/lit/ - Literature

>>The author did a fantastic job of playing broader and deeper English language unnecessary to narrate a pedophilic story
What is this I don't even!?
Link to her profile pls.(I'm sure this is a female)

>This book was assigned in one of my college English classes, and I absolutely hated it at the time (I even wrote a letter to the professor venting my disapproval). I wanted to read it again out of curiosity--I wondered whether I would still feel the same way 15 years later. The answer, it turns out, is yes! It's full of repellent characters who spend half the book trying to figure out a way to kill their handicapped newborn baby and the other half having illicit and grungy sexual encounters which are conveniently described for the reader in excruciating detail. Yuk.

>>2730442
Here- http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3579382?format=html&sort=rating
Don't be hard on her, her favourite books are twilight fanfictions.

>I want to write something elegant that says I didn't like this book, but really what my brain is saying is what the hell? The HANDS! Hangs in (almost) every story fluttering and just being focused on way too much because really they are HANDS. And please don't get me started on the women in this book... I mean seriously go look at some of the other reviews that took the time to pull out the creepy Tandy quotes.

>I don't even think my problem was that none of the characters were likable, I know they aren't supposed to be. I just find the unending sad and pathetic people unbelievable so that I can't focus on anything the story is trying to say and instead get distracted by hands.

Another review, same book.

>Listened to 4/7 parts of the audio version. Had to stop. This may be a "Classic" but it's absolute drivel. This is a collection of short stories that don't really seem to relate to each other and individually they don't have any point.

I bought this book when I worked at Barnes & Noble and because when I was reshelving the book (found in the men's bathroom...vomit) I flipped it open to a scene where nuns were introducing a 12 inch dildo to the virgin Juliette's vagina. I thought that was interesting enough to make me buy the book.

Yes, I know De Sade was purposefully pushing the limits. yes, I know that De Sade was allegedly NOT insane (or was he? who else thinks about setting pubic hair on fire for fun or making a man fuck his daughter in front of the mother, or throwing your newborn baby into a fire for sexual pleasure). My question is.......you know what? There are no questions I have about this book that I want to know the answers to.

Although, if you can segregate some scenes from the rest of the book and put sticky notes on those pages...you can have great material for masturbation. Not that I would know. I've been told this by unnamed third parties.

Moral of the story: blind allegiance to sexual satisfaction only can lead to exponentially increasing perversion.

>Dune by Frank Herbert

>It is all about the politics and very little about the rights of humanity. Is this the point?
>Paul is a prat. He never had to work for anything he achieved as it all came to him so easily. Harry Potter he is not.

>This book is NOT science-fiction, rather, it is Space-Opera.

>People who love this book should:
>1. Get their head examined.
>2. Read some history.
>3. Stop reading Herbert, so that you stop yourself from getting dumber.

This one is actually infuriating:

>This book was so dumb it was a chore to get through it--and I haven’t pushed past the pain period in years. People riding worms, killing their grandpas, weird names for knives, bullets and don’t forget, everyone is addicted to Cinnamon. I thought it was lame. It felt really juvenile. The author seemed to be trying really hard to make everything really mysterious and mythical, and all I could think was how lame it was: all-blue eyes, a worms called a "makers," suits where you drink your own body moisture (disgusting).
>I'm also annoyed that this book was read in exchange for Pride and Prejudice. Compared with a timeless classic the book seems like a 1st grade primer. Austen is a master of plot and suspense. You may not like the subject matter, admittedly it is a little girlie, but the woman can write. Herbert? Not even close.

>Worse than Hitchiker's Guide because it is sooooo looooong!

>It's not really science fiction but fantasy on other planets

ohmyfuckingchrist.jpg

>>2730468
>who else thinks about setting pubic hair on fire for fun or making a man fuck his daughter in front of the mother, or throwing your newborn baby into a fire for sexual pleasure
Lost it.

>Weird and surreal and dissatisfying blather. I can appreciate that books like this led to works like those of Lewis Carroll and others. And I can appreciate the fact that they are important from a Christian allegorical perspective. But I have too many things on my To Read pile to spend time on stuff like this. It wasn't unreadably bad, but the experience was not to my liking. On the bright side, it was short and didn't cost me anything but time. Still, I wouldn't recommend it except to those who are interested in the development of 20th-century literature.

This is only the last paragraph. Apparently he hated it because it was "weird". Another guy called it "a cheap Bugakov/Kafka knock-off"(sic) even though it was published 13 years before either of their works were published.

>>2730478
Which book is it?

I was going to post a review of Naked Lunch but I then noticed that the guy had filed it on his 94 book strong erotic shelf:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1344527?shelf=erotica
Fucking hell

>>2730483

The Man who was Thursday

>>2730489
In related news (this is The Master and Margarita)


Some masterpiece--this book stinks. It reminds me of some fantastical tales my buddy Adam and I wrote in junior high. It's funky, disjointed style also reminds me of Chesterton's THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY. If you choose to read this book, only read the creative retellings of the life of Jesus, Judas, and Pilate; those are actually rather interesting.

This one is really wierd, and the only reason I am reading it is that our recital this year is going to be Alice in Wonderland. I am not going to read Through the looking Glass. This just really isn't my genera.
>genera

When I was a little girl, I tried reading this book several times. It was a classic, after all. Every time I picked it up, I couldn't get into it. When I was an adult, I took a home study class at BYU where I was encouraged to read the New Yorker. I dutifully subscribed to the magazine. I think it was in 1996 since that was the year my second daughter was born. The second magazine that arrived had several picture taken by Lewis Carroll of young girls in sexually suggestive poses. I was appalled. In my opinion, it was child pornography. The article talked about Lewis Carroll and his relationship with young girls. He would talk their parents into letting him be alone with them, then he would spend hours posing the girls and taking their pictures. I was so upset I was shaking. I called BYU to complain and I shut off my subscription. I shouldn't have been exposed to something so horrible just because I was taking a class at BYU. Overreaction? I don't think so. I don't believe Lewis Carroll was thinking about beautiful art when he was posing the girls.

>One of the most annoying books I've ever read. I usually don't do this, but I literally couldn't bring myself into finishing it.

>How come a character who doesn't believe that someone could predict the future, believes him to be present at Jesus' execution, while both of them are living in the 20th century?

>And, what's the use of having a cat in a book, when everything it does is human? To name a few: drinking vodka from a cup while hold it with its paw, walking on its hind legs (ugh), steeping into a bus and paying the fare, and the final blow: talking!

>Bulgakov may have had an above average story, but his characters were extremely unbelievable and irrational in a bad way. And let's not forget the incredibly lengthy prose.

I'm speechless at this...

>>2730504

>his characters were extremely unbelievable

I just exploded.

>>2730504
>>2730500
Comedy gold!

The book came in excellent condition from the used book store and I hope the book store will be willing to take it back since I do not want to keep this book in my library and I am willing to just give it away. I thought it was the worst book I have read in years. I kept on thinking as I was reading it that it would get better, but it didn't and I wasted my time reading it. I belong to several book clubs and read several books a month. This was a book club selection. I am sorry I had to read it and I will not recommend this book to any of my friends.

A review by Karen
>females

>>2730512

Wow, she really didn't like that book ... which was it?

>mfw the Mason & Dixon reviews consist of people who didn't last 20 pages

>>2730504
>And, what's the use of having a cat in a book, when everything it does is human? To name a few: drinking vodka from a cup while hold it with its paw, walking on its hind legs (ugh), steeping into a bus and paying the fare, and the final blow: talking!

>When I first announced that I wanted to be a fantasy author, at age 12 or so, I was given a copy of Gormenghast and the Lord of the Rings, and between them they nearly sent me scurrying into science fiction.
>I hated Gormenghast with a passion usually reserved for kidney beans. I found the language old and pretentious, the characters just ridiculous beyond the point of caricature and I was somewhere in Titus Alone before I decided that there was no plot to speak of and if there was I had clearly missed it.
>I found it like wading through tar. It lived in the bathroom for about a year as I read a bit here and a bit there.
>I liked the illustrations and as an adult I like the idea of it, but I don't think wild horses could force me to read it again.

>The kind of book that makes people hate books. Literally one of if not the worst story I've ever read. A classic English majors only book, aka people like talking about this book and that they "get it" make you feel like their intellectual inferior. As obnoxiously post modern as Brave New World is obnoxiously disguised christanity. This book is the literary equivalent of some hipster noise band that everyone knows sucks but people will say they are good just to be in the "know." I must say this before I get a bunch of messages from people looking down their nose at me. By the way I do "get it" I got an A on the paper I wrote on this book but what I "get" more is that there is nothing to "get." It's the act of "getting it" and being part of that special little crew that does that makes people enjoy this book.

wow ... I ... I think I win ...

