Hard read

[mckenney99]

I was forced to read certain books in a college prep high school class. I absolutely hated Tale of Two Cities, Animal Farm, Watership Down, Diary of Anne Frank and others that I have traumatically blocked from my memory.
I butted heads constantly with the teacher over the supposed symbolism underneath the written words. When I asked the teacher HOW she knew certain characters and passages were supposed to represent something other than what was actually written she would huff and puff. When I had the gall to ask her if she had spoken to the author or could she provide the authors notes reference the claimed symbolism, I was considered a trouble maker. The teacher constantly insisted that I needed to accept her interpretation of the writings and when I balked she attempted to punish me by having me stay after school. That however didn't fly because I worked a full-time job and was released from school everyday early to go to my job.
I probably would have failed the course if it weren't for the fact that the teacher was my Grandmothers next door neighbor.
It wasn't until I got into college and I discovered the early writings of Stephen King and a few other writers that got me back into reading FOR FUN again.

 

[steelslaver]

I have read a lot. Several of the "classics" have left me wondering about the actual meaning of the word "classic.

One of m favorite Authors was James A. Michener, he was wordy, but a least he was painting a picture. His book Caravans written in 1963C predicted both Russia and the US would become involved in Afghanistan. I liked Steinbeck, but it took a while to get used to his methods. Clavell is another favorite.

 

[sjmjax]

Atlas Shrugged was a life changing read for me.

But, I've long contended that she could have greatly benefited from a good editor. She tended to be unnecessarily long winded.

 

[gym cat]

Reading is to be enjoyed. It shouldn't be like an unpleasant homework assignment.

I'm not sure I ever had a pleasant one!!!!!

 

[lkabug]

I enjoy reading. I read a lot, having said that, I'll say if I don't enjoy the book, article, or whatever I will but it down. As I told my son and daughter many years ago. "Read, Read, Read. You can take a vacation without ever leaving home. Read to learn, read to enjoy"
I have read many of the classics, I can't say I enjoyed all of them.

 

[Kinman]

I've gotten to the point where I have read most of the great fiction and tend to read more non-fiction and historical books of particular interest. A friend recommended "Legacy of Ashes" and "The Mission" written by Tim Weiner. I'm well into Legacy of Ashes and have a hard time putting it down. It points out the abject failure of the CIA to provide anything close to what its original intention was basically to be able to give the president concise information on what is going on at any time and place. The wasted Billions of dollars that in most cases ended up in the hands of the communists and others we were dealing with, not to mention the debacle in Iran and Syria. For those of us that are ill informed about this particular time and history of the US I find it a very good read and will of course do my share of fact checking and now that so much of this information has been released it is available. I'm just getting into the McCarthy era and the end of the Eisenhower administration.
I order them and read them at my leisure on a Kindle, I got so caught up the other night I ran the battery down, plugged it in and kept reading.

 

[Muddyboot]

I tried Milton. He's tough with a capital "T." Paradise Lost is one of the most boring things I ever trudged through with some gems but lots of extremely wordy filler. Pass on any more Milton. I found "The Inferno" fascinating and it probably matters what translation you read. Heavy but wonderful and one of those books you're afraid you're gonna finish too soon - helps if you know a bit of medieval and Renaissance Italian history as to the characters involved. Dostoevsky is worth the effort especially "The Brothers Karamazov." No better analysis of the human condition than Dostoevsky. Get over him being Russian.

Another one that is deeper than the Marianas Trench is Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship" if you're interested in Christian philosophy. I typically read a couple pages, put it down and contemplate what I'm trying to absorb, then pick it up again a day later, reread the last three pages and then move on to another three to six, repeat. I love books that make me do that.

And don't sell "Atlas Shrugged" short for a more modern novel with real substance. Any Rand penned a real masterpiece in my opinion. I wish everyone had to read Atlas Shrugged to graduate from high school.

Bryan

I've read" Atlas Shrugged" and enjoyed it. Thanks for the recommendation on some of the other books, I'll add them to my list.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship" looks right up my ally.

