Catch-22.
Catch-22.
Oh please.
Is this because you're a believer or because you thought they were poorly written? I haven't read either, so it's not to defend them, I'm merely curious, probably because I read a book by two Danish guys who wrote about us evil atheists and well, naturally that would make my list of one of the worst, but more out of personal convictions than taste. Which made me wonder how we even distinguish that and maybe it's subject for a completely different thread, I don't knowOriginally Posted by wat??
Desperate Characters by Paula Fox
Reviews of this one are almost unanimously positive, but I just could not enjoy it at all. If you look around you'll see people praising the prose as being worthy of Fitzgerald, it's the perfect length, gripping portayal of middle class ennui, etc., but it simply did not resonate with me.
To be fair, I was tiring of postmodern literature so it may have been a timing thing, but I just can't believe that I'm the only person who didn't get into this one.
Never heard of it.
"...You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?..." E. A. Poe
'Mere Christianity' is actually written in support of faith, despite the misleading name. And no, I am not religious myself.Is this because you're a believer or because you thought they were poorly written? I haven't read either, so it's not to defend them, I'm merely curious, probably because I read a book by two Danish guys who wrote about us evil atheists and well, naturally that would make my list of one of the worst, but more out of personal convictions than taste. Which made me wonder how we even distinguish that and maybe it's subject for a completely different thread, I don't know
Ah my bad. Does correspond better with all the christian motifs in the Narnia books.
Atlas Shurgged is probably the most tedious book I've ever read. I actually agree with a lot of Ayn Rand's Objectivist ideas, but the book was hopelessly repetitive and the characters were awfully black and white.
"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."
I loved The Wings of a Dove but the thing with James is that his novels take a LONG time to get going. Once they do, they're great. Definitely watch the film of the novel, at least. It's one of the saddest stories I've ever read.
To Kill A Mockingbird is very overrated.
a kestrel for a knave was the worst book i have EVER read.... and i only read it because i was forced to... those damned lit teachers....
The Handmaiden's Tale by Margaret Atwood.
I know it's not the futuristic, totalitarian state setting because I like Orwell. I just can't read anything by Margaret Atwood, Helen Garner or Virginia Woolf without feeling like I want their main characters (and the writers of them) to perish out of existence. I cannot understand their kind of femaleness at all, similar to how I feel about Australia's first female prime minister, actually.
I know, geeeez who keeps on letting these women out of the kitchen ?
I thought The Life of Pi was the worst Booker Prizewinner I ever read until I remembered The Bone People I would have included Midnight's Children but I couldn't get past the first 50 pages.
I thought the film was excellent. The plot was great, I just found the soul-searching style excruciatingly slow. I might try one of his early novels - is "Portrait of a Lady" easier to get through?
Anyone prepared to defend Lucretius? I found the Roman physics in De Rerum natura stultifyingly boring - as well as wrong! The Epicurean morality (of course) was excellent, but that only ran to a few pages... At least I saw why the Christians didn't bother burning that one... two hundred pages of Roman physics makes even Christian metaphysics look good...
[QUOTE=mal4mac;1022247]I thought the film was excellent. The plot was great, I just found the soul-searching style excruciatingly slow. I might try one of his early novels - is "Portrait of a Lady" easier to get through? /QUOTE]
I haven't read Portrait of a Lady but you might care to read The Europeans or Washington Square which are considerably less verbose than James' other work. Whilst there is no way in which I would spend time reading Wings of a Dove or The Golden Bowl, his shorter novels make pleasant if not gripping reading with the possible exception of The Turn of the Screw.
"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.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote