Book (only real Litrature, no airport pulp) that you hated the most.

[The once and future king]

Crime and Punishment.

Actualy didnt manage to finish it. The protagonist pissed me off to much with his constant whinning.

I dont think it helped that I had just read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Ivan was having a very hard time but did you here him complain. No. He got on with the job and even found time for a smidgen of happiness and satisifaction. Unlike skint moaning axe murdering student, talk about wallowing in self pity.

[Rico Suave]

Madame Bovary...

Had to read it at least 3-4 times throughout my schooling...never even came close to finishing it.

--Rico

[ThaSaltCracka]

anything by Shakespeare.

[imported_Chuck Weinstock]

There were so many that I can't think of them all. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Actually, they were few and far between...the Iliad (or was it the Odyssey?) springs to mind.

On a related note, I've read Atlas Shrugged several times, but there is this part in the middle that I've never been able to get through. I wonder how many of you have had the same experience with this book?

Chuck

[Boris]

Any of those stupid Rabbit books by John Updike.

Anything by Kurt Vonnegut. Talk about over rated.

[Ed Miller]

On a related note, I've read Atlas Shrugged several times, but there is this part in the middle that I've never been able to get through. I wonder how many of you have had the same experience with this book?

I don't know if it's the same part, but I couldn't finish it either... /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Ed Miller]

Fahrenheit 451

Total tripe. I don't understand why anyone likes this book... especially when you could read Brave New World or 1984 instead.

EDIT: Oh. Also, Edith Wharton. Ugh.

[BeerMoney]

Red Badge of Courage.

Far From the Madding Crowd.

I'd rather run a chainsaw up my ass than have to deal with this crap.

[turnipmonster]

yeah I never got the rabbit books at all. I didn't really like "the tin drum" by gunter grass very much, entertaining in parts but something about it I just didn't get perhaps.

--turnipmonster

[nicky g]

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. Didn't get very far with it; hated the tone.

[Michael Davis]

Anything by Steinbeck (flame away) or Toni Morrison (I would actually get expelled from school for admitting this).

-Michael

[scotnt73]

anything with the words tis and wence in it /images/graemlins/grin.gif.i usually read 1-2 books a week(air port pulp) so i love reading but i dont see how you can get into a book thats almost in another language. its like trying to read the bible straight through for entertainment.

the book of revelations was entertaining though.

[Sooga]

Grapes of Wrath.... i can't understand how anyone can get past the first few chapters of that book. Soporific would be a perfect word to describe that novel.

[Sooga]

I hated Grapes of Wrath but I loved Of Mice & Men. Lenny is such a retard.

[The once and future king]

One of my favourites.

But thats another topic.

[crash]

The Catcher in the Rye never did it for me, even back when I was younger. I can't say I hated it, but everyone seemed to make such a big deal about it.

[sfer]

I love Dostoyevsky and Crime and Punishment in particular.

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
Toni Morrison (I would actually get expelled from school for admitting this).


[/ QUOTE ] damn, her writing style is crazy man. I had a hard time reading Jazz, but I liked her descriptions of the envirmoments. Her dialogue left much to be desired though.

[Rushmore]

The Burn, by Vasily Aksyonov.

What crap. Really annoying device which had several different timelines all happening concurrently and blah blah blah.

I could have lived without The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon. THE PULITZER PRIZE?????!! WHAT???!

I guess I'll throw in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers. Everyone said it was great. Everyone said I'd be glad I took their advice.

They were wrong. Everyone was wrong, so wrong.

[Six_of_One]

Jane Eyre.

I majored in English in college, so I read a lot of things that I didn't like, but this one stands out. I think it was like 3782 pages of really small print, and all I remember is that somebody went blind. Yes, I read the whole damn thing.

[mmbt0ne]

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Just plain bad.

[Zele]

The Age of Innoncence

P.S. C&P rules, you should have finished it. I don't believe Raskolnikov was meant as a role model.

[imported_Chuck Weinstock]

It's funny but when I was in college my Mom gave me a copy
of Travels with Charley and I could not get through it.

Recently, while on a business trip, I picked up a copy and loved every word of it.

Must have been a revision. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Chuck

[Boris]

I'm a big Steinbeck fan, with the exception of Travels with Charlie. Didn't care for it.

[Utah]

I hate Toni Morrison with a passion. I find the writing both boring and offensive at the same time.

I told my English teacher that forced me to read TM how much TM absolutely sucked. The teacher was very offended.

[BrettK]

[ QUOTE ]
On a related note, I've read Atlas Shrugged several times, but there is this part in the middle that I've never been able to get through. I wonder how many of you have had the same experience with this book?

Chuck

[/ QUOTE ]

The fifty-page (or thereabouts) Galt speech near the end was a bit much, but I loved the book.

Brett

[Nick_Foxx]

thackeray vanity fair

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
I told my English teacher that forced me to read TM how much TM absolutely sucked. The teacher was very offended.

[/ QUOTE ]
the same thing happened to me, except it was Emily Dickensen.

[Martin Aigner]

Don DeLiLLO, Cosmopolis

Plain boring. Only good thing is that it´s not too thick.

[BadBoyBenny]

I liked Crime and Punishment, although the Brothers Karamazov is the book worth reading if you want to read Dostoevsky. None of his other books are in the same league.

My most hated was Milton's Paradise Lost.

I also hated the Grapes of Wrath and the Red Badge of Courge but both were already mentioned.

[illini99]

The sound and the Fury. I've tried reading it twice. Never got past halfway.

[SlyAK]

Over 30 posts and no Moby Dick??? Wow, that is BY FAR the worst I've ever read, well cant say I finished it, but I read far more than I should have bothered with.

The problem with this book is it is about 2k pages long as well as totally boring.

Sly

[ArchAngel71857]

1. My Antonia.
2. Desert Solitaire.
3. Hold Em Poker by Ken Warren.

-AA

[nicky g]

Moby Dick is the greatest book ever written.

[tolbiny]

i got around 50 pages into atlas shrugged and decided never to pickit up again.

[Duke]

Everyone has their own opinion. Apparently, yours is quite unique.

If you ever decide to fight through it, the end is pretty good and quite quotable.

~D

[The once and future king]

He rehearsed that post before the stars were born.

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
Fahrenheit 451

[/ QUOTE ]

I think readers give Bradbury some license since he contributed a lot to that genre.

~D

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
its like trying to read the bible straight through for entertainment.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the awe factor of the bible is its selling point. Awe on a lot of levels. People thinking it more than a work of collaborative fiction is only one aspect of that.

~D

[Oski]

A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man by James Joyce.

A lot of work to get through that one.

[Boylermaker]

I have to agree with you on this one...it was dreadful.

[Abednego]

That's the Book of Revelation .... not Revelations

[Michael Davis]

I disagree. I tend to dislike really boring American crap and enjoy the English variety.

-Michael

[Michael Davis]

I like it when my favorite Old School novel shows up on someone's list.

-Michael

[Eclypse]

[ QUOTE ]
Fahrenheit 451

Total tripe. I don't understand why anyone likes this book... especially when you could read Brave New World or 1984 instead.


[/ QUOTE ]

You have to be careful with Fahrenheit 451--many issues were heavily abridged and not indicated as such. These copies are way inferior.

I did like Nineteen Eighty-Four better though (I think everyone should read it--and do so before the next presidential election).

Brave New World was not one of my favorites.

[Eclypse]

ULYSSES by James Joyce

I defy ANYONE to read this book without going, "what the..." at least 20 times. It's unreadable.

How was this voted the greatest fiction work of the 20th century?

[ChipWrecked]

The Once and Future King.

(Just kidding)

Can someone define the line between literature and pulp. Kipling was considered pulp in his day. Shakespeare's plays were performed for the rednecks of his day.

I enjoy science fiction (today's pulp). As time goes on, however, some if it becomes literature, i.e. Farenheit 451.

I'll wager Arthur C. Clarke's work will be considered literature in the future. How about Asimov's Foundation Trilogy? Pulp?

Oh, yeah. My answer is Moby Dick.

[Straussman]

Though I'd add in my two bits. /images/graemlins/crazy.gif With the exception of the books in Archangel71857's and Rushmore's posts, plus the Age of Innnocence and Cosmopolic (sp?), none of which I have read, the ONLY book listed here that I didn't enjoy was Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (I basically hated Rand after reading this book, having decided she was evil).