 

[Muddyboot]

That is about the best explanation I've seen.

I remember reading The Scarlet Letter in 10th grade English. I don't know if Hawthorne ever wrote anything else, but I will never read it because I don't like the way the man writes.

I've seen two movies of The Last of the Mohicans. It looks like an enjoyable story. I can't get through Fenimore Cooper's writing. I don't like the way Steinbeck writes. I don't like the way Hemingway writes.

These all might be great authors, and the books they write might be literary classics. But if I got to force myself to read them?? I read for pleasure. If I don't enjoy it, I don't do it.

Though I don't always enjoy the books I read, I still think I get something out of them. It's hard to explain, but the struggle to me
is a form of discipline and finishing what I started, difficult or not.

 

[biku324]

I tried Milton. He's tough with a capital "T." Paradise Lost is one of the most boring things I ever trudged through with some gems but lots of extremely wordy filler. Pass on any more Milton. I found "The Inferno" fascinating and it probably matters what translation you read. Heavy but wonderful and one of those books you're afraid you're gonna finish too soon - helps if you know a bit of medieval and Renaissance Italian history as to the characters involved. Dostoevsky is worth the effort especially "The Brothers Karamazov." No better analysis of the human condition than Dostoevsky. Get over him being Russian.

Another one that is deeper than the Marianas Trench is Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship" if you're interested in Christian philosophy. I typically read a couple pages, put it down and contemplate what I'm trying to absorb, then pick it up again a day later, reread the last three pages and then move on to another three to six, repeat. I love books that make me do that.

And don't sell "Atlas Shrugged" short for a more modern novel with real substance. Any Rand penned a real masterpiece in my opinion. I wish everyone had to read Atlas Shrugged to graduate from high school.

Bryan

'The Grand Inquisitor' sub-book in the Brothers Karamazov could have been written yesterday.

The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Grand Inquisitor, by Feodor Dostoevsky

 

[Muddyboot]

I read many of those classics as a younger man. These days I find myself gravitating more toward "lighter" material with one exception - The Holy Bible.

I find the Old Testament a little more difficult the new but still read it often.

 

[ACORN]

Somewhere I got a paperback copy of "Crime and Punishment". IIRC it was about 900 pages. I got to about page 800.
I was at my former business partners home one evening, and the conversation got to what we were reading. I mentioned I was reading C&P. My partner asked what is it about, and his wife tells him the whole story, including the end.
Totally ruined it for me.
I never looked at it again.

 

[Rustyt1953]

I initially struggled with Moby Dick, The Gulag Archipelago and Atlas Shrugged but I told myself to let the authors take me where they will.

And they did.

 

[Muddyboot]

Many decades ago when I was in university I did an Italian Literature in Translation course which was The Divine Comedy. I still have my textbooks, the translations by Dorothy L. Sayers (except the last, which I think was completed by someone else after her death.) An extraordinary work. Dante pretty much "set" the Italian language, with the result that a modern Italian can read Dante with relatively little difficulty, compared to us trying to read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which was written 80 years later.

We probably did parts of Paradise Lost in school but I don't remember much about it.

Now when you've cut your teeth on your current literature, take a deep breath and start chewing on some James Joyce (!)

All in good time if I live long enough.

 

[Muddyboot]

The Art of War by Sun Tzu translated from works dating back to ~500 B.C. is a little hard to follow sometimes. Still wading through it.

Read that one too, as well as Clausewitz.

 

[SMSgt]

I'm a bit of a Wizard of Oz fan, so my wife bought me the book Wicked. The author, Gregory Maguire, has a distinct writing style that was initially confusing. The more I read, the more attracted to the style I became. I ended up reading all his books.

 

[ezb57]

I have a set of several John Ruskin books that I wanted so much to enjoy, and I persevered for a bit; alas, the 5-6 line sentences proved too much for me and I reverted to easier things.

