30-03-2005 21:18									#1
	Literary confessions. Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Forgive me, for I have sinned. I have never read Dostoevsky, even though I know I should. No Tolstoy either. I've tried les Miserables but the book's one long string of appositives and asides, you have to keep backtracking to remember what the actual story is about. It would be wonderful if Hugo's rich writing style could confine itself to a single subject for more than two pages without digressing.

I have also hated much "art," apparently wrongly. You know my opinions on Citizen Kane; I'm sorry, I just can't see how that lout gets anything more or less than what he deserves, or why I should feel empathy for his situation.

Beyond that, I freaking hated Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hokey homespun metaphors like "something fell off the shelf inside of her. She bent over, and realized it was her image of Joe," do not constitute good writing. That's just painful to read. And that weird part where she got some sort of orgasm from watching bees and flowers around a pear tree was more disturbing than profound.

The Stranger sucks too. It did not convince me that our lives are meaningless and absurd. It merely convinced me that Camus's life was meaningless and absurd, and I could have been told that directly without being forced to read the stupid book, though it was mercifully short.

The Catcher in the Rye. Critics agree that it's badly written tripe, but they insist that its redeeming value is in its open appeal to disillusioned adolescence. No, it doesn't even have that. I was sixteen when I read it, and I was a pretty sullen kid, and even I wanted to cheer when the pimp hit him. That was the best part of the book, Maurice laying down the law. That rotten little punk deserved a beating, or maybe just to be shipped off to Vietnam so he could learn what real suffering is.

Okay, I'm done, for now at least. Thank you for listening. Feel free to contribute your own artistic outrage, provided you don't expect me to agree with you on all of it.

	30-03-2005 21:43									#2
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I'll disagree with you about Catcher in the Rye. I thought that it was an unfortunate book, and the goodness of the last scene didn't even begin to make up for it. However, when I was told to read it in 11th grade English, it came out that a lot of the people in the class had read it, and many thought it to be their favorite book. So, I think it does have appeal to the angst-ridden disallusioned adolescence.

	30-03-2005 21:45									#3
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I didn't like either On the Road or Naked Lunch.

	30-03-2005 21:52									#4
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Catcher in the Rye = worst book ever. A good second is Angela's Ashes. The latter was incredibly boring, full of hypocrisy, and had worse grammar than a damned 7 year old. Sorry, I prefer to read legable books that make sense.

	30-03-2005 21:59									#5
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quote: Forgive me, for I have sinned. I have never read Dostoevsky, even though I know I should. No Tolstoy either. I've tried les Miserables but the book's one long string of appositives and asides,

Crime and punishment should be at leasr 200 pages shorter, it might be even good then, Tolstoy is decent thoughI never got around reading his major works(and never will).
Less Miserables is just...pfff..lame

Boris in 3...2...1..

quote: On the Road

	30-03-2005 22:16									#6
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I am yet to get beyond the first page of anything by Nietzche, Kant or any other 'fashionable' philosopher.

I have never read 'Little Women' in my life.

Stephen King bores me shitless.

I think 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is possibly one of the most over rated books ever written.

Arial (Sylvia Plath) was nonsensical crap - in my opinion. Self indulgent, no poetic talent whatsoever, imagery so obscure it was totally ineffectual, impossible to identify with even at my most suicidal. Wish she'd stuck her head in the oven during infancy.

....and to think I'm meant to be an English student. I bury my head in shame.

	30-03-2005 22:19									#7
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I've never read any Kafka. Or Dickens. Nor Twain nor Hemmingway since I was too young to appreciate that decent writing. Still haven't gotten to Voltaire's Candide.

LOTR is shite (granted, I stopped reading after Fellowship). Some interesting linguistics, but the only decent thing about it.

War and Peace was a monumental waste of time. I don't know if more recent translations are any better, but the book's crap. The other Rooskies are far better than Tolstoy (Dostoeovsky, Nabokov, Pushkin, etc.), though Anna Karenina is supposed to be better.

I've read several Anne Rice novels. Also, several Tom Clancy novels. And every shitty addition to the Foundation series, including the ones Asimov didn't write (only the first one was any good). Frightening amounts of Turtledove. Basically, a lot of shitty sci-fi and historical fiction.

	30-03-2005 22:22									#8
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quote: Kafka

The trial was the single worst thing I ever got my hands on.

	30-03-2005 22:27									#9
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The Trial was brilliant. As was The Castle. I'm going to leave this thread now before I start taking this too seriously

	30-03-2005 22:33									#10
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Bleh, it put me of reading for almost a year while at the time I was reading at least 2 books a week.

	31-03-2005 00:05									#11
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The only Kafka I've ever read was In the Penal Colony. I'm not sure if I found it good, bad, or just disturbing.

Do try Candide, even I liked it.

I've never read Ariel, but what Sylvia Plath I have read is fun. The trick is not to expect moderate or rational work from Plath, she's a crazy person on a binge halfway between self-pity and self-loathing, that's almost all the fun of reading her.

