Originally Posted by PeterL
Indeed, Realism is not the best.
If a book is descriptivly ornate and beautiful, thats fine. But if a writer proceeds to go on for 3 pages about some laundrette/ dusty victorian kitchen....im just not interested.
Indeed, Realism is not the best.
If a book is descriptivly ornate and beautiful, thats fine. But if a writer proceeds to go on for 3 pages about some laundrette/ dusty victorian kitchen....im just not interested.
It isn't that realism isn't good, but a reader already has a concept of what the details would be like in a "dusty victorian kitchen". Even if the reader doesn't have a clear concept of the victorian part, a dusty kitchen should be meaningful and Victorian would simply mean from more than a hundred years ago. What goes on in that kitchen? That's what I wnat to know about.
Dickens wrote many or most of his stories in serial fashion. I'm not an expert, but I think that they were weekly. And each week he was required to provide so many words. This forced him to write some overlong portions. I'm not sure if he later edited out sections he wrote, or maintained them for the integrity of the work. I believe the latter. I can barely read any of his stories anymore, but knowing this helped me to finish the few I have read.
"I am glad to learn my friend that you had not yet submitted yourself to any of the mouldy laws of Literature."
-John Muir
"My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - It gives a lovely light"
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Worst book-
"Great Expectations" Charles Dickens.
Usually I really like the guy's works but this absolutely put me to sleep. I mean, I was expecting something that was ok- at least passable. I had to read it for English class yet I never finished it. THey say to not judge a book by it's cover. I say not to judge it by its title because I had 'great expectations' for this book and I was disappointed.
I liked "Catcher In The Rye" but I can see how it might be aggravating.
Yes he did write them as serials, but he could have written a novel, then chopped it up instead of what he did. I think that they were monthly rather than weekly. I just looked it up and found that he was writing several at once.
"In 1838, while OLIVER TWIST was still running in the MISCELLANY, Dickens began writing and publishing NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. Like PICKWICK, NICHOLAS appeared in twenty 32-page monthly parts."
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/dickens/life_publication2.html
The Monkey for Stephan king , i couldnot complete it cause it was stupied
DA VINCI CODE dan brown.....most say it's really agood book.But most say it's full of blasphemy...makes me scared to read it!
SSSSIMPLY _SHREWD
I have been trying to get my hands on the DeVinci Code for so long now because I want to find out for myself. I just haddent had the time between school and reading otherstuff.
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I liked Great Expectations. Perhaps it was because a friend told me it was wonderful and I went in with a predisposition. But Dickens isn't the only classic who tends to run on like that. Did anyone read Lord of the Rings? Half was painfully slow and half as thrilling.
Last edited by IrishCanadian; 10-14-2005 at 12:45 AM.
Irish poets, learn your trade!
-Yeats
I reread Jonathon Sergull by Richard Bach I believe it is? But I remember reading it in high school and now that I am reading some of it over. It's like, "What did I see in the book.?, other than a seagull that learns to fly, then goes off to learn how to fly some more and even better.. gee what am I missing here??
The worst book, hands down, is The Pact by Drs. Hunt, Davis and Jenkins. I had to read it for a class over the summer and it was the biggest waste of time. There has never been a book before, so filled, cover-to-cover, with cliches and dull sentence structure. Page 210: "Alone in my room I listened to 2Pac. He rapped about the pull between his old life as a thug and his new one as a rich rapper. I related to his isolation." On the NY Times Best-Seller List, this trash does not belong.
"Humanity is probably the only creature capable of hating its own kind" - Neon Genesis Evangelion
"I wanna live. I wanna love. But its a long hard road out of hell" - M.M.
"Which is better: to be born stupid into an intelligent society or intelligent into an insane one?" Aldous Huxley's Island p. 228
i think the worst books are the books that are based on the unfortunate things that happen in the world (rape, autism, racism, war, etc.) and turn them into lengthy chicken soup moments. it's even worse when they become best-sellers. (i'm thinking, for example, the kite runner and the lovely bones) it's not the author's fault, of course, and who knows, maybe the author's motive in writing the book is sincere after all. but every time i encounter a book like that, i can't help thinking that the author is just taking advantage of these unfortunate events because who would dare to criticize an, ah, moving book about a boy in afghanistan or about a boy with autism? (i've also noticed if you write about heaven, no matter how politically incorrect, you're probably going to get your book on the next best-selling list.)
as a sidenote, i will also add that the worst readers are (1) those who read best-sellers and instantly love them because all of the wonderful reviews they've heard prior to reading (2) those who are anti mainstream books and resolve to every single one they've read (3) those who read only classics and think every modern book is trash
Somehow I doubt you actually read it. Das Kapital was written solely by Marx. As his friend and supporter, Engels did play a part in commenting it, but this hardly qualifies as being a co-author. And it's pointless commenting the endless amounts of concepts and innovations in the field Marx presented in Das Kapital, and this is a student of economics speaking.
Perhaps you're mistaking it with the Communist Manifesto? That one was indeed a collaboration between the two, and it probably resembles more what you can consider as a "load of inaccurate drivel". Personally, I wouldn't go that far.
On topic, if we grant the mercy of considering them books, then probably something along the lines of Coelho earns the prize in my opinion.
Ningún hombre llega a ser lo que es por lo que escribe, sino por lo que lee.
- Jorge Luis Borges
MEIN KAMPF
by adolf hitler
the racist, anti-semitic ______________
seriously though, i am ashamed that a single member of my species agreed with this book and its morals.
Ian Hislop, editor of the satirical magazine, "Private Eye", once advocated a return of the death penalty in Britain for two classes of people; those that read Jeffrey Archer's books and those that write Jeffrey Archer's books. I couldn't agree more.
I agree with bootlegger!
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