clever, talented, admirably executed fake. I have not changed my opinion of the book since… I do recall a fine description of men carrying a dying man down a mountain… Yet every time I got going in the narrative I would find myself stopped cold by a set of made-up, predictable characters taken not from life, but from the same novels all of us had read, and informed by a naïveté which was at its worst when Mailer went into his Time-Machine and wrote those passages which resemble nothing so much as smudged carbons of a Dos Passos work.[13]

TwistedCrank

climber

Released into general population, Idaho

Jul 21, 2014 - 11:18am PT

All of them. Every last one of them. I haven't read a famous book that I ever thought was worth a crap.

Once it's famous, it ceases to be relevant.

pyro

Big Wall climber

Calabasas

Jul 21, 2014 - 11:24am PT

Dr F 's guide book socal bouldering guide!

Gary

Social climber

Desolation Basin, Calif.

Jul 21, 2014 - 11:32am PT

Something Happened by Joseph Heller. Catch 22 is a masterpiece of world literature, I've read it half a dozen times, getting something different from it each time.

So I looked forward to Something Happened. It was so depressingly dark and hopeless that I could never finish it. Tried three times, stopping at the same place each time.

donini

Trad climber

Ouray, Colorado

Jul 21, 2014 - 11:34am PT

"The Book of Schmaltz".....there are only so many things you can do with chicken fat.

couchmaster

climber

Jul 21, 2014 - 11:40am PT

The Great Gatsby. Anything by Hemmingway

The Larry

climber

Moab, UT

Jul 21, 2014 - 11:42am PT

The Old Man and The Sea is a great book. I haven't read any of his other books.

Jaybro

Social climber

Wolf City, Wyoming

Jul 21, 2014 - 11:43am PT

Atlas Shrugged was the most dissapointing, overhyped book of all Time!

I like steppenwolf, born to Run, 100 years of solitude and the naked lunch though, though the last two were, difficult reads....

bergbryce

climber

East Bay, CA

Jul 21, 2014 - 12:06pm PT

2nd for naked lunch.
Schizos too long off their haldol make better beatnik poetry than that $hitpile.

Was born to run the book about barefoot running? It was fine.

TradEddie

Trad climber

Philadelphia, PA

Jul 21, 2014 - 12:08pm PT

Catcher in the rye. I have absolutely no idea what people see in it.

TE

stevep

Boulder climber

Salt Lake, UT

Jul 21, 2014 - 12:16pm PT

I'm completely with you on Catcher. Didn't like it as a teen, and see even less in it now. Just can't at all relate to the whiny main character and don't think the writing is all that good.

The Call Of K2 Lou

Mountain climber

North Shore, BC

Jul 21, 2014 - 12:23pm PT

Like Ryan said, the Bible. Gritted my way through it just to say I'd done it, and was left thinking, "So this is what all the fuss is about?" (To each his own, I guess.)
Since then, Wikipedia has proven sufficient for what I wanted to learn about the other major religious texts.

crunch

Social climber

Jul 21, 2014 - 12:30pm PT

Overly voluminous and flabby, The Naked and the Dead.

I dunno. I read it last year, enjoyed it.

That war was so vast, so global, industrial, bureaucratic in scale.

What the US brought to the table was a military that, once aroused, thoroughly outflabbed and out-volumed the another combatants. I'd assumed that was part of Mailer's point.

But, books change meaning, generation to generation.

I recall reading the Fountainhead when I was about 18. At the time it seemed sort of contrived, flawed, like it was trying too hard, but I could not really put into words exactly what jarred. Of course now it's obvious how it was a product of its time and the architect's awkward-but-trendy choices of material and shape are no more practical, idealistic or better than any others.

Fritz

Trad climber

Choss Creek, ID

Jul 21, 2014 - 12:35pm PT

In a lifetime of voracious reading, I've only been unable to finish two books.

