First and foremost, The Fountainhead. I don't know which is worse: that Ayn Rand decided to write a book about architects or that I actually read the whole thing.
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First and foremost, The Fountainhead. I don't know which is worse: that Ayn Rand decided to write a book about architects or that I actually read the whole thing.
As I Lay Dying.
I love The Great Gatsby, although I understand why some don't like it. It's not very jolly.
To Kill A Mockingbird is rubbish. If someone published that now, I doubt anyone would care.
The Old man and The Sea. I can't get into it. Apparantly it's one of the most profound stories ever told which is the only thing my blurb said and somehow I can't see it yet
As I Lay Dying
Kafka... I'm surprised at this one. But then there's no accounting for taste:D. Seriously, I could never stand Steven Crane's Red Badge of Courage. Especially after being forced to read it by three different teachers who wanted to turn the experience into some grand social lesson.:sick:
I think I should re-read it and read some more by the same author and read it all with an open mind. I want to like Faulkner, honest!Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I heartily agree. I despise Ayn Rand.Quote:
Originally Posted by moranfan
I really hated Madame Bovary.
It was too dry & full of unnecessary details, the end was so disappointing. ahhh!!! it simply bores you to death :lol:, I don't know how I managed to read it all.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles made me want to slit my throat.
I read some of Hemingway's works in my early 20's and got nothing out of them. I remember being bored to pieces. I thought he was completely overrated and that his writing was bereft of beauty. But maybe now I'd be more in tune with him - not sure. Maybe I should give him another try, as I did Steinbeck (hated him in high school - love him now).
You clearly haven't watched the film.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adolescent09
Fountainhead, yes. Boring.
Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Eliot's Middlemarch, Austen's Emma... are some which come to mind...
To Kill A Mockingbird. A patronising piece of coughing up chinese proverbs and giving us moral lessons which we are obviously so unaware of. thank god she didn't write another book.
I really loved Emma, it is one of my Austen favorites. But I could not get through Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man without constant breaks.
I didn't like it either I had to force myself to read it. Everyone I talk to loves it. I sometime wonder if people like these books because they have been classed as Classics and they feel they have to?Quote:
Originally Posted by SnowQueen189
My classic hating is mainly directed towards Mrs. Dalloway. I really, really, really hate that book.
Like Gatsby or not, you have to admit that the writing is beautiful. I understand that the book's quite serious and contemplative, but it's hardly the worst classic- far from it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joreads
To be fair, I think On the Road is a very misunderstood novel. People read it expecting a hedonistic, drug fuelled ride. In fact much of it has a rather sad, melancholy feel to it. Kerouac was by nature quite a shy, sensetive man and not the Keith Richards/ Keith Moon type extravert people imagine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stieg
I thought it was ok, but as a Brit I really see it as a book by an American for Americans- it is about reigniting/ reinvigorating a love of and appreciation for freedom/ space/ going west... all that stuff. The problem I had with the novel was that it felt like he did all that travelling just so he'd have something to write about- that seemed kind of inauthentic. You also sense that he didn't really enjoy it much and was often lonely and depressed.
Traveling is not just about enjoying, relaxing having fun and tripping. That's vacations, authentic traveling contains it's dose of melancholy, sufferings, adventure and disgust. Why, would you ask me? Because authentic freedom and discovery implies this. Not everyone who travels "travels" in this perspective, and that's a big gap in understanding some things. Traveling with everything organized, or doing only the things where you know you have fun and comfort makes one miss many things, that while may be less "enjoyable" on a purely hedonistic perspective, might be much more rewarding in an inner, intellectual, or spiritual perspective.
In the same way, an intellectual or an athlete might suffer a lot during the process of doing what he does, how is that justified when it is not to make a living (and that person could actually earn more doing something else)? It's because the person loves what he is doing and it includes this suffering, and that doesn't mean that he is always happy about what he is doing and is having "fun", but these are the things that are, in the end, the most rewarding, those in which there is a part of suffering.
Some might call it masochism, but "masochism" as typically understood might very well be only a perverted version of a certain instinctual "love to suffer" which is a basis to self-improvement. There are many other illustrations of such a concept, namely in religions, or love relations.
That was a bit longer than I expected...
I have bit of a problem with Brave New World. I do like it and I love Huxley, but the idea that after a cataclysmic war/ revolution/ upheval etc the world would be taken control of by a benign council of world leaders who would rule in the best interests of everyone else seemed to me pretty optimistic. I found Orwell's vision more realistic.
