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Originally Posted by nebish
I regard Dickens as one of the most over rated writers in the English language. His characters were paper thin cartoon characters. His style was ponderous even by Victorian standards. Trollope in my view was a much better writer. A value judgement if you like. But that`s mind. Anyway, must go. PulpNet beckons.
I forgot to mention Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer". I new something was wrong when the introduction was spouting some long, rambling, anti-semitic diatribe about sexual repression and anarchy. Despite that, I decided to give it a chance, and was appaled. The fact that that type of tripe is still considered literary infuriates me.
Do we burn blasphemers here or do we just chop their head? :DQuote:
Originally Posted by ivette
"I regard Dickens as one of the most over rated writers in the English language. His characters were paper thin cartoon characters. His style was ponderous even by Victorian standards. Trollope in my view was a much better writer. A value judgment if you like. But that`s mind. Anyway, must go. PulpNet beckons."
Dickens' style ponderous? I think he is probably one of the greatest master of the prose in the English language (of what I read in English at least, and from what I've read of Dickens). I will have to agree with your view of the characters, but I think this is part of Dickens' style and that it's not a defect.
People, people, is this really the WORST book you've read or is it just that you find them overrated?
Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion....
The Idiot, Dostoyevsky
I very rarely get that far into a book if it is bad....I've not read very many books that started off well and sucked later.Quote:
Originally Posted by Etienne
Maybe overrated authors is another thread....I'm new to this site so what the hell? I'll put on my flame retardant clothing and proceed...
I agree totally about Charles Dickens....I would also say that he is a writer than I think children would get more out of than adults....His broadly sketched charcters with funny names and not much depth and the coincidences and ridiculous endings of his books are hard to take as a mture reader....And if I want social commentary about that time in history I'll take Emile Zola over Charles Dicken's in a second.
John Steinbeck I have already mentioned but I also really don't care for F. Scott Fitzgerald....He's a superficial writer for a superficial time in American history.
Jane Austen, John Irving, DH Lawrence, Leo Tolstoy, John Updike, Salman Rushdie are all writers I don't care for at all.
Noramlly I wouldn't respond to a post like this as I believe to each his own but I was wondering where you see Henry Miller as anti-semitic? Could you give some examples....He uses rough language to describe Jews (as Thomas Wolfe uses rough language to describe black people) but ends up praising much about their culture.Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Crow
I think Tropic of Cancer is, in my mind, what good literature should be....challenging and not spoonfeeding or manipulating the reader. The diatribes as you call them are some best free flowing stream of consciousness writing I've ever read. IMO one of the top 4 or 5 greatest books I've ever read.
I favor burning; it is more energy efficient.Quote:
Originally Posted by Etienne
Well it was the introduction written by some one other than Miller that I found appalingly anti-semitic, which, I suppose I don't necessarily associate with Miller, but having that as your introduction definately sets off some alarms.
The text itself was almost unreadable by my standards. When Miller isn't Kerouac-ing off, he's making sex duller than I ever thought possible. The only thing I found interesting was the occasional appearance of linguistic flourishes, but these are few and far between.
I've read many a bad book in my time-- mostly for class, although one or two from a simple judgment lapse. However, perhaps the worst and most disappointing has to be The Great Gatsby.
Overall I liked The Great Gatsby, I just thought it was perhaps one of the most pointless books I ever read, but I enjoyed how it was written and the charachers, but it was just one of those things that at the end, I was just like, but just why was it written?
The Disappearing Teacher, forgot the author who did it. I got nothing out of it! I don't even know why I bothered to finish the whole book.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Crow
but...but...:flare:
Heart of Darkness, The Alchemist, Old Man and the Sea, The Great Expectations, Portrait of the Artist of a young Man.
There are a few books which I read when I was younger and which today I would regard as books only in sense of their form, for their contents were probably not worth the paper they were printed on - mostly I have in mind the works of so-called teen and chic lit which I occassionally used to read up until a couple of years ago. However, nothing but vague images of the front pages of those 'works' come to me right now, and those books obviously had no effect on me whatsoever, so I do not even remember them.
Out of the ones I remember, or are more recent, or have specifically been marked as "recommend-to-enemies" in my mind, the ones to come to my mind would be:
Brown, D. - The Da Vinci Code, the only work I read by him because of the overall fuss about him, after which I figured he terribly lacked any skill in writing and any point to make at all
Coelho, P. - anything, especially that overrated trash of The Alchemist
Harry-Potter-and-alike books. They make me shiver. I used to find their popularity to be comic, now I find it to be tragic.
After the above absolute horror, here are the books which I find to be lesser horror, and are generally included in the canon, but which I still disliked and would not recommend:
Hemingway, E. - The Old Man and the Sea, perhaps I was too young when reading it (13-14 years old, for school), perhaps it was the matter of translation (I did not feel like getting the original, so I went with the flow and read it as the rest of my Literature class did in translation) or reading too quickly (I was a little slacker and read it in the morning the day it was due, if I recall well :D), but that book left absolutely no impact on me whatsoever, even moreso, made me believe I would never touch anything written by Hemingway again (which I will be forced this year by school, hopefully I manage to find something in him now :)).
Anything written by Balzac - one of the worse school readings I went through, I find Father Goriot incredibly boring and I only remember fragments from it [whilst after that I did not even bother finishing Eugene Grandet, I stopped somewhere in the middle, and could not tell you what the book was about if my life depended on it].:blush:
Any book by Isabel Allende. She is a mediocre, boring writer. Amazing she has quite the following! She sucks!