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, by Stephen Donaldson

> Run...run far and fast don't get caught in this book! I had to finish the first trilogy (for some reason) once I started, and I was miserable! I picked up the first book in the second trilogy and it was again "Oh woe is me. My life is awful, I dare not believe anything good. I will make everyone around me miserable. I will bemoan my fate constantly no matter what...." I threw it away. A friend recommended another completely different series of books by Mr. Donaldson and said "oh no it's not like that." I tried it. A female protagonist who starts the first book "Oh woe is me. I'm so miserable. Life is awful. I will spread my misery..." I flung it from me and now avoid this writer like the plague.
> Do you get the idea? I HATE these books. if you don't, well good for you. But you need a good, really good attitude to read this tomb errr, I mean tome, consisting of Thomas Covenant's self centered misery.

ARGH! MISSING THE ENTIRE POINT!

>>2730527
What book is that?

>I was excited to read this book because it had a lot of hype, and the plot - a man stranded on an island with crazy scientists and mutated man-animals - sounded fascinating. However, it didn't meet my expectations. It ended up being entirely ridiculous and frustrating. There were so many opportunities to make points about morality, human responsibility, ethics...and it took none of them. There's a lot of promise in this premise, but it never quite follows through. Not to mention it's a very quick read.
NOT DEEP ENOUGH

>>2730533

I imagine something out of the modern or post-modern movement.

>>2730533

The Crying of Lot 49

>>2730525

Stone-cold RAGE.

>>2730527
Oh man, I was going to post another one of Crying of Lot 49, but this achieved maximum rustling.

>There are very few books that I really, really, really dislike, but this is one. Granted, I haven't read it in a few years. Correction: I have never actually made it all the way through this book. I was assigned to read a portion of it in a British novels course, and even the professor had trouble justifying its value to us.

>I tried valiantly. I read a lot more than the assigned bits, but I still found it to be the most effective sleep aid I've ever discovered.

>Part of my dislike for it stems from the fact that it was trying so blantantly to be "modern," except instead of modern it just came out weird. Like the blank pages and the marbled-looking pages and the all black pages. And it begins before the character is born (i.e. in utero). In fact, the main character isn't even born until the third volume of the nine-volume book.

>I know, I know. It's an important book. It's a classic. But try as I might, I just didn't like it. But then again, I really disliked Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man too. So there you have it

Tristram Shandy, a work published in 1767 Ladies and Gentlemen

>>2730542
That's pretty avant-garde for its time, I'll check it out.

The Ego and Its Own one star reviews don't even have any words. :(

>>2730527

>As obnoxiously post modern as Brave New World is obnoxiously disguised christanity.

>IWishDawkinsWouldLeave.jpg

1. I just don't buy it.

This book is famous for unmasking what brutes we are, just under the surface, but, well, for all the hype, it just isn't convincing. People--even teenage boys--just aren't as savage as Golding seems to want us to believe, and nothing in this book persuades me otherwise.

Perhaps if I'd gone to English boarding school I'd feel differently--but then that's the real irony of this book, that the brutality from which the British Empire was supposed to save so many people and cultures was in fact the Brits projecting their own savagery onto others.

But the rest of us, no, we aren't monsters underneath. A little messed up, maybe, a little more raw, but nowhere near the kind of brutes that Golding wants us to believe.

2. Some times when I read something or learn something that I have heard about my whole life, it sort of fills a void in me. This book filled that void with a bunch of rubbish! How it became a classic is totally beyond me.

It had a singular message, and that message was totally wrong, stupid, and depressing.

3. I don't like this book. It made me extremely uncomfortable. I hated the violence and the ugliness. I know there are a lot of people who say you should read it because it will make you want to 'change the world' and/or 'see what evil is really out there'. I can understand that point of view. But I also contend that you can 'see' or 'understand' those things without filling your mind with filth. I try to read books that educate, uplift, comfort, teach, entertain. This is NOT one of those books. I seriously doubt that my boys will be reading this in high school.

>>2730518
Suttree

Zarathustra, the character through which Nietzsche vicariously spews forth his world-view, is a pompous, narcissistic, ego maniac that is so obsessed with how right he is, he can't see just how terribly wrong he ends up being. Nietzsche constantly contradicts himself, uses poor logic and reasoning, and pushes for a social order that benefits only the elite. I'm appalled of Nietzsche's idea that the great men of the world should walk all over the little, regular people to achieve their greatness. He says that the existence of the general population is justified only by the fact that there may come out of them a greater race (Hitler was a big fan of this view as well). He says that morality and ethics are not real, but merely tools to manipulate masses and hold back the elite. This guy must have been insane! (Turns out he was, being committed to a mental institution only years after finishing this work).

[...]

This is one of the worst books I've ever read. The tale meanders all over the place as Zarathustra ejaculates ridiculous philosophy for page after page, his followers fawning after him with nary a singular thought of their own. Both they and Zarathustra are in awe of Zarathustra's own wisdom and insight, and Nietzsche never lets a page go by without reminding us of his grandiose status. If anybody in the story tries to contradict Zarathustra, he merely laughs at how stupid the person is and ridicules them. This book is, in a nutshell, just a guy trying to make himself look all powerful, knowing, and important while making everyone else look bad. I give this book an epic FAIL!

>>2730561
What was the point of that review anyway.
At least point out what you didn't like.

"I am a bored girl. I am a tired girl." If you preceive that this is mockery of the way Notes from Underground opens, you are absolutely right. If Dostoevsky was trying to attain unto "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," by Dickens, he comes immeasurable short. I realize I can't appreciate living in Russia as an artist (writer) during the 19th century. But, in my opinion Dostoevsky, comes across as arrogant and trite despite his environ. NOW I'll read the other reviews. Regardless, I don't think I'll ever make it to The Brothers Karamazov, despite the "don't die without reading this" lists on which it appears.

>comes across as arrogant and trite
doesn't that bitch realize that's the point?

Several short stories, that on their own are relatively weak. The author has linked them together tenuously with some mistakenly profound pseudo-religious nonsense and a tattoo. An interesting idea, let down by the poor quality of the writing. Pretentious twaddle of the highest order

This book seems to be one of those hoaxes to call out hack reviewers. I'm slightly puzzled by the fact that Mitchell hasn't come forward yet six years after publication.
He hits all the usual clichés that are the hallmark of the "great" modern novel. The whole thing is a pretentious construction of six separate stories, with the protagonists in each being incarnations of each other, and ending up in possession of the story of the previous one in some way.

I decided to try my favourite childhood book for maximum rage. I think it worked

>A bit far-fetched. I'd passed by this book many times before and it never caught my interest on account of it being long and the title not being more discriptive. You could be the champion of the world through many things; doing something exceedingly difficult or impossible, inventing something that could cure world hunger, or something else equally huge. Drugging two hundred pheasants is not exactly what I had in mind. All that crap Danny's father talks about poaching being an art. Who in their right minds would consider stealing an art? I mean, if it were for the greater good I can see about doing it at all, but because you YEARN to do it? What's so fun about trying to steal a couple of stupid birds when the consequences include going to jail or getting shot? If you ask me, this might've been a bit more interesting if Danny HAD landed in jail. But he didn't, and it's not. It was boring. Long and boring, the worst of combinations. I didn't exactly hate it, but it's not something I would go out of my way to re-read.

>>2730564
>This book is, in a nutshell, just a guy trying to make himself look all powerful, knowing, and important while making everyone else look bad. I give this book an epic FAIL!

I don't want to lift on this planet anymore.

I HATED HATED HATED HATED this book. If I had not listened to the audio version in the car, I don't think I would have made it through. It's supposed to be one of the first science fiction books. I think that's a huge technicality. There is no discussion of the scientific process by which the monster comes to life. There is no discussion of why the being is a "monster." It's really a gothic novel. The main character, Dr. Frankenstein, is completely unsympathetic to modern readers and I have a hard time believing that he was sympathetic to readers of any age. Particularly for that time period, men had a reputation for being honest and dependable, able to handle any distress with grace. This man is a mess - he has two nervous breakdowns and will never just come out and confess to what he's done no matter how extreme the consequences of his silence will be. The monster is much more sympathetic.

Anyway, if you have the movie in mind, don't read this book. It's so different that everyone in our book club thought they were reading the wrong book or had a version that was missing pages.

>>2730573
>doesn't that bitch realize that's the point?
They don't. They think it a failure of the writer if the main character is unlikable.
This has led to the current wave of YA being riddled with Mary Sues.

I was curious to see the reviews for Mockingjay and this was the top review, fucking hell.
>{Before book review}

>Oh. My. Golly. Goshness. Only 242 days until this releases, as of 12/24/09.

>And yes, people who think I'm a nerd. I have that memorized.

>Voah. Twenty people liked my review of this. O.o

>Update: WHOA. 39 people liked it. I'm getting serious stalkerphobia.

>Oh, great. 209 people.

>*stalkerphobia*

>Anyways, here's some of my speculashuns. (I had to say that. Sorry. o_O)

>-Katniss will die at the stake, truly being the Girl on Fire.

>etc.

>>2730564
>epic FAIL!

Oh haha, this reviewer must be a teenager.

>>2730582

Would... would you like a hug?

>>2730585

This ... makes me genuinely sad. Not angry, not frustrated, sad.

>I just don't like Russian books! Well...Dostoyevsky is the only Russian novelist whose books I have read.

wtf.