The Bible, of course & Gravity's Rainbow, which won all sorts of awards and acclaim back in the early 1970's. Here's what Wiki has to say about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity's_Rainbow

phylp

Trad climber

Millbrae, CA

Jul 21, 2014 - 12:50pm PT

I really ended up disliking "Gone Girl" which was the huge hit novel from last summer. It was well written and clever. I won't say why I disliked it because it might be a spoiler for those who still want to read it. Let's just say it's the same reason I did not like "Super Sad True Love Story" which I think was the rave novel from the year before.

Sheets

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Jul 21, 2014 - 12:56pm PT

Ayn Rand I knew was terrible before starting her books but I read a couple anyway on the insistence of my libertarian freshman roommate.

Others...
For some reason Catch 22 just didn't click for me. I wanted to like it, but just didn't. James Fenimore Cooper's books are a slog. I think you need to be an english major to like James Joyce.

crunch

Social climber

Jul 21, 2014 - 12:57pm PT

Books I've been unable to finish included John Updike's Witches of Eastwick. Great movie, but Updike seems almost pathologically hating of some of his own book's female characters it comes off sounding shrill, nasty. Made it just 2 or 3 chapters. Seemed not worth the trouble.

The Bible, King James version, I made it through Genesis, to about the end of Exodus. Gave up. Opaque to the point of being virtually unreadable. Much that contradicts other passages, or repeats, or makes little sense, such that anyone can pretty much get whatever they want from it, to support any idea.

Anyone else ever read Sade's "120 Days of Sodom"? That's a challenging read! Not for the faint of heart....

SC seagoat

Trad climber

Santa Cruz, or In What Time Zone Am I?

Jul 21, 2014 - 12:57pm PT

Confederacy of the Dunces.

While I did enjoy it, I felt that it fell short of the hype.
Susan

Baggins

Boulder climber

Jul 21, 2014 - 01:42pm PT

Every single yosemite guidebook

bentelbow

climber

spud state

Jul 21, 2014 - 02:16pm PT

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, made my head hurt after half way. Never could pick it back up again.

TrundleBum

Trad climber

Las Vegas

Jul 21, 2014 - 02:16pm PT

I recently started into 'Endurance', the Shackleton story.
I got 2/3''rds maybe 3/4 the way through and it just became an epic of unfathomable suffering... I'll try to revisit it I spouse.

I just started into a first edition copy of "General John Glover"
by: Goerge Athen Billias
(although understandably not touted as a classic or famous)
I am finding it captivating but then I grew up in Marblehead MA.
Therefore I find most colonial history and seafaring generally engaging.
'John Quincy Adams' was fantastic !
On that note: some people stated up thread that 'Moby Dick' was not palatable. I loved it but then again, I love the seafaring lore of it.
(recently a behemoth of an albino whale was sighted and captured in image)

Never finished the Bible regardless of multiple attempts.
Yet I read the Quran three times in as many translations.

Hesse ~ I'm with yah there (Yawn)
'Lord of the Flies' and 'Catcher in the Rye' same... (Yawn)
'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' samething, made me 'ead urt.
Yet: 'Zen in the Art of Archery'
By: Eugene Herigal was one of the best was one of the most influential climbing instructional books I ever read !

But Catch22 - Loved it!

Glad to hear that my reticences to launch into "Atlas Shrugged' May not be ill founded.

I was recently loaned the full/unabridged, original version of Hienlen's 'Stranger in a strange Land' which I read as a kid...
I'll report back on that one :)

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Jul 21, 2014 - 02:49pm PT

"But, books change meaning, generation to generation."--C. Runch

"There is scarcely a list of great films, long or short, that do not include this one. [J. Renoir's La Grand Illusion or Grand Illusion as it's titled in English] I saw it when it was first shown here and have seen it many time since, and I can testify that it exemplifies an ancient truth: good art survives because as we change, it can change with us."--the late American film critic S. Kauffmann

Books are art. Film is, too.

