What renowned author don’t you enjoy?
What renowned author don’t you enjoy?
For me it’s Charles Dickens. As it Christmas time I decided to read A Christmas Carol, and I don’t care for his writing at all. I wasn’t impressed by Oliver Twist or The Old Curiosity Shop. I know he is regarded as a master of literature yet I found his style rather dull and his chracters quite forgettable. I know I’m most likely going to be regarded as some heathen yet I don’t see the fuss over Dickens.
stephen king
@Sylvia YES! I don’t find his books scary at all. I only enjoyed The Shining but I think it’s because I was inputting things I’d seen in Stanley Kubrick’s movie into the book. He is kindof cheesy and predictable to me.
just my thoughts too. I liked Dolores Claibourne, just because it was rather carthartic, and ended well for the characters I cared about. But his other stuff… meh
Have you read Bleak House? It might be the one Dickens that you like, I thought it was pretty good anyway.
David Copperfield is one of my all time favorite books but I can’t get into most of the others.
Five years ago I bought an audio version of A Christmas Carol. Every year, I try to listen to it. Every year, I fail.
For me it’s A Tale of Two Cities that I like and I can’t get into the rest of them.
@Sally Love David Copperfield and I read a Christmas Carol every Christmas Eve.
@Casey I’ve never tried a Tale of Two Cities. I need too.
@Ruth I will try it again this year. I love the actual story, all movie versions so I think it’s not the book, it’s me
I loved David Copperfield and always felt it was Dickens best book. Uriah Heep may be my favorite fictional character. But, while I’ve read most of Dickens work, none of them grabbed me like Copperfield. I do think though that even though he wrote his books before the invention of motion pictures, his books translate into movies almost better than any other classic author I can think of.
Ernest Hemingway
I agree. I don’t like his writing style, at all.
I came here to say this. I couldn’t even finish The Old Man and the Sea, despite it only being about 100 pages long.
@Sarah I seem to recall back in the dark ages in high school being required to read several of his books and it was sheer agony for me! Maybe if I reread them now I’d have a different opinion….maybe….or maybe not….?
Same, but I’m not sure if it’s because I read a quick bio on him first and decided I didn’t like his personality ?
Me too, Stephen King
Jodi Picoult. Although she’s a very good writer, her books make me utterly depressed and sad.
Agreed! I can’t deal with so much angst in my life!
I don’t understand the regard Virginia Woolf is held in (although I did enjoy parts of Orlando and Mrs Dalloway).
Agreed. I hated To the Lighthouse.
James Miles, you might like “Hard Times”, which is atypical of Dickens in its sense of structure and lack of sentiment.
Martina Cole lol
@James I agree with you perfectly. I love to see his stuff made into films and TV programmes but his writing style is turgid
Hemmingway
William Faulkner
I agree with you on Dickens……disliked everything I read. I often wonder if I was not MADE to read him in school, I might have a different opinion. Of course, I was MADE to read others in school that I loved. So no…..Dickens suxs…..tee hee.
George Eliot (real name Mary Anne Evans)-I have tried to read several of her books including Middlemarch and The Mill on the Floss (it was a book my reading group were reading) but I have up as I just didn’t feel gripped at all by the stories or writing. She is supposed to be one of the greatest English classic novelists but I just can’t see it. I am going to give her one last chance by trying to read Daniel Deronda. I actually love Dickens despite his wordiness and variety of characters (and often one-dimensional characters)-but I’m not the biggest fan of Great Expectations.
@Becky perhaps try Silas Marner one of my favourites x
Faulkner. Just can’t get into a single book.
@Melody some people say his style is innovative. I say he was too cheap to hire an editor.
@Casey — hahaha! I love it! Sounds about right, yep.
That’s it exactly. Although I read The Reviers and it borders on enjoyable. And it’s not written like any of his. Normal sentence structure, narrative that makes sense.
I’ve never actually read one of Dickens books so I probably would be in the same category.
Jane Austen ?