If this thread has proved one thing it's that book clubs are a curse upon the literary world

i got a couple, they're all really great
>Some books about miserable people making each other miserable are amazing. (Wuthering Heights) Others make you want to slit your wrists and take a nice soak in the bath. Jimmy Corrigan is the latter. I'm not sure I've ever read a more depressing book.

>made me want to slide into a warm bath and pop open my wrists.

>This is the most depressing book I've ever read. Period. I kept waiting for something to happen, a glimmer of hope, anything. At least depressing movies are over in two hours. This just kept going and going. I don't care how good the illustrations or design concepts are - they didn't outweigh the blah of the story.

it's a comic book

>Due to The Secret Garden being classified as a "Classic" (and yes, classic with a capital "C") almost everyone knows the story, even if they have never read the book. Mary is a spoiled brat orphaned in India and sent to live with her Uncle in a big creepy house in Yorkshire that contains many secrets. The Uncle is still reeling from his wife's death ten years previously and thus shuts himself and a mysterious garden off from the world. Mary becomes preoccupied with finding this garden and in the process befriends Dickon, her maid's younger brother and "animal speaker." Along the way she also befriends a Robin and a crotchety old gardener, Ben Weatherstaff. She eventually learns that she has a cousin, Colin, hidden in the house because he is an invalid, but only because he's never heard he can live. They all have fun in the secret garden becoming fatter and healthier and then the Uncle comes back and he is once again happy because even though it was the garden that took his wife and resulted in premature labor, the garden has given him a child (even if he did ignore him for the better part of a decade).

This book was actually not popular during Frances Hodgson Burnett's lifetime, and I can see why. The book really isn't that well written or that original. I personally believe that the book gained classic statues due to the film industry which just loved to make this into movies, which I've seen almost every version of, even the one with the "Wizard of Oz" effect where the movie is all black and white till they are in the garden. But good adaptions do not a good book make!

Apathy and other small victories
>I think it is because this book is billed as being "funny" people will excuse its thin and pointless plot line. Unfortunately for me then, I did not find it funny. Well, ok, a few lines made me chuckle. The rest? Tired. Boring. Making fun of people that take their nine to five cubicle jobs too seriously? Been done. Too many times to list all the examples, actually. And honestly, it was preachy. Ok, yes, we get it: this is no way to live a life, blah blah blah you are sooooooooo superior. SPARE ME.
do you guys find that alot of the 1 star reviews are people missing the point of a novel.

1. I am a nerd.

(I know this is a shocking revelation from someone who spends most of her free time reading and writing book reviews for pleasure).

My overall personality, compounded by my sheltered religious background (as in, I spent most of my life going to school, marrying and having kids early, and being a homemaker with periodic stints in the workplace), makes it difficult for me to relate to characters who frequent bars, regularly use drugs, sleep around, and pepper their dialogue with lots of confusing futuristic slang and cursing. I’m aware that this is my limitation, although I can’t help thinking that some of it is the author’s as well. After all, I didn’t feel this alienated when I read about Humbert Humbert.

2. I had to look up the definition of “cyberpunk” on Wikipedia.

And then, that explained my difficulty getting this book. I can read academic articles. I can read in a foreign language (Hebrew). But much of this book was impenetrable to me. Witness the following randomly chosen paragraph (I simply copied this from the first page I opened up to):

“Cowboys [...] flesh input.”

Do you get this? It didn’t make any more sense to me in context than it does out of context, because the entire context was more or less written this way. I suppose that’s expected for this genre, but I’m just not a fan of this type of writing.

3. I never finished the book, because writing this review was more fun (see #1 above).

And that was when I knew, around p. 55, that it was time to stop reading.

>>2730624

>the book gained classic statues due to the film industry

sweet jesus

>>2730624
>I'm not sure what it is about this book but I just did not like it. Perhaps if I had read it when I was younger I would not have found Dickon, Mary and Colin such pompous little shits. They were cruel and taunted the locals by imitating their Yorkshire accents. Even if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, mockery of their "plain speak" and good down to earth values isn't. The servants think the children spoiled, obnoxious brats until they are outside getting exercise. But they are still the same kids only with more meat on their bones and the same cruel superiority in their hearts. Also their dialogue felt like it was written by an adult who had no knowledge of how children spoke. And near the end when the book started to go off on the "magic" tangent and Colin's new found love of lecturing, I had to keep repeating, it's almost over, it's almost over.

>But I think what was most bothersome about this book was that it was such a mish-mash of other books but without making it a cohesive whole, here's a little Brontes for you, now lets make a character almost 100% like Peter Pan...what shall his name be, how about Dickon! I can only hope due to the Yorkshire setting and the winds "wuthering" that Colin, Mary and Dickon grew up to be like Heathcliff, Cathy and Hindley and that once they all hit puberty it all went down hill and ended in the same fashion.

>As a final adendum, I blame Frances Hodgson Burnett for J.K. Rowling's overuse of the word "streaming".(less)

> The 200 or so pages of plot were excellent. Could've done without the other 1200 some pages that discussed, in great detail, nineteenth century French politics.

Les Miserables.

>>2730615

Please.

>It's really a gothic novel.
>Frankenstein
>It's really a gothic novel.

No shit!

Fifteen Hours
>The writing is wonderful. The characters are rich and well defined. Hated the ending
Alright, I guess a bad ending means you need to dock four stars.

I picked up this book upon the advice of Oprah (and her book club) and my friend Kit. They owe me hardcore now. As does Mr. Tolstoy. This book was an extremely long read, not because of it's size and length necessarily, but because of it's content. More often than not I found myself suddenly third a way down the page after my mind wandered off to other thoughts but I kept on reading... am I the only one with the ability to do that? You know, totally zoning out but continuing to read? The subject I passed over though was so thoroughly boring that I didn't bother going back to re-read it... and it didn't affect my understanding of future events taking place later on in the book.

Leo Tolstoy really enjoys tangents. Constantly drifting away from the point of the book to go off on three page rants on farming methods, political policies and elections, or philosophical discussion on God. Even the dialogue drifted off in that sort of manner. Tolstoy constantly made detail of trifling matters, while important subjects that added to what little plot line this story had were just passed over.

>>2730569
Ha, yea. It's pretty clear she disliked it only because it wasn't the type of simple romance she's probably used to reading in the book clubs.

>>2730429
This is now a new hobby of mine. Concerning any book I like or great classics.

>>2730630
12/10

>Totally infuriating. It made me feel dumb, bored, and annoyed all at once. If I want that, I'll date my first boyfriend again.
Book is House of Leaves

>>2730656
>Book is House of Leaves

LEL.

>Unfortunately, the book is a chore and a bore. The whole thing is written in blank verse, which puts a stranglehold on composition. Shakespeare was smarter: he only used meter when he thought it made things better, but Milton has to shove words around and play games counting syllables even when it hurts readability. Frankly I might have been able to slog through this is I'd been able to reading it in translation; say in French or German where some later writer had moderated Milton's poetic compulsion.


IT'S A FUCKING POEM YOU STUPID BITCH WHORE

>>2730664
>>Frankly I might have been able to slog through this is I'd been able to reading it in translation; say in French or German where some later writer had moderated Milton's poetic compulsion
MOTHERFUCKER.

>>2730664

Oh shit, another one

>Yet another interpretation of God's intent that blames women for the fall of man. I don't care if you do believe in the Bible; this story has so many asides and weird monologues that you'll get bored. It was harder to get through the assigned parts in this book than it was to read the few Bible stories I've managed. Aside from the fact that Milton is a preachy misogynist, I've read and seen tons of more creative versions of the Fall and Satan than this.

>>2730664
>Milton's poetic compulsion.
In a fucking poem, good riddance

Buckle up, folks:


Jan 02, 2012 Claire rated it
I'm a huge Catcher in The Rye fan, and Hank Chinaski is no Holden Caufield. Hank has no redeeming qualities, and unfortunately I couldn't even bring myself to feel sorry for him when his father beats him him or when severe acne disfigures him. The subject matter is rude, crude, violent and disturbing, and Bukowski's sentences read choppy and unpolished. I'm stunned by the 4star average rating.

>>2730671

>better versions of Satan
>than Paradise fucking Lost

Okay, so; The Táin, Kinsella translation.

>If you like long lists of unpronounceable names, lengthy descriptions of each person's clothing types and colors, whether their hair is blonde or brown, curly or straight, if their shields are gold, silver, or both, and reading about people and places turning grey with brain matter, then this book may be for you, otherwise, don't bother.

>>2730678
Also about Ham on Rye:

Pam rated it
Catcher in the Rye-esque but much worse. Read like a rip-off of The Stranger.

WHAT THE SHIT I DONT EVEN

>>2730678
>The subject matter is rude, crude, violent and disturbing

yeah, no shit. it's bukowski. this is more annoying than that guy i know at school who couldn't talk about bukowski without saying the phrase "crass literature" every other sentence.

>>2730682
>unpronounceable names
Amadán, you just went full Sassenach.

>>2730682
He's right, though, what kind of fucking hack author uses adjectives?

