/lit/ - Literature

The City & The City

Well written, involving, even got some emotional punch at the end.

However...the premise is so incredibly stupid, you fell insulted investing so much time into such a moronic premise.

The author evades the usual fantasy/SF trap, by setting the city in the modern world, thus evading the mass of exposition that a fantasy/SF setting would entail, allowing more time for character developement.

This fails, however, when one realizes, that the premise goes against human nature! NO ONE would ever put up with the situation presented in this book! As one character most aptly put it, it is insulting!

There is another major failure, as well, when the main character just meekly accepts his fate at the end. Any sane person, would go on a killing spree, having been given such a sentence! Again, insulting!

Waste of time, unfortunetly.

The House of God:
This book was hard to make it through...kept thinking it would get better. Really? Nurses and doctors sleeping together? How cliche

The one-star reviews for Immortality are pretty tame, so I'll just post excerpts.

>If you like to sit at sleek, commercial coffeehouses drinking your reincarnation of tea, perhaps smoking a cigarette cuz it makes you look sexy, and reading the most recent, "cutting edge" books by New York Times Bestsellers and Oprah's Book Club, then you've found yourself a winner.

>The title accurately relfects the theme of the novel. I mildly enjoyed reading this postmodern construction interspersed with light poetic ruminations on unimportant matters. Unfortunatelly , reading this book has been a perfectly forgettable experience.

>Immortality reads like such an experimental novel gone terribly wrong. Instead of gently, unraveling characters with an analytic mind, Immortality finds Kundera sloppily going off on tangents, musing about everything from astronomy to Goethe to the German language and other seemingly random subjects while his characters take a back seat. Not that I would call that a tragedy seeing as they are generally middle-class, middle management, middle age, whiny, bores. The only tragedy is this self-indulgent and pretensious book every saw the light of day without some serious reconstructing. When I move into a college dorm in a week, this is one of only two books from my collection so bad that I plan on just leaving it behind at my parents' house. The other one is leaps and bounds better than Immortality.

That last guy just did not get it. I'm tempted to say he didn't read the whole thing, because all his examples of nonsense are from the first section of the book.

It's a great book. I would recommend it.

The Brothers Karamazov:

This book is all about some badly behaved brothers and their mean father and how they do nothing but shout and drink and threaten one another and are lewd and then, one of them anyway, goes to England, or at least he wants to. You call that a story?

What if one day, a mysterious package appeared out of nowhere in your room? Well that's the adventure that Milo faces in The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.
Milo is a bored child who sees no point in anything he has to do. He is not satisfied with anything. In his free time, he sits around and is sad because he has nothing to do. One day, he comes home from school and finds a package that takes him to a magical new world with monsters, demons, and the ability to buy and eat words. And on top of all that, Milo has to rescue the two princesses: Rhyme and Reason who will restore order to the kingdom.
The Phantom Tollbooth is not a very in depth book. Its characters don't really make you think. There were a few good lessons you could learn but that doesn't make up for the rest of the book. At first, Milo is a person who can't see the point in anything and acts like he doesn't care about anything but he goes through a great change.
I didn't like this book because it was way too fanciful. The things they talked about were not things you would do in reality like, about the stock market of buying words is going up. I don't know about you, but I like books with conversations that actually might happen in the real world.
I would not recommend you buying The Phantom Tollbooth because of the boring plot, strange creatures, and strange conversations.

NAKED LUNCH:
Open mind or closed mind, you can't get blood from a stone. If 232+ pages of incoherant, rambling nonsense is your cup of tea, this is the book for you. If you would like to spend an afternoon confused and bored, this is the book for you. Otherwise, I don't think I'm the first to say THE EMPEROR WEARS NO CLOTHES.

Of Human Bondage
>no 1 star reviews
>aww yee

So a two star review that made me grimace.

>Not only did I find it dull but I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the main character's perception of women! I'm not a feminist in the least but most of the female characters were described in such pathetic ways. "Yellow teethed" "Sallow skin" "Dirty Hands" "Tear stained over powdered face", it goes on and on. I wondered if the author was uncomfortable women? I looked online for some information about Maugham. To my surprise I found out that Maugham was bisexual. He did marry and have a child but for most of his life it sounded like he was involved with men. In no way can I say this substantiates or confirms the tone of the book -- but in some way it answered my question or concern.

>Instead of this book I'd recommend the following classics: Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Madame Bovary by Flaubert. At least in these books, maybe the female characters are not the most virtuous but the characters are written with such sensuality that even though they might not be described as gorgeous they are brought to life in the pages by the author with a kaleidoscope of words that makes them multidimensional

Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5

I didn't get it

How this book became a classic is beyond me. Insipid and dull with a disjointed story line. The final straw was the 100th repitition of the very annoying "so it goes" phrase the author is compelled to use after every death. Stopped reading the book about halfway into it just to avoid another iteration. I guess one had to have grown up in the LSD era to appreciate this rambling and bizaar book.

