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Books Not to Read

Dave Rogers said:
Oh god, you just reminded me that I read Anthem. Kids, just say no. Awful, awful characterisations.
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What Anthem has going for it is it's short. So if you want an introduction to Ayn Rand, Anthem would be a good choice to read instead of larger works such as Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead.

One doesn't read Ayn Rand for the quality of her fiction.
 
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TragicMonkey said:
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.
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I did, but only in my mid 20s.
The actual STORY is good. It just could have been told in 70 pages rather than 800. I liked Ahab's **** you attitude to god.
And if you really really really want to know everthing about whaling, this is the book for you.

Billy Budd (also by Melville) is a (IMO) much better in a time vs enjoyment cost benefit.
 
d4m10n said:
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
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d4m10n said:
Did you happen to notice any female characters in Heller's book that couldn't be easily replaced by a poseable sex doll?
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Huh? If the thread was about Books Not to be Included on a Feminist Literature course, then your choice and reason would be spot-on.

However, on a list of books not to read, this is probably one of the most obviously bad choices. The book is a work of genius. Nothing less.

Wolrab said:
I, being an idiot teen, decided I would not do Catch 22 as everyone did book reports on that. I opted for Heller's Something Happened. I had to force my way through about half of it before I realized the teacher probably never read it either. I BS'ed my report and got a good grade. Unbearable novel.
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I actually also enjoyed reading the ironically titled Something Happened. Or rather, I spent quite a long time reading it and being engrossed by it. Perhaps enjoyed is the wrong word, but if your idea of a good movie is Barry Lyndon then the novel will probably work for you. There were even a few Catch-22-esque moments in the dialogue such as when the narrator is talking to his son's sports teacher. It goes something like this:

"Your son is not competitive enough. He even slows down to let other kids catch up with him."
"Maybe my son just isn't that interested in winning."
"Mr. Heller, everyone has a will to win."
"My son doesn't."
"That's what I am worried about!"
 
Myriad said:
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.)
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That's right, that it was all about damned Yankees didn't make it any better.
 
There was an interesting article written by expert on North Korea, and part-time literary critic, B.R Myers who bemoaned the growing pretentiousness of "serious" literature.

In this article, he mentions a few books, Snow Falling on Cedars, Shipping News, the horse book by Cormac McCarthy and something by Jonathon Franzen.

Nothing gives me the feeling of having been born several decades too late quite like the modern "literary" best seller. Give me a time-tested masterpiece or what critics patronizingly call a fun read—Sister Carrie or just plain Carrie. Give me anything, in fact, as long as it doesn't have a recent prize jury's seal of approval on the front and a clutch of precious raves on the back. In the bookstore I'll sometimes sample what all the fuss is about, but one glance at the affected prose—"furious dabs of tulips stuttering," say, or "in the dark before the day yet was"—and I'm hightailing it to the friendly black spines of the Penguin Classics.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/
 
angrysoba said:
There was an interesting article written by expert on North Korea, and part-time literary critic, B.R Myers who bemoaned the growing pretentiousness of "serious" literature.

In this article, he mentions a few books, Snow Falling on Cedars, Shipping News, the horse book by Cormac McCarthy and something by Jonathon Franzen.



https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/
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Ooooh!

Reading that article now. Count me in. Right now reading H.G. Wells - The first Men in the Moon. Great fun.
 
It seems fairly common that being 'taught' a book in school ruins it. I don't care much for Hamlet or Lear because I was beaten over the head with them by a jerk teacher. I read Macbeth on my own and liked it a lot. The Great Gatsby was taught to me, and I hated it. I read Madame Bovary and As I Lay Dying on my own and loved them. Same age, the only difference was reading them by choice and not having to memorize other people's ideas about them.
 
TragicMonkey said:
It seems fairly common that being 'taught' a book in school ruins it. I don't care much for Hamlet or Lear because I was beaten over the head with them by a jerk teacher. I read Macbeth on my own and liked it a lot. The Great Gatsby was taught to me, and I hated it. I read Madame Bovary and As I Lay Dying on my own and loved them. Same age, the only difference was reading them by choice and not having to memorize other people's ideas about them.
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Well, I had to read Hamlet in school and really liked it. My teacher was pretty good and enthusiastic about the books we read so maybe that helped. On the other hand, I read the Great Gatsby by choice and found it was really unremarkable. I couldn’t understand what was supposed to be good about it.
 