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1.Best_Books_Ever

Worst community ever. And I thought IMDB's list had faults.

Basically it's the 1930s and there is this manly French bloke who has been WRONGED by the French Justice system, is sent off to the French penal colonies in South America, and keeps trying to escape and gets passed round all these various prisons and hard labour camps and so on.
Basic themes:
- There is great honour amongst criminals, they never hurt their own, old people, women etc... Oh, except for the bad criminals, but the French bloke looks down on them.
- 'Civilised' people are cruel and corrupt. Native people from the South American countries are always incredibly graceful and kind, and will do anything to help a random white man wandering about the country, even if they have no money of their own. French bloke does a lot of musing about how much nicer the natives are than the French who banged him up for murdering someone, although of course he didn't actually do it and so on.
- Non-white women in developing countries are wild and sexual and very keen to have it off with random white men they find wandering about. At one point the French man has a relationship with two sisters who live in a tribe in the jungle, knocking them both up, and musing about how wonderful, wild and free they are, even though he doesn't bother learning too much of their language.
- Real men are tough and hard and honourable. They are allowed to cry, but not for very long and only at few appropriate moments, for example the death of an equally tough and manly friend.

>Re: Papillon
>Chriiiiist

>>2730671

There are a shit-load of feminist reviews of Paradise Lost ...

>Thanks to this wonderful book...women around the world are viewed as less than men. Thank you so much John Milton, for your negative portrayal of Eve.

>misogynistic crap. Milton used religion as a guise to further his own beliefs.

>>2730640
There, there, Dear. Sigh ...

>>2730690
Holy shit! I was thinking of making and account there, but this made me NOPE out loud.

>Summa Theologica
>Has no well-written reviews lower than 4 stars
You...you did it, Thomas. ;_;

> I’m so disappointed I think I might cry!!
This book was supposed to be great, it’s a classic!!... but for me it was one of the worst books I have ever read. I hated it!, at the end I skimmed over the last 5 chapters ‘cause I just couldn’t bear it any more…

Oscar Wilde explains everything to the minimal detail… the beauty of the flowers, their perfume, the air, the sun, the birds, the trees… jeezzz!!
The book was slooooow… I used to think Dorian Gray was this smart handsome man but I found out he was a brainless guy who was easily manipulated, he didn’t have a thought of his own at all!
There were so many gaps in the story and then Lord Henry… oh my, every single word he said was so stupid it was just BORING!

I tried classics but they are for people way smarter than me, I like BDB, psy-changeling, dark-hunter and other series alike and I’m damn proud of it!!
I might try something else from my classic bookshelf buy it won’t be anytime soon… this book gave me a headache.

1/2

Oh, what a useless play. Nothing happens in it. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I can usually learn something from plays or novels I read for class, but this was just - god, DUMB. Two guys sit and wait near a tree for some Godot person, and they just talk, and talk about nothing, and time passes - they go home, come back the next day, and do the same thing. I think I would've liked it if it was a bit shorter - but 60 pages of these two idiots doing nothing but stupid talk? Come on! The dialogue was so annoying. It was like the talk I have with myself when I'm procrastinating on some project. Just childish and useless and nothing comes out of it except a waste of time. Like this play.

I wonder if I'll change my mind about it after I go to lecture. We'll see.

After lecture:

Yeah, still think the same. Yes, I understand that this play would make us think about our own lives, and yes, I understand the whole, OH DOES GOD EXIST IS HE GONNA SAVE ME FROM THIS? thing too, but really Beckett, couldn't you have done that in a shorter play? An entire freaking paragraph of stage directions that consists of nothing but two characters passing around fucking HATS?

I MEAN WHAT THE HELL!

>>2730700
It's a good tool for keeping track of what you've read but the community is arse

>>2730703

2/2

If he was seriously intending to piss off people by that, then he succeeded. If he was actually hoping that people got so bored and frustrated with these idiotic characters that it made them think of their own lives and how useless they were, and how they didn't normally do anything in life - well, then, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing, but that would only be not such a bad thing if say, people stopped reading or walked out sometime after ten minutes and did something productive. Which, I doubt happened. They probably sat there and laughed and thought, OMFG, pure genius, eh?

No. Maybe to someone during that time, but to me, it's a huge freaking waste of time. Which kinda says something about people in our age, hm? Yes? Maybe? Kinda? No? Whatever.

But really, there is no plot, no character developed, the dialogue is shit, confusing, repetitive, all over the place and just ridiculous. I can appreciate classic works if there's something, I can bear it when there are characters and they do something, I'm still fine when there is next to zero plot and it's mostly thoughts - but this? God, no. No, no, no, no. I don't like it at all.

>>2730702
>I tried classics but they are for people way smarter than me.
At least she's self aware, unlike other reviews ITT.

>This book has to be one of the worst books I have ever read. I believe that this book, due to the language, morals, and overall storyline, contributes nothing to the literary world.

>The immaturity of the language and "lingo" really confused me and just made the book terrible. The slave, Jim, has the typical "slave" language, making the story almost impossible to read. The moral, be yourself and go where you like, almost encourages children to run away when the going gets tough. The overall childish storyline with Huck and Tom, made me feel like I was reading a children's book.

>I would not recommend this book, even though it might be required for certain classes.

>>2730690
>Twilight
>The Hunger Games
>Harry Potter
I think I'm going to cry.

>>2730703
>Two guys sit and wait near a tree for some Godot person
Dis gunna be gud

>>2730690
>#1 - Twilight
>#58 - The Odyssey

>I had to read this one for school. The plot itself wasn't too bad, it's the protagonist that pisses me off. He just so.. I don't know. He's so oblivious to everything and so blunt. He only starts to care when it's too late. Also, I'm not very into anything that has a shape of a poem (maybe this is a prejudice, but in this case.. I don't care). They twist the words around and add unnecessary and superfluous lines, which makes it much harder to comprehend. The only thing I liked, is how it describes Russia of that time, winter and adds random references to important people of history, literature and art
I've never seen someone with such little grasp of basic literary concepts

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

>Elaine rated it 1 of 5 stars
"I just don't get it. Did I miss something? All of these positive responses spurred me on to reading this- what a waste of valuable reading time. The writing is clunky and doesn't flow at all. There are so many characters who all marry each other and get adopted and so on and so on that you would need a very complex family tree to try to remember who is who. I just found myself bored at several points. I mean the idea is good, and ancient Rome certainly sounds pretty crazy, along with its emperors, but there has to be a better way to illustrate that than with this clunky dusty old time waster. I would not recommend it to anyone I know."

NUOH MY FUCKING GOD

>Bryan (Beej) Jones rated it 1 of 5 stars
"Absolutely one of the worst books I ever read. I will never understand its popularity. Historical fiction at its worst. No themes, no depth, no undertones. Graves simply regurgitates facts and characters from 1st Century Roman high society."

I honestly thought the barrier of entry to reading literature was a little higher than this.

>>2730690
>The Davinci Code - #25
>The Iliad - #80

How...how does something like this even happen?

>This was a disappointment after Angela's Ashes. I think more for the fact that nothing ever really changes in the world. I wanted Frank McCourt to have a happy life in America. This book shows a dark side to his new home, filled with the racism and violence and poverty that he was trying so hard to escape.
Does this person know it's an autobiography?

>>2730727

You know how people say they only come to /lit/ because it's the best place on the internet if you actually want to talk about literature?

they were right

>>2730714
>#168 - Frostbite (Vampire Academy, #2)
>#172 - Heart of Darkness
>#186 - Ulysses (Joyce)
>#196 - Madame Bovary

>The Haunting of Hill House

If I were 12 years old and had never read a real book before this might be great. As it is, I just couldn't take it. Horrendous dialogue and mentally deficient characters. The style is similar to that of Dr. Seuss. If you're over 14, don't bother.

I couldn't wait for this book to be over! It was very random, and despite what the cover says, not scary at all! I was hoping for a real haunted tale, but if you want that, read Alfred Hitchkock or Stephen King. (i.e. Whenever there was a scary part, the characters were laughing. ?) I didn't get it.

>The Lottery

ugh! I really don't like this collection of short stories! The majority were very disturbing, and the ones that weren't disturbing had terrible endings. Some were just downright confusing. I don't know why people say that The Lottery is great literature :-/ Very similar to Lord of the Flies!

I honestly hated it. It was ok written I guess, but just the end of it was so awful. [...] I know, terrible right? Stupid literature class.

WAT.

>>2730727
Because people are honest, not pretentious.

The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You

11, 1 star reviews out of 807.

There are only 2 actual reviews.

"Kind of a snore-fest. Written in the 1970's so themes now seem overdone, but I'm sure it was great in its day."

"seemed absurd. couldn't make it happen."

Is this the book that nobody can hate?

>>2730739
0/10

>>2730740

No, the majority of books with under 1000 reviews have no negative text reviews.

