Love Story by Erich Segal.
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Love Story by Erich Segal.
I didn't like The Old Man and the Sea - yes,I know talking against Hemingway is a blasphemy around these boards,but I really hated this book.
This is,of course,as far as serious literature is concerned - I shall not take authors such as Coelho,Rand or Brown into account - if I did,this post would turn into a VERY tiresome rant.
Lemme think:
1) To Kill A Mockingbird. No, to bore it to death. It might have been a very good book had it not been for the rubbish that is part 1 and atticus' moral lessons. Really, I understand that to backwards towns in South America in the '60's, the idea that racism was bad was revolutionary but nowadays we've realised that it's kinda pretty obvious. All it's doing, at least now, is saying 2 +2=4 in a very smug white middle class way
2)The Immoralist by Andre Gide. It was a bit strange but nothing really happens. Just right at the end he goes super-weird and paedophilic: it's never mentioned for that even though the narrator says some quite creepy things (he only likes young boys)
And some of the best books, a mon avis, that I've read (if we balance it out we can see why people have put these books as being the worst they've read):
Lolita, the Great Gatsby, Les Enfants Terribles, Brideshead Revisited, Giovanni's Room...
I've read loads good stuff.
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
I am reading The Sun also Rises and finding it quite pointless. Nothing has happened in the first 60 pages that I have read so far. Getting tired of all the monosyllabic drones! Read A Farewell to Arms 18 years ago for my first MA and loved it, read The Old Man and the Sea last year and didn't hate it either (although can't recall anything!) but The Sun also Rises is heavy going. I hated As I Lay Dying as well.
Interesting. I hated The Sun Also Rises as well. Couldn't stand it, in fact. I've been told that if you really like the characters, the book is a lot better. But I didn't. I couldn't stand Jake or Brett, and I thought they were whiny and meaningless. But oh well.
I loved As I Lay Dying, on the other hand, but I'm nuts for Faulkner.
I also really hated Great Expectations. But I'm loving A Tale of Two Cities.
Also strongly disliked Wuthering Heights. Too many characters with the same name, not enough plot.
But as far as the WORST book I've ever read, I think I'll nominate The Joy Luck Club. Could not under any circumstances get through that book. I thought the characters were incredibly whiny and pathetic. Maybe I missed the point. I don't really hate the book per say, but it bored me to tears and I quit reading it. Probably the worst thing I've ever tried to get through...saw no literary merit.
"O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamesian
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!"
Hmm... I dislike anything too dismal. I was not particularly fond of House of Seven Gables or The Red Badge of Courage, though I did finish both of those.
I think people are putting the classic books they disliked the most in here.. I mean who can seriously say the worst book they have ever read is Hawthorne, or Melville, or Hemingway, or Dickens... seriously people... you are trying to say you have never read a truly piece of junk book in your reading career???
So, if I go to works considered literature... I really disliked Kerouac's "On the Road" and wish I had the time I spent reading it back... I thoroughly disliked it...
but the worst books I've read, written for adults... would be "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Alchemist"... and I think I saw someone on here say "Fear of Flying" by Erica Jong I think it is... I read part of that when I was a lot younger.. and that has to be the worst piece of garbage ever written!!!
Precisely how I feel while reading Beckett. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Kafka's Crow
I've been trying to avoid saying this but two novelists I can't bring myself to read, just can't read more than a couple of pages by these two individuals: Charles Dickens and... wait for this one... Henry James. As far as Beckett is concerned, he rules the realms of heaven and earth jointly along with Dostoevsky. We are talking about REAL Gods here not some fake 'God of my idolatry' or something. This is real greatness beyond which everything else diminishes into nothingness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamesian
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. I think it was badly written, or perhaps I just didn't get it.
If you want to read really, really bad books, then try some of the recent fantasy novels. They wouldn't be all that bad, if they were two hundred pages; but they stick in an extra six hundred pages of filler, and the filler is the worst part.
I can't stand the whole genre, even Tolkien. I think The Hobbit is the only real fantasy lit I have read.Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
I understand the feeling. I enjoyed the Lord of the Rings, but it was not a good novel, while The Hobbit is an excellent story. Lord Dunsany also wrote some great fantasy. It seems to be a generational thing among the authors. The ones who wrote in that general field before WWII were excellent, and I would extend the sub-genre to include Fritz Leiber and others. The crop of writers who started writing after the D&D craze have been much worse; they don't seem to have any feeling for plot. Maybe D&D does destroy the ability to reason.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kafka's Crow
I'm sure that most of modern, popular fiction qualifies as awful if you really analyze it, but I do need to put forward Dan Brown and Tom Clancy. Mr. Brown writes incredibly predictable plots (I can always see what's coming) and he establishes the credentials of "intelligent" characters (a Harvard history professor, for example) who are dumber than I am.
Mr. Clancy actually wrote a book about an elite squad of government operatives who have to attach and defeat a radical group of environmentalists. Clancy is a real claptrap machine. His novel are good if you need to level a table that has one leg that's 3 inches too short.
