Ribh's D'Coopage

[Ribh]

I liked Wuthering Heights for the cruelty Bronte expressed. Adding an afterthought: in me, it evoked shock, anger, sympathy.

Does anyone know if cruelty had been written as thoroughly and clearly in fiction before WH? If not, it's a remarkable achievement for a relatively cloistered and isolated author of her time.

You might need to define your terms. There is animal cruelty & then there is psychological torment ~ & that goes back to Greek Tragedy or even Gilgamesh.

I think someone did start a reading thread but it was mostly modern popular & I don't read things like Twilight ~ not because I'm a snob but because I have no interest.

 

[RoyalChick]

Three books I really disliked:

Helliconia - a story on a world a thousand light years from Earth, it is three inches thick and it was mind-numbingly boring!

Moby Dick - after all the hype, I found it incredibly boring! Hubby said he could get through it once he viewed it as a travel diary.

Wuthering Heights - all but two of the characters are self-absorbed and hateful, and those two are the narrator and his house-keeper, neither of which had any character development! I couldn’t believe this is a classic; you can’t empathise with any of the characters!

I am with you on Moby Dick. I eventually made myself read it because it is such a classic but I found it mind-numbing. Can't follow you on Wuthering Heights which I really loved though I haven't read it for a quarter century or more!
Never heard of Helliconia - feels like one I can avoid easily!

 

[RoyalChick]

It's all right Lozzy. I did my degree in this stuff & hated most of what I read ~ but I came to a conclusion & I hope I don't offend my American friends. The writers I really can't stand are white American Males.Ugh! Hemingway, Steinbeck, Melville, Poe.. Salinger & Fitzgerald are a little better, but not much. I did better if they were black or Jewish ~ but then I like Dostoyesvsky. And for so long the people who decided what was a classic were white males... And yet my favourite poet is TS Eliot because if you read him you touch on just about everything that has impacted English Literature.Naturally he has gone in & out of critical favour...

I came to Hemingway only recently through a trip to Cuba. Not sure I would say I like his work, but you have to admire his ability to craft a sentence with so few words.

 

[Ribh]

I came to Hemingway only recently through a trip to Cuba. Not sure I would say I like his work, but you have to admire his ability to craft a sentence with so few words.

Perhaps...I dislike his inability to portray women as 3 dimensional & as I read more for character development & beauty thanfor a straight time line story [suspense is irrelevant so far as I'm concerned] He's not the author for me. OTOH I gave his The Old Man & The Sea to my non reading fishing son, who loved it & devoured it. So much depends on what you read for. I've said before I don't start @ the beginning of a novel & read through to the end. I'm as liable to start in the middle, or even the end, & read backwards & forwards because for me reading is like a jigsaw. I only need all the pieces, not all the pieces in order. It drives my linear daughter crazy. It is a handy trick when you have to read @ multiple levels because you are always looking for the connecting bits.

 

[LozzyR]

I am with you on Moby Dick. I eventually made myself read it because it is such a classic but I found it mind-numbing. Can't follow you on Wuthering Heights which I really loved though I haven't read it for a quarter century or more!
Never heard of Helliconia - feels like one I can avoid easily!

What did you love about Wuthering Heights? (I’m not being sarcastic, I’m genuinely curious). It’s been touted as an epic love story, but all I can remember about it is two massive narcissists putting each other through the wringer. It’s been a few years since I read it, maybe I should read it again, if only to confirm my views.

 

[RoyalChick]

What did you love about Wuthering Heights? (I’m not being sarcastic, I’m genuinely curious). It’s been touted as an epic love story, but all I can remember about it is two massive narcissists putting each other through the wringer. It’s been a few years since I read it, maybe I should read it again, if only to confirm my views.

Oh I liked the flawed characters and how they evolved over time. The obsession and the cruelty were fascinating to me. And all that brooding complexity under the surface of lives lived in a lot of isolation. I don't know, I just found it gripping. As I said though, it was decades ago that I last read it.
On the other hand I couldn't relate to the obsession in Moby Dick and there was just way too much whale blubber processing for me!

 

[Ribh]

Oh I liked the flawed characters and how they evolved over time. The obsession and the cruelty were fascinating to me. And all that brooding complexity under the surface of lives lived in a lot of isolation. I don't know, I just found it gripping. As I said though, it was decades ago that I last read it.
On the other hand I couldn't relate to the obsession in Moby Dick and there was just way too much whale blubber processing for me!

I've been wanting to reread with Angria & Gondal in mind.

 

[MaryJanet]

You might need to define your terms. There is animal cruelty & then there is psychological torment ~ & that goes back to Greek Tragedy or even Gilgamesh.

I think someone did start a reading thread but it was mostly modern popular & I don't read things like Twilight ~ not because I'm a snob but because I have no interest.

I haven't read Gilgamesh yet but I understood it to be warm-hearted tale. I'm grateful to have gained your view on it

 

[MaryJanet]

Perhaps...I dislike his inability to portray women as 3 dimensional & as I read more for character development & beauty thanfor a straight time line story [suspense is irrelevant so far as I'm concerned] He's not the author for me. OTOH I gave his The Old Man & The Sea to my non reading fishing son, who loved it & devoured it. So much depends on what you read for. I've said before I don't start @ the beginning of a novel & read through to the end. I'm as liable to start in the middle, or even the end, & read backwards & forwards because for me reading is like a jigsaw. I only need all the pieces, not all the pieces in order. It drives my linear daughter crazy. It is a handy trick when you have to read @ multiple levels because you are always looking for the connecting bits.

Old man and the sea is the one Hemingway I appreciate.

 

[Ribh]

I haven't read Gilgamesh yet but I understood it to be warm-hearted tale. I'm grateful to have gained your view on it

Well, it works on several levels. Because I'm a dork I read parts of this [not the sex stuff] to my then 7 year old & was fascinated to find he followed the dream thread really well but not the straight story. I found it rather sad.