From the wonderful Miss Prism - books you are supposed to like but (gasp) don't. I can't agree entirely with Miss Prism's list, (I love Catch 22, and I quite liked The Bone People as well - implausibility is not really an issue with me), but I'll have a stab at it.
1. Jane Eyre
I read this in my I-may-not-have-a-classical-education-but-god-damn-it-I-can-be- erudite-too phase. What is with that ending? Crazy-woman-in-burning-attic a metaphor for what? Really?? Clearly the classical education part must add some missing touch that is unavailable to us mere mortals.
2. Wuthering Heights.
Yup - I'm right with Miss Prism on this one. Are we actually supposed to like these people?
3. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
WWI with muzak treatment
4. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Maybe if I'd read this one first, it would have been different. But I read Satantic Verses first, then The Moor's Last Sigh, and The Ground Beneath her Feet. By the time I got to this one I just felt, in the words of Elton John, like I'd seen that movie too. I have started this book twice, but never managed past the half-way mark.
5.The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Go on, hit me on the head over and over again with those clumsy similes, go on - you know I love it - wait - actually I don't. Don't patronise me.
I'm sure there's more. Oh yes.
6 comments:
Oo, interesting!
I may actually dare to read Jane Eyre now that I know that if I don't like it, I won't be the only one.
Just to stir the pot...Jane Eyre is one of my guilty pleasures. I've read it a zillion times. I will admit to being one of the few who does tho. I can't pinpoint why - I can just visualize most of it in my head. I've been mocked about it before tho, so I understand.
I agree with you on Wuthering Heights. I never did make it all the way thru it, even for school. It's one of the few books that I went to the good old Cliff's notes for. Even the Scarlet Letter was better...altho someone told me how it ended before I finished it, which kind of took any incentive away from wanting to trudge thru it...
And the Alchemist, yes...a bit too much saccharine.
Geosomin, have you read The Eyre Affair? I liked that even without getting the Jane Eyre in-jokes, but it depends whether you like daft fantasy.
Oh - the Eyre affair is great - Geo - you'd love it - by Jasper Fforde. Its one of those books I finished, then started again immediatly.
The latest sequel i thought was a bit ropey -
Hmmm...I just finished the Time Traveller's wife (very good). I think I do believe I'll pick up the Eyre Affair next...daft fantasy ahoy!
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