@Janet I came on to say the same ?
Jodi Picoult
You are not alone. I, too, struggle with his writing. I keep trying to convince myself to try again, now that I’m older and wiser, but can’t quite bring myself to do it.
Stephen King. Blech ?
Absolutely disagree with every word you wrote. For me Dickens is king ?
Love Dickens, Eliot, Hemingway & Faulkner! Loved the formal, sophisticated style of writing. These writers were of a time when reading was not in competition with other forms of entertainment & social interaction was minimal.
I agree; however, I would replace Hemingway with Steinbeck.
@Patricia oh, no, l forgot to include Steinbeck!!! Love, love, love him!! East of Eden, one of my favorites!
@Sherry mine too.
@Sherry And Of Mice and Men
@Jean ???❤️
@Patricia Grapes of Wrath!!!! ❤️❤️❤️
Ernest Hemingway.
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I don’t care for Shakespeare. On the other hand, I love Dickens.
@Patricia Tolkein didn’t care for Shakespeare either!
Much of Shakespeare isn’t meant to be read. Try reading it aloud instead!
Don’t be embarrassed. Shakespeare’s language is difficult for a modern reader. i took classes on Shakespeare in high school and college, which made him accessible, but I prefer to see the plays performed rather than reading them. The rhythm and sound of his words are beautiful. An example from Romeo and Juliet – Juliet’s words when she learns Romeo has killed her cousin, Tybalt, in a swordfight:
“O serpent heart hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical!
Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despisèd substance of divinest show,
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st.
A damnèd saint, an honorable villain!”
@Jean I don’t have difficulty with the language and even enjoy the sonnets. I also took Shakespeare in college. I just don’t care for the plays.
@Patricia I’m sorry that I assumed language was the issue. It often is for people who don’t like Shakespeare.
I think sometimes Shakespearean actors tend to be somewhat wooden in their delivery, removing the human part of the characters. Is that part of it, or do you just not like the plots/characters, etc?
I don’t like them all, but I do like Romeo and Juliet (to read and Franco Zefferelli’s movie), Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Richard III, Julius Caesar. (Apparently I lean toward the tragedies.). I try to watch them in movies or the theater as often as possible because they are plays and were meant to be performed.
@Jean If I had to choose a favorite, it would be “the Merchant of Venice.” If I had to choose one I truly dislike it would be “Romeo and Juliet.” And, it is partly the plot. I’m not interested in young teenagers’ love. If I recall, Juliet was thirteen. Not sure about Romeo, but assuming a bit older.
@Patricia I like The Merchant of Venice, too. My first pet was named Portia.
I believe Romeo is older than Juliet, but Shakespeare doesn’t specify his age. One of the reasons I like the Zefferelli movie is that the actors were the appropriate age for the parts. Also, it’s beautiful visually and the musical score is perfect for the mood of the play.
I just love some of the poetic language in R&J, such as this.
“Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.”
At any rate, different strokes for different folks!
I love Dickens, too!
@Jean Cute name for your pet. My pomeranian was named Prufrock. I guess I prefer T. S. Eliot.
@Patricia What a cute name. We have T.S. Eliot in common. It sounds like you are a poetry lover.
@Jean I have been my entire life.
@Patricia I used to be, but got out of the habit. My husband found an old book of American poets, so my plan is to start up again.
Cormac McCarthy
Jane Austen. I hated having to read her in school .
Somerset Maugham. I hated Of Human Bondage
I liked W. Somerset Maugham. Especially “The Razor’s Edge” and “The Moon and Sixpence.”
I’m reading The Painted Veil right now, and I am liking it very much.
@Patricia Of Human Bondage! Had that as a new paperback and carried it all through high school !! (very raggedy by graduation) ❤️
Loved Dickens when I was a kid and David Copperfield was one of my favorites
Edith Wharton
Stephen King
F. Scott Fitzgerald. A boyfriend gave me The Great Gatsby and I totally disliked it.
Also not a fan.
