Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
I'm not quite sure about the past tense for today's meme topic because it implies that I don't hate this book any more or something. Maybe my hate has lessened, who knows? I'm sure as hell not going to read it again to find out, even though there is a copy at my local Vinnies for $2 and there's a 50% off book sale on.
This is because this was THE most boring book I had to read for high school. The plot follows the quest of a young English woman in search of the truth about her great aunt's life in India.
It should be exotic and scandalous and meaningful. It is not. I didn't care at all for the characters and since characters were all that were holding this book together (apart from the "cultural elements"—if you're after literature on colonial India, read Kipling's Kim or something) it fell apart.
I have no idea why it won the 1975 Booker Prize. It put me off Booker Prize winners until Alan Hollinghurst's Line of Beauty (I only read Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things because my cousin recommended it to me; before I knew it had won a Booker).
Okay, okay, boring yes but why hate? Because I was forced to read it all. If I don't like a book a few chapters in, I don't want to waste precious reading time so I move on. And because I was forced to extract meaning from this tedious work and that kind of makes readers turn on a book.
Despite this vitriol, my friend and I did end up naming her toy orangutan 'Chidananda' after one of the minor characters. It was that kind of novel.
Day 12 – A book you used to love but don’t anymore
Day 13 – Your favourite writer
Day 14 – Favourite book of your favourite writer
Day 15 – Favourite male character
Day 16 – Favourite female character
Day 17 – Favourite quote from your favourite book
Day 18 – A book that disappointed you
Day 19 – Favourite book turned into a movie
Day 20 – Favourite romance book
Day 21 – Favourite book from your childhood
Day 22 – Favourite book you own
Day 23 – A book you've wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t
Day 24 – A book that you wish more people would’ve read
Day 25 – A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 – A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 – The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 – Favourite title
Day 29 – A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 – Your favourite book of all time
I'd like to thank Sarah Jansen for her tweet about this, as well as The Literary Gothamite and Confessions of a Book Lush for the good idea.
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