Books You Hated (1 Viewer)

[coraline]

i couldnt stand austerlitz by sebald or the tin drum by hermann hesse.
badly written, dull, !bog

edit - just realized that the tin drum is by gunter grasse, i always mix those two up...
the glass bead game by hesse is amazing.

 

[billygannon]

i couldnt stand austerlitz by sebald or the tin drum by hermann hesse.
badly written, dull, !bog

A couple of guys I used to work with raved about Austerlitz.
It's been sitting in my room for some time now - been meaning to read it etc.

Is it really complete shit? I've read, ooo, approximately 2 pages, and it seemed a bit, well, how should I put it...

hard.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

A couple of guys I used to work with raved about Austerlitz.
It's been sitting in my room for some time now - been meaning to read it etc.

Is it really complete shit? I've read, ooo, approximately 2 pages, and it seemed a bit, well, how should I put it...

hard.

dont mind coraline, shes clearly a philistine. Austerlitz is a marvelous book. once you get used to sebalds style you'll love it. the rings of saturn is even better.

 

[frona]

i read it when i did my leaving the second time and found it a lot less hateful than silas mariner which i kicked into flitters after finishing the exam the first time round. i didnt actually read all of it though and i think silas is a cool name to have.

Aww, so you don't know what happened in the end of Silas Marner? The end was a serious morals-fest as you can probably imagine, with comeuppance for the baddies and everything working out great for the goodies.

The book that pissed me off the most was Oliver Twist. It started out really good and I was mad into it, then in about the middle it just got weighed down with Dickens' stupid moralising and anti-semitic and anti-woman crap. And anyone poor in the book was corrupt except good old Nancy who was doomed anyway because she wasn't a "virtuous" woman. And Oliver of course, who turned out to be of noble blood. Gah!

I know I shouldn't judge old books by the morals of today but The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis was a pretty xenophobic piece of crap too. Most dissapointing for me cos I was a big fan of The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe as a kid.

 

[eucrid eucrow]

I know I shouldn't judge old books by the morals of today but The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis was a pretty xenophobic piece of crap too. Most dissapointing for me cos I was a big fan of The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe as a kid.

C.S. Lewis was a sneaky Christian fucker. His stories are full of the worst parts of Christianity, especially The Last Battle, killing all the children just because they are growing up and have learned things and are beginning to think for themselves. That wouldn't be right of course so instead they are apparently brought to some kind of Garden of Eden regress to be docile, abiding servants in 'paradise' once again, fucker.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

C.S. Lewis was a sneaky Christian fucker. His stories are full of the worst parts of Christianity, especially The Last Battle, killing all the children just because they are growing up and have learned things and are beginning to think for themselves. That wouldn't be right of course so instead they are apparently brought to some kind of Garden of Eden regress to be docile, abiding servants in 'paradise' once again, fucker.

Put the clumsy Christian allegories aside and you've got a seriously inventive and enthralling (to an 8 - 9 year old as I was when I read them first) series of books.

Easy slag old Shadowlands from the benefit of hindsight but when you're a kid you just get high on the exciting narrative etc

 

[chymera]

i'll agree on catch 22, didn't think it was great. - apart from one chapter in the middle, where he's flying somewhere doing sort of runs with some lad... can't rememeber, read it years ago.

Read american psycho recently. thought it was pretty crap, but I still finished it.

Read ten pages of No logo and then no more- very very boring.

Read one Dean Koontz book and it was possibly the worst thing I have ever read... avoid!

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Read one Dean Koontz book and it was possibly the worst thing I have ever read... avoid!

he's no W.G. Sebald, i agree, but i have a bit of a weakness for his trashy novels. hes good at doing chases with countdowns and all that stuff, very exciting! but when he tries developing characters hes dreadful. luckily he usually doesnt waste too much time on that sorta thing and just gets stuck into the chases. dark rivers of the heart is a good one.

are you sure your not mixing him up with that bitch mary higgins clark? shes shite so she is.

 

[egg_]

I loved On The Road - but you have to finish it, it doesn't make any sense unless you do. Same for Catch 22

 

[egg_]

also FAO egg: am i way off the mark here or are the lyrics from your "Dame Street" song lifted from Joyce? they sounded instantly familiar to me, like remembering a dream or something and i've been meaning to ask...

Don't think so - John-out-of-Stoat wrote em, AFAIK they're based on a Real Life event (or more a period of time condensed into an event)
You sure you're thinking about the right song? Seems to me like going for a job interview in the Central Bank is an unlikely subject for Joyce

 

[Deleted member 3435]

Don't think so - John-out-of-Stoat wrote em, AFAIK they're based on a Real Life event (or more a period of time condensed into an event)
You sure you're thinking about the right song? Seems to me like going for a job interview in the Central Bank is an unlikely subject for Joyce

nah twas more the "i cursed whatever wind blew the..." (can't remember all the words) and some turns of phrase rather than the subject matter.

didn't mean any badness by it egg take it as a compliment i like it a lot maybe i'm going mad though too but you know when you hear/read something and it seems like a dream to you that you've heard/read it before?

that does sound like i'm criticising but i'm not.

 

[eucrid eucrow]

I loved On The Road - but you have to finish it, it doesn't make any sense unless you do.

This is very true.

 

[egg_]

nah twas more the "i cursed whatever wind blew the..." (can't remember all the words) and some turns of phrase rather than the subject matter.

didn't mean any badness by it egg take it as a compliment

"I cursed whatever foul wind blew the objectionable thing through my letterbox"

It is a little bit Joycean alright maybe ... don't worry, I did take it as a compliment, and I'm sure John-out-of-Stoat will too