Dave Rogers said:
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
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Yep. I started the first book in the Gap Series, and as I do with books that don't do anything for me, I never got to a quarter of it.

I did feel compelled for some perverse reason to slog through all three of the Thomas Covenant trilogies.
 
TragicMonkey said:
It seems fairly common that being 'taught' a book in school ruins it. I don't care much for Hamlet or Lear because I was beaten over the head with them by a jerk teacher. I read Macbeth on my own and liked it a lot. The Great Gatsby was taught to me, and I hated it. I read Madame Bovary and As I Lay Dying on my own and loved them. Same age, the only difference was reading them by choice and not having to memorize other people's ideas about them.
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I had a professor in college who had that amazing talent of turning books I loved into swill. One day I couldn't contain myself when she was butchering Walden and raised my hand and began taking offense to her soul numbing interpretations. It did not sit well with her, and only by a miracle (facilitated by the chairman of the English Department) was I able to get a passing grade from her.
 
TragicMonkey said:
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.
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As to that: Third Trilogy spoiler alert!

Author pro-tip: Just because you can use the words "carious" and "incarnadine" doesn't mean you should.
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Forsooth!
 
Elagabalus said:
I never read "Atlas Shrugged" but I did read "The Fountainhead" and there was a rape in that story too. I managed to slog it out to the end but, meh. "If I can't have my artistic vision the way I want it then nobody can have it! I'm going to blow it up!" Real mature way to handle design specs and government mandated safety regulations.
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The guy who recommended I read it was a John Birch Society Conservative.
Also I guess he liked the rapes. Later I found out that he was into rape fantasies. He regarded it and Fountainhead as practically scripture.

Oh, and there was this girl he had a crush on just because she resembled Ayn Rand.
 
angrysoba said:
Huh? If the thread was about Books Not to be Included on a Feminist Literature course, then your choice and reason would be spot-on.

However, on a list of books not to read, this is probably one of the most obviously bad choices. The book is a work of genius. Nothing less.



I actually also enjoyed reading the ironically titled Something Happened. Or rather, I spent quite a long time reading it and being engrossed by it. Perhaps enjoyed is the wrong word, but if your idea of a good movie is Barry Lyndon then the novel will probably work for you. There were even a few Catch-22-esque moments in the dialogue such as when the narrator is talking to his son's sports teacher. It goes something like this:

"Your son is not competitive enough. He even slows down to let other kids catch up with him."
"Maybe my son just isn't that interested in winning."
"Mr. Heller, everyone has a will to win."
"My son doesn't."
"That's what I am worried about!"
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I will give it another go next time I'm at my local library. It'll probably be the same book as I doubt anybody else has checked it out in the last ...37 years!
 
I agree with the above sentiments both about reading a book too early, and (often at least) getting it in school with the wrong teacher. It's always been pet peeve of mine that teachers emphasize over and over that they're not trying to elicit hidden meanings and the like from literature, and then proceed to do exactly that. What they usually mean is that they want only their own meanings. I never met a teacher who did not wreck poetry. I did have a few who taught Shakespeare and others OK, but not all.

I had to read Emma (or rather I was supposed to read it) in high school and hated it. Some years later I was persuaded to read Pride and Prejudice, and thence all of Jane Austen, and am now an unapologetic Janeite, but it was all the wrong thing the first time around.

When I was about 12 I read Oliver Twist, and thought it about the best book I'd ever read. For the next 50 years or so I coudn't seem to get past the first five pages of Dickens, but in the last few years I've read a few, and liked them again. It seems to require a certain mood.
 
angrysoba said:
There was an interesting article written by expert on North Korea, and part-time literary critic, B.R Myers who bemoaned the growing pretentiousness of "serious" literature.

In this article, he mentions a few books, Snow Falling on Cedars, Shipping News, the horse book by Cormac McCarthy and something by Jonathon Franzen.



https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/
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Seems the article is forgetting "literature" is simply a genre like fantasy is.
 
angrysoba said:
However, on a list of books not to read, this is probably one of the most obviously bad choices. The book is a work of genius. Nothing less.
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A genius author ought to be able to write women as if they have some sort of an inner life and sense of self.
 
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