>>2730690
>The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants - #841
>The Taming of the Shrew - #843

Okay, definitely a troll:

Macbeth, as are all of Shakespeare's works, was unoriginal, drab, boring, and physically painful to get through. The plot line is an over-dramatic joke- something you might see in an ABC daytime soap. The dialogue is dull and the character's are unrelatable. The only people who would enjoy this "masterpiece," and I use quotes to denote sarcasm, are those schmucks who hold this moron playwright on a pedestal and would applaud his work even if it were written as a cheesy romance novel.

Perhaps my feelings regarding Shakespeare's work, particularly Macbeth, can best be summarized by Leo Tolstoy's reaction to reading Shakespeare: "...not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium..."

Gibbon's History
>Elizabeth rated it 1 of 5 stars
"I'm done! It could have been more interesting if it wasn't so detailed!"

>>2730771
Hahahaaaa!
What did (s)he expect going into a 3000 page tome!

>>2730771

... but ... but ... but ...

... it's a history ...

>>2730690
Well, considering that the largest reading demographic is that of suburban housewives, I'm not that surprised.

>>2730771

>>2730739
>honestly liking Dan Brown

You might as well admit that you're a gay, black, jewish, bald furfag who wears glasses and dresses like a woman. Yes, Dan Brown is that bad.

The first book is decent, then decends into nonsense. Come on people! It's way to weirdo (and frankly nerdy), who cares about a restaurant on the end of the universe! tee hee.

>Sweet Lord Jesus. This was the toughest book I have ever read. I tried to be openminded, really I did. But I just don't get how Faulkner ever became such an acclaimed writer. The English teacher in me can't get my mind off all the spelling mistakes and punctuation errors and the five mile sentences. Why purposely write a book that is going to confuse your readers? He may be from Mississippi, but Faulkner does not get my love.

Well, the English teacher in ME wants to rape you with a red pen. F for effort, A for rage.

Oh, and also; Darkness at Noon:
>Had to read it for my ENGL 2600 class. Not the worst book I've ever read, but definitely not what I'd choose to read. Really boring about this guy's experience with some war or Russian revolution or something. :/

How can anyone...even...just... Wow.

>>2730700
The utility of the site if great.
Find some people with similar tastes and friend them.
Yes, the community as a whole is awful.
There is a /lit/ group, btw

>>2730804

Oh no they didn't! Douglas Adams is a GOD.

>>2730819
I don't see any neighborhood system like last.fm.
How am I supposed to find these people?

>>2730500
New Yorker
1996 issue
got it.

>"I'd love to know why this is on the list of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. I could have happily died without reading this book. And since I was "reading" it on CD, it ruined a lovely drive through Death Valley and onward to the California coast for me. Bleh."

>"Well at least I finished it."

Guess the novel.

>For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ok, before I commit the sacrilege of dismissing this "classic," permit me to establish my Hemingway bona fides: I have read and loved just about everything else he wrote, and have taught Sun Also Rises, Farewell to Arms, and many short stories, and had a blast doing it. I've read Carlos Baker's classic bio, and numerous critical articles on H. I've made the pilgrimage to Key West and taken pictures of his study and the hordes of 6-toed cats. I dig Papa, ok?

But I can not stand this book! I should say up front that I've never been able to tolerate it long enough to finish it -- twice. First time was nearly 30 years ago, and as a fairly recently discharged Army troop,I took up this book with much anticipation and excitement. I couldn't get past about half way through. I found the prose so incredibly flat and dull as to be soporific (and, yes, I fully understand and appreciate H's famous "Iceberg Principle" of writing -- "the thing left unsaid" etc). The problem wasn't the "thing left unsaid;" the problem was too many things said, and in a very boring fashion.

A few months ago, our book club selected this novel. At first, I kept my opinions to myself and hoped I would have a different response reading this time. I readily acknowledge that my reading tastes have evolved -- matured, I hope -- significantly over the years, and maybe I just had a tin ear 30 years ago. Not the case. I couldn't even get beyond the first 6 pgs this time. That flat voice was duller than ever! "Waterboarding would be more tolerable than reading 400+ pages of this stuff," I thought. I've choked down some mediocre books before for the sake of fulfilling my civic duty as a long-standing member of our book club, but I couldn't do it this time.

>look up "Lolita"
>set filter to "1 Star"
>mfw the dumbest breed of emotionally-stunted she-tards are bitching about how disgusting pedophilia is and how vile a novel it is

>>2730844
>...Prose-wise, this book is absolutely nothing special. Structurally, it just fades into nothing in the end and I believe most readers had long since lost interest. Now, maybe that is how an affair of the heart peters out, but that doesn't necessarily make it the stuff of great novel material. In fact, I always wondered why this book wasn't kept at the short story or novella size...

>>2730850
>.Prose-wise, this book is absolutely nothing special
>.Prose-wise, this book is absolutely nothing special
>.Prose-wise, this book is absolutely nothing special
>.Prose-wise, this book is absolutely nothing special

Johnny Got His Gun. Reading these nearly drove me to embark on a God Bless America-style shooting spree.

>Filthy Communist propaganda; I can't believe kids are forced to read this garbage in the public schools.

>Assigned read for tenth grade US History. I would rather have hot lead poured into my eyeballs than reread this book.

>I wasn't really interested in this book. I don't really like novals.

>I picked this up as part of supplemental reading for my Poli Sci class, thinking it was a different book. My sophomore self was shocked at this portrayal of a Vietnam vet.

>This was a very whinny, unrealistic book. I know this is a book modern english teachers say is a classic, but oh my. I get the whole war is bad part, however the relationships in the book are flat and underdeveloped. I felt the ending lacked credibility.

Then there's the incessant torrent of, "It was horrible! Too bleak and depressing! Nobody should ever read this book!"

>I'm sure if I were a fan of Vonnagut, I probably would have liked this book. However, I am not a fan of Vonnagut and so therefore I did not like this book.

>My sophomore self was shocked at this portrayal of a Vietnam vet.
What the fuck! And this is coming from a Political science student?

>>2730867
meant to quote
>>2730860

>>2730860

>Filthy Communist propaganda

I thought people stopped saying that in the 50s

A Confederacy of Dunces:

>Ugh. Most overrated book ever. What a smug pile of overripe garbage.

>Hate, hate, hate this whole book. But I think I'm supposed to hate it--like the author actually wanted me to abhor the protagonist. Ignatius is gross. But I felt sorry for him in the end. Which makes ME feel gross. Ick. Blah. Hate it!

they say never judge a book by the cover. Well, I say this is easily the most hideous cover I've ever had the misfortune to see on a prolonged basis. Red lettering on shiny silver background. It made me feel physically sick to look at. I couldn't read it on the tube out of compassion for my fellow commuters. Once finished I had to conceal it behind The Joy of Sex until someone had invented Read It/Swap It. What a relief that day!


-Catch 22.

>>2730906
To be fair the cover in question is atrocious

>>2730910

Please, Catch 22 is awesome, who gives a shit about covers.

>>2730906
That's the whole review?

Ugh

Hopscotch - Julio Cortázar

>I cannot believe that this man went on to write 'Autonauts of the Cosmoroute': 'Hopscotch' is so terrible that I was repeatedly inclined to throw my borrowed copy against the wall. Its travesties include hyper-referenced intellectual conversations, cliched name-dropping in Paris, literary nose-picking, women jumping into rivers and cliched experiments with literary form. The only good parts were the scene where Oliviera and Traveler have Talita suspended on a board between their two buildings on a housekeeping errand and of course, when the whole lot of them end up in a mental institution

>>2730564
>I'm appalled of Nietzsche's idea that the great men of the world should walk all over the little, regular people to achieve their greatness

You can tell a little person wrote that.

>>2731009
Or a stuck-up libtard with a matyr complex.

why did you do this to me? raging so hard.

>The writing is cloying and overwritten to the point of complete transparency. It feels excessively edited, as if done by committee. So often I wanted to throw this book at something hard and sharp, because the book lacked any edge. It avoided tension by making everyone into a martyr of some sort, which robbed them of their vitality.

extremely frustrating read for me, why can't he write in sentences????
>write in sentences
>write in sentences

>>2730564
sigh... trolled by nietzsche.

The Sound and The Fury

I expected a lot of people to be thrown off by the 1st part but I don't even know where this review came from. Spoilers actually sort of have spoilers, but not really.

>This book was a piece of shit. Faulkner was obsessed with his penis and was a total pervert. Either that or he really hated Southerners.

>Synopsis: Boy is a tyrant,[thereby "forcing" his brother and sister to band together (to fuck) to take a united stand against him. Other brother is retarded and misunderstood, and apparently had a threateningly large cock - so large (is the only reason I can think of) that it needed to be chopped off by the tyrant brother. (hide spoiler)

>Yeah. This is a great way to express the fall of the South. I wonder how Southerners feel about this.

>Oh, and one more thing. Faulkner, if you can read this from wherever you are, stream of consciousness is a bullshit way out of writing a coherent story. Asshole. I want my 1 star back

>Boring, full of nonsense, stupid, annoying, and just unrealistic! All the characters are selfish. Telemachus and Penelope are huge wimps, Suitors are stupid antagonists, Calypso is unrealistically dumb, Odysseus is senseless, the Gods have no motivation for ANYTHING they do, Athena randomly beautifies people for no reason whatsoever, Poseidon's a pathetic bastard, Gods are self-centered beings that require praying and sacrifice every second if someone was to go on an adventure. SELFISH SELFISH SELFISH! I really hate this book, I can't believe I had to read it for school. Why in the world does anyone think it's any good??

>>2731100
Ding ding ding ding. We have a winner!

It always pleases me that none of my favorite books have a 1 star review on there. A few 1 star ratings maybe, but no one who hated it enough to leave reasons.

"I'm sure there are many out there that liked this, but I have a hard time with translated books because there's no action or dialogue. I quit reading because I was bored."

or for another:

"Did not enjoy at all- luckily it was short. I found myself not interested in the characters story and I just wanted to skim through it."

and another:

"I didn't like it and it was awfull. "

and another:

"unsatisfying as the charcaters were not really dveloped - I found the grandmother superficial. i did want to find out more about the father and mother as well as the guy from the neighbouring island."

These are for different books. Just boring people and boring thoughts.

>"I didn't like it and it was awfull. "
That's should be the motto of Autismal Anonymous.

>ctrl+f "infinite j"- no result
This thread restored my faith in /lit/

I'm going to preface this by saying I did not finish American Psycho. Usually, I would consider this to disqualify me from writing a review, but I'm going to go ahead and write one anyway because I have something to say and so far I haven't seen another review covering my points.
Most of the negative reviews address the moral/feminist/political/ethical implications of this text, so I'm not going to talk about that. Instead, I'm going to address whether or not this is a good work of literature on it's stylistic merits because when it comes down to it, I just don't think it's all that great. Nevertheless, even negative reviews often feel it's necessary to admit that, while morally repugnant, American Psycho is a work of genius.

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to disagree.
You know, the reason I didn't finish American Psycho wasn't because it made my stomach churn or because I felt attacked as a woman. I could have pushed past all that and finished the book if it weren't for the fact that I was bored (the one thing I didn't expect from this book). There's only so much monotonous violence porn I can take before I yawn and decide to move onto something else. And for any of you that are thinking, "Oh, but you just don't get it. There are layers, man," you're wrong. I do get. The thing is, Ellis' satire is so blatantly obvious that it didn't take more than a hundred pages to figure it out. And once that's figured out, what's really the point to American Psycho? For those arguing that it's merit lies in that very satire, then once I got it, I don't see any reason for me to keep reading a book that otherwise isn't particularly interesting.
I was strangely reminded of the trashy romance novels my friends and I used to buy from thrift stores and from which we'd read aloud: both American Psycho and those romance novels share the same incessant need to describe what everyone's wearing in every scene. And again, lest you think I just "don't get it," I understand the detailed lists of designer clothes were more than just descriptive tools but a part of the satire. And again, once I got that, I really didn't want to sit through another minute of it.

>This book is garbage. A load of pretentious, modernist garbage. Literary experimentation is one thing, but for God's sake, at least make it readable. But no, a stuck-up author who is so full of his own self-importance would only want to write a book that only one of his most esteemed peers could "fully" appreciate. This is why people hate academics, and high-minded literature, and pretentious prick's like James Joyce.

In an advanced writing course I took in college, we spent a couple of classes looking at lists as literary devices. We discussed how sometimes writers use lists as visual devices more than literary ones; the impact of a wall of text made up almost entirely of designer brands is a pretty effective tool. The problem? Ellis returns to this tool repeatedly over the course of the book until it loses that efficacy.
When it comes down to it, I found Ellis to use a handful of tricks in American Psycho that at first seem pretty flashy, but prove rather inadequate. I applaud Ellis for taking stylistic risks, but that doesn't make them successful. I can try to sing opera while juggling sardines, but it doesn't mean I'm going to get a standing ovation.
I think the fact that this is an important work (just take a look at the discussions it's created and the other works it has inspired) gets confused with it being a well-written work. Along the same vein, the fact that it's so shocking that many people dismiss it out of hand allows American Psycho's most ardent fans to argue that the satire is so incredible that only a chosen few are brave enough to see it. However, I don't think that's true and while I'm not saying I can write better, I can certainly read better.


End of review
So, this is her idea of a one out of five. So what does she think of unanimously bad literature?

>>2731212
Infinite Jest has a very high goodreads rating for a literary fiction book(at par with ASOIAF and Hunger Games), and most 1 star reviews are well thought out. I wonder what this says about it.

>What a bunch of hogwash. If everyone believed the message of this book, we'd all be running around killing anyone we ran across, just because the sun was too hot, and it got in our eyes. What kind of stinking bad world would that be to live in?

Arrogant young siblings are talking about how boring and illiterate the rest of the world is. I hate self-pity but I still hate more this kind of patronizing pity for others shown by people who think they are brlliant übermenschen.

>>2731252
That hurt to read.

I couldn't get into this one. I've not really read anything like this before and I think it was just a bit too far 'out there' for me. I couldn't really understand what was going on for the most part because I couldn't get used to the way it was written. It was fast paced which would add to the effect of the drug-use but I ended up skim-reading from the half way point because I just didn't connect with any of it. The places which I did understand were just a bit too disturbing. I'm not saying that this is a bad book - I can see that it's enjoyed by a lot of people by the high ratings it has. However, it didn't work for me and it's not something that I enjoyed.

tl;dr: wat?

>Another book club book I didn't write a timely review on. Here's what I put on BookCrossing:
oh dear! I finished this quite a while ago -- bookclub zipped through it pretty quickly -- and then I never came back and wrote my review!
I don't know quite where to start . . .oh, maybe the "endorsements" on the inside cover:
Our finest black-humorist. . .
An unimitative and inimitable social satirist.
A cause for celebration.
hmmmmm. . .I thought this was one of the weirdest and mostly depressing books I ever read. Guess I either really missed the boat, or am dumber than I thought :)
I think (at least this is what I asked at book club) that maybe the frenetic pace of this book, jumping from scene-to-scene and time-to-time is all representative of just how crazy war can make you. If it's not that, then I really don't get it!

What the fuck are you talking about lady?

Brave New World

>I'm 28% done with Brave New World: I am so not impressed with this book. It is completely unbelievable. I mean, such a world can never exist. People brainwashing others so happily, when they already know that they were brainwashed in the first place. Absurd!
Abandoning it for the time being.
>"Every one belongs to every one else" - nonsense! And the descriptions are so horrific that I dont feel like continuing.
>It is no way comparable to 1984. 1984 was a much better novel. There was a reason for everything and an explanation as to why it was a dystopia. The writing was bad at many places. In one of the chapters, three different conversations were interleaved.

>implying the 3 different conversations going on at once wasn't amazing

>>2731236
The misplaced apostrophe just fucking seals it. I usually hate people who use grammar mistakes to dismiss someone's argument, but there's something beautiful in fucking up something basic like that right in the midst of a rant about how awful academics are.

>Trying to make each sentence humorous made this a tiresome book to read.

you... cocksucker.

>>2731282
It is funny because Orwell was full of shit while Huxley was actually correct.

>As the philosopher Rolfe once said:

>What a load of monkeyfuck.

>Nietzsche sounds like a heavily upgraded version of the typical sexually frustrated teenager (it goes without saying that the latter take to Nietzsche's work like cats to tuna). The cornerstone of his hateful "philosophy" is shameless bigotry. He is convinced that there is such a thing as people that are >"meant" to be "superior", that it is good for people to oppress each other in fierce master-slave relationships, that women are barely a step above beasts, etc. In the support of his racist, misogynistic theories he brings nothing but laughably dated ideas about heredity and the exact same sort of popular >prejudice that he hypocritically lambasts in the first chapters. Take but a step away from the poisonous fumes of deep resentment that Nietzsche is obviously drunk with, and his allegedly towering prose collapses like a house of cards.

>I think we've all been way too kind to Nietzsche with regards to his writings being an inspiration Nazi ideology. He may not have directly supported wholesale genocide and destruction, but he sure kept shooting damn near the target. As I forced myself to read through many an insufferable paragraph, I could >almost feel the shadows of Hitler and Goebbels behind me, nodding approvingly.

Who is Rolfe? He sounds like a crass, postmodernist fool.

Field too long so positing a link

I don't understand how these niggers get so stupid.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/160353719

>>2731301
>Who is Rolfe? He sounds like a crass, postmodernist fool.
He sounds like the other side of the spectrum, the wannabe positivist pomo haters.

They tend to go on about Nazis more than anyone. Even more than Arendt, which is quite something.

>Crime and Punishment
I didn't like this book. It made me angry that someone could just decide that an older woman "did not deserve to live" and so he killed her. Then he spends a miserable life until he finally turns himself in to the authorities. I felt so sorry for his poor wife!
>implying Raskolnikov was married
Do you even reading comprehension?
>also mfw 90% of the bad reviews for this book are from women
>mfw so many tired puns regarding it's title

>>2731351
I wonder who she thought his wife was? Nastasia? His mother?
>All my why.

>>2731368
Not him.
I think Sonia is the closest to a wife.

