Have you ever read a book and just wasn't feeling it? I'm reading Pride and Prejudice, and I'm 30 pages in, and I just want to tear the book in half. Some pages my eyes just glazed over and yet I feel as though I've lost nothing of importance. And yet I also can't be bothered to even describe the story so far. Apparently some single rich dude came to town and now people are throwing their daughters at him. Some hintings at people hating the social norms are mentioned. I was expecting it to be better, and I'm going to complete it because I'm a stubborn idiot that can't put down a book once started, and I liked Jane Eyre and everyone hated that, and it seems nearly everyone hates this and expected to like it, but I'm reading it and am starting to wonder why I'm reading this when there are so many other good books and if I have to read more pages of pointless banter oh my gooooooooooooooooooood. Aside from that I'm fine! The weather is chilly here in New York and rain has been coming and going. I could certainly use some sunny days. I'm trying my best to do the whole NaNoWriMo, but I can't really come up with any substantial story, so I'm just writing short stories, but I want to do the novel!
Given humanodon's comment, I should chime in. Give P&P another chance. Thirty pages isn't enough. Stuff happens. My suggestion would be to skim descriptive paragraphs. You don't need them. They don't advance plot. Better still, find the Classics Illustrated comic if you can.
Sure, why not. Once I start reading something I finish it. It can't be any worse than Robert A. Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil (I liked a few of his other stuff, but that novel...) or Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. I'm in for the longhaul, and I'm always open to have my mind changed. People hated Jane Eyre and I liked that.
Nah; Just picked up a couple of paperbacks in a yard sale for a quarter a pop. None of his more renown works, unfortunately. I read Puppet Masters and Farmer in the Sky and figured they were decent enough. They weren't anything amazing, but for pulpy sci-fi they were quick reads that threw concepts at you for further thought. Then I decided between Glory Road, Space Cadet and I Will Fear No Evil, and choose Evil because it seemed hefty and the name sounded cool. Now I don't wanna touch the rest for a while. I'll read them since I bought them, but they'll be sitting there until maybe next year.
Can't stand P&P. I have noticed that I haven't been a fan of people I've met who love it. As for the writing thing, it's a long writing exercise. Don't expect stuff to come out well instantly. Besides, it can be shaped, cleaned up and reconfigured later. I feel bad for grunts at publishing houses who wade through the slush piles post-nanawhatever.
I didn't know publishers actually went through those NaNoWriMo novels. I guess you have to publish them on the site? I wonder if anything good ever came out of that. I do like the feeling of writing stuff. I don't know why, but it's cathartic. There's nothing I wrote that I'd consider publishable, but it's fun.
I had a friend who had a novel that originally staretd off as a NaNo project get accepted somewhere, but she was also one of those writers who wrote every day regardless - and would rise as early as 4 to do so if need be. So the circumstances aren't typical.
This I do not know, and it is a college friend I have fallen out of touch with so I cannot ask. I will say I think she substantially edited and revisited it before sending it out, it wasn't just a "let me spawn this onto a screen and get it published." Finishing work was involved.
Frustrating when this happens. War and Peace was my favorite book, but I've tried Anna Karina three times to no avail. I loved Eco's Foucault's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose, but I think I actually tried The Island of the Day Before like, 5 times, and I actually threw it against a wall once. It was so boring and bad. I know cgod had an issue with that one too. As far as Karina goes, I'm blaming it on the tranlsation for now. I read War and Peace via three different translations, and the character and feel of the book definitely moved between them.
