Hard to read, the fiction. - Page 3

^^Wow. Conflicting advice from two of my most trust-worthy SFers. I would've given it up for certain long ago, but the gal who loaned me the book is the star of my November "What I did last night" post... I'm sure there's something in it for Rube if I can make it to the end. A book club "discussion" or something.

Weird. I had a girlfriend, one of whose favorite books was A Prayer for Owen Meany. Unlike you, I had the good fortune of never even trying to read it. I did like her other favorite, which was The Grapes of Wrath. Is A Prayer for Owen Meany some sort of "official chick book"? I never thought so.

Wow, quite a different strokes for different folks illustration. 100 Years of Solitude is easily one of my favorite books. I was completely floored by my first reading of it and have returned to it several times.

I am shocked -- shocked -- to learn that you like Dune.

In the category of somewhat difficult but worth it I would include William Gaddis's A Frolic of His Own and JR. His unpunctuated, immersive writing style can be difficult to get into at first, but it is absolutely brilliant when you surrender to it and let yourself be carried along by the tide. They are a bit like Absalom, Absalom (or other Faulkners for that matter) in that way.

My dad liked it; it bored the hell out of me.

For whatever that proves. I generally find Irving to be readable (I think I missed his most recent one or two), but that one didn't do it for me at all.

wow, that's a surprise. did you like other stuff by the same author?

Finnegans Wake

Infinite Jest. I really enjoyed reading it, but couldn't really put it together as a novel. re-read it a few times, and last year picked up the study guide which gave some new light to a few things.

There is so much that is good about Dune. My aunt from Jordan actually introduced me to the novels. I was playing the RTS game Dune 2 on my computer when she interrupted me and asked if I had read the novels. So the next day I went to the library. I went through the entire series in a couple of months.

Generally speaking, I am not in to sci-fi and fantasy though. Tolkien and the Dune series are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Dune may have noships and cool genetic experiments, but it's really not about that. It's all the various layers and the things he's commenting on throughout the series that make it a great book as oppposed to just another sci-fi book.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. If I remember correctly, I think I ended up liking it a lot. Although, that was around 6 years ago.

Good call, I agree completely. I'd pick it up and read a bit and be impressed by its brilliance. But I just couldn't sustain it (although I think I did read all the way through). I found it to be one of those pieces that are more impressive as an exercise in virtuosity than an enjoyable or enlivening reading experience.

I don't really have an opinion on it either way. I read the first book when I was in high school and I think I enjoyed it. Somewhere in the 2nd or 3rd book of the series I got bored or distracted and put it down, never to return.

the quality of the Dune books drop off very steeply, though I don't recall exactly when. I am pretty sure the second is quite good, but not so sure about the third.

Plus One. I tried Gravity's Rainbow because I liked Crying of Lot 49 a lot. 130 pages in, I had no real idea what was going on because he introduces infinite characters in the first 50 pages.

You should understand that my reading list is not up to SF standards. If two people have not been murdered by page fifty, I usually put it down.

I think it was the 4th that wasn't so good, but it was good again by Chapterhouse (the final book).