	31-03-2005 00:06									#12
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[QUOTE] Originally posted by Elok

quote: give me, for I have sinned. I have never read Dostoevsky, even though I know I should.

I liked Crime and Punishment - maybe it helped that i was a student living in a tiny room at the time

quote: Tolstoy either.

it took me a couple of tries to get into War and Peace. Once i did though i finished it and liked it. What can i say, im a sucker for Russian novels.

quote: I've tried les Miserables

Never read it.

quote: I have also hated much "art," apparently wrongly. You know my opinions on Citizen Kane; I'm sorry, I just can't see how that lout gets anything more or less than what he deserves, or why I should feel empathy for his situation.

Im sorry, was i supposeed to feel empathy? I havent, but enjoyed the film anyway. Rosebud

quote: Beyond that, I freaking hated Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hokey homespun metaphors like "something fell off the shelf inside of her. She bent over, and realized it was her image of Joe," do not constitute good writing. That's just painful to read. And that weird part where she got some sort of orgasm from watching bees and flowers around a pear tree was more disturbing than profound.

Never saw/read it.

quote: The Stranger sucks too. It did not convince me that our lives are meaningless and absurd. It merely convinced me that Camus's life was meaningless and absurd, and I could have been told that directly without being forced to read the stupid book, though it was mercifully short.

Didnt convince me either, but I recall enjoying reading it.

for Kane, and Stranger, you say it didnt convince you. I dont think thats what its all about. Before these are arguments, they are art. If they work as art for you, you can get something out of them without buying anyones philosophy of life.

	31-03-2005 00:07									#13
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[QUOTE] Originally posted by Ramo

quote: LOTR is shite (granted, I stopped reading after Fellowship). Some interesting linguistics, but the only decent thing about it.

HEATHEN!!!!

	31-03-2005 00:11									#14
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I couldnt get through Swann's Way. I tried, but i couldnt.

Mahler doesnt do it for me.

I can't stand rap. Any of it.

I thought Mystic River was overrated. Good, but still overrated. ("Bobby, ya got four haahts!" - yeah, an which one should i pahk in hahvad yad?)

	31-03-2005 00:13									#15
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quote: Originally posted by Verres I am yet to get beyond the first page of anything by Nietzche, Kant or any other 'fashionable' philosopher.

Kant is fashionable???

	31-03-2005 00:14									#16
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Kant is down wit' da homies, G!

	31-03-2005 00:21									#17
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Flanery O'Connor. Picked up "everything that rises must converge" It was painful, very painful. Made it through the first two stories, IIRC. By sheer willpower. Give me Tolstoy over this any day.

	31-03-2005 00:21									#18
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The thing is, Citizen Kane was groundbreaking in terms of technique, I know, but there's not much to like about it. Not only is Kane himself a ****, some of it is so overdone it induces vomiting. Like the part where the reporter puts this sensitive look on his face and says, "I don't think there's any one word that can sum up a man's entire life." Ooh, aren't we profound. What a lot of high-art jerking-off. Even A Beautiful Mind was less guilty. The only thing I liked about CK was what my film teacher told me about the double meanings in it-apparently, Welles gossiped with some of Hearst's old friends. "Rosebud" was Hearst's pet name for his mistress's clitoris, apparently. I have to admit, it takes guts to deliberately PO one of the most powerful men in America that way, even if it is stupid.

And the Stranger...meh. I felt no reason to care what happened at all. It was just this ineffectual French loser who didn't care for his mother, stumbling around northern Africa banging some chick from his office, dodging commitment to her and everyone else, and shooting a random Arab. He was completely spineless and reprehensible. I couldn't even hate him like I hated Holden, I just wanted the stupid book to end so my English class could go on to something interesting.

Maybe there was a point somewhere in there, but as Mersault barely even acted human it's hard to feel that anything he did could be applicable to our lives. Maybe I just got a bad translation, but even the prose was mediocre. Some parts were good, sort of, but overall it was like a manic-depressive trying to imitate Hemingway more than anything else.

	31-03-2005 00:23									#19
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Why would you read The Stranger for an English class? Isn't it French lit?

	31-03-2005 00:26									#20
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Yes, but this was high school English class, we'd read anything that was on the approved list even if it was not, originally, English. We read Candide too and I liked that, so I'm ambivalent on that particular policy.

	31-03-2005 00:28									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Elok The thing is, Citizen Kane was groundbreaking in terms of technique, I know, but there's not much to like about it. Not only is Kane himself a ****, some of it is so overdone it induces vomiting. Like the part where the reporter puts this sensitive look on his face and says, "I don't think there's any one word that can sum up a man's entire life." Ooh, aren't we profound. What a lot of high-art jerking-off. Even A Beautiful Mind was less guilty. The only thing I liked about CK was what my film teacher told me about the double meanings in it-apparently, Welles gossiped with some of Hearst's old friends. "Rosebud" was Hearst's pet name for his mistress's clitoris, apparently. I have to admit, it takes guts to deliberately PO one of the most powerful men in America that way, even if it is stupid.

