The worst book you ever had to read for School

[Blue Roses]

The book I just read is not only the worst book I've ever had to read for school, but the worst book I've ever read in my entire life. Persuasion, by Jane Austen. What a bunch of fucking bullshit. Seriously, its two hundred pages of one dimensional Victorian era British people (ie: One dimensional boring assholes) talking about propriety at social parties and occasionally blushing when a member of the opposite sex looks at them.

Oh, so you are not a fan of Jane Austen then? or any English 19th century literature by the looks of things.

That's fine, but really you should know that Jane Austen lived and died in the Georgian period, not the Victorian. Georgian women were positively free-spirits in comparison with Victorian women. All those corsets.

However, I do have to agree with Wuthering Heights. Never, have I wanted to bang two characters heads together so much. I'm sure all that brooding on the moors is bad for one's health - where's the Hound of the Baskerville when you want to liven things up?

Worse thing I had to read at school (or translate with some of Cicero's more pompous speeches) was T.S. Eliot's Wasteland. Just did not get it and quite frankly did not want to get it. Load of old tosh. Worse type of pretenious nonsense.

[AutumnEvenings]

Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce. Rather than finish reading it, I dropped the class.

[niamh]

Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce. Rather than finish reading it, I dropped the class.

The metamorphosis or whatever you call it in english by Kafka. Not that it was a bad book, but the depiction of the horrid beetle thing was so real that I couldn't physically touch the book eventually. Phobias ftw I couldn't finish it or anything. Yikes.

[Mo Sneachd]

I made the mistake of reading Catcher in the Rye in my free time. That was before I'd developed the wickedness to simply stop reading a book and throw it away after one chapter.

We read mostly horrible things in German class, but Wir pfeifen auf den Gurkenkönig pwns it all - it's about this giant Cucumber King who moves into the basement of a totally daft family. Apparently my teacher thought 5th graders were about as intellectual as toast. No deeper meaning, horrible language, and a totally weird plot (in the not-amusing-way).

I have forgiven Kafka a lot after we read the Letter to the Father, but the Metamorphosis was not among that. The Trial is quite ok when it comes to uber-angst, but this man-turned-giant-bug? Please.

While I like poetry, I hate Goethe with a passion. Maifest is the worst poem-considered-awesome-by-teachers ever.

I'm sorry to admit it, but I really like Hugo. Only read the translation, but I like his getting-into-pointless-detail-style.

And there certainly is worse than Effi Briest. Though not that much, I'll grant Ein zu weites Feld.

[Tysha]

Absolutely no contest - 'I'm the King of the Castle' by Susan Hill. Horrible, horrible waste of words and paper, full of moths, dead crows and repugnant one-dimensional characters, and completely lacking in anything vaguely resembling a plot or a point. It was the bane of my life for two years and I actually ripped the book in half when I came out of my GCSE English lit exam.

To make matters even worse, the school alternated which year did which book, presumably to keep things interesting for the teachers, so the year above and the year below got to study 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. They got one of my favourite books of all time and I got stuck with that piece of shit.

I also wasn't keen on 'A Room With a View' when I first read it for A-Level but I think it was the over analysis which killed it for me. I re-discovered Forster about a year and a half ago when I read 'Maurice', and decided to give ARWaV another go and I loved it.

Conversely, I got to read some fantastic books in my last year of university - 'Middlesex' by Jeffrey Eugenides, 'Carter Beats the Devil' by Glen David Gold and 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay' by Michael Chabon, all on the same course! Brilliant!

[Caligula_K]

Oh, so you are not a fan of Jane Austen then? or any English 19th century literature by the looks of things.

That's fine, but really you should know that Jane Austen lived and died in the Georgian period, not the Victorian. Georgian women were positively free-spirits in comparison with Victorian women. All those corsets.

However, I do have to agree with Wuthering Heights. Never, have I wanted to bang two characters heads together so much. I'm sure all that brooding on the moors is bad for one's health - where's the Hound of the Baskerville when you want to liven things up?

