Books Not to Read

[Pope130]

Two classics I've read (or reread) in the last couple years --

The Catcher in the Rye
A Separate Peace

-- makes me wonder why anyone would want to read these without having been assigned to. Well, I guess I did, but it was only to find out why they are considered so important in literature. I didn't.

They say that people who enjoy Catcher in the Rye have an increased chance of becoming serial killers or assassins. Not a strong recommendation.

 

[fromdownunder]

One SF novel I'd add to the list though is Robert Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. If you read Stranger in a Strange Land back in the day, stop there.

Number of the Beast started well enough, but fell away badly when it turned into Heinlein's multiverse obsession.


But I really need to name three exceptions to your statement:



The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Friday
Job: A Comedy of Justice.

Norm

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Two classics I've read (or reread) in the last couple years --

The Catcher in the Rye
A Separate Peace

-- makes me wonder why anyone would want to read these without having been assigned to. Well, I guess I did, but it was only to find out why they are considered so important in literature. I didn't.

I was well into adulthood before I realized the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye being a smarmy little jagoff who needed to grow up was the entire point of the book. Seen in that light, it makes more sense that they'd assign it to kids who stand to learn the most from it, but they really ought to lead with that moral instead of assuming the kids'll catch on. At the time I was too busy being a smarmy little jagoff to possess that level of self-awareness.


I'll add Forward the Mage by Eric Flint and some other guy. It looks like a fantasy parody, it pretends to be a fantasy parody, but it's actually just the writers being twee and oh so meta and neglecting to actually make any of it funny.

 

[GlennB]

One SF novel I'd add to the list though is Robert Heinlein's The Number of the Beast.

Yep, awful. I was a fan of his and bought that book for vacation reading. It was all I had left to read so ground my way through it. I vaguely recall the book made a couple of references to authors and their contracts and concluded he'd only written it because he had to.

 

[Darat]

The Wandering Jew - Eugène Sue.

To pick a line from Wikipedia "...The Wandering Jew and Hérodiade are condemned to wander the earth until the entire Rennepont family has disappeared from the earth..." and by the end of the book you will feel you've lived everyone of those seconds of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year....

If the author's goal was to make you feel like you have lived through an eternity of drudgery well he was a genius.

 

[dann]

I was well into adulthood before I realized the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye being a smarmy little jagoff who needed to grow up was the entire point of the book. Seen in that light, it makes more sense that they'd assign it to kids who stand to learn the most from it, but they really ought to lead with that moral instead of assuming the kids'll catch on. At the time I was too busy being a smarmy little jagoff to possess that level of self-awareness.

Ten years ago I read 'Catcher' with a high-school class of 17-year-olds, who were surprised to find out that Holden is telling the story to his therapist after his nervous breakdown. Holden was just like them, they thought. Nothing wrong with him at all!

 

[dann]

As to Dune novels, I would expand that to any Dune novel other than Dune. At least, I liked the original, and read one or two of Frank Herbert's sequels, and didn't care for them much. That was when I was still a kid though, so maybe there was something I missed in the sequels.

I think there was something you missed in the original!

 

[Dave Rogers]

There's a limit to how much of one's life one should spend reading Stephen Donaldson, and I hit the threshold in the middle of the Gap series. As a result, I can only advise you not to read the first two and a half books of this, along with the first two Thomas Covenant trilogies.

Dave

 

[Craig4]

I just don't make it through the whole book.
Many years back a friend recommended Atlas Shrugged.

Not many chapters after the rape, I closed the book and never went back to it. Galt and Dagny just kept losing cred for me.

No one has read the entire book. There's not a human being alive today or who has ever lived who has read all of John Gault's speech. Ayn Rand scholars have no idea what's in the middle of it.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

The Bible


but everyone knows this, since no one has ever read anything but a few choice bits.

 

[TragicMonkey]

There's a limit to how much of one's life one should spend reading Stephen Donaldson, and I hit the threshold in the middle of the Gap series. As a result, I can only advise you not to read the first two and a half books of this, along with the first two Thomas Covenant trilogies.

Agreed. I read the first two Covenant trilogies and wondered why. Every page was whining, whining, whining. Even the dark lord of the thing was a whiny complainer. If a delegation of good fantasy creatures consisting of Aslan, Ozma, Gandalf, Santa Claus, and the King of the Silver River were to visit Donaldson's "The Land" they'd agree all the inhabitants deserved to die. "This kind of crap shouldn't be allowed," they'd conclude, then exterminate the lot.