Heh, I've long finished P&P and can conclude that it is a decent enough work. I can't say I'm a fan, but it wasn't terrible either. I don't even know how I feel about it, truthfully. I'd personally like to hear Lydia and Wickam's story more than Elizabeth's. Maybe I felt a bit... something. It ended happily ever after for everyone IIRC, and it seemed like a fairy tale like Cinderella, except much longer. I loved War and Peace (So much so that most of the time my computer usernames are usually bolkonsky, from Andrei Bolkonsky, my favorite character), and plan to read Anna Karenina and all of his other works one day... What you say doesn't bode well, but I'll give it a shot. It can't be worse than other stuff I read. As for the translation of War and Peace that I read... I read it from Project Gutenberg, which apparently has the translation from Louise and Aylmer Maude. I have no idea if that's any good or not, but translations don't bother me that much as long as they aren't completely unreadable. I think the only time I stopped reading something from a bad Translation was Dante's Inferno by a person named Melville Best Anderson. When not even Google can give you any useful information on whether his translation was praised or dismissed, when you go to the amazon page and their talking about other reviewers in their reviews for his translation, and not even the 1-star reviews mention his review, you know you're in for some wild times. I tried reading it, and it just... No. I tried looking again and found this from 2012: http://eclectic-indulgence.blogspot.com/2012/05/review-infer... There you go; Someone else having issues with it. Personally I think it was just terrible. I get lost just a few lines in. An example: Deplorable of them, the kindred twain, Pity for whome had overwhelmed me quite, New souls in torment and new modes of pain Wherever I am moving I behold, Wherever I turn and look about again. That was Canto VI of the Inferno, Third Circle: The Intemperate. It's like that for the entirety of the book. Now for the Noton Critical Edition of that very same text, which I was lucky enough to snag at a yard sale for 50 cents: at the pitiful condition of that pair of kinsfolk, stunned by their sad history, I start to see new torments everywhere and new tormented souls, wherever I range or turn myself, wherever I may stare. What's worse is my edition has so many errors. Even worse is that they know it has errors and have the corrected version to the side! But halted other vain laments to mark [went, It's exactly like that. They added the word "went" on the next line with a bracket [ exactly like that.... Why didn't they just, you know, added the word where it should be? Why put it on the other line? Why? I don't know... Anyway... I did read the Constance Garnett translation of Crime and Punishment, which is usually regarded as a bad one from what I see people say online, and let me tell you, I was going through those pages like lightning wanting to see what happens next. If it was bad, then I didn't notice it. I gotta try reading another translation to see if I really was missing out on some good stuff. I actually also plan to read Name of the Rose as well, although right now I'm going through the motions of reading Jude the Obscure. I think that'll be a good work. I hope it will be, in any case.The translation by Melville Best Anderson was not the greatest - it had a very pleasurably sounding meter and rhyme to it, but it was very difficult to digest. Despite the interesting subject, I did not really have the ravenous desire to read it as I assumed I would. I could only really read 10 pages or so at a time before I became somewhat exhausted. The illustrations by William Blake are famous, but I did not find them as beautiful as the ones in Paradise Lost. I have a tendency to prefer Gustave Dore, so I am excited to start with a different edition and hopefully enjoy the more modern translation by John Ciardi, for Purgatory.
On coming to my sense, closed at sight
With my sense restored, which had deserted me
Holding the height, from bridge to bridge we
For the most part I'm the same way. It actually never occurred to me to bother with different translations until I was on the floor of the bookstore with three different versions of War and Peace. If I had just picked one, I would have enjoyed the hell out of it, but as it was I was there, looking down at three different versions and found I had a preference. Then I lost my first copy part way through and picked up with another, then found an additional copy and moved between those two a bit, lol. I didn't need to have the best translation, but I did end up with it, and that wasn't a bad thing at all. In the future, I don't think I'll ever sweat translations beyond comparing versions on a bookstore shelf in front of me. That first Dante above is damn near impenetrable though...oof.I have no idea if that's any good or not, but translations don't bother me that much as long as they aren't completely unreadable.
http://www.youtube.com/user/LizzieBennet?feature=watch These videos got me into P&P
It's a modern adaptation in vlog form, I love it!
Have you considered spicing it up with some Pride, Prejudice and Zombies? Link for the lazy: http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Zombies-Heirloom-Class...
I've seen a couple of these things, and the one that really interests me is The Meowmorphosis, since Kafka is one of my favorite authors and I'd like to see that odd take on his works. I'm sure he'd like the idea of it. I dunno if they're any good though.