Sport climber

Sonora Ca

Jul 21, 2014 - 07:11pm PT

Crime and Punishment

ruppell

climber

Jul 21, 2014 - 07:19pm PT

Don Quixote.

I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the history of reading that thought it was crap.

bluering

Trad climber

Santa Clara, CA

Jul 21, 2014 - 07:42pm PT

Since literature is art, and is very subjective, I think it's wrong to make these characterizations. Different strokes and all...

For example, when it comes to sculpture I found the infamous 'David' rather nice but nearly boring (by a longshot!) to the statue of Moses, and the 'Pieta'. The latter utterly blew me away, but the Moses did to a slightly lesser extent. I've stood with 9 feet of all three and viewed them in person.

Also, outside the gallery in Florence where David stands, in the square there is the statue of Perseus proudly displaying the severed head of Medusa. Pretty cool.

I never liked the Catcher in the Rye, maybe because I was forced to read it in school.

I'll agree that I enjoyed Hemingway's 'Old Man And The Sea', but I struggled with, 'The Sun Also Rises'. Not really a "bad" read, but it was like being on a heroin-trip - numbing and slow....

Mary and Jesus in the Pieta.

It's amazing how Michelangelo made fabric look real with their textures and folds, in marble!!!! And the musculature too.

NutAgain!

Trad climber

South Pasadena, CA

Jul 21, 2014 - 07:49pm PT

Ruppel, I tried reading it in junior high school or maybe early high school, got a few hundred pages into it, and gave up. Tedious and repetitive. Maybe if I was more steeped in the romances it was satirizing, the fun would have lasted longer.

LilaBiene

Trad climber

Technically...the spawning grounds of Yosemite

Jul 21, 2014 - 08:32pm PT

Walden Pond...full of crap, that guy. Living off the land, didn't need society...until he needed a bag of nails to fix something or other. Where d'ya suppose he got the currency that paid for said nails? Poser.

Thanks to my HS AP English teacher for not making me finish it & allowing me to write a paper in support of my 17 - year - old, know - it - all self ' s opinion on the matter. ")

My mother asks me about once a year if I want to go for a walk at Walden Pond and I always remind her of my complete lack of desire to ever set foot there. Probably flat, anyway.

jgill

Boulder climber

Colorado

Jul 21, 2014 - 08:35pm PT

For me, it was Moby Dick. Thought it would be a great adventure. But it was quite boring in fact. Maybe I should have started the abridged version instead.

The Classic Comics version is pretty good.

Gal

Trad climber

going big air to fakie

Jul 21, 2014 - 09:05pm PT

I am so with you couchmaster, the great gatsby sucked so bad I hated it!!!! And any Ayn Rand trite, long winded, shallow stupidity - I only read the fountainhead and thought it so juvenile I was bummed about that time lost in my life... So glad I didn't try Atlas Shrugged just to be sure - I often like repeating mistakes. it's fun to vent about crappy books. And lol yes the bible was ridiculous, run on sentence riddled begotted rubbish.

donini

Trad climber

Ouray, Colorado

Jul 21, 2014 - 09:21pm PT

Don't know if I can sleep tonight....Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Melville have suffered on this thread. Oh well...at least I'll go with the consensus on Ayn Rand.

Gal

Trad climber

going big air to fakie

Jul 21, 2014 - 09:49pm PT

Lol Donini ;-) ...as long as you agree with the Ayn Rand consensus, you can rest well...

dave729

Trad climber

Western America

Jul 21, 2014 - 09:53pm PT

'Heather Has Two Mommies" had way to much carpet munching
for an 8 year old.

Fat Dad

Trad climber

Los Angeles, CA

Jul 21, 2014 - 10:05pm PT

I'm with Donini. Moby Dick is the best novel yet penned by an American. However, it's not a particularly linear novel. If you're expecting entertainment ala Tom Clancy, you'll be disappointed. However, there is tremendous depth and beauty throughout, you just need to know which parts to skim.