Author pro-tip: Just because you can use the words "carious" and "incarnadine" doesn't mean you should.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I find a lot of books' impact depends on my mood at the time I'm reading it. I liked House of Leaves the first time I read it. The second time I was in an impatient mood and all that blather irritated me. "Semiotics" may or may not be a real field of study, but it's hellishly difficult for someone into it to talk about it without pissing off everyone in earshot. I found myself thinking "you could have studied medicine or computers, really accomplished something", realized I was turning into my father, and put the book down.

The new era of "dark and gritty" fantasy I find I can tolerate when I'm not in a bad mood myself. After a long difficult day of work I just can't sympathize with yet another agonized protagonist in a crapsack world. "Shut up, Shinji!" I say, "lots of people don't even have a magical amulet, so stop crying!"

As a teenager I quite liked those Saint Germain vampire books. As an adult I realized that a) the author is obsessed with period clothing and spends more time describing what the vampire is wearing than describing what the vampire is doing and b) good god those stupid vampires deserved all the persecution they get. Every book is the same: noble vampire misunderstood and harassed by the ignorant mortals of their stupid ignorant time...but ninety percent of the vampires' problems are one-percenter problems. The vampire lady risks being lynched by ignorant medievals...because she can't flee the danger zone without arranging shipping for her silks, ivories, jewels, and antique furniture! Apparently becoming a vampire turns people into possession-obsessed hoarders. Forget preserving your immortal life, save your possessions!

 

[philkensebben]

Adrift - 76 days lost at sea. For such an epic experience, it made for a fairly disappointing read. About halfway into it, I'd had enough, but stuck it out to the end. It didnt improve much.

It wasnt terrible, just meh.

Much better survival stories exist.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Moby Dick. We had to read it in English class in eleventh grade. We spent a whole month on it. A winter month. Gloomy, ponderous tome in gloomy, ponderous climate. I just couldn't manage more than halfway through, the only time I ever failed to finish a school-assigned book. I don't think anybody made it through the whole thing.

 

[zooterkin]

Agreed. I read the first two Covenant trilogies and wondered why. Every page was whining, whining, whining. Even the dark lord of the thing was a whiny complainer. If a delegation of good fantasy creatures consisting of Aslan, Ozma, Gandalf, Santa Claus, and the King of the Silver River were to visit Donaldson's "The Land" they'd agree all the inhabitants deserved to die. "This kind of crap shouldn't be allowed," they'd conclude, then exterminate the lot.

Author pro-tip: Just because you can use the words "carious" and "incarnadine" doesn't mean you should.

Oh, yes, so much this! I also slogged through both trilogies, and vowed never to read another word Donaldson wrote, something I've had no trouble keeping to.

 

[Myriad]

Moby Dick. We had to read it in English class in eleventh grade. We spent a whole month on it. A winter month. Gloomy, ponderous tome in gloomy, ponderous climate. I just couldn't manage more than halfway through, the only time I ever failed to finish a school-assigned book. I don't think anybody made it through the whole thing.

Like most people here in southeastern Massachusetts, I respect the honest amobyist position. But you're crossing the line into outright antimobyism.

You can make amends by attending the next one of these. (They livestream it now, so there's no excuse for missing it.)

 

[autumn1971]

My thoughts.
Catch 22 is difficult because it has a weird structure. I understand it’s not for everyone even thoug I enjoyed it.

I had to read Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying for junior English and the entire class hated it. We weren’t mindless teen angstwads either, it was a bunch of literate, college-bound scholars to be.

I re-read it at 35 years old and it made so much sense. It was a clear window after going through a storm.

That said, never force a teenager to read it. They will hate you and Faulkner.

 

[Darat]

Moby Dick. We had to read it in English class in eleventh grade. We spent a whole month on it. A winter month. Gloomy, ponderous tome in gloomy, ponderous climate. I just couldn't manage more than halfway through, the only time I ever failed to finish a school-assigned book. I don't think anybody made it through the whole thing.

Yeah, deeply disappointed that it never lived up to what the title promised.

 

[Darat]

Dickens' novels generally make pretty good TV mini-series. But he was literally paid to write by the word, and it shows.

Couldn't agree more, at secondary school we started Great Expectations as an English the lesson book, even our very prim and proper English teacher agreed to drop it after the first week because it was so dreary and so boring.

 

[Darat]

Oh, yes, so much this! I also slogged through both trilogies, and vowed never to read another word Donaldson wrote, something I've had no trouble keeping to.

I hear there is going to be another 3 trilogies, based on a small piece of toenail found trapped in the carpet of doom.