@MaryAnn hated Gatsby along with Catcher in The Rye. Never understood the appeal of either of them.
@MaryAnn agreed
@Patricia I think Catcher is something I should have read as a teenager. Read it in my 60s for the first time and it just irritated me.
I read The Great Gatsby and thought Fitzgerald was just a less good Françoise Sagan. She wrote about the same sort of people but with humour.
The Great Gatsby is one of my favorites, but not the first time I read it. Each time I read it, I see more in it in terms of symbolism and theme.
@MaryAnn my granddaughter just read it at 15 and felt the same.
@Judith I remember feeling the same way when I read it when I was younger. I didn’t get all the self-pity.
@Jean I have to chuckle. My brother teaches literature in college. He keeps telling me to read Fitzgerald over and over. I told him I’m too damn old to read the same book over and over. It’s been a running joke between us for years. On the other hand, I love Thomas Hardy and he does not. It’s all very subjective.
I agree. It is chock full of symbolism but literally had to read it aloud because I could not for the life of me finish it otherwise.
I love Dickens, but H. D. Thoreau–ugh.
Tolstoy. I just can’t enjoy his writing no matter how hard I try.
@Amy I always wonder if translated stuff would be a more enjoyable read in the original language.
@Casey I think so.
I feel exactly the same way about Dickens. I tried Joyce as well, and don’t care for him either.
I too tried reading Dickens, years ago. Perhaps had I been British and much older at the time, I’d have had an easier time. Oh well. I can’t read Nathaniel Hawthorne for the same reasons.
@Renee I’m British so it’s not that.
James Miles Yes, but you are a modern Brit. Dickens wrote as they spoke in his day, times have mightily changed.
@Renee yet I enjoy works from that time. I read authors from the 1800’s, I am a huge fan of Lawrence as well, H.G Wells as well.
I love Dickens and I think he created some memorable characters – Scrooge, Miss Haversham, Madama Defarge, the Artful Dodger,etc. I can see where he might not appeal, though.
The renowned writer I don’t enjoy is Virginia Wolfe, especially To the Lighthouse – tedious and disappointing.
Shakespeare and Dan Brown
blasphemy
Stephen King………..I don’t get into horror and gory stories. Also JK Rowling …… I’m not into Harry Potter.
Oliver twist was a bit tolerable for me. But Christmas carol was very dull indeed.
Elizabeth Gilbert is mine
I’m not a Dickens fan either. And I find it difficult to read Stephen King as well.
James Fenimore Cooper, although Mark Twain’s description of his writing is hysterical
I forgot him. I slogged through The Last of the Mohicans to the point that I didn’t care if they all died off.
Hemingway and Faulkner. Read two Hemingway and that was two two many. Trieies Faulkner and couldn’t even get through one. Oh, and Virginia Woolf. I like Dickens.
I don’t like dickens. There was one I was suppose to read for English class, don’t even remember what it was. Didin’t like it and didn’t read it.
William Faulkner. I forced myself to finish As I Lay Dying because I’m a completist, but it took me four years! LOL
@Kathy Absalom, Absalom is one of two books I was assigned to read in high school that I couldn’t finish.
The other was Catcher in the Rye.
It’s a source of consternation for me. I’m an English major and former English teacher. I feel compelled to love him, but I just can’t.
Jack London
Oh my aching heart! For me Dickens and Tolstoy require patients, and the writing is anachronistic for our age, but still worth the effort. Yes, their tangents can go on for pages, having nothing to do with the plot, but I still wanted to go there. The “renown author” that makes me wince when see it on a list of “best books…” list is Ayn Rand. Yes I went through a stage in college, but got over it!
@Rebecca do you have a favorite Dickens novel, and if so, what do you like about it? I ask because I want to read one. I have read and liked A Christmas Carol, but the long books kind of scare me.