Reported said a hackneyed thing - well of course, cause he's like a REPORTER - and a hackneyed, Time reporter working for Luce, not the kinda guy whoda worked for Hearst. The whole "play within the play" thing, the Time style documentary is a profoundly ironic - since it represents jus the kind of journalism that was taking over from Hearsts style. I dont think the Time folks are meant to speak for Welles. And the guts to PO Hearts - well thats what its all about - a constant wink, a satire and a psychoanalysis on a guy so big. I dont know, i just find it very watchable.

	31-03-2005 00:30									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Elok And the Stranger...meh. I felt no reason to care what happened at all. It was just this ineffectual French loser who didn't care for his mother, stumbling around northern Africa banging some chick from his office, dodging commitment to her and everyone else, and shooting a random Arab. He was completely spineless and reprehensible. I couldn't even hate him like I hated Holden, I just wanted the stupid book to end so my English class could go on to something interesting. Maybe there was a point somewhere in there, but as Mersault barely even acted human it's hard to feel that anything he did could be applicable to our lives. Maybe I just got a bad translation, but even the prose was mediocre. Some parts were good, sort of, but overall it was like a manic-depressive trying to imitate Hemingway more than anything else.

I surely didnt read it for anything applicable to my life. IIRC (and its been a LONG time) It was a very striking portrait of numbness and rootlessness. I could be misremembering, but i dont think so.

	31-03-2005 01:16									#23
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Wait a minute, I thought Hearst made his fortune with trashy yellow-journalism papers like the NY Post. Wouldn't smarmy crap like that be right up Hearst's alley?

Mersault was rootless, yes, but that's precisely why I didn't care about him. If such a person as him did exist IRL, it might in fact be kindest to send him to the chair or whatever it was that offed him in the end. I'd call him a sociopath, except sociopaths tend to have charm and ambition, he just shambled down the path of least resistance. He basically wasn't even a human, just a dumb animal going to its preordained fate.

There was nothing in the story to strike my interest precisely because I could see nothing of myself or anyone I knew in the main characters. In good fiction, you have a reason to care what happens because the characters mean something to you. Even if they're nothing like you there's something in their situation that compels you to read on, because you feel something for their plight. But Mersault is entirely reactive, sitting around in a pathetic situation he might easily have avoided had he possessed a soul.

	31-03-2005 01:18									#24
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quote: Originally posted by Elok Wait a minute, I thought Hearst made his fortune with trashy yellow-journalism papers like the NY Post. Wouldn't smarmy crap like that be right up Hearst's alley?

different kinda crap - trashy yellow journalism vs Timese slickness and pretense.

	31-03-2005 01:20									#25
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quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark different kinda crap - trashy yellow journalism vs Timese slickness and pretense. Read some Time back issues from the '30s, 40s, 50s. Oh, and the NY Post in those days was a respectable workmans paper, leaning liberal. Never a Hearst paper, IIUC.

	31-03-2005 01:36									#26
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quote: Originally posted by alva Crime and punishment should be at leasr 200 pages shorter, it might be even good then, Tolstoy is decent thoughI never got around reading his major works(and never will).

Totally agree about Crime and Punishment. I find his other books are also fairly bad at keeping me interested. They could lose some description as well.

I've never read Tolstoy, mostly because his books are about thing I have no interest in reading about, and partly because they're far too long.

Anything written by a Brontė is tedious. Actually, anything written by a Victorian-era woman is tedious.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is excessively long-winded.

Catcher in the Rye was just pointless. Boy gets expelled again, ****s around, goes home. My give-a-**** is broken. My disaffection was with adolescents, not adolescence.

Moby Dick took me four attempts.

I have read woefully little Dickens.

	31-03-2005 01:39									#27
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My confession? I haven't read most of the books mentioned here.

My other confession? Most of these books mentioned seem to be books people read so that they can say they read them.

However, I have read every Bloom County anthology ever published.

ACK!

	31-03-2005 03:29									#28
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I've read most of them.

Try reading classics.

	31-03-2005 04:50									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Elok Forgive me, for I have sinned. I have never read Dostoevsky, even though I know I should. No Tolstoy either.

Never read either author. A former girlfriend majored in Russian literature...does that count?

Citizen Kane = garbage.

I burned Atlas Shrugged. It wasn't censorship; it was revenge for having been forced to read it.

Washington Irving couldn't write for nothin' :shame.
Hated Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Moby Dick defeated me.

To Kill a Mockingbird.
Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Mark Twain
Kafka = okay.
Scarlet Pimpernel
Bram Stroker's Dracula
Frankenstein

	31-03-2005 04:52									#30
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo LOTR is shite (granted, I stopped reading after Fellowship). Some interesting linguistics, but the only decent thing about it.

* Verto faints.

How can you say such hateful things?