If 1984 and Brave New World were the two great dystopian novels of the 20th century (funny, I've just noticed that they were both educated at Eton!) then for me Orwell's was far the superior and far more accurate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Etienne
But if you read his other stuff (and a biography) you get the impression that it really brought him nothing- certainly little inner/ spiritual growth or peace. He died very bitter, lonely and unhappy. He was looking for enlightenment, that is clear, what is also clear is that he never found it. People like Hesse are more rewarding. I'd recommend Siddhartha over all Kerouac's books any day.
I'll have to agree with you on Huxley, and Huxley in general, not just Brave New World. He was a great intellectual and a very interesting person, but he is in general a boring writer, the form of essay suits him much more than that of, say, a novel.
I am not saying Kerouac is the greatest writer ever or that On the Road is a work of much depth, I was only objecting to that particular sentence of your, about the point of his travels, which, maybe you are right about in the case of Kerouac. Also my post does not exclude the fact that one dies bitter and sad afterwards, take the obvious example of Bobby Fischer, the chess player, if you look after his conquest of the chess world, you might wonder what in the hell was the point of it all. However are we going to call what he did futile and useless? I wouldn't.
Some people amassed huge fortunes, and died unhappy, bitter and sad, same goes for absolutely anything. For some people hedonism might be this very quest, and many of them will die sad and bitter.
But in all these cases, it is a matter of overburdening oneself (in different ways) rather than this simple beneficial suffering I talked about.
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by Equality72521
i dunno if i really really really hate it, but it is probably one of the most pointless books i have ever read and instantly forgettable
Hallelujah! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Hank Stamper
I can even start a "Mrs Dalloway Haters Club"!
I've only read To the Lighthouse by Woolf, and even though it was good I was not so impressed, so I ain't going to join your club since I won't be reading it! Orlando looks like a very interesting book though.
I found Mrs. Dalloway to be breathtakingly incredible. I think though, that a lot of criticism on it is based on a mis-reading. The book in itself is a study of human vanity, tinged with a nice little King Lear subplot to add a little flavor.
At least we agree on that much.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I can't believe that people hate Portrait of an Artist so much. That book is the reason that I love literature. I picked it up in high school and instantly fell in love with the style. I used to think that it was more real than anything else I had ever read. It really felt like real life. Since then I've been an avid reader.
This was a little hard for me because my tastes are pretty broad, but I did manage to think of one.
Light in August - I absolutely adore Faulkner, but this book I found a little hard to stomach. I thought it was slow, preachy, and linear. These are all the things that Faulkner usually isn't! I also felt that all the interesting characters had much too short of a part. I would talk about it some more, but I don't want to give it away for people who are going to read it. A lot of people like it, but I'll never understand how it got on the Modern Library 100 while brilliant works like Absalom, Absalom and The Hamlet got left off.
I thought Portrait was good, but that's as far a praise it gets from me, I was actually disappointed, if we were to nominate overrated books, I would nominate it.
I would personally like to nominate Hermann Broch's Death of Virgil, but my opinion is that translation had a lot to do with my disliking it so much. Some parts were good but half of it is just pointless repetitions of nice words assembled to create contradictions in order to seem profound... although I can understand how the original German could be better.
yes clearly i must have 'mis-read' it :thumbs_upQuote:
Originally Posted by JBI
i think the reason there is a lot of criticism on Mrs Dalloway is because it is the most pointless book ever written, and if it is indeed a study of human vanity and how people can be massively superficial, it is the most tedious study of such ever conducted
That is, no doubt, one misreading I can live with because I am not reading it again!Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I agree; it is about human vanity, in particular about Woolf's and I am not so keen on spending hours contemplating that.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Orlando is more interesting than Mrs D but that doesn't mean much, does it? ;)
I gave up on To The Lighthouse after couple of unsuccessful attempts.
Bleh. Orwell and Huxley are pretty much the same in my eyes, yes in some ways 1984 can be construed as being more 'accurate', but that does not stop it being any less tendentious. Personally, I prefer Nabokov's dystopian efforts, esp. 'Invitation to a Beheading', but then again I am a Nabokov-maniac. (P.S, 1984 is artistically superior to Brave New World, which was worse than mediocre.)Quote:
If 1984 and Brave New World were the two great dystopian novels of the 20th century (funny, I've just noticed that they were both educated at Eton!) then for me Orwell's was far the superior and far more accurate.
