Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
Some of the suggestions have been pretty stupid.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
Some of the suggestions have been pretty stupid.
Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. People consider this her most accessible novel, but to me, it was so unbelievable dense and pointless that it was agonising to finish. To the Lighthouse was far better and, in my opinion, far easier to read.
I found Orlando easy to read mainly because of the humour. I also didn't think it was pointless, but there you go.
I also thought Great Gatsby was excellent. The last paragraph just gives me shivers every time. That idea of all of us chasing our dreams 'against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past'. The tragedy of Gatbsy creating himself all over again to be with what is, essentially, a memory (the past) to find that his dream is gone, it's already receded, as all our dreams will that are born in our past (all of them?). It's all perfectly encapsulated there. Actually pointing out this paragraph that he does this with almost seems to degrade it.
For me the Great Gatsby is an entertaining novel, setting everything up, until the last couple of chapters when it turns into a great novel. When everything starts to unravel.
I'd be wary of calling these 'classic' books pointless, seems quite arrogant. 'I didn't get the point' is probably more accurate than it being pointless. With that in mind, i don't think I can think of one of these classics that I got absolutely nothing from. I was disappointed by Shakespeare's comedies because they're not funny...at all. 'Haha, i'm dressed as a WOMAN!'.
heh.
Pride and Prejudice. Case closed. It's the stupidest book ever.
Why?....Quote:
Originally Posted by Pryderi Agni
Klone and I by Daniele Steel, and to think that person has made lots of money. :brickwall
Factotum by Charles Bukowski
Story mainly revolves around this guy who quits jobs at the first chance he gets em', travels around the country and meets different people, and finally decides to stay in L.A to marry a prostitute.
I know what Bukowski was tryin to express but the book seems pretty pointless...Too nihilistic 4 my taste.
Have you read every book ever written? If not how can you make a comparison?Quote:
Originally Posted by Pryderi Agni
Pointless Books? Anything and everything by Gertrude Stein.
Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis
Nothing...NOTHING!!!
What you doing reading Danielle Steele??Quote:
Originally Posted by FanofdeBeauvoir
The Alchemist. Not especially good writing, doesn't really have a point, and when it's finished, you're like, "That's all? I want to undo having read that book that everyone raved about."
i don't think i've ever read a pointless book. even the bad books have taught me how not to write, which makes them far from pointless.
I don't know if I ever read a pointless book, but I'm certainly glad to see a lot of you didn't really "get" The Great Gatsby either.
In high school, The Grapes of Wrath felt grudgingly pointless, I'm sure I'd enjoy it now though.
But, in the last few years only book I felt was pointless was Franny and Zooey by Salinger. That story did absolutely nothing for me.
I don't think there's such a thing as a pointless book.Even the plainest story has a reason for being told.Sometimes depending on our social background,our experiences,our age even the way our brain works we can't understand what the writer wants to say or why he has written a book.That doesn't mean that the book is pointless.On the other hand there is a bad written book.A writer who doesn't know how to write.This is so disturbing.And this is a book that we don't need to read.Because in my opinion a book well written but without much plot is worth reading but a book bad written even if there is some kind of plot isn't worth the effort.
I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe recently and it didn't seem to be saying as much to me as it was apparently supposed to. Far from pointless to countless others though i imagine.
Fear by Ron L Hubbard.
Somebody asked me to read it and, although I knew what to expect, I dutifully complied. I would only recommended it to be read, if at all, during the silly season.
Really? I think it's a brilliant novel. Though I can see how its impact and message will be less striking today, 50 years after its initial publication, because so many of us encounter these critiques of the colonial legacy far before we encounter the book. Even so, the novel is tightly structured and beautifully written.Quote:
Originally Posted by katelbach
I'm reasonably sure that his books only continue in print through the concerted effort of a Scientologist conspiracy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Bean
Grapes is prolyl worth a re-read... I just finished it and can say I probably wouldn't have had alot of appreciation for it in highschool either, probably due to the woefully slow plot line, and the fact that I wasn't officially in the "working" worldQuote:
Originally Posted by PrimordialBeast
I don't understand what people don't get... some of the stuff you have to dig a little deeper for, but the ideas of the American Dream and dreaming in general, as well as the unaccountability of the rich seem pretty clear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Propter W.
