[Borges]

I'm not fond of Beloved. As for TGG, I don't know how you can dislike something so lyrical. People are intimdated by 'War and Peace' because of the length and the hard to pronounced names. Once they actually start reading it, it flows quite smoothly.

[nopardons]

Trust me, it is VERY easy to dislike TGG. It's drivel, it's pompous, it's junk. It really doesn't "capture the age", as it's so often stated. Many other writers did a much better job of "capturing the age"; "MAIN STREET", "SANCTUARY", "BABBIT", "ELMER GANTRY", and "DODSWORTH", for example. Heck, even "THE SUN ALSO RISES" and "SO BIG" are better.

Hard to pronounce names never throws me off, neither does the length of a book. Perhaps it's the fact that I read/tried to read the Russian authors at the hight of the COLD WAR and my utter hatred for the USSR and Russian.