I’ll go with the low-hanging fruit: Mein Kampf. I’ve read it, cover to cover. As a piece of propaganda, it’s good. As an example of good writing? Absolutely not (though I will admit I have only read it in translation). Oh, and the whole fascist, racist, and generally shitty worldview of the author that he infuses into the text. And the fact that the author is literally Hitler. You 5-star that book? You’re a Nazi. Period. And as a Jewish person, I don’t look too kindly on them.
Unlike Fight Club and American Psycho, I don’t think I’ve ever come across someone in the wild who liked Lolita because they identified with Humbert Humbert. I find it pretty bewildering that some people have such bad reading comprehension they take Lolita as some kind of romantic story about forbidden love.
Personally I’m a huge fan of the novel and will definitely read it again. The disturbing parts are easily worth it, just like they are in Blood Meridian (the other novel in my personal top five with some really brutal scenes).
True, most of the gross takes of Lolita are from people who have never read the book.
I do think a lot of people struggle with not identifying with unreliable narrators though.
That may be one of my peeves: people who can’t stomach any story with an unreliable narrator. I never understood why people need to “relate” to the main character.
I never read it in full before, but gods damn does its opening immediately leap in my face with the voice of a potential serial killer lol
Oh man, Blood Meridian. One of my personal least favorite books that I’ve ever read, because it was sickening. However- I respect the hell out of it, and I totally understand why people love it so much. Just not for me.
My partner and I read very different books for different reasons, and that’s totally okay.
Yeah, isn’t H.H. literally narrating from a psych ward or prison? Kind of hard to relate to for most of us, I think.
Yeah IIRC it’s from pre-trial detention, and he’s addressing his jury as a plea for lenience. The very framing of the story tells us pretty clearly we shouldn’t just take his word for it.
Neither have I but I’ve heard of this memoir called Being Lolita about the author (Alisson Wood) being groomed by her English teacher - who gives her a copy of Lolita. So apparently such people exist, even though as you rightly say it must require wilfully skimming over certain passages.