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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Jul 21, 2014 - 12:08pm PT
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Catcher in the rye. I have absolutely no idea what people see in it.
TE
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Jul 21, 2014 - 12:16pm PT
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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.
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The Call Of K2 Lou
Mountain climber
North Shore, BC
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Jul 21, 2014 - 12:23pm PT
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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.
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crunch
Social climber
CO
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Jul 21, 2014 - 12:30pm PT
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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.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Jul 21, 2014 - 12:35pm PT
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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
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phylp
Trad climber
Millbrae, CA
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Jul 21, 2014 - 12:50pm PT
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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.
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Sheets
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 21, 2014 - 12:56pm PT
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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.
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crunch
Social climber
CO
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Jul 21, 2014 - 12:57pm PT
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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....
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SC seagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, or In What Time Zone Am I?
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Jul 21, 2014 - 12:57pm PT
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Confederacy of the Dunces. While I did enjoy it, I felt that it fell short of the hype.
Susan
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Baggins
Boulder climber
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Jul 21, 2014 - 01:42pm PT
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Every single yosemite guidebook
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bentelbow
climber
spud state
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Jul 21, 2014 - 02:16pm PT
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, made my head hurt after half way. Never could pick it back up again.
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TrundleBum
Trad climber
Las Vegas
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Jul 21, 2014 - 02:16pm PT
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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 :)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jul 21, 2014 - 02:49pm PT
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"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.
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pb
Sport climber
Sonora Ca
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Jul 21, 2014 - 07:11pm PT
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Crime and Punishment
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ruppell
climber
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Jul 21, 2014 - 07:19pm PT
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Don Quixote.
I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the history of reading that thought it was crap.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jul 21, 2014 - 07:42pm PT
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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.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Jul 21, 2014 - 07:49pm PT
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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.
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LilaBiene
Trad climber
Technically...the spawning grounds of Yosemite
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Jul 21, 2014 - 08:32pm PT
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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.
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jul 21, 2014 - 08:35pm PT
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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.
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Gal
Trad climber
going big air to fakie
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Jul 21, 2014 - 09:05pm PT
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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.
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