I'm reading Dickens at the moment because I never have and feel that I should.
I've read Victorian authors before and usually the language is easy enough to read but Dickens is pretty florid. Makes it more difficult to read, in my opinion.

I found Moby Dick to be almost incomprehensible and therefore I lost interest pretty rapidly.

I'm buying up a lot of classics at the moment. Next on the list Fahrenheit 451 and Waverley.
( Kroney, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 12:45, 3 replies, latest was 12 years ago)

The key to understanding Moby Dick is that it was unedited.
This is why you get a chapter of not-bad book followed by what is merely a bunch of his research notes on fucking whales or whatever. People who think it’s groundbreaking etc don’t realise that the only thing groundbreaking about it is that no-one cut out all the shit, leaving it confusing and tiresome.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 12:52, Reply)

I just got bored shitless
of trying to work out what the fuck he was talking about half the time. I'm sure preserving 19th century Nantucket whaling slang was really fucking important but a readable book it does not make.

Edit: although one of my favourite literary quotes does come from that book.
( Kroney, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 12:55, Reply)

Do tell.

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 13:03, Reply)

And he piled upon the whale's white hump all the sum of rage and hate felt by his race from Adam down;
and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his heart's hot shell upon it.
( Kroney, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 13:08, Reply)

Sexy!

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 13:18, Reply)

i love dickens
but my mother couldn't stand him for the reason you mention.

someone wrote one of those faction books about his first wife recently, i enjoyed that.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 12:55, Reply)

I'm about halfway through Bleak House at the moment.
I'm almost certain I won't be reading it again.
( Kroney, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 12:56, Reply)

that's not as good
GE is where it's at.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 12:58, Reply)

That's on the list, but it's Pickwick Papers I'm dreading.

( Kroney, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 13:11, Reply)

Listen to Leviathon instead

( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 12:56, Reply)

Why would i want to listen to your mum?
LOL!!!
( Kroney, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 12:57, Reply)

10/10

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 2 Aug 2012, 13:04, Reply)