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Of these, I have read Slaughterhouse-Five and Gravity's Rainbow. The others simply didn't appeal to me (Catch-22) or there is no way in hell I'd read them (Infinite Jest, White Noise). Vonnegut is Vonnegut, he's nearly always good. I did manage to make it through Gravity's Rainbow and came out the other end agreeing it's a great novel. About a third of the way through, I was "yeah it's fine", half-way through I was "what the hell" because it just about had hit me over the head by then, but I staggered on to the end and was glad I did.
Skill Issues? Eh, maybe. Some books just don't work for some people, and I have no problem with that. The problem I do have is sneering, if a book doesn't work for someone then it's because the book is terrible (to be fair, some books are terrible) and not because the person reading it doesn't want to put the work in/expected it to agree with their preferences.
I started in on Gravity’s Rainbow, but it was in no way a book I enjoyed. After three pages I returned it to the library.
I want to enjoy reading. My flavor is more in line with Weymouth’s Veddy British translation of the New Testament. His St. Paul is a true philosopher.
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