Ha, thanks for the correction. I think we can all agree, however, that Georgian or Victorian, Britain had the most boring Empire ever.

I guess its hard for me to say that I'm not a Jane Austen fan, having only read Persuasion, but if all of her books are like that (and from what I understand, they are) then I can probably say I am not. You're right in saying that I dislike 19th century English literature; very few books from that period that I can enjoy.

Hmm... And if a Jane Austen fan hates Wuthering Heights, I can just imagine the joyride I'm in for.

A favour to ask, too: Can you please tell me what you found enjoyable about Persuasion?

[Piper]

"A High Wind in Jamaica" hands down the worst. It was summer reading for everyone in our grade, and even our teacher hated it so much he just skipped over it in the lessons. Terrible book.

[The Wedge]

I hated trying to read "The Scarlet Letter" my sophomore year. Ugh. I couldn't wait to get to the next book, "Huck Finn."

[MinDonner]

Absolutely no contest - 'I'm the King of the Castle' by Susan Hill. Horrible, horrible waste of words and paper, full of moths, dead crows and repugnant one-dimensional characters, and completely lacking in anything vaguely resembling a plot or a point. It was the bane of my life for two years and I actually ripped the book in half when I came out of my GCSE English lit exam.

Oh God, I'd forgotten all about that one. I think we were stuck with that for GCSE too - was it about a shy kid getting bullied by a fat kid in some old house? Yeah, that was boring and pointless.

Regarding Austen, I haven't read Persuasion but I love her other books, mainly because they're full of sly humour. Maybe Persuasion wasn't one of her funnier books, or maybe you just don't like that type of humour - it's a very subjective thing. I hate all Victorian literature with the exception of Lewis Carroll, so I see where you're coming from on that, but Austen (apart from not being Victorian) is worlds apart from the awful moralising of Dickens, Hardy and whichever sanctimonious tosser wrote Tom Brown's Schooldays.

[Blue Roses]

I think we can all agree, however, that Georgian or Victorian, Britain had the most boring Empire ever.

I Hmm... And if a Jane Austen fan hates Wuthering Heights, I can just imagine the joyride I'm in for.

A favour to ask, too: Can you please tell me what you found enjoyable about Persuasion?

Britain had the boring Empire ever? Gazooks! Have you watched Gunga Din or Zula (apologies to all former colonies that have been opressed by the evil British empire at any stage in our boring existence. )

Wuthering Heights was an exception. I enjoyed Charlotte and Anne Bronte and I adore Dickens, Hardy, Eliot etc. and all that other boring 19th century literature.

Jane Austen - massive fan. I enjoyed it for all the reasons you hated it. The evil letters, quick blushes and social propiety. Its either to your taste or not. However to put into context, when JA was writing most 'novels' were gothic and highly florid and full of fainting damsels in distress locked up in rooms in gothic castles. JA was a breath of fresh air. Women were women and yes some of them are silly, sly, gossipy, beautiful, dim or sparkling but they were based on reality. Unfortunately for you, women had nothing to do but hang around until someone married them, or become a governess or a prostitute or be a pain in the neck spinster that nobody wanted. Life was pretty dull and centred on who married who, who said what, who danced with who etc. cos there was nothing else to talk about in the village. But the characters are spectacularly drawn; the circumstances might have changed but the personality traits have not and we all recognise people she so cleverly and wittily describes. Okay Persuasion is not a funniest novel but if you read some of the sly and witty obersavations in Pride and Prejudice or Emma you cannot help to be amused.

I live only a few miles away from where JA was born, Steventon, and I am surrounded by the houses she visited, danced and dined at so her world doesn't seem so far away for me. JA was exceptional for her age because she had financial independence in the later stages of her life from the small success of her novels. She also grew up in a lively, intelligent family who nurtured her talents. The reality for most women was different. As JA said herself ' a women, especially if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.'

Sorry you didn't enjoy it, but there are plenty of other books out there that are equally fantastic so in the end it really doesn't matter!

