7: À la Recherche du Temps Perdu – Marcel Proust
Yes, yes, he tasted a biscuit that made him think of childhood, we’ve all done that. If I want to remember my childhood I look at some photographs.
— from Richard Wilson’s 10 books not to read before you die, a list extracted from his book Can’t Be Arsed: 101 Things Not to Do Before You Die.
Very refreshing — I’m unspeakably happy to find someone else who was bored spitless by Hemingway. I disagree about Lord of the Rings, not that I ever made it past the interminable trudging through forest in the middle of the second book — but I would cheerfully go to Peter Gabriel concerts and did read Dune (which mostly sucked). And I did like Pride and Prejudice.
Never made it past the first page of a Hemingway book… ugh, unbearably dull. Like he was too bored with the story to bother writing it properly.
THe Iliad, one of the dreariest books I’ve ever been forced to read, for Classics 101. An entire epic poem (which comes off badly in translation) about who killed and maimed whom, and how, and how much they bled, and from where… *shudder*.