Weeeell. My favorite is without a doubt A Tale of Two Cities. Also Nicholas Nickleby
Steinbeck
I feel the same about Dickens.
ugh….never did like him. Unless of course it was a movie version of A Christmas Carol or Great Expectations
Tolstoy and Anne McCaffrey.
Hemingway.
Thank you for say that first!
I tried so hard, but it was so frustrating.
I don’t like Hemingway either.
Jane Austen. Love her stories and her characters, but I cannot make it through her writing.
I agree about Dickens. He has great vocabulary, but uses too much of it. Tolstoy is another one with too many words. The wordy Victorians are just hard to follow and care about.
I despise Dickens. Soap opera stuff with horrible female character swooning all over the place and they just won’t die!
One of the things to keep in mind about Dickens’ Stories, is that many of them were originally published serially – a chapter or two at a time in a magazine — so it is not surprising that they would have been written episodically, similarly to the TV Soap Operas of today.
I know. Cough cough. Too much reading in one sitting would probably melt my tiny, feeble, female brain. I think I shall swoon in front of this wealthy man’s house. Maybe he can save me!
Sorry. I love Dickens. Yes, it’s often “soap opera stuff” because modern soaps and sitcoms get their ideas from him whether they admit it or not. Read his autobiography fragments to get a better insight into his writing.
I haven’t read any Dickens recently but when I did I loved all the books. Although maybe not A Christmas Carol, which I never read. David Copperfield is my favorite.
I love Dickens as I can see him in so many of the scenarios and the dark/ light side of his characters. I also feel his messages of greed, bureaucracy, the poor are timely for today and always.
I don’t get F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Herman Melville
YES. Terrible. Totally agree with you!
I only read Dickens in high school English class as required. His work didn’t appeal to me enough to read more. Mark Twain was much the same. I don’t relate to the characters. My dad, who grew up in Missouri liked some of the stories. It’s not suprising that I didn’t relate because of the age of the literature. Most of the writers we had to read in high school and college, at least up through the 80s and 90s, were white males unless one took a specialty class. And it was primarily classic European literature, especially in high school.
I’m with you, James.
Hemingway
Ken Follett. Ian McEwan. (Love Dickens, though!?)
I didn’t like a tale of two cities when I read it for the first time. I read it again 13 years later. There was so much in that book that I missed earlier. Sometimes, it’s not about the book/author but how you receive the the writing.
This post makes me so sad :/
@Vivek , me too.
I love Dickens, but if I remember correctly he got paid by the word because his novels were serialized in a newspaper, so that may be part of why they are so wordy.
He owned his own magazine called “All the Year Round.”
I like “Bleak House” and then “A Tale of Two Cities”. I largely agree with you about the unnecessary fuss but when they are good they are very good.
i loved A Tale of Two Cities
I agree with you on a Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist but I have to say, Great Expectations was one of my favorite books and I read it when I was very young. I think that it is hit and miss when it comes to Dickens.
Neil Gaimon
I think Dickens is great if you embrace it as trash. It’s meant to be easy reading. But he did introduce some good politics and insight into social hierarchies. But it was never intended to be high brow.
I’m currently reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and wondering what on earth all the fuss was about…Ashamed to say I feel the same about Hunter S Thompson. Groan.
@Chloe likewise, I was so disappointed with On The Road, apparently it was very inspiring to some creative folks, such as Dylan, whom I highly respect. To moi tho, it was ho hum, not groovy or ground-breaking as I expected at all. Btw, favorite Dickens so far, Great Expectations. Luved the plot twists.
@Wandy every word you said I agree with 🙂
Ken Follett. My theory is that he creates the stories for his books and lets students add the dialog. How many times can you say “said” on each page?
Steinbeck. Grapes of Wrath nearly killed me. I gave up on it before I died of boredom.
Stephen King!
Jodi Picoult
I love Dickens. And a Christmas Carol is one of my favourites. Very witty style in my opinion.
I love Dickens. It took me a while to get him though. Now I think he is amazing.
I love him 🙂
Dickens, Shakespeare & others that are over my head.
