'Life-changing' books that left you cold

[vernon]

Mein Kampf.

Your avatar is very Kampf.

 

[gavroche]

Anything by Shakespeare, so boring!

 

[vernon]

I challenge anyone to complete reading Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Eric Hofstadter

It tied my brain in knots and it languishes, unfinished, in the attic in an unopened box of books from my last house move twenty eight years ago.

 

[vernon]

Anything by Shakespeare, so boring!

Everything by Satre, Rousseau and Camus - so tedious.

 

[Profpointy]

Yup - +1 for Catch 22.

I do rather like the story of Heller being asked in an interview if it bothered him that critics said he'd not written anything else as good as Catch-22. "not really", he replied, "after all, who has".

As Mohammed Ali said in a different context " it's not bragging if you can back it up"

 

[Profpointy]

Anything by Shakespeare, so boring!

Well plays are meant to be seen on stage, not read. I dare say appreciating Severn Samurai by reading the script would be pretty dull.

 

[nickyboy]

I did once take a run at Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. I was quite philosophical about the time I wasted on it

 

[GrumpyGregry]

The Alchemist

 

[Custom24]

I got rather lost in the 2nd half - but thinking back on it, isn't the point that he'd more or less cracked up by that stage and it was more about him regaining his sanity than actually making any sence. The first part very much stayed with me, maybe not "life-changing" but certainly made me think. It was 30+ years ago I read it so I might get more out of it now, having had the odd bad patch myself, or of course I might now find it disappinting tosh - there's always that risk

I didn't read it that way. I thought the core philosophical level was supposed to hold true, and the other levels were supposed to wrap around it. But maybe I missed the point.

Actually I have had a couple of other books fall into this category.

The Alchemist - a fairytale with supposed allegory to who knows what.
The Life of Pi - a well written exciting story with a religious punchline that certainly didn't win me over.

Thinking about books that have changed my life, there are none that I would recommend generally. They have all been just things that interested or excited me specifically at that time.

But here is one that was close to perfect at the time - Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Oh yeah...

The Idea of the Holy. Rudolph Otto.

Not being blown away by it nearly cost me my degree.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I finished Zen, and wished I hadn't. Life changing my ass. Maybe I'm just not bright enough to get what he was going on about. Something about "Quality", being undefinable, being also the bleeding edge of the knife of perception.

It didn't work for me on any other level either. When something goes wrong with a motorbike, a romantic will blame the whole thing, where an analyst will systematically isolate the problem. Well duh.

Zen.... a book for self-gratification artists written by a self-gratification artist. And I am a big fan of boxer beemers.

 

[Joshua Plumtree]

Moby Dick. Glad to hear that I'm not the only one. Always regarded it as one of my life's failings - until now!

Ulysses by Joyce. Couldn't understand a word of it and, as my old 'A' level teacher said to me (about an essay I'd handed in), it's but a small step from not understanding to not caring.

Anything by Jane Austin (sorry!), haven't read a single word.

 

[Drago]

The Lord of the Rings. I managed a third of the way in but every second sentence something was split asunder or cleft in twee, and it was a bit tiresome. Not even the occasional hey nonny nonny to lighten the mood.

 

[LarryDuff]

The Bible?

 

[slowmotion]

As a card-carrying pseud in a black polo-neck sweater, I spent my teenage years wading through a whole heap of grey-backed Penguin Modern Classics. They were usually utterly awful and tedious but I had to pretend. Then came all the shite like Hesse and Heller in my university years, Carlos Casdeneda etc. It was like a slow torture. Finally, I gave up on-self improvement and started reading books that were fun.....and Viz.