/lit/ - Literature

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1695228]

>visit amazon get a one star review of the book you're currently reading
>post it here and then post yfw reading it

Under the volcano - Malcolm Lowry
>I know it's incredibly pretentious, arrogant even, to give the lowest mark to a classic, the `prophetic book for a whole generation', a novel Burgess himself called a masterpiece - or so it says on the jacket. But be warned. Lowry himself conceded that Under The Volcano `gets off to a slow start' (I quote the introduction).

>It isn't just a slow start: it never starts. The novel has Geoffrey Firmin, ex-English Consul in a secondary Mexican town, drink himself to perdition on the very day his divorced, sluttish but repentant and benevolent wife comes back to be reunited with him. That is it; there is nothing more. Of course, the best plots are psychological. But Under The Volcano doesn't delve into psychology; it is a manifest, a book about fate, about self-destruction as philosophical act. Thus its dialogues are stylistically indistinguishable from the rest. Its setting, Mexico on the day of the dead, 1938, gets pages of description but fails to relate to the plotline; this might as well happen anywhere. And it is all told a year after the fact, leaving no room for a protagonist's inner struggle. Indeed, my impression is that Under The Volcano's refusal to tell a story in the accepted sense was the very reason for its popularity.
(cont)

[Anonymous No.1695234]

The biggest problem is the writing style. Faulkner writes using "Stream of Consciousness," a writing style meant to show the reader what characters are actually thinking. It's as if you are inside the character's head, listening to his/her thoughts. One problem: the first part of the book is about someone who is mentally retarded. But you don't know this. You read and read and the book jumps from place to place with no connection whatsoever because it is occuring in the mind of someone who has no concept of time or reality. In a later section, one of the characters goes mad. In this section, if you buy the book, you will get the joy of reading page after page of text with NO PUNCTUATION WHATSOEVER. No capitalization, no commas, no periods.. NOTHING.

>NOTHING

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1695239]

>>1695228
>>1695228
(cont)
>This might still be fine if the writing weren't so confused. Page upon page follows, without a paragraph break, of disjointed text and run-on sentences, forcing the reader to go back again and again to follow the narrative. At times, the novel turns into a patchwork of overlapping monologues, mixing half-backed political and literary expatiation with background noise and the Consul's alcoholic cravings. Accretive writing, I think it has been called. Other authors can be purposely hard to follow: Faulkner, for example, or some Virginia Woolf; but there is a point to their chosen style, which is to mimic the inner voice, to plunge the reader straight into the characters' mental machinery, enabling these characters to tell their tale in a manner that feels raw and real. Lowry's writing achieves no such thing. It is mannered and wooden, an indulgence - the writer's, not the reader's. Art for art's sake. Perhaps, finally, Under The Volcano's textual agglutinations are meant to simulate inebriation. I know easier ways to remind myself what inebriation feels like. Oh well, I guess I am just not an intellectual after all!

i'm only 30 pages in and i know this guy is wrong

[Sÿllable's Canticle !.M17dCV/UE No.1695260]

>>1695239

This reviewer does not understand the use of style in Lowry's text. That is too bad, he could have enjoyed it more. The disjointed stream of consciousness would be used for the reader to pay attention or force the reader to reread.

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - Mordecai Richler
>>The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler is one of the worst books I've ever read. I feel the language in the book is unreal and some of the situations in the book are just plan undescribable and obscene. In my opinion I feel this book should be banned from being read in highschools. There are some students that I know who stated for a fact that they've never seen a piece of garbage as worse as this book and I fully agree with them. The use of language is uncontrolable and plan disgusting. There are people who don't use the kind of language that's use in this book and when they see it they immediately skip over the word because they don't feel right reading such language and they've grown up not using or thinking of using it. To conclude I would like to say taht The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is nothing but trash and filth for students eager and learning minds.