On Virginia Woolf-I once tried to get through her books, most of them having the same affect as a heavy dose of soporofics, they were all pretty banal, but there is no accounting for taste, I guess.
:lol: I like you.Quote:
I agree; it is about human vanity, in particular about Woolf's and I am not so keen on spending hours contemplating that.
Orlando is more interesting than Mrs D but that doesn't mean much, does it?
I gave up on To The Lighthouse after couple of unsuccessful attempt
Pride and Prejudice.
Almost every gossipy woman I know adores that book. I can't get myself past the second volume.
hahaha. Pride and Prejudice isn't too bad, I do love the Austen books I must say but some women are a lil wacked about it. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by aBIGsheep
I agree with you! I loved portrait.. granted it was a difficult read, it was well worth the time that I put into it...Quote:
Originally Posted by book_jones
And though Joyce is obscure.... I think he is rather timeless..
.
Now... I didn't like Lolita....That book drove me insane.. because after the first few chapters I just wanted to put it down,, I did eventually finish it... but I just felt as though it did nothing for me... just perhaps made me thankful that I had grown out of my "nymphet" stage....
I promise to go back and read this whole thread. Seems like fun.
I'll nominate The Wings of the Dove by Henry James. I didn't care about any of the characters or what happened to them and as an author, Mr James did little to influence me to care. He did bore the living crap out of me. Finished it just to spite Mr. James, but bloody awful.
In second place, I'll nominate The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. His abuse of his main character was way over the top. "What else can Sinclair do to this poor chap." Read on. "Oh, didn't think of that." Once you get past the socially relevant portrayal of life in the stockyards, it becomes this preachy sermon on socialism that goes beyond overbearing. I still hate it.
I've read other works by both authors that I have enjoyed, but these two works are supposed to be crown jewels in the body of work for each of them. I say Phooey.
I can't even start reading a Henry James book! About the Portrait: it is a beautiful book and consistently very, very interesting. The passages about the priest and his sermons about hell-fire stand out conspicuously as boring and trite but this is a part of the design of the whole book. Stephen renounces the boring, monotonous religion and looses himself in the pursuit of the artistic excellence. Joyce books are all about language and the beauty of human expression, its possibilities and its varieties. Anybody who finds it difficult to see what all the fuss is about, get an audio reading of these books. Good readers like Cyril Cusack and Jim Norton can bring out the real art in these works, specially the former. Cusack brings young Daedalus to life:Quote:
Originally Posted by PabloQ
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...0/thelibyrinth
This is what you are looking for.
And so many people hate Mrs. Dalloway too? I mean, it's not even 200 pages. There are many more pointless novels that are much longer than this one. At least it only takes a few hours to read. Do any of you feel this way because you had to read the book for school? I've found that this can really change someone's opinion on a book.
Poor Virginia!:) We *did* TTL in university, which is probably why I understand it and see it as a novel which transcends the short-comings of her style, not that I am prepared to discuss the Ramseys here--but I think Woolf leans toward an almost utopian overview which prevents the reader from really identifying with her characters.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
Say what you want about Flaubert, but Emma Bovary could be my vain younger sister--whereas Orlando is almost cartoonish. Woolf got it just about right in TTL though--there is a poignancy to Mrs. Ramsey and her strength in sustaining the fable, whether or not that strength actually gets us *to* the lighthouse.
I only really appreciated Lolita once I had read it twice because I didn't really get it the first time- but it's amazing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Domer121
I cannot bring myself to read Joyce, he annoys me. I read the first page of Portrait of The Artist as A Young Man and promptly returned it to the shelf.
the relative brevity of the book does not make it any less pointlessQuote:
Originally Posted by book_jones
as Graham Greene said of Virginia Woolf's understanding of human nature, it is 'paper thin'
Quote:
I cannot bring myself to read Joyce, he annoys me. I read the first page of Portrait of The Artist as A Young Man and promptly returned it to the shelf.
That is quite the prejudice! How can you dismiss an author, especially one as remarkable as Joyce, based on a page, of one of his more inferior stories?
Which is kind of the point-Flaubert admitted to the fact that the story was in itself, completely banal, as were the two main characters; Flaubert prided himself on being the first novelist to mock the two main lovers in his novel.Quote:
Say what you want about Flaubert, but Emma Bovary could be my vain younger sister--