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I have made several attempts to read 'A Tale of Two Cities' and it just doesn't hold my interest. I'm going to keep trying though because it's a classic.
Also 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'. By Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I have tried many times to read this book and I can't get past the first chapter, it's confusing and boring. One of these days I will try again.
I've tried a couple of times to slog through Moby Dick. I actually like the first couple of chapters, but after that, the story comes to a complete standstill for page after page after page. I've never been able to finish it.
It took me 4 attempts to make it through Stephen King's IT. I finished it but wasn't terribly impressed. I doubt I'll ever read it again. There were parts of it that were quite good, but the whole ... not so much. It's like King wrote nine different stories, cut out bits of each, then threw all the pieces together. And parts of it were just so weird that it came across as more silly than scary.
Interesting with so many mentions of Anna Karenina (which I'm been thinking of because I've just seen the new movie version of it over the Thanksgiving weekend). I did all right with that, but it was a tougher slog for me for War and Peace - which I'd like to try again. And Moby Dick, too, which I've never even attempted.
SpringfieldVA, I hope you try 1984 again some day. I just re-read it again last year, and although I've always appreciated the story, this time I was really riveted by the language.
This happened to me with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I tried to read it 3 times and it took on the third time.
I love that book and the others that follow but on the first and second try I was lost and saying to myself "Who the heck are all these people? And why are they so odd?" ahahahahahahaha
Then there's still hope for me. I tried The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo twice and didn't get past 10 pages. Might have been wrong timing. I WILL try again, one of these days.
SpringfieldVA, I hope you try 1984 again some day. I just re-read it again last year, and although I've always appreciated the story, this time I was really riveted by the language.
I think it's more the mental imagery that I find, I don't know, uncomfortable. It's just so darned gloomy...
At the same time, I do want to get through this book, so I'm sure I'll attempt it again at some point.
I read Anna Karenina about 10 years ago and it just wasn't my thing I guess. It was such a let down after knowing it was a classic. IT by Stephen King I liked - read that years ago too - I live about 3 blocks from him and I guess knowing the places that he writes of made it interesting escapism for me.
"Tale of Two Cities" I put down after 2 or 3 chapters. Just because a book is a classic or widely read by others doesn't mean "everyone" will find it good or interesting.
One book that I have started 2 or 3 times but then put down is Peter Jenkins "Alaska". Guess I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for it at the times I started to read it. I do love all of the other books of his, starting with "Walk Across America".
I may get into "Alaska" again this week.
Moby-Dick, One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Ulysses, and Dahlgren (Samuel R Delaney) are books I have started multiple times and given up on. I keep thinking that it must be me, as these are such well-respected books.
The book that immediately came to my mind was Infinite Jest.
The first time I gave up, probably 50 pages in, I was convinced David Foster Wallace was actually jesting.
The second time I got maybe 1/3 through.
Finally finished it the third time. It's an excellent book, but I'm still debating whether or not it needed a quadrillion pages (and three attempts on my part :-D).
The Lord of the Rings was like that for years--I just knew that I'd love it if I could get into it but couldn't. I always got stuck on the birthday party, so one day I just decided to skip the b-day party and get to the meat of the book and that's all it took--I was off and running and fortunately had a 5 day vacay from work that week and got thru them all and couldn't put them down. Now I often creatively skip parts of books that don't interest me--it was the only way to survive Les Miserables. How many pages did he devote to how the sewers of Paris were built? Too many--I do know that.
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