Originally Posted by
Jamesian
I remember putting this book down after two pages, then, on a second attempt, putting it down after the first chapter. Maybe someday I'll try to drag myself through it, but that day is not today - and hopefully will not be for a while.
As for the 'worst', it seems to me that, given the preponderance of bad writing in the world, it would be more informative to fellow readers to confine my selections to so called 'important' books. Thus:
Atlas Shrugged is obscenely long, and full of contrived thriller-style writing - and, for all its tiresome aspects, says little that one might not find in Rand's nonfiction. A chore to read; ultimately unrewarding.
Melville's Pierre was probably an even greater pain to go through. The only justification I've heard of this absurd novel is that it is a 'satire of the popular Gothic novels of the time'. It is far too long for one either to be amused or to take it seriously as an act of criticism.
Most recently I grew rather frustrated with Hawthorne's The Marble Faun; while the story is interesting, and the first half of the novel more or less promising, he falls into a pattern of alternatingly criticizing Italians and Catholics and describing the Italian scenery, even through the last few chapters. This work has made me glad that he did not venture much past his native sphere in his other work; in my opinion, he only properly handles America.
Oh yeah, and anything by Beckett. :D