Ayn Rand is crap. Paul Ryan thinks it's literature. That should tell you all you need to know.

Fletcher

Gym climber

A very quiet place

Jul 22, 2014 - 01:05am PT

I agree with bluering... art is subjective in the way we are discussing. We bring to it as much (sometimes) as it and bring to us.

That said, I couldn't get into Moby Dick. I gave up after a few pages (ages ago). I think it helps to have had a biblical education that was more common when Melville wrote it in order to better understand the references. May have to get the Classic Comics version of it!

Never read Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, but as a child the Classic Comics version rocked. Multiple reads there.

As for the Bible, which one? Many translations and even the original texts are in different languages. The eyes of the interpreters...

In my high school days, I loved Catcher in the Rye. The know-it-all, arrogant, self-doubting, punk with a heart somehow resonated with me... hmmmm... (and I can see why it does with teens). Maybe not for the geezer set if a first read.

Walden is very influential to me and I read that in high school as well. Not a page turner, but there are some concepts I took from it that have stayed with me to this day. Thoreau was an interesting character (aren't we all?) and my favorite anecdote about him (not sure if it's true) is that while he was spending his year away in the woods, he would take his laundry to Emerson's mom for her to do. Even Emerson thought he was a total slacker and wasting his life at points. Yet he went on to directly influence MLK and Gandhi, so you never know.

The Gulag Archipelago was one of the most dense, tedious and numbering books I've ever forced myself to finish. But I think that may have been Solzhenitsyn's intent and commentary regarding those qualities of the gulag system. On the other hand, the freshness and presence of A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich made it one of my favorites. He had both ends of the spectrum down.

Eric

Tobia

Social climber

Denial

Jul 22, 2014 - 04:57am PT

Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. I failed to read it, no matter how many times I tried; I failed a literature class because of it my first year in college, thankfully the professor let me pick an alternative work and changed my grade.

Atlas Shrugged, I read Fountainhead with great interest; but couldn't read 10 pages of the other.

William Faulkner, some of his books I got into such as, As I Lay Dying; but others for example Absalom, Absalom! I couldn't finish.

Gore Vidal's Lincoln was unreadable to me.

I think a lot of it depends on where you are in life when you attempt some of these well known books. Before or after you experience certain events or milestones in life, some writings have no relevance at all. Later on, the unfathomable message is crystal clear.

Then again, some writers just stink when writing one piece and are spell-bounding in others. Thomas Wolfe comes to mind in that vain of thought, as does Ayn Rand.

justthemaid

climber

Jim Henson's Basement

Jul 22, 2014 - 06:31am PT

That's easy.. Teachings of Don Juan by Casteneda. Forced to read it in a class in college and absolutely hated it. I just didn't "get" it and found it tedious to read.

Catcher in the Rye *Yawn* I'll give that a thumbs down as well.

As a side note: I became even more dis-illusioned when Casteneda showed up in person to our classroom. Our professor was friends with him and convinced him to talk about his book... which he basically refused to do. He berated a number of the students for asking him questions. He was bizarrely confrontational/ (defensive?) the whole time an it got awkward with everyone trying to be respectful and him reacting like an arrogant jerk.

Edit to add: on Moby Dick. I came around to liking it when I got heavily into nautical history and got in the right mindset. Fascinating novel in many ways.

"Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian"

Ishmael^

TradEddie

Trad climber

Philadelphia, PA

Jul 22, 2014 - 06:40am PT

At least I finished Catcher in the rye, even if I didn't enjoy it and couldn't see what the big deal was, but there have been two books in my life I couldn't finish: Rushdie's "Enchantress of Florence" and "The Silmarillion". Both were very quickly, obviously not worth the effort.

I will also admit to skipping most of the chapter of Ulysses about the evolution of the English language, but genuinely loved the rest.

TE

justthemaid

climber

Jim Henson's Basement

Jul 22, 2014 - 06:50am PT

..Oh.. and when I was in junior high school there was that wretched Flowers in the Attic all us stupid teen-aged girls read.