 

[Retired W4]

I still have my copy of How To Talk Dirty and Influence People. Lenny was so whacked out he wandered a lot. I also have his LP, Lenny Bruce: an American. HILARIOUS!!!

Another strange book by another drugged out author, Cocaine Papers by Sigmund Freud. My copy was presented by Merck, Sharp & Dohme, 1975. E. Merck supplied Freud with his cocaine in 1884, and Coco-cola up until 1903.

 

[Golddollar]

I read many of those classics as a younger man.

So did I. Classics Illustrated.

 

[quikdraw67]

Farenheit 451. Ray Bradbury is almost a prophet in my eyes.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

There's a lot to be said for writers-and speakers-who get right to the point. November 19, 1863-the dedication of Gettysburg National Cemetery. The featured speaker was Edward Everett, one the great orators of the day, Lincoln was invited almost as an afterthought. Everett spoke for 2 hours, Lincoln for 2 minutes. The next day Everett sent Lincoln a note in which he said:
"I should flatter myself if I thought I came as near the central point of the occasion in 2 hours, as you did in 2 minutes."

 

[Riposte1]

Haven't read any Milton as yet, but I have read a lot of other classics including a lot of non-fiction by the likes of Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, Frederic Bastiat, and others. Yes, these can take some effort to get through, but I find it worthwhile. I quite enjoyed The Divine Comedy, despite the effort involved in reading it.

I guess it's a question of what it means to "enjoy" reading something. Many of these books are not what I would call "fun" to read, not in the way that a Louis L'Amour novel is, but in the end I am glad that I have read them and so would say that I enjoyed the experience.

I've read Milton, or at least about him: Jeff Milton, a good man with a gun by J. Evetts Haley - https://www.amazon.com/Jeff-Milton-Good-Man-Gun/dp/0806117567

Oddly he was a distant cousin of John Milton, I read him too (in the 7th or 8th grade), found it less interesting but we each have our own tastes.

Riposte

 

[TXBryan]

As an aside; have you ever seen a movie, liked it, and then read the book it was based on - only to discover little or no similarity? I can name a few candidates for best creative screenwriting taking significant liberties from the book.

Forrest Gump by Winston Groom. The book and the movie bear almost no resemblance to one another. And apparently Groom did not care for the movie.

Several of the 007 novels by Ian Fleming. Sounds trite but most of his novels are better than the movies with considerably more insight into the mind-set of the espionage game. Fleming is both artful and easy to read.

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett. Love the movies with William Powell and Myrna Loy but the original novel is a bit different and has "main" characters either not mentioned or glossed over in the movie. I know, time constraints.

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Watched the movie dozens of times. Finally read the book and actually understood what was going on.

Point is if you like a movie give the book a try. It may be quite different and it just may be lots better.

P.S. Don't think they've been mentioned but it's hard to imagine forum members not loving the Stephen Hunter series on Bob Lee Swagger. All 12 of them are quite good with the first several being absolutely riveting. Novels for gun guys, and all of them better than the resulting movies no matter how much you like watching them (and I do).

Bryan

 

[16thVACav]

While in college, I spent many a late night reading and trying to understand the album cover from Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick".

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

Tried reading the Manhattan White Pages once. Incredible cast of characters but no plot.
Margaret Mitchell felt they prettied up Gone with the Wind too much, turned it into a "gentle Confederate novel" of the "moonlight and magnolias " genre. James Jones said they did the same to From Here to Eternity. To get the Army's cooperation to film at Schofield Barracks for the 1953 movie the profanity had to eliminated, Jones' homosexual allusions are also eliminated, in the book the Donna Reed character-Lorene- is a prostitute, in the movie she's a hostess in a private social club.
I found The Gulag Archipelago a terrific read, though having studied Russian and read so much on the Stalinist Era many of the terms and allusions and references are familiar to me. I remember Solzhenitsyn's description of the White Sea-Baltic Canal, and his admonition to the reader:
"So each time your ride on the canal in a motorboat-think of those who lie on its bottom."

