For a good and hefty chunk of my life, I hated Saramago. At some point I read something of his--no clue what, could've been in school, could've been in some stray book in my dad's library, could've even have been a snippet glimpsed over someone's shoulder--and, whatever it was, made enough of an impression to forge a rock-solid disdain of his work.
And (to my intense embarrassment today) I didn't hesitate to vociferate it to anyone who asked.