>>2731331
>he thinks Orwell was able to write a decent line of prose

>>2731375
Hey man, you're cutting out the best part of that pic

>I couldn't even get through the first couple of pages. He writes in such a flowery way that it takes his character four pages to get out of the house because he is too busy admiring everything.

>>2731331
>didn't even finish the novel
>two-dementional
>implying Winston 'I daydream about the proles uprising' Smith has any love for Big Brother
>originality: 3
He invented the genre, you fool!

>>2731394
>He invented the genre, you fool!
what's that, now?

>>2730471
>>I'm also annoyed that this book was read in exchange for Pride and Prejudice. Compared with a timeless classic the book seems like a 1st grade primer. Austen is a master of plot and suspense. You may not like the subject matter, admittedly it is a little girlie, but the woman can write. Herbert? Not even close.

>>2731394
How pretentious does one have to be to not finish such an easy to read, entry-tier book because of "horrible prose".

>>2731400
Man, book-clubs are doing more harm than good these days. They're so numerous that their tastes now have a bearing on what does and doesn't get published.

>>2731399
haha and his face is perfect

he looks so cocky

>>2731331

What kind of an idiot values a book according to this kind of scheme?

>Prose style: 1
>Plot: 4
>Depth of characters: 1
>Overall sense of aesthetic: 1
>Originality: 3
>Entertaining: 1
>Emotional Reaction: 1
>Intellectual Stimulation: 4
>Social Relevance: 2
>Writerly Inspiration: 1

What the fuck does that even mean?

>I hate this book. Hate. Ponderous, pretentious, melodramatic, self-satisfied, patronizing to its readers, with ultimately nothing to say. Can be summarized thus: a bunch of people with no formal education whatsoever sit around discussing the time they read the Old Testament in Hebrew. They then tell us all how to live. Uh...right. I knew we were in trouble with the unbelievably lame introduction -- some forced, self-congratulatory metaphor about a box, if memory serves -- but it's hard to believe it actually got worse from there. In any event, with its smug aura of "Here you will find WISDOM," it's certainly no wonder that it's right up Oprah's alley.

>The fact that people worship this misbegotten mess of a book as they might worship pieces of the True Cross is just plain depressing. Apparently the way to literary immortality is to give 'em a decent narrative, throw in some breathless nonsense about free will and the Bible, and don't forget to puff out your chest and tell everyone that you've written a masterpiece. Gack. For this they gave him the Nobel Prize?

I wish I could see what books she does like but her profile is private

>>2731415
>What kind of an idiot values a book according to this kind of scheme?
The tryhard kind. His profile looks like that of a typical c/lit/

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Blech!!! When the only character who is decipherable is the autistic mute, we have a problem. This book has inspired me to start a list of crap that is admired only because no one has the guts to admit they have no idea what the hell is going on. Although technically in this category, I give James Joyce the benefit of the doubt simply because I can't understand anyone from Ireland anyway.

FUCK YOUUUUU!

I never finished this book, actually I never finished the first chapter.

I couldn't read this book it was like the author grabbed a thesaurus and picked out vocabulary that would have even made Jerome Shostak have to look it up!
It made me hate the author...it felt arrogant, high handed and pissed me off.

*shivers*


wow why bother writing a review for a book you didnt even read.

>>2731430

whats the book? I wanna know what was too verbose for this fuck

>>2731435
I googled it, it's a fantasy book-"Darkness that Comes Before"

>>2731399

A review of Crime and Punishment:

>What crime did I commit to be punished by having to read this book in two different college courses? I have no problem with respected Russian authors who write about serious and thought provoking subjects, Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn are two of my favorite authors. But Dostoyevsky is not a good writer. This book is depressing and intentionally boring and exploits a religious theme to curry favor over books by much better Russian authors who readers are denied the pleasure of reading as a result. The whole point of this book is that some kid goes nuts because he doesn't give a damn, kills someone or whatever, and then feels bad about it and is glad to go to prison. If you already know that it is probably a bad idea to go around killing random people, you shouldn't read this book, lest the shear painful emotional dullness of the work drives you to do so. I am glad that I have forgotten most of what I had to read in this book.

>>2731439
sorry, nigga, thought we were talking about the person who created all those cliches that the reviewer was talking about, not just "a guy who wrote a dystopian novel in the 20th century"

>>2731441
that's pretty hilarious, actually

>>2731400
>>2731407
There's so much bullshit written for Dune's reviews that I couldn't fit even all of the "best" ones in one post.

I find this one most interesting, though:

>This book is NOT science-fiction, rather, it is Space-Opera.

It is absolutely science fiction. Even the political manoeuvring in the book underscores just how far science has come, in its understanding of human beings. The waste recycling suits. Etc. What more these people expect out of a decades-old story about the future, and space, and distant planets, I can't fathom.

>>2731424

I just find it hilarious that someone who has the gall to lambaste a writer like Orwell (who, yes, I can admit is not the greatest writer; but he's certainly been incredibly influential and valuable) doesn't stop to consider how to write a proper review. That review is absolute shit. It conveys absolutely nothing of value on its subject matter.

100 Years of Solitude

This book would have been easier to read and understand if all the characters had not been named the same or been given similar names. If I didn't have to endure chapter after chapter of people sleeping with each other who shouldn't be, incest, rape, pillaging, death, destruction, more incest, then maybe this book would have been as great as everyone makes it out to be. I understand the last chapter was supposed to explain everything in the book and it does to a point but it doesn't excuse the fact that this is NOT the next best thing to GENESIS! We reviewed this book in our book club and out of 20 women, only 2 liked the book. I think this book is way over popularized due to Oprah giving it a thumbs up in her book club. Maybe it reads better in Spanish..maybe more than one chapter in the book was mistranslated (yes, there are 2 chapters that are mistranslated). I'm not sure. ... Disappointing and a waste of money.

Light in August

>You know, every few years I try to get intellectual and read one of the classics. I start to think that "okay, maybe I am now mature enough to understand the symbolism, to see the power and the story within a story." So I try to read Faulkner or Hemmingway or one of the other early 20th century American writers. And every time I do this, I struggle to maintain a good attitude through the first few chapters and then throw down the book in disgust. I realize that I am reading a very depressing book that is making me even more depressed because I am having to work too hard to figure it out. And that's wnat happenedn with Light in August. I put it down yesterday after realizing that it was doing nothing to lift my mood or distract my mind. Maybe I'll try it again later, but right now I've had enough of human foulability and gloom and doom!

YES, I'M FUCKING MAD

>>2731453
In his defense Oprah does have a Marquez fetish.
The incest, rape, pillaging, death and destruction does give the book flavour.
Did anyone else get the impression that pretty much all the Buendías minus the grandmother had some form of autism or aspergers?

>>2731469
>>human foulability

>>2731469
Then pick up a fucking genre novel by Picoult or Grisham because you're not gonna find something to lift your mood or distract your mind with classic lit, you ignorant twat!

>>2731469
This demonstrates that you'll never be able to get the majority of YA crowd into reading good books. They do not get any enjoyment out of reading books that are serious( that don't "lift my mood or distract my mind").

>>2731430
That has to be Gravity's Rainbow.

>>2731478
>>2731476
>liftyourmoodordistractyourmindmind

>>2731480
That's a neckbear fantasy book she's talking about.

Ok now I am mad! A review of War and Peace, which is probably my favorite novel of all times:

>This book is bloated old piece of crap. How this even got published in the first place is beyond me, much less how it has been considered a 'classic' for years.

I had read that this was 1400 pages of Tolstoy giving his readers a dry, boring recount of the French invasion of Russia but I didn't believe it. I wish I had believed it. Not only is War and Peace a sleep-inducing lecture on way too many perspectives of this war, it also comes complete with Tolstoy's never-ending butt-in chapters that he uses to force his opinion on us of France, Napoleon, Alexander, Russia itself, religion, politics, love, family, and anything else that apparently came to his mind.

This was worse than a textbook. This was a textbook that came with the annoying, opinionated professor built in! The only slightly interesting parts of this book were the lives of Natasha and Ellen and that only accounts for maybe 15% of the total. This book is so bad it has two epilogues. That right there should be warning enough to you to stay far, far away from War and Peace. Don't be as dumb as me.

I wish I had never picked this up. I am an angrier, more cynical person for it. If Tolstoy wasn't already dead, I would wish him so.

>>2731483
>neck bear

Related?

>>2731490
No, pic related.

>>2731430
>>2731437
>>2731480
>>2731483
I decided to start reading the book in question -- not necessarily to defend the book, but rather to better mock the reviewer.

okay, decent cover, that's a good sign.

quote from nietzsche starting a fantasy novel... that's... um...

--2147 Year-of-the-Tush, the Mountains of Demua--

One cannot raise walls against what has been forgotten.

The Citadel of Ishuäl succumbed during the height of the Apocalypse. But no army, human or inhuman, had scaled its ramparts. No furnace-hearted dragon had pulled down its mighty gates. Ishuäl was the secret refuge of the Kûniüric High Kings, and no one, not even the No-God, could besiege a secret.

