I have the same relationship with Moby Dick - what a load of dreary self-obsessed over-laboured pish. One of the best opening lines ever, granted but it is steeply downhill from there. Strange how opinions vary though - I found Frankenstein vivid and anything but old-fashioned - like Dracula - the very epitome of modernity. My partner used to be a school librarian many years ago and she used to have a 'charter' she used to engage readers - one tenet of which was that everyone has the right not to finish a book if they don't want to. I'd have to agree though, I could never bin a book. Like theft from multi-storey carparks - wrong on every level.
- I.