I dislike books where the unlikeable person is the focus of the book, because I've get better things to do than spend that much time with someone I don't like.
Tell me more good stuff about me.
Kaylee ,'The Message'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Connie Neil - Dec 15, 2009 1:57:07 pm PST #10667 of 28370
brillig
Scrappy - Dec 15, 2009 2:05:51 pm PST #10668 of 28370
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
If they are unlikable but entertaining I will enjoy reading about them. The guy in High Fidelity is a jerk for a good part of the book, but he is fun to read about, for example. Sherlock Holmes would be another example.
brenda m - Dec 15, 2009 2:12:27 pm PST #10669 of 28370
If you're going through hell/keep on going/don't slow down/keep your fear from showing/you might be gone/'fore the devil even knows you're there
And I was kind of stuck in, "Well, yes, but they're entertaining horrible people."
That I can live with. I've started and not finished too many books recently where I was more like "I wouldn't want to spend two minutes around these people in real life, I'm not doing that on the page either."
§ ita § - Dec 15, 2009 2:14:00 pm PST #10670 of 28370
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
I'm looking forward to partaking of American Psycho in one form or another, and I understand there's no liking to be had there. I also liked A Clockwork Orange and there's no feeling for Alex until possibly the end.
flea - Dec 15, 2009 2:41:32 pm PST #10671 of 28370
information libertarian
I could never watch Seinfeld because everyone annoyed me so much. Not that that was a book.
erikaj - Dec 15, 2009 2:59:59 pm PST #10672 of 28370
Always Anti-fascist!
I don't know...in some cases, but not always. Sometimes it's how they tell it.
Steph L. - Dec 15, 2009 3:03:50 pm PST #10673 of 28370
this mess was yours / now your mess is mine
I could never watch Seinfeld because everyone annoyed me so much. Not that that was a book.
That's why I couldn't watch The Inside. As much as I wanted to get behind a Minear project, I found everyone on that show impossible to like.
I'm trying to think if there are any books that I read willingly in which I disliked the main character, or more than 1 character. I find almost all the characters in Wuthering Heights very unlikeable, but I had to read that for a class.
JZ - Dec 15, 2009 3:08:22 pm PST #10674 of 28370
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.
Most of the characters in Vanity Fair are either loathsome or contemptible (some, of course, are both), but Lordy it's a fun read.
Hil R. - Dec 15, 2009 3:14:46 pm PST #10675 of 28370
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
Wuthering Heights was actually the book that got me started thinking about this. I don't like any of the characters, I think several of them are really horrible people, and most of the rest make ridiculously bad decisions for incredibly stupid reasons. But I still like reading it, because they do interesting things.
Steph L. - Dec 15, 2009 3:22:33 pm PST #10676 of 28370
this mess was yours / now your mess is mine
I think several of them are really horrible people
Nelly Dean, the textbook example of an unreliable narrator. Eeeeeevil.