Faulkner. I’ll read one every 3 or 4 years. Halfway through I’ll remind myself why I don’t like him and plod on. But I’ll read him because he’s a “Great American Author”.
As a teacher I read to kids a lot and I admit I am not a huge fan of Dr Seuss. His books get tiresome in my opinion. There are way better children’s authors.
James Patterson.
I agree with Faulkner. A Fable is on my list of worst books ever. I wish I knew what the Pulitzer Committee was thinking.
I don’t like Dickens either- way too wordy. And I don’t care for John Steinbeck, his books are so depressing. My son read The Red Pony and put it down in disgust. “The Red Pony! He should have called it The Dead Pony!”
John Green. His books are all so predictable and romance-y and told form a perspective I feel he doesn’t truly understand.
James Michener I am almost embarrassed to say. Way too descriptive for me.
Jodi Picoult
Jane Austen
Ugh…. me too. Every book I have read by her leaves me feeling hostile and annoyed.
N. Sparks. Boo!
To each his own, you’re good!
Mine changes with my mood. Hemmingway is always on my “Avoid” list. So is F. Scott Fitzgerald, but that might be because he is my husband’s favorite author, he can drone on and on and on about Fitzgerald and I like to disagree with him. Ayn Rand is on my permanently avoid list too.
There are a great many renowned authors.I don’t enjoy. It would be difficult to pick one. Sometimes though I find that there are.books by authors I didn’t think I cared for that I can enjoy. I don’t care for.most of Dickens for example, but I did enjoy Great Expectations, and the Pickwick Papers. Likewise I hated George Orwell unti I discovered Homage to Catalonia. However, I find George Eliot quite unreadable for example.
Lauren Groff. Fates and Furies just didn’t appeal to me at all.
I’m the same with Stephen King, awfully boring stuff ;P
To each his own or “Different strokes for different folks” To agree would be boring!
That’s ok. I can’t make it through Harry Potter.
I don’t care for Ernest Hemingway. Never made it through his books
I totally agree with you, James. I don’t like Dickens at all. I never have, and I probably never will.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I have had so many people tell me that his two books 100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera are the best books they ever read. I have tried both more than once. I’m not giving up, maybe one day…..???
I find it takes a bit to get used to him. You’ll be reading along and, suddenly, a magic carpet appears.
@Patricia I understand his genre is magical realism.I do read fantasy and paranormal, but for some reason he just is beyond me. I will keep trying. ?
@Naomi I had a problem in the beginning, because I’m not a fantasy fan.
Patricia Horton I guess I kept thinking I should like them. Did you like them? Are either of the books I mentioned in your list of favorites?
@Naomi Not on my favorites list. I read both of them. Sort of on my, oh okay, list.+
@Naomi I can understand not liking him. I worked very hard to get into 100 Years of Solitude but once I got caught, I fell in love with him. I think I have read his entire bibliography. He is my favorite author. I also don’t like fantasy (I couldn’t get into Harry Potter) or much Sci-Fi. Go figure! ???
@Rosalie I will keep trying. Normally when I don’t like something, I give up and move on. So many people though have told me that his books are their favorites. I refuse to give up. ?
@Naomi , He is difficult but once it clicks he is so worth it!
Mark Twain
I never read any of his books! I think watching Christmas re-runs on TV is quite enough for me. I do agree his story lines are a bit samey and bleak. Dickens and Hugo are very similar to me – I don’t know how people find them uplifting and inspiration. I find them quite drawn out and miserable. I mean Hugo even titled his most famous book ‘Les Miserable’ (The Miserable)! ? and we had to read it in school. I mean – c’mon, it’s over a thousand pages of suffering! Well, this just my humble opinion. PS: I did get a copy of Bleak House recently, so I am going to give it ago this festive season. ???
His novels can become quite boring in the start, but with some books like the Great Expectations, Tale of two cities and Oliver Twist I was deeply engrossed by the plot and especially the endings.
But we all have different tastes. And we read accordingly.