>>1988457

What the fuck?

>The Phantom Tollbooth is not a very in depth book. Its characters don't really make you think.
>I didn't like this book because it was way too fanciful. The things they talked about were not things you would do in reality like, about the stock market of buying words is going up. I don't know about you, but I like books with conversations that actually might happen in the real world.

Did they realize this was a kids' book?

>>1988470

They're saying it's Satanic, yo.

Blood Meridian:

>My first and last McCarthy book. Horribly boring, pointless. Perhaps some academic can imagine some underlying genius but to me it's an endless string of "This horrible thing happened and then that. Another atrocity and then another one" Lyrical - bull. Zero redeeming qualities. Waste of my money and life.

>Tristram Shandy is a self-indulgent, pretentious mess. Laurence Sterne seems more concerned with his erudition than with telling his story. The novel is a sort of intellectual tease, as Sterne intorduces storylines, and then announces that he will complete the storyline later so that he can digress onto some topic that may have been of interest in 1760 (such as the description of fortifications) but which is of little interest today. By doing this, Sterne builds up and then frustrates our expectations, revealing Sterne as both vain in his self-indulgence and disrespectful to his gentle readers. One would need to be a classicist to understand the classical references littered throughout the book. Sterne could have told a story; instead he gave a lecture.

It's amazing how somebody could fully note all of these things and yet completely miss the point of all of these things.

>>1988478
The best part is that this person can't even tell the difference between Sterne and Tristram Shandy, I think.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

I've never written a bookreview before.
Never?
Never.
Okay?
Okay.

I had to force myself to finish this book, and I can't say I'm glad I did. Like the Seinfeld epidsode where Elaine was forced to watch "The English Patient" a second time, I kept thinking, "Oh, just die, die already!"

Maybe I'm a prude because I hated the way the author took liberties with the English language, and not, to me, in a positive way. I kept wondering why he chose to write his book in English when he so seemed to hate its rules.

Besides that, I couldn't identify with the characters, or their plight. If, as the book claims, the bleak landscape had been this way for years, why are they just now seeking some other venue? Whatever.

I really hated this book. For others who feel the same, I recommend "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt. Now THAT's a novel worth reading.

>The old man and the sea

''I thought the book went on forever and never stopped. I felt like I was reading a book a chid wrote and it dosen't make sense. All it does is talk about a dumb fish and just talks about it for hours''.

>>1988489
Interesting. So here's a one-star review of "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt.

The slimy corporate maneuvering which produced this "writer" in publishing was as unwholesome as the one which produced that related creature in "music" Brittany Spears.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Disappointed...

I was sooo disappointed. Really, the main story and plot could have been contained in a short story of 20 pages or less.

>>1988511

>Really, the main story and plot could have been contained in a short story of 20 pages or less.

Pic related.

>>1988511

HAHAHALOLLLL
Ironically hilarious. Wilde is laughing from his grave.

"All art is quite useless" indeed

House of Leaves

"This book is basically divided in two parts. As you know from the reviews below, I wont get into the details of it. I would of rated it a 5 for the house story of it, but I couldnt get past 100 pages of this because of the crassness and sexual explicit material from the words of Johnny."

>would of
>house story of it

> I look up Around the World in 80 Days
> not a single 1 or 2 star; mostly 4 and 5s
> mfw

> Native Son

I had to read Native Son the summer before my junior year for my English class in high school. I am suprised that it has gotten so many great reviews and is considered a classic. It was highly offensive the way everyone was stereotyped. All the white people were shown as monsters to the black characters, but Bigger Thomas was the most offensive character I have ever encountered in a work of literatue thus far. When he killed the white girl, whose family he had been working for, he showed no remorse or responsiblity. If it had trully been an accident he would have gone to the police. Instead he framed another man and then disappears himself. Then there is the graphic description of how he raped and killed his own girlfriend, which made my stomache churn. He showed no remorse throughout the entire story, but instead felt it is society's fault that he has commited such horrible crimes. I do not believe that this book shows the plight of African Americans in our society, but instead shows a man who refuses to take any responsibility for his actions.

>>1988541
lol you love house of leaves

>All about sex and violence and drunkeness, really boring, March 17, 2000
>By A Customer

>This review is from: The Brothers Karamazov (Bantam Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

>This book is all about some badly behaved brothers and their mean father and how they do nothing but shout and drink and threaten one another and are lewd and then, one of them anyway, goes to England, or at least he wants to. You call that a story?

Well, do you?

120 Days of Sodom:

>dear god! i had heard that this book was notriously sick and outrageous. i just figured "okay, it's gonna be a little rough." but i had no idea! take the most awful image in your mind and read about it and things that are actually worse. some parts left me quesy, and some of it made me feel like crying. de sade has written about [all sorts of sexualsituations]. If you [like] the freaky stuff by all means enjoy this little "treasure". but if you're like me, a curious 16 year old boy, stay away. fight the temptation because this will haunt you till the day you die. did i mention it's over 400 pages long?

>search for the stranger for some lulz :

>1 star
>Being unnaturally obsessed with Kafka, it was assumed by my compadres that I would also like this author, and particularly this book. How wrong they were. The plot makes no sense, the characterization is meager & unconvincing, and the only poetic prose occurs on the last page as our hero (ha!) languishes in prison in the final hours before he is to be executed, wondering what it all means & railing at humanity for treating him like the dog he is.
>the plot makes no sense
>plot
>no sense

This review is from: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (International Writers) (Paperback)

The best thing about this book is the cover. Boring, improbable story line of a man who has a good sense of smell so kills virgins to steal their natural odour- WHAT. Stupid, pointless tale with little characterisation. Take my tip don't bother, it leaves a bad odour.

>By Edwin
>Titus Groan made me think of Alice in Wonderland set in a decaying world -- and not in a good way. Like Alice in Wonderland, this book contains a lot of nonsense and silly situations that I believe are supposed to be funny, but are actually quite boring and stupid.

>So here's how you'll know if you'll like this book: do you think names like Prunesquallor and Steerpike are "unforgettable" (as the official Amazon.com review describes them) or just plain idiotic? Pass by this book if the latter.

>By speerstra
>After an hour and 40 minutes I had to shut the tape off. Seems as though the writer has forgotten that the plot is the most important piece of a book. Total torture. Goes nowhere. Dont do it and dont EVER compare this to Tolkien.

How can you complain about lack of plot and then speak highly of Tolkien...

>>1988568
>I hate this book, though I understand why this book became so popular. We, humans, are not logical machines. I think anyone who have read any of Nietzsche's books would think this book childish and absurd.

>>1988571
You like that book too?

Blindness

>I was excited to get this book, the subject matter was interesting to me. I couldnt get past the punctuation and lack of sentence structure, no he said she said, it was all one huge run on sentence and I couldnt get over that to enjoy it. I felt like I was 10 years old and trying to hold my breath underwater as long as I could while playing Tea Party in the shallow end, and you all stare at eachother and try to enjoy yourself until you have to take that breath and come up to the surface. I was drowning in this authors choice of format, and I wanted to enjoy it so much!!!!

>>1988574
camus talked about absurdity in his writing and beliefs.

Watchmen:

Look beneath the surface! What is being espoused is dangerous and hateful Orwellian doublespeak. It is a classic example of the ends justify the means philosophy that has emboldened dictators for ages. Consider:

1. Rapists/rape can be OK if the product (Silk Specter) is something good.

2. The smartest human (Ozymandias) devises a plan for stability at the price of millions being murdered.

3. A "good guy" can murder the mother of his unborn child w/out repercussion.

4. False-flag terrorists attacks are a legitimate way to affect change.

5. Massive existential lies are acceptable depending upon the result.

6. The person who holds truth as an ideal must be insane and destroyed (Rorschach).

This is dangerous mass-brainwashing to accept terrorism, death and a NWO. Read between the lines--don't be fooled--this goes beyond a mere comic.

>>1988587
hahahahah fantastic. Must have been trolling. No one could be that stupid

>>1988580

Yeah I've always really enjoyed reading it. Some of the one star reviews are amazing.

This review is from: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (International Writers) (Paperback)
This is a book for ignorant people to pick their noses to and believe they're reading literature.

I agree with all the negative comments made herein, as they seem to be more accurate and reflective of the shallowness and general low quality of this book than the gushing "love-its".

I snorted with derision. How many times can you read 'olfactory'? Less than this, I'm guessing. So it's an allegory. Wow. So he's got this funky Eastern European name. Wow. It's like, set in HISTORY, y'know? Like, wow. What would you do if Ratko Mladic wrote an metaphorical story about white noise set in 17th century Vilnius? And used 'auditory' 500 million times? Yeah, got all the ingredients.

Who reads this? Maybe it's good to protect you from pigeon-droppings...

Story of O
(BDSM-book)

>I thought this book transended any kind of morals or values that my mother taught me. This kind of work can hardly be called literature, and definately not a classic. I do not believe in banning books, but if I did then this would be at the top of my list.

what did she expect? A story about values and morals?
lol

>>1988613

>Transcended.

I do not think that word means what she thinks it means.

That said, it's a pretty horrible book, literary–wise and morally. Stuff like that makes me want to get The Republic on some fiction.

>>1988587
Lololololol

Did this fellow only see the movie or something?

John Dies at the End, one of the few books I consider to be near perfect:

>One of the DUMBEST BOOKS I have ever tried to read! EVER! Way too weird for me and I did not find it to be funny at all. Some reviewer said there is something funny on just about every page. I tried flipping through it randomly and sadly found it not to be the case.
I love end of the world, horror, monster and zombie books and wrongly assumed this would be similar but it is not at all.
I really wanted to like the book and have been on a wish list for ages. But sadly somethings are just not worth waiting for. This book is one of those things. I know a lot of people will insist on finding this out for themselves, but just a preview of the first 20 pages was all I could get through. And on those pages: a girl breaks into snakes, which later become a monster created of various meats (sausage, a turkey, venison tongue, etc) , a door knob transforms into a flaccid penis, a basement that fills with poop, and a boombox that plays "Here I Go Again", by Whitesnake is the stopping power. If this sounds hilarious to you, by all means rush out and get the book. If it sounds stupid, save yourself the time, money and hassle.
For such a highly followed internet sensation I was greatly disappointed in it and suprised that so many people could find this quality reading material.

>>1988583
ya, that's why I found this comment really laughable, plus this guy's trying to thrash camus by quoting nietzsche, only failing to see that they both wrote on the same matters. (patronising the book by calling it "childish", I mean, wtf? the child is one of the strongest ubermensch figure in Nietzsche's books)

I haven't genuinely cringed whilst reading a book in a long time, but boy, did this book make me! Absolutely stuffed full of pretentious hot air and "artsy" superficial nonsense, all taking itself so seriously! Tao Lin seems to think that throwing in a few obscure words and bouncing from one ridiculous scenario to the next will mask that this book has absolutely no substance. This book personifies the vacuous so called "art culture" on my generation. But hey, this is only my opinion; I'll give you a direct quote from the book, opened at any random page, and let you make up your own minds!

"All of life seemed just to be one thing-one slap-dash'ed, stuffed turkey of a thing, flying out of the oven and into the night, into orbit; something once familiar and under control, but now just out there, unknown, by itself, charred and brainless and rarely glimpsed"

>>1988643
So deep, Tao Lin, so very deep.

And yes, a sentence of that length is entirely typical within this book, which made wading through the bull that little bit harder.

I'm truly sorry that some of my money is now in his hands. Don't make the same mistake.

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

"After 4 chapters I gave up. The story did not draw me in and I couldn't figure out where i was or where I was going. The writing style may have been much to blame. it was bvery formal and old school. It was absent of contemporary rhythms. Maybe I just am not smart enough. "


Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal

"I'm surprised this book has such a high score, given the scoring system. Yes, it was well written. Yes it was evocative. And no, I didn't like it.

For such a short book, I got through it relatively slowly. I think if I had read it all in one go I would have been compelled to throw myself off the nearest fatally high ledge.

It made my skin crawl. But that's not what I look for in my books. I have read plenty of excellent books, touching on subjects both happy and uncomfortable, to know that it is possible to do this in a manner which makes me want to read it. This was not one of them."

>>1988492

>I thought the book went on forever and never stopped

Haha. I think it's a little over 100 pages in most editions.

>>1988566
>but if you're like me, a curious 16 year old boy, stay away.

>Hyperion
>The book started quite ok. But the end is just a terrible disaster that was probably caused by the fact, that the author was starving and he had to give just "SOMETHING" to his agent so he would get some money for some food... It is obvoius that the book starts with a nice idea in authors mind. It is divided into 6 stories and the first few are excelently written. But when you get to about 2/3 of the book, one of the main characters dies (quite probably because the book is getting to thick for 7 stories). The last story looks like the author was in such a hurry, that instead of working on the story, he just substitued his "preliminary version of the text with his own comments". The last story is written in simple words the way a first grade kid would do it. My comment: he really must have been hungry to release that book...

>The worst thing (this made me to rate it with 1 star instead of 2 stars) is that the book does not end. It is not even open end book. It simply does not end - as if you bought the book with last 20 pages missing. Is this an attempt to make the buyer also buy the sequel? Well then I am not going to buy the sequel, because there is quite a high probability the part II will end or better to say fail to end the same way.

>I still have to give the author some credit (that is the reason for at least one star) for giving us some insight in the way people look at the world: "whatever can place us as humanity on its menu (even potentialy) has to die - and that applies for tigers and lions as well as for any extraterestrials".


Fuck you faggots. The ending was perfect. Them all singing the Wizzard of OZ at the end was fucking great. And it's not Dan Simmon's fault that the publisher made him split his book into two. There are more parts to the story and Hyperion ended just where it needed to. Complaining about a lack of resolution is like complaining why Frodo didn't reach Mount Doom in Fellowship.

Terrible in every way, 20 Jun 2010

I was told that reading this book would change my life and that it was a work of genius. Boy, was I sold a pup. There is nothing good about One Hundred Years of Solitude. In fact reading it felt like Three Hundred Years of Suck. Where is the plot? Where are the characters?

Nothing about One Hundred Years of Solitude made me engage with the story. It takes a lot for me to put down a book unread, but this novel had it by the yard, by the mile, in fact.

Magical realism? There must have been magic somewhere for a novel this bad to see the light of day.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy

Okay, let's take some steampunk, some Da Vinci Code, some Percy Jackson, some vampire and Atlantis lore and water it down with some 9/11 paranoia. Hand it out to the some adolescents and have them write some plots based upon this. Then take those plots, smoke some pot, invent some corny lingo like 'fnord' and then begin cutting and pasting like hell so you don't get sued by Rowling, Dan Brown, Stieg Larsen, Neil Gaiman, Stephanie Meyer, Anne Rice or whoever. Might just be the ghost of Plato for all I care - and you got yourself a book, gentlemen. Okay, let's publish it! Okay, we haven't proof red it or anything, but who cares, we just got to laundry som money.
That's at least my impression of this totally crappy book.
That someone even finds this even half entertaining is beyond me, because it's so utterly awful! Do avoid this with all means, and get some good old Sherlock Holmes instead.

tedious,

basically James Joyce did the one day of introspection thing and showed that a) he was a clever bugger, and b) this kind of book is not an enjoyable read. so then Vwoolf does the same thing with a second-rate bunch of tedious people. hmm.bet that will prove fascinating. it does. not.god knows why everyone runs around pretending this turgid nonsense is great literature -- maybe wanting to be pseudo-intellectual? bloomsbury is like the cancer of British literature, and as this year's Pultizer was won by a Woolfie-book, maybe its contagious. Beware, o American brethren, this foul stuff has already laid waste to the country of Shakespeare et al.

>wanting to be pseudo-intellectual
America is doomed.

>>1988657
>Where are the characters?
The thing the book did best was make you care.
What the fuck is long with this child?

>>1988658
The best part is that a very similar review of the book is actually contained within the book.

The Dice Man - Luke Rhinehart

>I cannot believe this book had such a high number of positive reviews. I have read some bad books in my life but this one is one of the absolute worst!I am amazed that all the references to CHILD murder and rape can be overlooked by the rest of the reviewers.

If /b/ ever finds this review, sales will go through the roof.

If /b/ ever bought anything.

>>1988674
>from /b/
>see this
>want it badly
>don't buy it

All your statements are correct.

not as good as new books

This review is from: Where the Wild Things Are (Hardcover)

I am almost 7 and my teachre said we have to say why we like a lot of books or do not like a lot of books this summer on amazon and then print out them and give them to our new teacher next year So I am starting with this book.
My dad reelly likes this book because he said it was good when he was a kid. I dont like it. The pictures are boring and the story is not long. My dad reads this to me a lot and I like the books that are newer. New books have pictures that are pretty and the storys are funner and longer. This book has pictures that look old. I wish my dad would read this to himself and let me read something diferent. Nichole

Gaiman's Sandman

>The author dwells in a world of silly feelings that a healthy individual will not be able to relate to. This whole series is nothing but immaturity disguised as intellectual deep stuff. Stay away from it.

Snow Crash


I read this book initially during my younger, agnostic years, and I liked it a lot. Inventive, crazy, disturbing, and definitely entertaining. Tried to re-read it recently and found it deeply offensive, now that I am a Christian. In this book the Holy Spirit is likened to a virus. I threw it in the trash, could not finish it. So, if you are an atheist and like books that trash Christianity and reinforce your world view, then this one is for you. I don't require the promotion of my world view in the books I read, but I'd rather not have it attacked. I don't understand why so many sci-fi authors do that these days, given that the super majority of Americans self identify as Christians.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down:

I had to read this abortion of a book for school and I can easily say it is the worst book I have ever read. It drones on about medical mumbo jumbo that you'd have to be a doctor to understand, and preaches tolerance to people who believe in alternative types of healing (which obviously will lead to death without real medical attention). No one else in my class who read this liked it either, avoid at all costs.

The Picture of Dorian Grey

I did not like this piece. I feel that Oscar Wilde used this as a semi-autobiographical vehicle to transport his radical, eccentric ideas and ideals. He speaks through his characters of Lord Henry and Dorian Gray. They seek to justify debauchery and murder and they kill off anyone who is good, kind, moral or differs in opinion with them. A good read, perhaps, for the likes of the 42nd president of the USA. This book falls far short of it's hype and offers absolutely nothing of merit.

>>1988684
That's a very valid review, cause the book sucks speaking in terms of children's lit. I'm sorry you didn't have the Odyssey and Grimm and such as a kid. Spike Jonze' adaptation was lightyears better.

>>1988812
>They seek to justify debauchery and murder and they kill off anyone who is good, kind, moral or differs in opinion with them. A good read, perhaps, for the likes of the 42nd president of the USA.

I lol'd heartily

>>1988684
definitely a troll

tl;dr

>The Things They Carried

BAAAW ITS NOT COMPLETELY REALISTIC.

Its not supposed to be you massive twats.

>It is my first and last Bukowski...Never heard of the guy till this one. Sorry, but have never been exposed to his poetry - which I understand (but now I seriously doubt) it is exquisite.
Expected to have an exhilarating insight into...well, WOMEN from someone who knows about the subject. I should have listened to the other reviewers in the 1 - 2 stars section. What a boring recollection of girls by an ugly, old, broke alcoholist - but, hey, one that is soooo full of himself and his 7inch acrobatic member. Oooops, I must have divulged a secret...I apologize if I have ruined somebody's pleasure of this soon to be forgotten writer and book.

>>1988848
>boards.4chan.org/lit/

I think you're lost, bro.

>>1988432
you gotta admit he's kind of spot on there mate.

"A traditional "liberal" deconstruction where little is recognized as good with the exception of its own juvenile narcissism and egoism. I would not describe this work as even a novel and it has little to recommend. Given that this is a critique of WWII, the novel puts in place the antecedents to today's antisemitism within the left's worldview. "

Catch 22. Yes, you read that right, Catch 22 is the reason left-wingers are antisemetic.

>>1988854
You are a retard if you think Bukowski will all of a sudden be forgotten. That would maybe make sense if he was recently published or if there had been any cultural change making his work less recent, but neither is the case. Peope have read him up until now and just because you don't like him they won't stop.

This review is from: Kafka on the Shore (Paperback)
Too many unanswered questions. Too many cop-outs. The climax involving the old man is straight from an old Star Trek episode and is such a literary cheat that I am shocked so many reviewers could praise this aimless nonsense.

Warning: Ugly cruelty to cats and the mentally incompetent.

>only 1-star review for Kobo Abe's "Woman in the Dunes".

This book was as flat as a day-old can of opened soda. The beginning was intriguing, but the moment the lead character ended up in his sandy prison, the book ended. Or at least should have. Everything was painfully predictable and I ended up skimming through most of the book. The relentless morbidity of the book made it impossible for me to even remotely relate to the characters, which in the end (finally!) made me leave it behind when I returned from vacation.

Anna Karenina

>I'm with the rest of the reviewers that found this novel to be the most boring book I've ever read. Only because it's supposed to be a classic did I fight my way through to the end in the hope that there would be something redeeming in it. If you could cut out about 600 pages of cutting grass, hunting, sitting around at boring parties, and mindless musings of the characters, you might have about 200 pages that actually tells a story. And unfortunately, for all that, you don't ever get to a place where you either understand or sympathize with any of the characters. I really couldn't have cared less what happended to any of them.

this thread is like /v/

stop liking what i like

ponies are awesome damn it

>>1988863
Sorry, didn't greentext properly. The entire text I posted was the review.

Women is probably my favorite book after Catch-22.

Homage to Catalonia

>I try to be neutral in the matters regarding the Spanish Civil War, but I cannot understand why Franco is called "fascist" as long as he had nothing to do with the fascist or nazi ideology. Besides, why are the awful images of the anarchists/communists destroying churches not as known as the romantic images of "international brigades"?

You can call me crazy, but I think he was called a fascist because he had the political support of the fascist party of Spain (the Falange).

>>1988566
This Sodom one's pretty much dead-on based on the bit I read. It was entirely non-arousing pornography.

>>1988923
True, that's a total failure at reviewing the book, but your reasoning doesn't work. Being supported by someone doesn't make you the same as them, it just means they support you. That's like saying everyone fighting Franco was a Communist...

>>1988616
Plato's?

>>1988951
No, but that's why he was called a fascist. If you look closer... his policies and platforms (what little he had) were remarkably similar to fascism as well. Maybe a little closer to autarky, but the line is blurred anyways.

