Really bad books you've read

[TheLurker]

Austen’s prose is light and fluffy by comparison.

And short* sentences.  A proto-Hemingway if you will.  Now there's an image.  "Mama" Austen in a bar on island (Jersey?) knocking back rum all the while smoking a succession of clay pipes and scribbling away.  In fact I think that's probably what happened.  She didn't die in 1817, but ran away to drink the profits and write the great feminist novel and died, poverty stricken, of cirrhosis of the liver in a St. Helier knocking shop in 1830.


*By comparison with C. Dickens.  No-one writes sentences of such *interminable* length as Dickens.

[Tim Hall]

I have banished to the depths of my unforgettory banks a "book" I chanced to borrow from the local library. I'm not sure why I took it out in the first place.  It was an alleged thriller, perhaps - as I say most of the details have been expunged.  It was set locally, so that may have been why, with a lot of the action taking place in a fictional town called Redgate, this being a thinly disguised Redhill and Reigate. I spent some time identifying other poorly hidden landmarks,such as misnamed pubs.

I think part of the story took place in the sand quarry on the edge of Redhill. Our hero suddenly fancied a shag so said to his (male) workmate something along the lines of "I fancy a shag" to which his colleage said. "So do I. I've got some butter in my sandwiches, let's do it."  Not a word for word recollection but close. You can see why I've tried to forget it.

[citoyen]

*By comparison with C. Dickens.  No-one writes sentences of such *interminable* length as Dickens.

You should try some Henry Fielding.

[fd3]

No one has mentioned RR Tolkein yet. Managed to finish the sodding Hobbit to then find we had to do it in school *snore*. Over-hyped excessively verbose and turgid... Haven't been able to read any of the others.

Struggling to think of other bad books I have tried or failed to read. I can't get into classic stuff like Austen or Dickens as I find the prose style so dull I can't get anything from them.

Read the Hobbit no worries but bailed on the LOTR after the first book both times I tried to read through.  (still better than the film though).
Not sure what the point of Austen is.  I had a tutor group once where we had a page-o-meter to track how far they'd read through Emma (those foolish enough to take English Lit at A-level) - as they all hated it.  Over half the English Lit group hadn't read the book by the time the exam came.  (Yes, you do need to question why the Head of English decided to go with Emma over Gatsby, but you'd lost me at "English" to be fair).

[L CC]

Not sure what the point of Austen is.

She's funny .
Laugh out loud ridiculousness of people, funny. The ones that get dramatised are the romances, inevitably, but Northanger Abbey is hysterical. They're always played really straight by period dramas but her writing is so light, when you read it yourself without the costumes it's much funnier.

[Rod Marton]

Not sure what the point of Austen is.  I had a tutor group once where we had a page-o-meter to track how far they'd read through Emma (those foolish enough to take English Lit at A-level) - as they all hated it.  Over half the English Lit group hadn't read the book by the time the exam came.  (Yes, you do need to question why the Head of English decided to go with Emma over Gatsby, but you'd lost me at "English" to be fair).

Surely that's true of any book you have to study at school? Certainly I hated every writer whose books I had to study.

Fortunately Austen was not one I had to study and I came to her later in life. If you can ignore the costume drama and women's writer labels, you pretty soon realise that she was absolutely brilliant. Not a name you should put anywhere near a thread on bad books.

[cycleman]

I had to wade through kes at school. I found it tugid and depressing 

[Mr Larrington]

We had One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.  Nowt wrong with that as far as this Unit can tell.

[andrewc]

“Far From The Madding Crowd” for GCE Eng Lit which I didn’t care for, though it’s probably a good description of late Victorian rural life. It’s never tempted me to pick up anything else by Hardy.

[L CC]

Brave New World for O Level. Still love it.

[andrewc]

We had to read 3. The Hardy, Merchant of Venice and I can’t remember the 3rd ...

[Ruthie]

“Far From The Madding Crowd” for GCE Eng Lit which I didn’t care for, though it’s probably a good description of late Victorian rural life. It’s never tempted me to pick up anything else by Hardy.

Me too.

Didn’t read it. Didn’t get the ‘O’ level.

[rafletcher]

Didn’t do Lit “O” level, so was never forced to introduced to the “classics”.

[L CC]

We had to read 3. The Hardy, Merchant of Venice and I can’t remember the 3rd ...

Book :BNW
Play : Julius Caesar (I still remember some of the quotes - "he doth bestride the narrow world as a colossus" - "yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look ;such men are dangerous" )
Poetry: Wilfred Owen.

Could have been A LOT worse.

[Kim]

Surely that's true of any book you have to study at school? Certainly I hated every writer whose books I had to study.

I soon realised that the solution to this was to read the book in its entirety at the first opportunity so you could experience it as a book, before it got trudged through at reading-aloud-in-class speed with frequent interruptions to waffle on about characterisation and dramatic irony and so on.  A useful side-effect was that you didn't get distracted by the book while reading along, end up 8 pages ahead of the class, and then get into trouble for not paying attention when called on to read the next paragraph.

English Literature seems like a really good way to ruin people's experience of books.  A kind of antidote to Harry Potter, as it were.

[citoyen]

Not sure what the point of Austen is.

That's a "What are you reading for?" kind of comment.

https://youtu.be/BwkdGr9JYmE

[citoyen]

They're always played really straight by period dramas but her writing is so light, when you read it yourself without the costumes it's much funnier.

The TV/film adaptations always seem to focus on the costumes and the dancing. Which are by far the least interesting bits in her books.

I started watching the most recent film adaptation of Emma last week but found it too excruciating and had to stop. The best film adaptation of Austen is Whit Stillman's Love & Friendship, which is the only one I can think of that does seem to actually get the point.

[TheLurker]

English Literature seems like a really good way to ruin people's experience of books.

+1

They didn't help matters for my cohort by choosing,  "Where Angels fear to Tread" by E.M. Forster and if I ever meet Puck, Titania or Oberon in a dark alley they will be, both severally and individually, very dead fairies.  The saving grace was, "The Pardoner's tale", but just barely and then only because it had the sort of humour that a 14/15 YO schoolboy understands.  I.e. fart jokes.  As any fule kno you can't beat a peom* with fart jokes in it.


*It wasn't much cop as a peom.  How can it be a peom if it do not rime eh? I ask you.

[Salvatore]

*By comparison with C. Dickens.  No-one writes sentences of such *interminable* length as Dickens.

You should try some Henry Fielding.

Try Thomas Mann, preferably his worst book Der Zauberberg (Magic Mountain). I read it all, both volumes, but don't remember ever seeing a full stop. Buddenbrooks is quite readable in comparison - but here's a sentence, bursting with all sorts of clauses, from page 1

Und die kleine Antonie, achtjährig und zartgebaut, in einem Kleidchen aus ganz leichter changierender Seide, den hübschen Blondkopf ein wenig vom Gesichte des Großvaters abgewandt, blickte aus ihren graublauen Augen angestrengt nachdenkend und ohne etwas zu sehen ins Zimmer hinein, wiederholte noch einmal: »Was ist das«, sprach darauf langsam: »Ich glaube, daß mich Gott«, fügte, während ihr Gesicht sich aufklärte, rasch hinzu: »– geschaffen hat samt allen Kreaturen«, war plötzlich auf glatte Bahn geraten und schnurrte nun, glückstrahlend und unaufhaltsam, den ganzen Artikel daher, getreu nach dem Katechismus, wie er soeben, anno 1835, unter Genehmigung eines hohen und wohlweisen Senates, neu revidiert herausgegeben war.

[citoyen]

The saving grace was, "The Pardoner's tale", but just barely and then only because it had the sort of humour that a 14/15 YO schoolboy understands.  I.e. fart jokes.  As any fule kno you can't beat a peom* with fart jokes in it.

The Miller's tale is even better - it has hairy twat jokes.

*It wasn't much cop as a peom.  How can it be a peom if it do not rime eh? I ask you.

My recollection is that it does rhyme - but maybe that's only if you read it in authentic period style, which my English teacher used to take great delight in doing. Surprisingly, this didn't put me off Chaucer.

[Rod Marton]

English Literature seems like a really good way to ruin people's experience of books.

+1

They didn't help matters for my cohort by choosing,  "Where Angels fear to Tread" by E.M. Forster and if I ever meet Puck, Titania or Oberon in a dark alley they will be, both severally and individually, very dead fairies.  The saving grace was, "The Pardoner's tale", but just barely and then only because it had the sort of humour that a 14/15 YO schoolboy understands.  I.e. fart jokes.  As any fule kno you can't beat a peom* with fart jokes in it.


*It wasn't much cop as a peom.  How can it be a peom if it do not rime eh? I ask you.

You've reminded me now that we had the General Prologue, which was actually quite good. Chaucer was a sarky bugger. Changing languages, the other one I enjoyed was a selection of Catullus' poetry. As you can imagine, all the sexual descriptions rather appealed to 15 YO boys. Though I discovered later, the really graphic ones had been selected out.

Latin has a remarkably extensive vocabulary when it comes to sex.

[nicknack]

O-level Eng Lit? I struggle to remember any of it. I got a C.

There was:
 St. Joan by Shaw - never read all of it but it was on the tele the night before the exam
Henry V?
Some pomes from "A Book of Narrative Verse" poss Sir Patrick Spens was one. Ancient Mariner also poss.

Best film Jane Austen? Easy: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

[barakta]

They made us do Of Mice and Men in year 10 for GCSE English literature (by then combined into 1.5x the teaching time and 2 separate GCSEs with English language) and I just could not read it. Turgid and confusing. I suspect a lot of North American cultural references that we didn't have and a weird writing style.

I was lucky, my English teacher for GCSE was very good, she actually did explain stuff in a useful without boring us kind of way. Coulda done without Romeo and fucking Juliet TWICE, once in year 9 and again as a GCSE text tho. I nicked a friend's idea of saying they were stupid and overwrought and it wasn't true wuv after all which got me marks for being a bit different and cited reasonably!

[Cudzoziemiec]

Not sure what the point of Austen is.

She's funny .
Laugh out loud ridiculousness of people, funny. The ones that get dramatised are the romances, inevitably, but Northanger Abbey is hysterical. They're always played really straight by period dramas but her writing is so light, when you read it yourself without the costumes it's much funnier.

Living in Bath in the early 90s, those movies were 'spot the extras you know'. But maybe I'll give her a go, one day.

[Kim]

Best film Jane Austen? Easy: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

I think that one adds evidence to fboab's theory.  It's funny precisely because it's a send-up of all those frightfully serious screen adaptations, and the simple addition of zombies gives the characters something to *do*.

It's still about 30 minutes too long, thobut.


On a related note, I've been reading Mary Robinette Kowal's Glamourist Histories series (which is basically a fantasy romance featuring a mash-up of assorted Jane Austin characters), for SCIENCE, on the dubious basis that I enjoyed her space stuff and it came up in a twitter thread.  It's entirely readable, again because those characters are given a plot to participate in.

(My main conclusion is that as the inspiration for both Sir David Vincent and Dr Nathaniel York, Mary Robinette's husband must surely be a fine example of non-toxic masculinity.)