I agree with you but i just basically didn't engage with the protagonist and found the story quite boring (excepting the walk through the forest in the dark which was lovely). It is well written, as you said, but it didn't leave me thinking i'd just read a brilliant novel as it didn't have me pondering themes like the end of colonialism, familial dynamics, african culture, tribal histories or ANYTHING ELSE as i thought it would. Got much more in that respect from A Bend In The River, which i also read recently. Mentioned this to my mate who is much more well-read than i am, and he had the same reaction to the book. We just didn't take anything away with us from the novel other than its craftsmanship.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
I could see how people might perceive it to be boring since it's a story about a culture so foreign to us but other than the lil differences, the novel is a world classic IMO.Quote:
Originally Posted by katelbach
Okonkwo probably won't resonate as an engaging protagonist in the way we're normally used to. However, I think he is very much set up by Achebe as a sort of mythic, tragical hero in the same vein as Oedipus. Okonkwo's undoing is his unfaltering devotion to what he perceives as the traditional values of his society, which Achebe also does a good job of undermining, but its that same devotion that has brought him all his success. Of course, Okonkwo doesn't fully understand the culture he tries to defend at the end, and maybe his defense of the tribes values against the colonist is more than a bit personally motivated. I think we're left to wonder if we can really understand this foreign culture, which is but a small part of the vast diversity that exists within Africa. Achebe highlights commonalities at the same time reinforcing our difference. I'm reminded of Ikemafune's song before his death, the only extended piece of untranslated Igbo in the novel. It is simultaneously familiar, as a mother's song, while being distinctly foreign.
If anyone in the novel has the potential to be a likeable protagonist it is Ikemafune, but of course his place in the novel does seem to represent a sort of lost potential. Similarly, Okonkwo's neighbour and friend questions some of the values of his society, but lacks the courage to challenge them. It is important that Ikemafune's undoing, and arguably Okonkwo's and Nwoye's (if his conversion can be viewed as an undoing), are products of their own society rather than the colonizer. Instead of a picture of a society of tribal barbarians rescued, or noble savages exploited, we get a complex society with a variety of different people that was simultaneously imploding while showing glimours of potential future reform. Achebe leaves open the possibility that Igbo society might have reformed and done away with some of its flaws, which made it vulnerable to colonialism in the first place, even without European intervention. But of course, at the center of that cultural dialogue is simply a personal and familial tragedy of hubris and intergenerational conflict.
Edit: Naipul is good too though, I also like Coetzee and Soyinka. It's hard as a Western reader not to group all African authors together, even when they come from very different cultural backgrounds.
Does anybody know "Secrets", by Nuruddin Farah? -- I read it recently. Can't really say it is pointless. Certain is however that I didn't get the point.
Well said. Okonkwo is indeed a tragic character in the mold of Greek heroes. The killing of Ikemefuna and particularly the ending where Okonkwo's tribesmen turn their back on him, has got to be some of the most heart-wrenching scenes I've ever read. Everything he ever believed in, what he based his whole life around, was destroyed. U might even say that a form of mental emasculation was executed on himQuote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
See that was my problem. I couldn't appreciate these moments as fully as you as i just didn't feel involved in the story at all. Similar to someone on here mentioning that they couldn't get into The Trial, whereas i couldn't get out of it! Glad to see that some of you felt so strongly about the novel though - will inspire me to re-read at some point in my life. Could be that the time/place/context for the reader (me) was as important here in responding to the novel as the content of the novel itself. I could read this again when i'm 70 and think it the greatest work of art i've ever encountered. I'm sure The Catcher in The Rye, The Stranger, Nausea, Amerika wouldn't have the same effect on me now as when i first read them at 17. That said, i should've mentioned this novel in the 'boring' rather than 'pointless' thread really. Still can't think of a pointless one.Quote:
Originally Posted by FROADS
Ooh! I can! Stephen Laws - Daemonic. Just awful. Abandoned after about 80 pages when i was aged 15. I didn't read again for 2 years. :sad:
Very interesting that you mention him. Years ago, someone on another website suggested that Laws is a very talented writer - so I picked up Ghost Train, which I subsequently enjoyed. I wouldn't say there's anything exceptional about his writing though, but I also wouldn't say he's pointless. Thanks for posting.Quote:
Originally Posted by katelbach
I read the first chapter of Twilight. Does that count?
I don't really have the patience to make it through a book that hasn't become interesting after the first few chapters. But if I've actually read through an entire pointless book before, I've forgotten it.
lol, I just started riding the bus again, and you just described the majority of what I see people reading while riding.Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
Okay, I'll play. Ulysses by James Joyce and Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann are near the top of my list. Oh yeah, there is this guy name Proust—put his whole oeuvre in there.
Let me dispute a few choices here. Les Miserables is miraculously good. The Brothers Karamazov as well.
As for "modern literature:" I think we are living in a golden age. Revel in it.
I guess it was Tortilla Flat, I found it very boring.