>>1988574

The book isn't childish or absurd at all. Ask yourself - why did the protagonist kill that guy

It's been almost two months since I read this truly awful book, and the sense of it still lingers with me like an after-taste--those horrifying scenes of sexual brutalization that Oates makes up for her fictional Norma Jeane/Marilyn Monroe; those endless ruminations on God-knows-what, rambling, incoherent; those mean-spirited passages that pretend to be Norma Jeane's judgement of herself, but are, of course, Oates' judgement of Norma Jeane. Based on what? Oates owes her fans an apology, for allowing this reckless, over-wrought book to go out like this; didn't an editor see it? Is Ms. Oates so beyond reproach (but why?) that no one cautioned her about this disaster? I can't think of another book so messy in every way.

Vol. 2. of Proust
I waited decades to read Proust and eventually forked out a lot of money and bought all the volumes of the Everyman edition. I consider myself well enough read: Tolstoy, Garcia Marquez, Greene, Lessing, Fowles, Kafka, to name a few. And I also have a rule. If a novel doesn't grab you by the time you have read a fifth of its length, then you are wasting your time. Life is too short. With "In search of lost time," I went further. I wanted the enlightenment of the greatest fiction of all time. I gave up after 1000 pages and do not know how I lasted so long. It was a dire struggle. There is no plot. The main character is a nobody. He forms no plausible relationships with anyone. He doesn't do anything. In fact, characterisation does not exist. No one is believable. There is no meaningful narrative or human interest. It has no politics on any scale. The endless trivia is not, I repeat, not poetic. The sentences go on for pages and make no grammatical sense. And even if you can figure out what obscure grammatical structure they are attempting to employ, forget about trying to make sense of them. People talk about Proust's musing over a cup of tea. That's about as interesting as it gets. If the heart of mankind is what you are after, read Tolstoy. That is great writing, beautifully written.

>>1988936
what are you, gay

DESPERATE CHARACTERS, by Paula Fox.


One Star.

Hardly a masterpiece....

A middle-aged woman is bitten by a cat, which serves as a metaphor for the wild chaotic world that surrounds her. Her world, her life, her marriage, is out of control. If Jonathan Franzen hadn't lobbied on behalf of this book, we never would have heard of it, and no one would have been worse off.

>>1988988
wow, its like, the author managed to get all the reactions he intended

Grapes of Wrath

>Unfortunately i had to read this book for my american literature class. it went on and on and on about absolutely nothing!yes mr. steinbeck is very descriptive, by he goes completely overboard in almost every chapter. i mean, does it really take a whole chapter to describe a turtle! as for the characters i thought that they were all dumb and unsympathetic. and he wrote them with such a strong dialect that i had to re-read most of it just to understand what they were saying. there was nothing that kept me interested in it or even made me want to finish it. i could have cared less if they bought their "littl' white house" in California. my advice to other people in my situation: buy the cliff notes. the only people i would recommend this book to is insomniacs, it is better than any sleeping pill on the market.

>>1989049
And here's another one:
>I am a Junior in High School and am instinctually drawn to literature. This novel was a required reading, but that didn't spoil the story for me. The story did that itself. I have never been so bored in my life. Honestly, I'm astounded to find that so many people "loved" this book. While the story did have a great moral to go along with it, it was about dirt! Dirt and migrating. Dirt and migrating and more dirt. I couldn't even sit down to read it for more than 15 minutes before dozing off. What an awful summer read. I even think I chucked it out the balcony once. But please, decide for yourself. Opinions on literature are very diverse, so make your own, and make sure not to operate heavy machinery while reading this one. Things could get drowsy.

>instinctually

>>1989056
>>1989056

>I am a Junior in High School and am instinctually drawn to literature.

I lost right there.

1.0 out of 5 stars WHAT !!!! NO ZERO STARS
This review is from: The Member of the Wedding (Mass Market Paperback)

>first of all this book is the worst of the worst !!!! i read the page where it says that mccullers started writing when she was 23, obviously she was little bit premature to do so. this is probably the result of that !!!! i think i speak for everybody when i say that we only read it coz we have to !!! nobody's gonna read this for fun !!! if somebody does theyre probably people who have nothing else to do ... seriously when they read this book theyre gonna end up doing something and thats SLEEPING !!!! this is the bore of the millenium. i personally only read it for i HAD TO !!!!!!! students out ther know wat im talking about. 1). no action or thrill at all. 2). ther is no plot and therefore doesnt deserve to be called a book. 3). it only talks about a g.d. child that has no common sense and an i.q. of a 3 year old. frankie is also selfish and a brat so to speak. she shouldve been more fit as an antagonist rather than the protagonist. ull be so surprised when u get to the end. ur gonna end up saying, " thats it ????" i just have to say something to mcculler : "ohhh ... so stupid!!!"
Help other customers find the most

