<p>If i dont like the book I sparknotes</p>
<p>Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham. My God, I thought I'd never get through that.</p>
<p>The most painful reading experience I've ever had was Conrad's Nostromo. I've read and enjoyed most of the books hated by other people on this thread, but I thought Nostromo was going to kill me. My second least favorite was probably The Brothers Karamazov; however, I recently dipped into the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation and it was unrecognizable: lively, readable prose! I think I must have suffered through the Garnett version before. I'm thinking about embarking on a reread of all of the major Russian authors translated by P/V.</p>
<p>Sir Gawain and the Green Knight depends a lot on the translation, also. Some are just too formal, like Garnett: they suck all the life out of it. You would never guess, reading a Garnett translation, that Dostoyevski was renowned for his ability to write different characters in different voices. They all sound horribly and boringly alike.</p>
<p>Faulkner stream of consciousness I simply cannot abide.</p>
<p>The Bean Trees...a chick novel
The whole dialogue was something like
"blah blah blah men suck blah blah blah men are stupid blah blah blah women are so much cooler than men blah blah blah blah blah complain blah blah complain complain blah blah</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham. My God, I thought I'd never get through that.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>It was difficult, but when I finally finished, I really thought I'd gained a lot from it.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight depends a lot on the translation, also. Some are just too formal, like Garnett: they suck all the life out of it.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Translations? Bah! I spit at translations.</p>
<p>Wow that is why Crime and Punishment is sucking! I just checked and guess what? Garnett</p>
<p>Wow, a lot of American/Russian literature. I hated Things Fall Apart and Dom Casmurro. From what I remember of Things Fall Apart, it was pretty much misogyny misogyny yam foofoo! Ugh, how it ends up on so many "Top 100 books" lists...</p>
<p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>high five *</li>
</ul>
<p>scarlet letter was like wading through molasses. boooooooring.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wow, a lot of American/Russian literature. I hated Things Fall Apart and Dom Casmurro. From what I remember of Things Fall Apart, it was pretty much misogyny misogyny yam foofoo! Ugh, how it ends up on so many "Top 100 books" lists...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That was one of the reasons I loooved taking Focus on Women in Literature last year. :) We got to talk about the emphasis a book placed on women (or lackthereof). It was great.</p>
<p>In difficulty's terms, The Bible is actually pretty difficult (I'm taking Bible as Lit for my senior english elective)...but there's also a lot of really good meaning to it.</p>
<p>"A World Lit Only By Fire" by William Manchester over the summer. It was for Global, and I only got through twenty pages. I didn't start it until school started, and once real class got underway and the book was forgotten I quit. I rarely stop reading books, but this one was just terrible.</p>
<p>Also, "Treasure Island" was so hard for me to read in eighth grade. I just really hated it with a passion. I did finish it, though, and that only made me hate it more. </p>
<p>In Religion class, I get bored by most Bible stories. The story content could be interesting, but the way it's written is not (kind of like the writing in "Lord of the Flies", actually). It also depends on who's reading it and more often than not it's someone with a droning voice. It's better if I read it to myself.</p>
<p>Wow, there's a lot of hate on here for Pride and Predjuice...I loved it myself, but some of it went over my head because I read it in fifth grade.</p>
<p>I love Jane Eyre, I thought it was amazing! Especially the end.</p>
<p>I can't believe no one has thrown this out there yet, but I absoutely hated Anna Karenina. I am proud of myself for reading (and understanding) it as an eighth grader, but I seriouslly wanted to murder Anna by the end (before, you know, she did it herself) and I thought Levin pretty much sucked the joy out of life. Russian writers are, in my experience, completely depressing and mind-numbing.</p>
<p>Consolation, I always thought that I just didn't like Dostoevsky because The Brothers Karamazov was soooo boring. I went back to see which translation I had read and sure enough, it was Garnett. I am in the middle of Anna Karenina, translated by P/V, and I love it. I think I'll give Dostoevsky another chance.</p>
<p>Wuthering Heights. I actually kind of liked the first five chapters or so, but then it started sucking. We're still reading it, about halfway through, and it just seems dreadfully boring. The whole storyteller structure absolutely takes me out of it.</p>
<p>I've failed a few times in trying to read Jane Austen's books (such as Pride and Prejudice (if "poshy" is a word, I'd say "Pride and Prejudice is too poshy!")). Might be able to "succeed" if I take AP English next year. I don't know why, but Catch 22 doesn't get to me. I know it should be enjoyable (at least, that's what people say), but to me, it's too... too... roundabout... Still, I have yet to read some of the books you've mentioned... Although I didn't find The Grapes of Wrath that bad.</p>
<p>I've started reading The Scarlet Letter, and progress has been extremely slow. It is a bit too detailed... I may end up wishing I could've found Song of Solomon instead of The Scarlet Letter at the library... Or it may be the other way around... :P</p>
<p>The Log From the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck. I read it for fun, but quickly passed it on after a chapter for something I didn't have to think so much for. I know that it sounds shallow, but I haven't been able to get a good "reading session" of more than ten minutes since Sophomore year, and that book demanded too much thinking power to be processed in five-minute bursts. I traded it for The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy. Greatest Book Ever!</p>
<p>I totally agree about The Scarlet Letter. Could Hawthorne be anymore dry? Or maybe it was because he was writing about Puritans, which gets extremely depressing to all those that haven't read it yet.</p>
<p>The Plague by Albert Camus...oh my dear god, i couldn't read more than 5 pages without falling asleep!</p>
<p>I liked The Scarlet Letter. I think I must be the only one. Once you get past the first chapter (which really has nothing to do with the rest of the book), it's okay.</p>
<p>And yeah, mairoula, I hate Camus too. My brother loves him and talks about him all the time.</p>
<p>On the flip side of things, Italo Calvino's The Baron in the Trees is probably the best, most light-hearted books I've ever read in an English class.</p>
<p>I hate Reading...i really do...
but some of the worst books I've every had to read...were
Romeo and Juliet
Othello
and
The Odyssey</p>