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1695301]

>>1695260
>>1695260
that's exactly what i thought
my friend linked me to this site:
http://www.otago.ac.nz/english/lowry/content/parent_frameset.html
which apparently helps and i'm going to look at it on my second read through

[Anonymous No.1695306]

China Mieville - Kraken

"Hesitate to say it, but... I'm wondering if the favorable reviewers here neglected to read the novel? Ditto for the editor.
Granted, it's hard for American me to follow the jumbled barrage of British slang, but that doesn't fully excuse this incomprehensible mess."

[Anonymous No.1695307]

>First of all let me say that if an author wants to sell books in this country, then use some american names for gosh sake! How in the h e double toothpicks am I suppossed to remember who's who? The fact is you can't. Hey listen, if you want to read about brothers, try that great baseball book, the brothers k. If you want to read about crime and punishment, how's about a little grisham. But this guy fred dostoyefski is going to have to write a little bit more towards his intended audience. My advice to you Freddy if you read this.........Russia went down with the Berlin wall, let's write some good old fashion mystery thrilllers! Thank you and bless all of my comrades across the pond. Long Live Gorby!

[Anonymous No.1695315]

John Dies at the End:
[I strongly suspect one of you faggots wrote this. Admire the pretentiousness]

>I made it about twenty pages -- one night of reading -- through this juvenile book. How anyone could find this drivel amusing or groundbreaking is absolutely beyond me. I hate that I wasted $10 on it (my fault for not "looking inside" first), but at least I only wasted about an hour of my time. One day I will realize: hundreds of suspiciously glowing reviews does not a good book make. Read a few pages of the book first before you buy it.

"IM GOING BACK TO PROUST!"

[Anonymous No.1695340]

>>1695315
It takes him an hour to read 20 pages? WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

[Quentin and the meaning of life !!p3mpBqBwOeY No.1695355]

I picked up an old copy of this Hemingway book at an antique mall for $4 or so, and was excited to read my first Hemingway novel. I'm a huge fan of classic literature and have read many books by Steinbeck, Dickens, and Bronte. I read half of this one and then one night threw it across the room, my patience at an end. Here's the first half of the book: "We had dinner and a few drinks. We went to a cafe and talked and had some drinks. We ate dinner and had a few drinks. Dinner. Drinks. More dinner. More drinks. We took a cab here (or there) in Paris and had some drinks, and maybe we danced and flirted and talked sh*t about somebody. More dinner. More drinks. I love you, I hate you, maybe you should come up to my room, no you can't." What absolute boring nonesense. I can only pray for those who've stuck it out to the end that something meaningful happens. I flipped through the second half of the book a day or two later and saw the words "dinner" and "drinks" on nearly every page and figured it wasn't worth the risk. I really wanted to get into Hemingway, too, so much so that I suffered all the way through the first half before giving up. Perhaps I quit too soon, but there was nothing in the entire first half that made me want to continue reading. Nothing at all.

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1695572]

bump

[Anonymous No.1695587]

for de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America"

>In America? In 1831? Which part of America EXACTLY did this man visit? Which "Americans" did he talk to? Did he talk to blacks? Did he talk to sharecroppers? Did he talk to the industrial fodder that were dying in the factories of the north?

>I never understood why this book was so impressive except that it helped to perpetuate the myths of the building of America.

>Now I'm going to hug my Howard Zinn collection and rock myself to sleep

Ok I made one of those lines up.

[Anonymous No.1695593]

The Born Queen - Greg Keyes
>First off let me say that I read the books one after the other. That made all the more evident the disjointed plot line and nonsensical twists.

>And dues ex machina in droves. I don't think I've ever read a story that has so much 'get the character in trouble in every chapter' and then rescue him. Almost everyone in every chapter was rescued in the nick of time. Add to that the characters were for the most part, completely out of character. There is a difference between character development and personality changes on this scale.

>Usually I enjoy books that make the conclusion hard to guess, but not this one. Events happened that made no sense and seemed to have no bearing on the story. The pacing was also too fast. It made one character blend into another because all they ever did was visit magic places, fight or flee.

>The writing itself was good and the story had potential. (the world did as well despite essentially being a copy of the medieval Christian church, Scotland, England, Norway and Italy with only enough change in actual languages to make me wonder why Keyes thought a pretense language necessary. I mean wairwulf instead of werewolf? What's the point?

