What author did you read a book by and didn’t like, but gave them another chance and loved it?
I’m so glad I gave Edith Wharton another chance. I read Ethan Frome and thought it was fine. On a whim I picked up The Age of Innocence and fell in love. Now I’m buying anything I can by her. I recently read The House of Mirth, and can confirm she is one of my favorite authors now. Anybody have a similar experience with an author?
It’s weird. The first book I read by McCarthy was The Road. Really liked it. So I was excited as all get out to read Blood Meridian. Hated it. Tried No Country for Old Men. Hated it. Not sure what to do with McCarthy now.
This is hilarious. First book I tried to read was The Road. No quotation marks; the publisher is accessory to a crime of industrial magnitudes. Don’t approach him for years, then start researching gothic narrative. Who comes up? McCarthy. Fine, I’ll try again. The two books that keep me reading? Blood Meridian, and No Country For Old Men.
I hear his comedy, Suttree might be worth a read, but one never knows. Good luck if you do!
When people ask me why I hate Blood Meridian, I share this passage. This type of writing just does not resonate with me at all. But I respect the people who like it. McCarthy has so many books filled with it:
“He took great marching steps into the nothingness, counting them against his return. Eyes closed, arms soaring. Upright to what? Something nameless in the night, lode or matrix. To which he and the stars were common satellite. Like the great pendulum in its rotunda scribing through the long day movements of the universe of which you may say it knows nothing and yet know it must.”
This type of prose is why I did not like “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”. Objectively lovely, but just not something I’m interested in plodding through.