It's popular fiction , but it does exemplify traits of great writing. I listened to a recording of the The DaVinci code on a long car ride and I couldn't believe how poorly written some of the sections were. It's not a well written book. The poor writing distracts the reader from the story. It was irritating.
1. Jayne Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (Boring and couldn't care less about subject matter)
2. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller (Joke was barely funny the first time, let alone the tenth and hundreth times)
3. The Savage Detective - Roberto Bolano (started off great but then turned into a giant list of obscure Latin writers)
4. Underworld - Don DeLillo (Again, great start but then it meandered for me, could have been much shorter)
5. JR - William Gaddis (Had to read it twice and oh my do I hate this book)
6. All of the Grimm's Tales
7. Sanctuary - William Faulkner (Gritty crime noir? BS!)
8. Armies of the Night - Norman Mailer (far too self-indulgent)
9. Train Dreams and Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson (flat, just interesting enough for me to finish)
10. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys (See #1)
The Red Pony and The Pearl. I hate them with all my heart.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka
Dante's Divine Comedy
The Norton Shakespeare
Milton's works collected in an Everyman edition
Boccaccio's Decameron
Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude
Eco's The Name of the Rose
Cervantes' Don Quixote
The Bhavagad-Gita
The King James version of the Bible
Melville's Moby-Dick
It's like he's just searching for a reaction!Originally Posted by ralfyman
Vladimir: (sententious.) To every man his little cross. (He sighs.) Till he dies. (Afterthought.) And is forgotten.
Just kidding! Those are my favorites.
Strangely enough, the ones I think I might do without are the ones I have spent on the most:
Faulkner - around a dozen Library of America volumes, but I'm still struggling with Sanctuary, although I like the short stories
The Aubrey-Maturin series - I have the four-volume box set, but can't get past a third of Master and Commander, and I don't know if I will still have the energy to read the rest (but I liked the movie)
Bolano - I liked Nazi Literature in the Americas but can't seem to get past through the first few pages of 2666, and I bought two of his other works.
Fowles - I enjoyed the first half of The Collector but not the second, and I can't find the energy to try The Magus, although for some reason I liked the movie (although I think watching it once is enough)
Burroughs - I have four of his works, plus the recent hardcover of Naked Lunch, but lately I've had much less energy enjoying postmodern lit.
Cabrera Infante - I tried Tres Tristes Tigres but could not go beyond the first few pages
Eco's Foucault's Pendulum - I got to finish it after a second attempt at reading it around two decades later; I enjoyed his other works more, esp. Name of the Rose
Pynchon's Mason & Dixon - probably shouldn't be in my list because I did like the few pages I read, but I'm not sure if I should read one of his other novels instead; I did get the hardcover cheap, though
Last edited by ralfyman; 12-15-2012 at 10:32 AM.
Origin of species
A Brave New World
Slaughterhouse 5
On the Road
The Stranger
Ana K
Brothers K
David Copperfield
A Tale of two cities
2666
Anything by Bryce Courtenay. His writing is so right- on politically correct it is banal. There is also rancidly vulgar sex out of the Pornographic Writer's Manual that doesn't even make it as far as funny.
I hated 1) Brave New World with all my heart and it made me nauseous, but I have to say it was definitely thought-provoking, and is well-written as literature. It was just that I would have rather not thought about it...Same goes for 2) Lord of the Flies.
3) The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers I found to be rather dull. I finished it (I kind of had to for an English project) and say the point, but it was a pain reading it. I also tend to stay away from 4) anything by John Steinbeck because of terrible experiences reading The Pearl and Of Mice and Men, though I would be willing to give East of Eden a chance.
5) The Great Gatsby. It's not like it was a terrible book, nor was it a waste of time, but I just couldn't stand it at times. Maybe having to write pages after pages of analysis on it had something to do with it.
I didn't necessarily hate it, but I never understood all the hype about 6) Romeo and Juliet.
That's it for the great works of literature. Even though I didn't like them, I recognize their literary value. But entire 7) Twilight series and 8) volumes 4-7 of Maximum Ride were just absolutely unnecessary.
On the other hand, I love Virginia Woolf unlike a lot of people who posted here. I can kind of understand why people don't like her works though...they are quite hard to read. I really love her stream-of-consciousness style and flow of language, but that's a matter of personal taste.
M&D along with Gravity's Rainbow and Against the Day are the three of his monolithic masterpieces. It wont hurt to start there.
The latest book I failed to finish was Oliver Twist. Dickens used an entertaining amount of satire and irony in the first fifty pages of the novel. This tone vanished soon however and was not replaced with anything interesting: dull characters, no humour in the diologue, etc. I couldn't believe this was the same author who penned David Copperfield when you look at how vibrant and alive those characters were. I also didn't like the idea that there was something interesting and affectionate about thugs and criminals; I wanted to stab them all in the eyes (apart from Nancy).
I'm sorry for those who love this book as my comments probably sound very immature. I think the fact that I knew the plot so well due to the fabulous musical meant that I was always going to struggle to engage with this book.
Last edited by Babyguile; 03-05-2013 at 03:34 PM.
'Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,
And so shall starve with feeding.'
Volumnia in Coriolanus
I'm always adding to my dud, damned and dismal books list. Too many to mention and some are highly thought of here. The grottiest are modern Scottish.
For me, it'd be any book one would find on display at the grocery.
"J'ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage."
- Rimbaud
"Il est l'heure de s'enivrer!
Pour n'être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps,
enivrez-vous;
enivrez-vous sans cesse!
De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise."
- Baudelaire
Mein Kamph - Hitler's "masterpiece." Need I say more? One of the most boring books I've ever read.
Cell by Stephen King - The King is beginning to repeat himself.
Finnegan's Wake - Probably the most imcomprehensible book ever written. The fact that Joyce deliberately tried to be obscure tells on him. This is one of the most overrated books ever written.
The Life of Charles Wesley - The author's name escapes me. Next to Mein Kamph, the most boring book I've ever read.
Tarantula by Bob Dylan - A bunch of self-indulgant drug-induced claptrap.
Growing Up at Thirty-Seven by Jerry Rubin - One of the darlings of the radical left shows why most radicals right or left make poor writers.
Revolution for the Hell of It - Abbie Hoffman's Yippie Manifesto reads like an infantile fairy tale.
Gloria Steinham's Revolution from Within - Another in the long list of radical leftists who are convinced that whatever they write is sacred. Magical thinking from the Queen of Cold.
The Wind in the Willows - A failed attempt to personify nature falls flat on its face and becomes a sentimental mish-mash.
Listen to the Warm - Rod McCuen's collection of sickly sweet lyrics makes Barry Manilow look good.
Last edited by Jassy Melson; 03-25-2013 at 02:09 PM.
Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein
I love:
1) "Wuthering Heights" by E. Bronte
2) "Lords of the rings" by Tolkien
3) "100 hundred years of solitude" by Marquez
4) "North & South" by Gaskell
5) poems by Szymborska
6) "Duna" by Herbert
7) "Richard III" by Shakespeare
8) poems by Federico Garcia Lorca
9) "Terra Nostra" by Fuentes
10) " The king blows and kills" by Herta Mueller
I can do without everything else
Last edited by hannah_arendt; 03-25-2013 at 08:13 AM.
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