Is it common to have a very high opinion of something you dislike?

Er... not sure if I worded that well, but I was wondering if I'm just being odd as usual, or if it's something that happens more often.

For context, I'm thinking specifically of Perdido Street Station, which I

a) consider the single finest example I've ever read of fascinating, seamlessly presented, fantastically done worldbuilding

and b) really don't like very much.

You can have great respect for something but still not be a fan. Just ask Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage. They don't loathe each other— in fact, they have a fantastic working relationship— but their personality types drive each other up the fucking wall.

There are plenty of authors that I can respect for their craftwork and skill at worldbuilding but can't really finish their works because they just don't work for me, at least at the time I tried to read them. Wheel of Time and A Song of Ice and Fire come most readily to mind.

I got through book 9 of Wheel and when I started book 10 decided "I don't even remember who half of these characters are." I had enjoyed some parts of the books, and I have some friends who like it better than Tolkien (I don't see an eyeroll emoji), but stylistically it was a poor match for me, the plot was too slow-moving, the world - despite the obvious skill with which it had been made - seemed a bit on the generic fantasy side, and I thought the characters were kind of flat. Maybe someday I'll pick it up again to get to the Brandon Sanderson conclusion. I generally like his stuff.

I read through book 4 of ASoI&F, before the TV series started. It's got great characters and atmosphere, and the plot seemed to be going somewhere, but it was too dark for me at the time. Dark can work for me sometimes, in moderate doses, but it was just a little too unrelenting. Maybe at some future time I'll take another look.

In both cases, I respect the work and the achievement, I gave them both a fair chance, but neither is really for me, at least at the moment.

Edited by Bense on Apr 19th 2019 at 1:37:13 PM

I absolutely love Greg Weisman's knack for mature, serialized, character-driven storytelling.

I HATE all of his Shakespeare-fawning though.

There we go. A true, real-life example from me.

I absolutely HATED reading Wuthering Heights. There are almost no characters who are sympathetic (and unlike, say, Roxie Hart, they aren't charming enough to make up for it) and to top it off, they reuse the same names over and over again so that even if you DID care what was going on, you wouldn't be able to understand it.

BUT

I do enjoy the gothic aspects of it and the overall writing style. Not enough to make me want to read it again, but I appreciate it.

I respect the hell out of Tolkien, for so many reasons, but I actually don't enjoy Lord of the Rings or, well, any of the actual stories.

My main example of this is a non-literature example. Neon Genesis Evangelion. Did not enjoy it at all, but have huge amounts of respect for it.

I’ve always tried to keep a defined difference between what I like and what I recognize as good. Most of the time those things coincide but... yeah.

It mostly comes up for me when watching biopics, because I tend to dislike the genre in general, even those I’m aware are brilliant. But that’s not specifically literature, admittedly.

I was like this for the ending of the Mistborn trilogy.

Whenever I describe the final battle to someone I find myself going "It's actually really clever". So I respect it on that level. On the level of coming up with the plot point and weaving it into the story in a way where everything naturally came together in the end. It was really intelligent way of handling the conflict that worked excellently with the mechanics of the universe.

But it's absolutely awful to actually read because of how repetitive the action is and how, once you realize what's happening, you might as well skip to the final chapter.