This week's Top Five Wednesday challenge is to list five books that I want to read, but for various reasons I find intimidating. Here are five well-known classics that make my list.
- Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov (1969)
Having read Lolita and two more of Nabokov's novels and found his talent to be prodigious, I've collected a stack of others that have since gotten dusty waiting on me. One is Ada which, due to it's reputation as Nabokov's masterpiece and it's girth of 600 pages, has always seemed intimidating. Having looked it up on Goodreads while writing this I see that the topic is even more distasteful than that of Lolita, and I wonder if I could stomach it -- which has added even more to said intimidation!
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719)
I was too young when I first tried to read this classic, so found the language and style overwhelming. As a result, that impression has stayed with me and I've been hesitant to try it again. - Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928)
I don't know why this book has intimidated me so much, despite my love for Woolf's other novels. Perhaps it's the fact that it's a historical setting instead of her usual contemporary one, or maybe because it's so popular. Regardless, I've avoided it while devouring the rest of her work. - Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1895)
I fell in love with Hardy's novels in high school, where I read The Return of the Native, Far From the Madding Crowd, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles in quick succession. Jude the Obscure was next on my list, until a lunch table discussion revealed that my classmate has just finished it and hated it. That put me off and I've never returned to give it a try. - A Passage to India by E.M. Forster (1924)
I've read and others of Forster's work, but despite being quite an admirer I've never read A Passage to India. When I first began to read Forster, I didn't have the knowledge I now have of India's history, so I wasn't as interested in the location, and the seriousness of the subject matter scared me. It's not so intimidating now, but I still have an odd reluctance to commit to it.
There are my top five -- have you read any of them? What books do you find most intimidating?
Hardy's Jude the Obscure and Forster's A Passage to India intimidate me too. The first because everyone has labelled it as the most tragic from Hardy - which I don't need right now, thank you!. The latter, with the same reason as yours, am not keen to be transported to the location.
ReplyDeleteRobinson Crusoe - I've read the abridged translation of it, and don't intend to read the unabridged. It's enough that I know what the story is about.
Nabokov - I won't read anymore from him after Lolita.
I've got a vague idea of Robinson Crusoe -- maybe I need to find an abridged, too, so as to not be ignorant of the importance of it. As for Nabokov, I fully respect the fact that he is extremely talented, and I was quite impressed at the time, but at this point in my life I'm not sure I want to read books that make me squirm with distaste. So, I understand what you are saying!
DeleteI once told myself that I would read War and Peace after graduate school. Well, it is still after graduate school, and I'm not dead yet, so I suppose there's still time....
ReplyDeleteToo funny! I did actually read that one; it took a long time and I had to keep a sticky note in the front of the book listing all the nicknames for each character!
DeleteThat sounds like a lot of work! I'm too lazy these days. I did read all of Proust, though (in English) about...30 years ago.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, it was a lot of work! It was my first experience with Russian novels, where everyone has 300 names (okay, maybe just three dozen) and gets called all of them by everybody. It was challenging. I did enjoy it, but the only thing that stuck with me was when some princess or other learned to knit so that she could sit by her wounded fiancé's hospital bed and knit, because he liked the sound from when his nurse/nanny/whatever used to knit when he was a kid. Funny how that is the only thing that I remember!
DeleteSomehow, I think I'm less likely to dive into it anytime soon than I was a week ago! Life might be too short for this.
ReplyDeleteA Passage to India is the only one of these I've read, and while I felt I got a lot from it, Forster always leaves me with the feeling that I didn't quite get all he was trying to say :)
ReplyDeleteI can certainly understand that feeling!
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