 

[jeffrefrig]

We were condemned to read Moby Dick and Last..Mohicans. Awful! Thank God for Cliff's notes. We had to pick a book to read and do a report for any real book. I chose Dracula, Bram Stoker I believe. It was the worst book I ever tried to read. I payed a friend to do the report for me. Money well spent.

 

[smithman 10]

In the case of From Here to Eternity I have to say I'll take the film anytime over the novel.

My advice to all authors is - make it shorter. I don't have time to read any book more than an inch thick.

The wife did read Atlas Shrugged and some of the long-winded Russian novelists but I never did.

Just give me a crime novel by Elmore Leonard, where half the content is dialogue that sounds like it might actually have been spoken and I'm happy these days.

Now in my youth I did read a lot. I recall clearly my first visit to the elementary school library thinking, "Wow, all I have to do is read all the books here and I'll know everything!"

Alas, the libraries kept getting bigger and I fell ever farther behind.

What's interesting to me in my senior years is remembering all the books I read that in hindsight I realize did me more harm them good. For instance, anything by J.D. Salinger. The poor man was suffering from WWII PTSD and it showed in everything he wrote. As a youngster, Catcher in the Rye likely did more to screw up my generation than any other book.

But some of my favorite authors were and are: Hemingway, Orwell, J.P. Donleavy, Raymond Chandler, Churchill for his memoirs of WWII, Bruce Catton for his books on the Civil War - A Stillness at Appomattox I must have read 10 times. My father grew up at a wide place in the road called Spout Spring, just a few miles from where Lee and Grant called it quits. Our relations from out there, when they talked about "the war", were referring to the "late unpleasantness" between North and South, not WWII.

Now at 78 I have a mental list of all the books or authors I think I should have read but did not and likely never will. That damn library just keeps on getting bigger!

 

[Rustyt1953]

Getting back to the classics, Moby Dick and Last of the Mohicans are two of my favorite re-reads with the following movies being excellent.

Now, when I read those books, I hear Gregory Peck and Daniel Day Lewis.

 

[Marshwheeling]

Thomas Pynchon is at writer admire, but sometimes have difficulty finishing. Gravity's Rainbow is a brilliant book. I ate it up the first time through, but bogged down about a hundred pages in the next time I tried it. I started "V" five times, but only finished it three. Mason and Dixon and Against the Day I started but have not yet been able to finish.

John Fowles is another writer I have had trouble finishing. I have to be in the right mood.

These days I do not feel obligated to finish every book I start. Lots of times, I will get part way through a book and decide it is just not worth finishing. This is different from the books I bog down in, but feel some obligation or intent to get back to them and finish them, someday.

 

[Muddyboot]

While in college, I spent many a late night reading and trying to understand the album cover from Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick".

Did you ever figure it out, or does it still elude you?

 

[Muddyboot]

As an aside; have you ever seen a movie, liked it, and then read the book it was based on - only to discover little or no similarity? I can name a few candidates for best creative screenwriting taking significant liberties from the book.

Forrest Gump by Winston Groom. The book and the movie bear almost no resemblance to one another. And apparently Groom did not care for the movie.

Several of the 007 novels by Ian Fleming. Sounds trite but most of his novels are better than the movies with considerably more insight into the mind-set of the espionage game. Fleming is both artful and easy to read.

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett. Love the movies with William Powell and Myrna Loy but the original novel is a bit different and has "main" characters either not mentioned or glossed over in the movie. I know, time constraints.

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Watched the movie dozens of times. Finally read the book and actually understood what was going on.

Point is if you like a movie give the book a try. It may be quite different and it just may be lots better.

P.S. Don't think they've been mentioned but it's hard to imagine forum members not loving the Stephen Hunter series on Bob Lee Swagger. All 12 of them are quite good with the first several being absolutely riveting. Novels for gun guys, and all of them better than the resulting movies no matter how much you like watching them (and I do).

Bryan

Hunter needs to go back in time and do some more Earl Swagger books.