So I guess it's all a matter of taste. (But this here former English major thinks that if you didn't enjoy Moby Dick, there's something seriously wrong with y'all. /images/graemlins/grin.gif)

[superleeds]

Heart of Darkness

Just couldn't get into it, only made twenty or so pages

[nicky g]

No no. That's a great book.

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
Can someone define the line between literature and pulp.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the way this works is that it's all pulp, unless it's very good. Then it can become 'literature.' I'd already classify much of Asimov and Clarke as literature. Tolkien's work began with a children's story, but I think that's definitely literature by now.

~D

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]

Heart of Darkness

Just couldn't get into it, only made twenty or so pages

[/ QUOTE ]

I read it. I didn't love it, but it wasn't horrible either. I think you have to read the whole book before formulating a valuable opinion. Your assessment is fine for you, but reading 20 pages and stopping isn't much more than saying you didn't like the cover art so the book sucks. It's not going to tell someone else anything useful.

~D

[The once and future king]

Id qualify Litrature as writing as where the writing is good in off it self.

Asimov tells a great story, and I like his books. His writing in and off itself isnt that great. His book are driven by plot and scene mostly.

As for Clarke, his writing is just horrid, but he still tells a good story.

My favourite Sci fi writer is P.K.Dick. His writing is often awful but his plots and themes rock.

Very grey very subjective area.

[nicky g]

There's no adequate definition, but you can be sure if it contains the phrase "throbbing manhood", it's not proper literature.

More seriously I'd define it, if forced to do so, as what lasts. Good literature is still reasonably widely read and studied 100 years later. Bad isn't. The only people reading Jackie Collins in 100 years times will be amused social historians.

[elwoodblues]

[ QUOTE ]
My favourite Sci fi writer is P.K.Dick

[/ QUOTE ]

He's great. Have you read A Scanner Darkly? They are making it into a movie -- Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder. With this cast it could either be fantastic or a disaster --- no middle ground.

[The once and future king]

Through a Scanner is one of my faves.
Given the complexity of the plot (A guy spying on himself and not realising etc) I bet they [censored] the bed on this one.

My all time PKD read is UBIQ. Cant see how they could turn that into a movie either.

I cant remeber the name but I also liked the one where miners on mars would spend all there money on Barbi and Ken accesories, biuld up a town etc and then take a drug that put all the men and women inside the Ken and Barbie doll repsectively.

They would then go for a drive in the model car in the model town. Classic.

What did you think of Vanila Sky. I think this was the bravest and best screen adaption of PKDs themes and ideas. Though I imagine many would take issues with this.

Of course Blade Runner warrents a mention, but the sense of paranoir wasnt carried across from the Novel DADOES effectively IMHO.

[elwoodblues]

I agree about Scanner Darkly --- complicated. However, there were times when I was reading the book that I thought I was reading a screenplay. There's a scene where the druggies are accusing someone of stealing 3 of the gears on their 10 speed bike (because there were only 2 in front and five in back) that was priceless.

[ChipWrecked]

Horrid writing, um, well, if I took that much speed, I couldn't even sit at a keyboard, let alone be coherent.

I hear The Man in the High Castle is being made into a movie.

One of my favorites is Martian Time-Slip. A guy is en route to a meeting, but has memories of the meeting, and also of missing the meeting. Whoa.

[Senor Choppy]

[ QUOTE ]

ULYSSES by James Joyce

I defy ANYONE to read this book without going, "what the..." at least 20 times. It's unreadable.

How was this voted the greatest fiction work of the 20th century?

[/ QUOTE ]

I couldn't get anything out of it either, but I can understand why academics feel this way.

[sfer]

Yes, it is a great book. To not like it just makes me think, "The horror."

[RcrdBoy]

[ QUOTE ]

They are making it into a movie -- Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder. With this cast it could either be fantastic or a disaster --- no middle ground.

[/ QUOTE ]

This really bums me out.

[elwoodblues]

Me too, but really there's a lot of potential. The plot revolves around people who are constantly high --- one so high he doesn't realize that he's informing on himself. If anything, it's typecasting.