Literary confessions.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Well, so far this thread has dumped on a huge number of my favorite authors: Camus, Dostoyevsky, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Kafka, Salinger, and Flannery O'Connor. As soon as people get around to trashing Balzac, Faulkner, Kazantzakis, Philip Roth, Don Delillo, and John LeCarre, I think you'll have hit everybody.

But I'll play. Among Great Authors, I can't abide Tolstoy (too heavy-handed and moralistic), Dickens (ditto, though my wife swearsGreat Expectations will change my mind), and Henry James (unspeakably dull most of the time).

I also agree that LOTR is so wretchedly boring it makes Henry James read like Elmore Leonard.

And Stephen King is to writing what McDonald's is to food. Except that I don't necessarily feel physically ill after eating at McDonald's.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
As soon as people get around to trashing Balzac, Faulkner, Kazantzakis, Philip Roth, Don Delillo, and John LeCarre, I think you'll have hit everybody.

None of them are even on my "want to read" list.

[alva]

Balzac:

Please, I don't ned 20 pages just to describe a ****** table, to quote John Cleese: "Get on with it!!!!"

[Verto]

Originally posted by Tuberski
My other confession? Most of these books mentioned seem to be books people read so that they can say they read them.

Tell it like it is brotha.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Bill3000
Catcher in the Rye = worst book ever. A good second is Angela's Ashes. The latter was incredibly boring, full of hypocrisy, and had worse grammar than a damned 7 year old. Sorry, I prefer to read legable books that make sense.

I'm sorry, the Bible takes that title.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by alva
Balzac:

Please, I don't ned 20 pages just to describe a ****** table, to quote John Cleese: "Get on with it!!!!"

[Gamecube64]

On the subject of LotR, I read Return of the King, then The Two Towers, then tried to read The Fellowship of the Ring, but couldn't. Does this make me a bad person?

[Elok]

I don't read Stephen King either, and I despised Interview with the Vampire, or rather the half of it I read. I got sick of it and quit halfway through.

Your reaction to LOTR depends largely on how interested you are in its elements of immersive fantasy. I enjoy disappearing into Middle Earth for a little while, so I like the books, but I'm not one of the nuts who dresses up in a green cloak and spouts Quenya, so I don't think it's the greatest thing ever written either.

[Verto]

Originally posted by Gamecube64
On the subject of LotR, I read Return of the King, then The Two Towers, then tried to read The Fellowship of the Ring, but couldn't. Does this make me a bad person?

Not bad, just someone not deserving to live.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Gamecube64
On the subject of LotR, I read Return of the King, then The Two Towers, then tried to read The Fellowship of the Ring, but couldn't. Does this make me a bad person?

No, it makes you dyslexic.



ACK!

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Agathon
I've read most of them.

Try reading classics.

Ihave read classics, but I don't tell you the names for a reason.

See my first post.

ACK!

[Dis]

classic literature sucks. Why can't they write in proper English?

[Boris Godunov]

Sounds to me like some people have a problem in that their MTV-attention spans won't let them savor a good book that doesn't race along like a Dan Brown novel.

Les Miserables is great precisely because of all the side trips. It's a brilliant look at French history and the culture of the times. You won't find a historical text with a better account of Waterloo, nor a more vivid description of the Paris sewer system.

Now, the great thing is you don't have to read those asides, if you don't want. Skipping them won't make you miss out on any of the book's plot. It will remove some of the background richness, however.

It's worth it to read the novel, however, as it is one of the greatest books written. The story is so timeless that it has inspired more films than any other book in history with the exception of the Bible.

Dickens can be great, too--you just have to get the right one. I'd agree that Great Expectations lives up to its name, and A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and a few others stand out. Hell, I even liked Bleak House. Most of the rest I can leave, however.

My most tedious literary experience to this day is still Moby Dick. A so-so introductory chapter, followed by upteen chapters of incredible boredom. Three chapters on whale rope? No thank you. There's a fine line between rich detail and excessive bull****, and Melville crossed it. The last three chapters are terrific, but they don't make up for having to wade through the rest of the book. Bleargh.

A close second to that was Hardy's Tess of the D'urbervilles. My god, what a wretchedly dull book. It was so loathed by my class that we took turns stomping on the marker for Hardy in Westminster Abbey on our senior trip to London. Putrid.

Mahler doesnt do it for me.

And you have the nerve to call someone else a heathen?

[alva]

Les Miserables is great precisely because of all the side trips. It's a brilliant look at French history and the culture of the times. You won't find a historical text with a better account of Waterloo, nor a more vivid description of the Paris sewer system.

Now, the great thing is you don't have to read those asides, if you don't want. Skipping them won't make you miss out on any of the book's plot. It will remove some of the background richness, however.

That's one sour spot, isn't it.
Get's you everytime Boris. Every six months you come back with that same reply, might as well copy it to a text file.

[KrazyHorse]

Camus

Good

Dostoyevsky

Good

Fitzgerald

Crap

Hemingway

Good

Kafka

Good

Salinger

Good

Flannery O'Connor

Haven't read

Balzac

Embarrassingly enough, haven't read

Faulkner

Good

Kazantzakis

Okay

Philip Roth

Never read

Don Delillo

Never read

John LeCarre

Okay

Tolstoy

Okay

Dickens

Good

Henry James

****

LOTR

Okay

Stephen King

****