Friday, November 12, 2010

Literary Blog Hop

Literary Blog Hop

Deb at readerbuzz has given us a great prompt for this week’s Literary Blog Hop. What is the most difficult literary work you've ever read? What made it so difficult?

I thought this would be difficult because I could only think of one book that I read recently and I didn’t know if that was fair. Then I started looking at my past reading list and found several books, so many that I didn’t know which one to pick. I think it would actually make a great Top Ten Tuesday topic over at The Broke and The Bookish. Do I pick a book that I liked, but was difficult or one I couldn’t stand pretty much all the way through? A new book or an old one?


I decided to go with one of the books, perhaps the only book, I can never find anything nice to say about, Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. I read it at a time when I was reading many classics (Dickens, the Brontës) and I just couldn’t finish it. Well, I did finish it, sort of. I read the book, but when it would get boring or the characters were too annoying I would skip chapters. I found the writing dense and the characters flat. It didn’t evoke any feelings of sympathy or anything really except annoyance. I read it years before I started blogging and though I still have my copy, I don’t think I’ll ever re-read it.

I hope I didn’t offend anyone. What was your most difficult book?

15 comments:

  1. I have read a lot of classics in my school and college years. And some still remain my favorites. However, there are a few I could never get into..


    Here is my Literary Blog Hop post!

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  2. Seems to me it was more boring than difficult for you.

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  3. Noo! Skipping chapters is like a crime! What if you missed some info or some part that would have made you like the book more?

    Also, in my opinion at least, I think that really good literary novels have much more to them then the ability to make the reader feel a certain way. But then again, some books that I recognize are good I still just DON'T like.

    Thanks for participating!

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  4. I think we find some books difficult & then years later, we reapproach them and may completely change our minds about them. You never know when that may be the case...

    I would probably give up on the book before I skipped over parts of it but then again, skimming ahead can give you incentive to keep reading if it gets better. Interesting little debate :)

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  5. Ben, boring books are difficult to read when you have to read them. But I also found the writing dense and unengaging.

    IngridLola (and everyone else), this is the only book I've ever skipped chapters. I had to read this book for a class. If it wasn't required reading, I would have put it down after the first fifty or hundred pages.

    Teacher, I've re-read other books that have changed my mind, but I so disliked this book, I don't know if I ever will. I might consider it one day... if I have nothing else to read.

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  6. hmm never read vanity fair. but I understand where you're comming from, some books are hard to get into because of the writing and characters. plenty more books out there to read instead!

    new follower :p

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  7. I have yet to read Vanity Fair-maybe the length has put me off as If i start I know I will want to finish-I really love your grey/black/white design-

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  8. This is funny! I have a bookmark on page 417 of VF, and it's been there forever. I was just plain bored. Not sure I'll be getting back to it any time soon....

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  9. I've been making the rounds on the hop and it's interesting to see how many of the "most difficult" books are members of the literary canon.

    Lovely post, Loni.

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  10. Loni, I read Vanity Fair last year, and I would largely agree with you and Ben. I found it somewhat boring and not engaging (which I think is pretty close to 'boring' too). I think my real issue with Thackeray and Vanity Fair was that it was too satirical or comic. You know I really don't mind a bit of satire in my Victorian novels, i.e., see Dickens's novels. Thackeray seemed to go over the top; it kinda bordered on the absurd.

    Would I read Vanity Fair again? Probably not. Am I glad that I read it? Yes, I am. Will I read more Thackeray? Yes, I will. I would like to read his novel Pendennis, but it is the very devil to find.

    Cheers! Chris

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  11. read this years ago, When I dfecided to work my way through my grandparents classics collection. don't think I would return to it.
    Thanks
    Parrish

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  12. Vanity Fair is a good choice. I got halfway through then lost it and never went back. Some day . . .

    I picked Finnegans Wake because it was all but incomprehensible.

    Rose City Reader

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  13. Oh dear. Vanity Fair. Never even opened that one. Don't have a clue what it's about. All I know is it's a big big book.

    Suppose I must add it to my list of books I have to read some day. If I am going to call myself a reader....

    Here's my post:
    http://readerbuzz.blogspot.com/2010/11/enchante-from-literary-blog-hop.html

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  14. I read Vanity Fair a few years ago over the summer--it is engaging only on the level of social satire, which I enjoy. But the characters are either insipid or wicked, so I found it hard to stay engaged at the level of character.

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  15. I have never read Vanity Fair and never been tempted to either.

    I think the book I found the most difficult to read was Melmoth the Wanderer by Maturin and I haven't finished it. I actually started reading it twice (each time for college) and gave up at the same moment. It's a long book and difficult to read but I really wanted to finish it the second time. I think I just had so much work and other books to read that I gave up.

    As for skipping chapters, I remember reading o's Notre-Dame de Paris for school when I was 13 and our teacher begged us to skip the third chapter and said we could go back to it later if we wanted to. The third chapter is a detailed description of the cathedral and she was afraid (rightly, I think) that we would get stuck there. I never skip chapters, but as she told us to I thought I would follow her advice...

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