Harlan Ellison describes it at "a literary tragedy" I'll have to agree.

Da-Veed

Trad climber

Bend Oregon

Jul 22, 2014 - 06:53am PT

The confederacy of Dunces.

highly acclaimed.
highly disappointing.

hobo_dan

Social climber

Minnesota

Jul 22, 2014 - 08:01am PT

Pride and Prejudice - After I finished it I knew that no book could lever stop me..............until Infinite Jest

Bad Climber

climber

Jul 22, 2014 - 08:19am PT

As an English teacher, I should love all these books, but I just can't. I'm a Hemingway fan, but I get why some people can't read him. I think Moby Dick is over-rated. It needs to be cut in half. Best American novel--ever? Really? Give me a break. Actually, saying there is ONE best novel is a silly concept anyway. I hate Mailer--boring and way too self-important. Loved Crime and Punishment, but have trouble finishing Dostoevsky's other work.

Here's a great work of American writing I think most here will like:

The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brian

A gripping, sometimes heart-wrenching treatment of the Vietnam experience, basically a short story sequence that kind of works like a novel. One of the stories that seems most improbable is actually true. Read it!

BAd

Also, shocking to admit, but I'm not a big fan of Austen. Oh, well. And what's all the froth and tizzy about T.S. Elliot's The Wasteland? Never got that one. Maybe it was the Greek....

bergbryce

climber

East Bay, CA

Jul 22, 2014 - 08:44am PT

Someone mentioned Stranger in a Strange Land, grokked that into the trash can.
Zen and Motorcycle, kept waiting for something profound to happen or enlightenment to occur, wishful thinking. I only remember the part where the son had diarrhea on the side of the road.

Dune. Couldn't get into that although I finished.

I had a 50 minute train commute many years ago and read many Russian classics and really enjoyed them.

caughtinside

Social climber

Oakland, CA

Jul 22, 2014 - 09:19am PT

A visit from the goon squad- very disappointing. Won a Pulitzer!

I also didn't care for the Handmaids Tale, although some of the reproductive rights stuff proved eerily prophetic.

Gal

Trad climber

going big air to fakie

Jul 22, 2014 - 09:37am PT

a visit from the goon squad was a total disappointment.
But the handmaids tale, on the other hand, I thought was amazingly disturbing and awesome writing. That book stayed with me, it's somewhat haunting how it's not that huge of a stretch of the imagination - as in, if all circumstances just right... humans are quite cruel.

Fat Dad

Trad climber

Los Angeles, CA

Jul 22, 2014 - 10:00am PT

While I've read a number of them, I have a hard time getting into alot of women authors: Toni Morrison, Collette, Margaret Atwood. They're good writers and all. Most of the time I just don't care what they're writing about.

I have to admit I'm more of a fan of the "canon" than many. To me, the pinnacle of the novel is represented by authors like Dostoyevsky, Melville, Faulker, Tolstoy and Joyce. Others I'm omitting, but that general crowd. While Hemingway is great, and I enjoy reading him alot, it's fluffy compared to the guys above. I think part of my love for Melville is based upon having a semester long seminar devoted just to him what an undergrad. You get a better feel for it when you first read some of Melville's travel adventures like Typee or Whitejacket. It didn't hurt to spend about three weeks just discussing Moby Dick either. But yeah, I stand by my comment that it's the best American novel yet. I think it's closest competitor is Huck Finn.

I may have posted this comment before, but back when Ray Bradbury reviewed books for the LA Times, he saw his daughter reading Moby Dick. He commented that she had just read it, and her reply was 'yeah, you need to read it once to know which parts to skip the second time'.

I think The Bible is a great read too (especially if you're reading the King James). But let's face it; it's not a novel with a narrative thread. It's random chapters with random stories and parables. You wouldn't read a book of short stories and expect them to form a straight narrative or plot. You sift through it for random gems. Whether people like it or not, it is the single most influential book on Western literature.