Airframe by Crichton:

Never in my life have I read a poorly-written book. Sure, in my time I've seen a truckload of god awful movies that just made me wanna puke. But I never expected this sort of work to be fit into a BOOK. Well, it looks like I proved my self wrong after reading Michael Criton's "Airframe," a supposedly good novel that turned out to just plain stink.

lmao

>mfw I looked up The Poisonwood Bible and began to agree with the 1 star reviews
>then I remembered how bored I was reading it at 14

>>1989056
>junior in high school
>okay i'll forgive that for now
>claims to love literature
>can't at least respect steinbeck

Jitterbug Perfume

More words than a dictionary.
I'm not even going to get into the story. Suffice it to say it bounes back between 3 different cities and 3 sets of characters. I've been struggling to finish this book. It has now become my mission to finish it, as painful as it may be. What could be described in a few sentences goes on for pages and pages and pages. Any wittiness is lost in the blah blah blah of the endles WORDS. Cut to the chase man and get this slow as molasses story going! I don't care about the story. I don't care about the people. I don't even care how it ends. I just want to finish and be done with it.

Heart of Darkness

This book is a horrible collection of excess verbiage and meaningless slime I have ever read. The book is extremely suicidial in nature and implies that human nature is purely evil and the best thing that can happen is for us to look over the edge, discover, "the horror, the horror" that is life, and die. My, isn't that inspiring and uplifting? The 'depth' of this book is discovered only as one looks for depth in a pond and mistakes the reflection as depth. This book is a thin veneer covering a lack of creativity due to Conrad using up all his good material in earlier writings. This book should not be combined with alcohol or other depressants. Scratch that, this book should not be combined with breathing humans. Let this book lie with its subject, dead. Go read Fahreheit 451 or some other book that actually covers a deeper subject.

This book totally sucks! When I bought it, I was like, yes! a good book finally! But majorly, this book is the worst book ever! I repeat: DON'T GET THIS BOOK!

>About Roald Dahl's "Skin"

To be honest, I hated both The Things They Carried and Slaughterhouse Five. But I'm not too into post-modernism.

The Plague:
>This book has no emotion, depth or human insight. It reads like a clinical analysis. Boring and disappointing as was the Stranger.
>if you like to feel depressed, then by all means read this book....it is dark and imaginary smells are those of death....yuk....totally discusting.
>discusting.

Existentialism and Human Emotions' lowest rating is 4 stars.

Nausea:
>gave up on page 92 when I noticed I kept rereading the same pages again and again not retaining anything from the previous time.....this book is terrible to the core......its the same problem I have with Camus you have The Stranger on one hand, then The Rebel in the other.....these pussyass frenchman questioning their existence because of WWI is annoying....grow some balls and become an alchoholic like the post war American Writers did. You want the plot a guy is writing a book, or maybe he isnt, he meets people, or maybe he just looks at them..they talk....he listens......he describes things.....he walks around....he sees a pederast with his hands down his pants looking at a little girl it might have been a boy I dont remember he did say something funny to him though.....he tries to write his book, he hates his book....he hates life....he hates himself....he has a girlfriend I think....he hates her...they have a picnic....the food disgust him.....he skips the bill at a Cafe...he makes 90 year old refrences to france....I think his city is fictional, I bet he hates that to...he hates forks.....blah blah blah... If you want good french writers stick with Celine and Genet or
I fucking lol'd at "these pussyass frenchman questioning their existence because of WWI is annoying". Not only does he fail to recognize Existentialism as a legitimate philosophy, but gets the war which help lead to it's growth wrong.

Let's see..

Dominic has no 1 star. Nor a Two star. But there is a 3 star...

>This is my all-time favorite book. When I had to move out of my Grandmother's house after my Grandmother passed, about 6 years back, my Aunt took the liberty of going through my belongings and disposed of my treasured books. Though this is the correct book it is not the same edition as the one I possessed, and it's proving to be very hard to find. It is disappointing that Amazon makes it difficult to get the exact thing you're looking for, but in general I am pleased to have the story in my hands yet again.

How about The book of the dun cow?

>IF you are heavily into symbolism, and IF you like books with talking animals, and IF you didn't get enough out of "Animal Farm" and want more, THEN perhaps this book is for you. Otherwise, avoid it. The book manages to be preachy, without ever quite knowing what it's preaching about.

>In spite of the blurbs, The Book of The Dun Cow is a meandering mess. An unfocused and dull plot leads the reader to a confusing and pointless conclusion. Comparisons to any of the `great' works of fantasy are misplaced. Only recommended if you can pick this up in a bargain bin at a garage sail (and don't pay more than 10 cents for this).