>Add to all this the plotting and pace were terrible, wild and all over the place. You had so much to work with Greg, but I'm sorry, you blew it.

[Anonymous No.1695602]

Far from the madding crowd

Twas a late summer's eve, the casual breeze was playing delicately upon my fingertips as I gave a wistful look at the fire, made from the finest oak south of West Derbyshire, brought here by two Yorkshire mares. And a pig. As I stared up at the heavens, watching two stars shimmer in unison, as if to suggest a Millwall team with their main striker injured had just beaten Yeovil Town to win the FA Cup, I wondered, would I, by no means of deception or betrayal, ever gaze upon the brilliance of a man such as Thomas Hardy. The description of Farmer Oak's smile encapsulated me no end, so much so that I had to read it again, and again, and again. Just like with many other parts of the book.

From the age of 7 I have regularly been reading the works of reknowned authors such as R.L. Stine and Dr Seuss. And that bloke who writes Garfield. Unfortunately, what I began to notice about these sorts of novels is that they fail to emphasize the number of wrinkles on their character's faces, an essential part of understanding the plot and relationships between the protagonist and his audience.

You may now have realised that I, in fact, have a slight dislike for this piece of literature. But even if I hadn't been taught it when I was 16 by a crazy English teacher who had a nervous breakdown, I still don't really think it would be my cup of tea. Bring on Harry Potter 8 - Voldemort's Son vs Neville Longbottom!

[Anonymous No.1695603]

The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann

Among the very worst books I have ever read. I won't detail the plot (such as it is) as others have done. I can't relate to these characters at all. A century is not necessarily a long time but in terms of attitude these people might as well be from another world.
No swearing, no rage, no hate. Conversations between characters are artifical and often just statements of politics, philosophy, religion.Endless descriptions of food eaten, clothes worn.
If this was the only book in the world I would never read a written word again I hated it that much. The author could kill people with boredom and intellectual waffle without getting to any point.He manages to say in 1000 words what another author could say in 10. Not so much a novel as a sort of encyclopedia of descriptions of the human body, attitudes to life and being bored.
Life is too short to read this.
A book like Stephen King's 'It' is worth a 5/5 for it's sense of fun, drama, depth, terror, endless stories and characters. This book is for me a 1/5

>Stephen King is a 5/5

[Anonymous No.1695609]

With a title like, Charles Manson Now, where the word "Now" is the largest, most prominently displayed word on the cover, I eagerly expected the book to contain some "New" material about the man and his legacy. How wrong I was. Not only was there nothing new, there was very little interesting. After all, what could possibly be new (or interesting) with a man who has spent the last 40+ years in prison, much of it in solitary. Intertwined with unremarkable interviews of Manson's friends, the author includes pieces of his own equally unremarkable life. And because the book is so devoid of substance, the author, who claims Manson is the most "complicated person" he ever met, litters at least one-quarter of the book with countless ramblings (that at times go on for pages) written by Manson himself. Clearly used as "filler," they do nothing to prove the author's point, only annoy the reader. I suspect those who rated it 4 and 5 stars are simply diehard Manson Fans.

[Anonymous No.1695614]

>I was so enthusiastic and worked up to expecting a splendid and original read, but came off greatly dissapointed and got frustrated trying to think of what all the hype was about with BRAVE NEW WORLD. I tried so very hard to like and enjoy reading this...but my mind just didn't want to cooperate. Such a complex and creepy look into a superfical world into this book was hard to grasp, this just wasn't the type of book I expected. I prefered 1984 and Animal Farm much more than Brave New World. I mean, it's hard to say that emotions can errupture with just a little pill, and vice versa. Oh well, maybe I'm a bit tuff to give such a beloved classic just 1 star, but that's what I deeply and truely think this book deserves. I'll stick to my old favorites: Eliot, Hardy, Orwell, Willa Cather, Wharton, Dreiser, and Gustave Flaubert. Hehe, I never get to tired of my favorites. Viz., I didn't like this classic.

[Anonymous No.1695615]

>>1695602
>That Entire Post