Months earlier, Anasûrimbor Genrelka, High King of Kûniüri, had fled to Ishuäl with the remnants of his household. From the walls, his sentries stared pensively across the dark forests below, their thoughts stricken by memories of burning cities and wailing multitudes. When the wind moaned, they gripped Ishuäl's uncaring stone, reminded of Sranc horns. They traded breathless reassurances. Had they not eluded their(...)

>>2731500
I think the reviewer was under the impression that the proper nouns were English words.

>>2731500
jesus christ, who wrote that, L.H. Franzibald

>>2731500
That excerpt shows everything that is wrong with modern fantasy

What ? The Ski Bum by Gary, only reviews in arabic ? What ? It's a french guy who first wrote this in english. What ? Nothing to do with arabic culture.

What have you done OP. This thread has given the trolls enough material to make troll /lit/ for years. It's started already >>>/lit/2731460

>>2730564
Sorry to be off-topic, but does anyone know what the painting on that cover is? I've always wondered, and my google fu seems to be incredibly week.

>>2731553

Maybe that was OP's plan? What if he's copypasting all these reviews, just to wait until a book in question pops up?

Though, to be fair, this place can't get much worse than it already is

>>2731553
>>2731558
Sup newfriends, we've already had this thread countless times. Nothing happened.

>>2731565

Hey now, I'm only moderately new.

>Again and again I seem to have to point out to otherwise very intelligent people that The Prose is A Means, the End is the Story. Getting excited about prose is like getting excited about how fast a guitarist can play, it's like complimenting the author on how well he spelled everything, or that he didn't split any infinitives. It is the very essence of missing the point of what it is you're doing.

Same review:

>What bothers me most about the book isn't the clattering dullness or the hideous pretension, it's the incredibly cynical nature of it. Put plain and simple, it's a joyless and boring read, that was clearly written to feed academia for the purpose of feeding academia. Like one of those films that comes out 2 months before the Oscars about an Independent But Vulnerable Single Mother struggling to Feed Her Children but at What Cost and there are probably Race Issues in it. Except those usually attempt to tell a structured story, at least, this book really does not.

Alright guys, I'm going in.

>>2731252
Comment on that review:

>I was confused about why he shot so many times. One unthoughtful self-defense shot wouldn't be that ridiculous given the guy had stalked them and attacked Raymond with the knife. For the Arab to remain at the beach after the first confrontation seems like a huge provocation and I felt no sympathy for him. But shots 2-5 seemed gratuitous.

>>2731636

No need. We all know it's a piece of shit.

>>2731636
Eloquently put, "Jona†han".

>>2731636
I was thinking of checking the Bible as well but I had a feeling it'd be ten thousand 1/5 reviews from people going "Hehe the bible is crappy and stupid >:)" to rebel against something that even sitcoms feel comfortable taking potshots at.

>>2731636
>read through this myself
>mfw after reading about 5 pages of one star reviews by edgy atheists, half of whom cite a website called "evilbible.com" and clearly have not actually read the Bible
I can't do it anymore, /lit/, I just can't. There are people like this
>Hmm, I dunno about all this. Can't dig the slavery or misogyny in here. Also, Leviticus 20:15 seems pretty harsh and unfair for all involved. This one time we had a Bible shredding party at my house because I had been taking them from hotel rooms as I'd travel the country to see Marilyn Manson concerts. I ended up with like 10 of them and I still find scraps of the Bible in my CDs & books 15 years later.
who share the world with you and I. Our society is beyond saving.

>>2731669

I'm an atheist, and I feel you, bro.

>>2731636
First things first. The stories in the Bible have been dictated by peasants and shepherds who lived in very backward areas of the Middle East. At this stage in world history, there were many civilizations who were centuries ahead of these nomads. However, the illiterate populace of the Middle East were drawn toward this cult of fear,ignorance and blind faith. Christianity soon became a very popular religion although Christians were ruthlessly persecuted by the Roman Empire. This changed when Constantine became the Roman Emperor. He converted to Christianity and the rest, they say, is history. Well, that's a short paragraph on how Christianity became so popular.
Now coming to the Bible itself. The god of the Bible is egomaniacal,irrational,homicidal,genocidal,homophobic,sexist,racist,jeal
ous and arrogant.Remember, this is the same all-loving,all powerful god of the Christians. Some of the stories in the Bible are so ridiculous (Noah's Ark) and some are just unreadable (Job).The Bible is full of contradictions everywhere.
This book has dominated the western world for so long and it's message has caused the deaths of millions of innocent lives in almost all parts of the world. Indeed, the book is so bad that it is said to be the number one 'source' of Atheism.
Read this book to see how ridiculously ignorant and foolish humans can be.

We all went through that edgy atheist phase, but it's starting to seem like people never leave it

>>2731701

Most people leave it. A few (the name Dawkins leaps to mind) remain in a sort of limbo, in which they are too educated to hold socially-impressed religious beliefs, and at the same time, too mature to completely and utterly dismiss one of the most important constructs in history as nonsense.

I suppose that I am an atheist, but I firmly believe that anyone who dismisses the Bible at all is ignorant. It is the cornerstone of Western literature, and a cursory look at even a good translation would inform any educated person of the Bible's brilliance in writing. Some of the best poetry ever written is contained within the Bible, and some of the most complex and powerful prose writing is as well.

>>2731669
>Bible shredding party
Is this a thing that people do?

>>2731773

>>2731673
here

I agree. The Bible's incredibly important to literature at large

I second this. Even if you are an atheist, you just can't say that the bible is not an important work. I have yet to read it so I can't say anything about the writing or the poetry in it. But overall everyone has to admit, that this is the most influencial book that was ever written.

>>2731776

I hope not, but I don't doubt it for a second

>>2731773

To dismiss religion as nonsense would be silly and immature, it's had a huge impact on our civilisations and societies. On the other hand, I don't think Dawkins' very vocal atheism is the only other choice. I'm an atheist and I'm happy to just let people believe what they want to believe: if it's important to them and they consider it real, so be it. I can't exactly *disprove* the existence of god.

>>>2731787
>To dismiss religion as nonsense would be silly and immature, it's had a huge impact on our civilisations and societies.
>religion
>silly and immature

Bel Ami - Maupassant

>I seriously hated this novel, which I listened to in audiobook form. Almost from the first, I wanted nothing more than to punch this smarmy French bastard in the face. He is an incredibly awful person and has absolutely zero respect for women. Actually, I think this book should have been subtitled "Monsieur Mustache Seduces Every Woman of His Acquaintance." Why? Because he really does. He beds every female character with more than a couple of lines. The end result of his great success is to categorize all women as whores. Thank you so much for writing this Guy de Maupassant. Womenkind is so grateful.

>audiobook
>respect for women

>>2731687

>some are just unreadable (Job)

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

>>2730705
>>2730703

>Beckett, couldn't you have done that in a shorter play?

I guess somebody should've told this person to read "Breath" then.

>>2731969

This book is unreadable. Really, if James Joyce were still alive, I'd find him and punch him in the nose for all the suffering he's caused me trying to speak intelligently about this gobbelty-gook. All his metaphors and allusions ensure that a great many academics will never have to worry about getting a real job, thanks for that Joycey.

>>2732011
This is actually correct.

>>2732011
Joyce is a jobe creator.

>YUCK! One of the worst books I have ever read. I gave it one star because there was nothing lower. It starts off great but then rambles and has too many characters with the same names. It was hard to separate "reality" from the characters dreams or imaginings, but since they were equally boring and confusing I'm not sure it mattered. This certainly changed my view of Pulitzer Prize winners -- up until now I thought winning a Pulitzer meant a book was good!

>>2732018
Ok guys, just write the title of the book before you post the comment.

>>2732018
100 Years of Solitude.

Should have checked if people were trying to guess.

The chants of Maldoror
>most 1-star reviews don't even have text
>but there's this one

>This book scares the hell out of me but I can't get rid of it. I read it in spurts, get about 10 or 15 pages in then get too freaked out and have to bury it on a shelf for awhile...

>>2730732
lol madame bovary changed my life

I wasn't even looking for a bad review this time (I was trying to see what was contained within a 'complete' collection of Whitman)

>Did you know that the letters in "Leaves of Grass" can be rearranged to spell "Asses of Gravel"?
If you find yourself anagramming the letters in the title rather than reading the poetry, it's a good sign you're not into the book. But I really wanted some of whatever Whitman was smoking that made him so ecstatically, ebulliently enthusiastic about every molecule on the planet. Including his own b.o.

>"The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer."

>Huh??? Was this guy sniffing glue along with those arm-pits?

>I made it through about 85 pages, then let it go. Maybe I'll come back to it in the future. There ARE some beautiful passages hiding in among all those exclamation marks.

>>2731500
I never really liked the grand narrator parts, even if they gradually get better throughout the trilogy. Thankfully, they are never too long. The character povs are different, and much better.

Daphne du Maurier - The Scapegoat
>If I could give 0 stars I would. If you like interesting character development and a well written book that leaves you feeling hopeless and disappointed... this is the book. You hope that the main character rises to the challenge but he is just sad, stupid and pathetic.