However, from the world of literature, my vote goes to The Wings of the Dove by Henry James. The plot was thin and the characters, every one of them, were uninteresting. I pushed my way to the end of this thing, but it was the hardest I have ever had to work to make it to the end. I've read other works by James and enjoyed them, but this one was something else.
:angel: Indeed!Quote:
Originally Posted by Kafka's Crow
Two of my worst books were Orson Scott Card's Lost Boys and Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs. Card's book was just plain awful with too many evil characters in a supposely nice little town. What I really hated about these two books was the u-turn ending. That when in the last few pages a book you were expecting to end well suddenly ends in tragedy. I don't like downbeat endings but, I really hate it when there is no warning watch out this is not going to end well. I know Victor Hugo is a classic author but, that ending was so unexpected and it was so close to a happy ending. I did like of course Les Mes and his Toilers of the Sea was at least honest about where it was going. As for the Card book it was just plain awful.
Dostoevsky...joint-ruler with Beckett? Oh my, this will never do...Quote:
Originally Posted by Kafka's Crow
Actually, I was exaggerating a bit. There is some Beckett that I enjoyed. The excerpts we read from Molloy and The Unnammable, for instance, and the little I read of Murphy, all looked more or less promising (and very funny, in a way that appeals to me), and I remember really liking All That Fall; but as he starts aspiring to be the artist of "ignorance and impotence" he begins to annoy me - and I am certainly not impressed by the fact that he is often doing so intentionally. Dosto on the other hand - a god indeed.
The worst book I've read all the way through was Dan Brown's Deception Point... still don't know why I didn't stop after the first two or three chapters. As far as "the classics" go, I'm going to have to go with Great Expectations, although you could substitute just about any other Dickens work in there.
I know that wasn't totally directed at me, but I'd like to point out that I said I disliked Great Expectations and Wuthering Heights, but the worst book I've read is Joy Luck Club. I agree that there is a difference between realizing a book is bad and not enjoying it. I understand why Great Expectations and Wuthering Heights are considered classic, but I just don't like them. Joy Luck Club, on the other hand, was despicable.
I have read a little fantasy, and I'll agree that the genre has very little literary merit, and I don't even enjoy most of them now (I went through a phase) but there is a soft spot in my heart for certain fantasy books, regardless of how bad they really are. I couldn't bring myself to nominate them here...
Very true!Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
Ha ha, Antiquarian, I've noticed we have different tastes. But that's one of the things I like about this place--such a variety of people.
I love Stephen King, but the worst book I've read to date has to be Pet Cemetary...I could NOT get past the 3rd chapter no matter how hard I tried.
That and the Red Badge of Courage, (:( still remembering that forced sophomore high school reading assignment) had me in tears every time I had to open it up. I'm sure it's great now that I can appreciate the story, but THEN it was the WORST book ever.
lol. It's not like the protagonist stays and fights the second time you read it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jislani
Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
Don't know if I would call them "bad" books but I find myself unable to enjoy fantasy books as well and I am glad to see that I am not the only one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kafka's Crow
Considering the number of people who love this genre and list LoTR as their favorite I wonder why I don't like it.
There is a huge amount of variation within the sub-genre. If you haven't read any of the recent generation of fantasy, then you should be happy. I called them "bad", because many of them are poorly written as a whole; the narrative structure. Imagine reading six hundred pages that mimic a good news report of an ax murder, without any change in the characters or the tone; that is far from a perfect analogy, but it gives the feeling.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
I wonder why people love that sub-genre. Could it be that they have never read anything better, or maybe they have lots of time to kill reading stories that just go on. There is something similar to TV soap operas to them, and some people manage to watch soaps for decades.
Funny, I know a lot of people in the fantasy world would consider this Blasphamous, but I am an avid fantasy reader, and yet, I do not care for Tolkien. Despite so many in fantasy heralded him as a genus, I do not find him to truly be that good of a writer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
I acutally enjoyed the movie LOTR more than reading the books
I will read almost anything... Always believed that there is a time and place for everything. I will read Harlequin or whatever between Camus and Dickens.
I just can't seem into get into fantasy books. Recently I have been reading some Pratchett books, for example, and even though I sort of enjoy reading them at the time, I don't particularly look forward to reading the next one.
Maybe we should start another thread about this :)
Interesting. I feel the exact same way about Tolkein. I just don't like the writing. He's a great story-teller, sure, but his writing was just lacking, in my opinion. I've gotten into a lot of arguments over that one! You are the first person I've met who actually shares this opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
Have you read any of the DragonLance? I was really obsessed with the first three in that series in 8th grade. But only the first three. After that, they got really stale. I read a lot of fantasy in the 8th grade, but really haven't read any since then. Oh well. Not big into that genre anymore.
I know the feeling, usually I am afraid if I say this around any fantasy readers I will get rotten tomatos thrown at me LOL
I have not read any of the Dragonlance books
Right now I am enjoying The Wheel of Time books and The Sword of Truth books
Any novel or play from the "Restoration" era.