The Alchemist. Not especially good writing, doesn't really have a point, and when it's finished, you're like, "That's all? I want to undo having read that book that everyone raved about."
The Alchemist. Not especially good writing, doesn't really have a point, and when it's finished, you're like, "That's all? I want to undo having read that book that everyone raved about."
i don't think i've ever read a pointless book. even the bad books have taught me how not to write, which makes them far from pointless.
'For sale: baby shoes, never worn'. Hemingway
I don't know if I ever read a pointless book, but I'm certainly glad to see a lot of you didn't really "get" The Great Gatsby either.
You know I had brain fever, and that is to be mad.
In high school, The Grapes of Wrath felt grudgingly pointless, I'm sure I'd enjoy it now though.
But, in the last few years only book I felt was pointless was Franny and Zooey by Salinger. That story did absolutely nothing for me.
Perhaps there is nothing but peace and stillness
I don't think there's such a thing as a pointless book.Even the plainest story has a reason for being told.Sometimes depending on our social background,our experiences,our age even the way our brain works we can't understand what the writer wants to say or why he has written a book.That doesn't mean that the book is pointless.On the other hand there is a bad written book.A writer who doesn't know how to write.This is so disturbing.And this is a book that we don't need to read.Because in my opinion a book well written but without much plot is worth reading but a book bad written even if there is some kind of plot isn't worth the effort.
I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe recently and it didn't seem to be saying as much to me as it was apparently supposed to. Far from pointless to countless others though i imagine.
T for Tea.
Fear by Ron L Hubbard.
Somebody asked me to read it and, although I knew what to expect, I dutifully complied. I would only recommended it to be read, if at all, during the silly season.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
Really? I think it's a brilliant novel. Though I can see how its impact and message will be less striking today, 50 years after its initial publication, because so many of us encounter these critiques of the colonial legacy far before we encounter the book. Even so, the novel is tightly structured and beautifully written.Originally Posted by katelbach
I'm reasonably sure that his books only continue in print through the concerted effort of a Scientologist conspiracy.
Grapes is prolyl worth a re-read... I just finished it and can say I probably wouldn't have had alot of appreciation for it in highschool either, probably due to the woefully slow plot line, and the fact that I wasn't officially in the "working" world
I don't understand what people don't get... some of the stuff you have to dig a little deeper for, but the ideas of the American Dream and dreaming in general, as well as the unaccountability of the rich seem pretty clear.
I agree with you but i just basically didn't engage with the protagonist and found the story quite boring (excepting the walk through the forest in the dark which was lovely). It is well written, as you said, but it didn't leave me thinking i'd just read a brilliant novel as it didn't have me pondering themes like the end of colonialism, familial dynamics, african culture, tribal histories or ANYTHING ELSE as i thought it would. Got much more in that respect from A Bend In The River, which i also read recently. Mentioned this to my mate who is much more well-read than i am, and he had the same reaction to the book. We just didn't take anything away with us from the novel other than its craftsmanship.
T for Tea.
I could see how people might perceive it to be boring since it's a story about a culture so foreign to us but other than the lil differences, the novel is a world classic IMO.
Okonkwo probably won't resonate as an engaging protagonist in the way we're normally used to. However, I think he is very much set up by Achebe as a sort of mythic, tragical hero in the same vein as Oedipus. Okonkwo's undoing is his unfaltering devotion to what he perceives as the traditional values of his society, which Achebe also does a good job of undermining, but its that same devotion that has brought him all his success. Of course, Okonkwo doesn't fully understand the culture he tries to defend at the end, and maybe his defense of the tribes values against the colonist is more than a bit personally motivated. I think we're left to wonder if we can really understand this foreign culture, which is but a small part of the vast diversity that exists within Africa. Achebe highlights commonalities at the same time reinforcing our difference. I'm reminded of Ikemafune's song before his death, the only extended piece of untranslated Igbo in the novel. It is simultaneously familiar, as a mother's song, while being distinctly foreign.
If anyone in the novel has the potential to be a likeable protagonist it is Ikemafune, but of course his place in the novel does seem to represent a sort of lost potential. Similarly, Okonkwo's neighbour and friend questions some of the values of his society, but lacks the courage to challenge them. It is important that Ikemafune's undoing, and arguably Okonkwo's and Nwoye's (if his conversion can be viewed as an undoing), are products of their own society rather than the colonizer. Instead of a picture of a society of tribal barbarians rescued, or noble savages exploited, we get a complex society with a variety of different people that was simultaneously imploding while showing glimours of potential future reform. Achebe leaves open the possibility that Igbo society might have reformed and done away with some of its flaws, which made it vulnerable to colonialism in the first place, even without European intervention. But of course, at the center of that cultural dialogue is simply a personal and familial tragedy of hubris and intergenerational conflict.
Edit: Naipul is good too though, I also like Coetzee and Soyinka. It's hard as a Western reader not to group all African authors together, even when they come from very different cultural backgrounds.
Last edited by OrphanPip; 09-22-2010 at 01:48 PM.
Does anybody know "Secrets", by Nuruddin Farah? -- I read it recently. Can't really say it is pointless. Certain is however that I didn't get the point.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits
in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.”
Helen Keller
Well said. Okonkwo is indeed a tragic character in the mold of Greek heroes. The killing of Ikemefuna and particularly the ending where Okonkwo's tribesmen turn their back on him, has got to be some of the most heart-wrenching scenes I've ever read. Everything he ever believed in, what he based his whole life around, was destroyed. U might even say that a form of mental emasculation was executed on him
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