Surprised with all the climber types that Walden isn't more appreciated. Certainly one of the most influential books in my life and one I turn to when the world starts seeming crazy.

overwatch

climber

Jul 22, 2014 - 10:37am PT

Agony and the ecstasy

Steve Grossman

Trad climber

Seattle, WA

Jul 22, 2014 - 01:34pm PT

Hoooooooo Mann!

The Magic Mountain got a good WTF once I finished reading it. Mann recommended reading it twice if you wished to understand the work properly but I had more than enough with just a single wade through it. I do believe that he was pulling the literary world's leg.

Gal

Trad climber

going big air to fakie

Jul 22, 2014 - 09:19pm PT

I loved Huck Finn! I agree, one of the greats.

Bad Climber

climber

Jul 23, 2014 - 06:07am PT

++++1 on Magic Mountain. Ugh. I was amazed, however, at Mann's intellect. Holy cats. Still, barely readable for this stooge.

Now Twain's my man. I don't think I've disliked anything he's written. In grad school we dug into a lot of his obscure stuff, unpublished remnants, etc. --all cool and provocative in one way or another. I suggest The Devil's Racetrack for a taste of his unusual stuff. I'm also a fan of No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger.

BAd

Fat Dad

Trad climber

Los Angeles, CA

Jul 23, 2014 - 11:45am PT

I carried around a copy of the Magic Mountain for so long in the back of my car (intending to read it on road trips), that when I turned 35 (sadly, a number of years back), I put reading it on my list of things to do before I died, mostly because I lugged it around for so long. Still haven't gotten around to it.

Mann is awesome, and has other much more approachable stuff like Death in Venice, Tonio Kroger and The Buddenbrooks, which is an incredibly mature novel given that he wrote it at age 24.

I think the one book that jumps out at me as disappointing is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Maybe because I had heard so much about it, but I found it really underwhelming. I think it's gotten more traction from it's clever sounding title than the book itself.

Dolomite

climber

Anchorage

Jul 23, 2014 - 01:12pm PT

I have to admit that I like most of the books the rest of you hate. I finally read The Magic Mountain a couple years ago and am lukewarm, but glad I read it. Two books I loathe that tons of people like are Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and Steinbeck's East of Eden. Awful.

I have yet to make it through either Gravity's Rainbow or Infinite Jest, but intend to do so, some day.

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Jul 23, 2014 - 10:43pm PT

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115460/infinite-jest-ulysses-karamazov-and-other-books-you-didnt-finish

I read all of Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke.

I wept, Jesus wept, too, I think.

Thanks for letting me forget it till now. Amen.

coolrockclimberguy69

climber

Jul 23, 2014 - 11:37pm PT

Any guidebook by Cam Burns.

#shittybeta

Fletcher

Gym climber

A very quiet place

Jul 24, 2014 - 01:13pm PT

Funny, one person's fancy is another's poison. To add to the spectrum, I recall really appreciating Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Read it the summer after my freshman year in college while working as a security guard nights. Don't recall much about it specifically, though, other than it was a dad/son story which would resonate with me.

I loved the Dune books. Read them all (but not those Herbert's son wrote). They are what they are. Kind of like you are not expecting Shakespeare when you see a Michael Bay film (not that Dune is like a Michael Bay film). But don't get me started on the Dune film. Still makes me queasy to this day. Though it's probably campy now. Especially knowing how funny Kyle McLaughlin is (see Portlandia).

Eric

Gregory Crouch

Social climber

Walnut Creek, California

Jul 24, 2014 - 01:38pm PT

As for The Bible, I'll limit my yawn to The New Testament... I've always much preferred The Old.

Gravity's Rainbow crushed me. As did Atlas Shrugged. Couldn't finish either one. Although Gravity's Rainbow is a hell of a route name, courtesy of John Bragg, if I remember my Gunks history correctly.

I'd be willing to bet he finished it.