I planned not to read Hemingway again after Fisherman's diary :D but I thought maybe I have judged him wrong, after all, I was only 13. So I took Farewell to Arms and...It didn't help! Sorry Ernest!Quote:
Originally Posted by Anastasija
El Zahir by Paolo Coelho
Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
This Side of Paradise by F Scott Fitzgerald
Coelho seems to be pretty popular in this thread.
I have to defend Great Expectations though. I loved it.
:yawnb:May I ask you why? As a student major in Russian language, I was really impressed by Dostoyevsky, and nowadays I'm studying some of his works.. so if somebody has different idea with me, maybe I could advance my thought.:yawnb:Quote:
Originally Posted by jon1jt
to Dark Muse,
IMAO, <The great gatsby> describes "Americanness", or, the two faces of "American Dream".
So most Americans truly love this book, because they can FEEL something- something in their personal history, subconsciousness area, deeeeep down in their heart.
Through this book they can sympathize with Gatsby, or even FitzGerald.
sorry- I forgot to quote it. :(
I love The Great Gatsby personally. But I could not stand Jane Eyre. It was ~400 pages of drivel.
I rather enjoyed Jane Eyre, it is quite funny seeing the varrying tastes, and how someone people can hate a book that others loved, though I never really thought this thread would turn quite so agressive and people taking things so personaly if one does not like this or that author.
I know, it's disappointing that people can't be more tolerant of other people's opinions, isn't it? After all, that's all it really is, an opinion. Every book speaks to people in different ways, everyone is looking for different things in the books they read, everybody is coming from their own place and brings with them their own baggage to every thing they read, thus making it an intensely personal experience. There's no reason to think we all have to have the same experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
Very well put and said
I don't know if you are referring to me, if so, then you should learn to take things with a lighter touch, perhaps. You bunch of serious men/women/monkeys.Quote:
Originally Posted by Idril
I do think aesthetics are more than simply an opinion but I'm not pedantic about it, I was just joking really.
Instead of calling other people monkeys you could be polite and respect others opinion. Your Voltaire had one really great quote about that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Etienne
I think that opinions are precisely what aesthetics is.
What might reach or touch one person one way, might reach and touch another person another way.
What one might find beautiful another could find completely ugly.
My quote is the wrong one actually, I thought I had quoted a post above, but it pasted my previous copy (which was used in favorite quotes thread", but I wasn't calling anyone a monkey, I said men/women/monkey, if these people are not men or women, then they are or hermaphrodite or monkeys. So we could say that I only insulted hermaphrodites, but even they do have a dominant genre and can called either men or women. I mean what is this, it feels like you are just TRYING to be offended or paranoid one or the other...Quote:
Originally Posted by bazarov
And I do respect people's opinion, I'll repeat myself, takes things more lightly people you are so austere and oppressive! You're enough to an hobgoblin to suicide! (warning! I AM NOT BEING SERIOUS!)
"
I think that opinions are precisely what aesthetics is.
What might reach or touch one person one way, might reach and touch another person another way.
What one might find beautiful another could find completely ugly."
I think aesthetics have two facets, one that is absolute and the other subjective. That is in part what music, literature, architecture, painting "principles" are. But remember that I said I am not being pedantic about this and things I said in the topic were JOKES. Let me repeat JOKES. I thought this was pretty clear that I didn't seriously want to burn people through internet...
Steinbeck's The Red Pony. Oh good lord.
I wasn't referring to you specifically, no. I have no idea what you even said about any books, I was just speaking generally. And I do take things with a lighter touch which was sort of my point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Etienne
Nah. Start with The Sun Also Rises. If you don't like that, you're beyond help as far as liking Hemingway goes.Quote:
Originally Posted by bazarov
I got about a quarter-way through Lord Jim by Conrad and couldn't stomach another line leading to nowhere. It was so dry I could taste it. So THAT's probably the worst book I can think of trying.
I also hate D.H. Lawrence but for other reasons.
I agree with you on both those points. I really enjoyed The Sun Also Rises, and I found not get myself to finnish Lord Jim eitherQuote:
Originally Posted by Black Flag
Never read Lawrence, but I'm curious why.Quote:
Originally Posted by Black Flag
i hate all comercial literature of this century... its incredible the editors can publish something else..
Although I don't abhor it, I dislike the literature of this century also.Quote:
Originally Posted by JoanS
Lawrence's depiction of the romantic relationships between his male and female characters is near sickening. The men are wussies and the women controling. Much like today, in fact, which I abhor.Quote:
Originally Posted by Etienne
But you should read Lawrence for yourself. Try Sons and Lovers.
Perhaps, although I have many other priorities for the moment. Just got my hands on Bely's Petersburg, for example :brow:Quote:
Originally Posted by Black Flag
the thread is based on negativity and will engender indulgence of the worst kind as is evident in this idiots reply
The Scarlet Letter. I'll admit I didn't finish it, but I couldn't stand the book.
It's nice to see that so many others hate Conrad as much as I do. The Heart of Darkness was torture for me to read. Basically I don't like anything that insults my ladyship. For instance, I don't like hunting stories, I guess that's why I hate Faulkner so much. And Animal Farm was THE most insulting thing I was made to read as a student. I don't care about life from a pigs perspective, and yes I know it has a deeper meaning but come on - it's a stinking pig. The first page of the book made me want to jump in an ocean of perfume.
And, thus dies open-mindedness.
How do hunting story insult one's 'ladyship' per se? I've known plenty of women who loved going hunting and reading hunting stories.Quote:
Originally Posted by DigitalLove