[Tysha]

Oh God, I'd forgotten all about that one. I think we were stuck with that for GCSE too - was it about a shy kid getting bullied by a fat kid in some old house? Yeah, that was boring and pointless.

That's the one! Hooper and Kingshaw. Kingshaw killed himself at the end and absolutely no-one was sad.

Wuthering Heights was an exception. I enjoyed Charlotte and Anne Bronte and I adore Dickens, Hardy, Eliot etc. and all that other boring 19th century literature.

Ditto! Sense and Sensibility is my favourite JA novel (give me Colonel Brandon over Mr Darcy any day) and I love Jane Eyre but I hate Wuthering Heights with a passion. It is not romantic! Heathcliff is an abusive bastard and Cathy is an annoying bint. Urgh. And it was made even worse by all those girls in my class bleating about how tragic and beautiful it all was. Yes, the way Heathcliff treated Isabella was just so beautiful. Who wouldn't want an eternal love with a man like that?! The only good thing about the book is that the last paragraph is kinda pretty.

[Caligula_K]

Re: Blue Roses: Ha, true, if there was one thing the British Empire was good at, it was fucking over Africa. And Asia. And Australia. And France, though the Prussians helped with that too.

Thanks for your response. Its always nice to see things from a different perspectove, even if that perspective seems completely insane. And your comments about Wuthering Heights being the only exception aren't exactly reassuring, unless I'll end up liking it due to our tastes in 19th century British literature being opposite.

[Ser Hippie]

Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis. A boring book about a boring man who is bored with his boring life. From the reviews I've read, it's entirely possible I'd like it more now that I've entered the rat race and deal with the issues the main character did, but as a high school freshman I contemplated gouging my own eyes out.

[Isis]

Wuthering Heights is way more exciting than anything by Austen. I'm a sucker for doomed love stories I guess. Sadly I didn't get to do it for school. Our books weren't that bad actually. If there was any bitching to do I'm sure I did it much earlier in this thread.

[AverageGuy]

Ethan Frome.

[add-on]

Hmm... And if a Jane Austen fan hates Wuthering Heights, I can just imagine the joyride I'm in for.

A favour to ask, too: Can you please tell me what you found enjoyable about Persuasion?

I pretty much agree with Min on this one. Even if you're not a fan of all the foppish propriety, Austen was almost peerless with her wordplay. Every time I read something new of hers, I find myself chuckling the whole way through.

Re Austen writing about rich, unsympathetic English girls--so not true. Most of the characters in Austen's novels are on the lower end of the gentry, or middle class, and they need to make a strong marriage to avoid falling into abject poverty when daddy dies. This is why the mother in Pride and Prejudice is so upset with (1) the father when he pretends to not care enough to visit Mr. Bingley and (2) Lizzy when she refuses Mr. Collins's suit. It's also why Lizzy's best friend decides to accept the less than desirable Mr. Collins.

If we want to talk about authors writing about rich, unsympathetic characters, we should be talking about Edith Wharton. I had to read Wharton's House of Mirth last semester, and it still makes me grimace to think about it. Wharton was obviously very gifted and I thought her style was very readable. I even feel like she's good enough to make what should be a very unlikable main character into someone I started out wanting to root for. However, I really felt that she sacrificed the story for the point she was trying to get across, and, once this becomes clear, it's hard to keep caring and just makes for a very depressing read.

Another one from last semester was Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya. It's pretty much one of those gothic novels that Blue Roses was describing. The only difference is that, in this story, the damsel in distress decides she doesn't want to be in distress, and, with the help of the friendly neighborhood African witch doctor (who later turns out to be SATAN!) kills anyone and everyone who gets between her and the person she wants to fuck, and, in that respect, Dacre's being quite the innovator. Sound cool so far? Well, it's not, i'm afraid. The writing is over the top flowery garbage and because of the heavy political overtones, the plot is very predictable.

Other bad assigned reads include Oroonoko, Don Quixote, and Victim of Prejudice.

[Knight of Flowers]

Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead was horrible. It does not hurt that I think the entire Anthropology field is a joke. They are not making a contribution, they are being nosy.

[Jerec]

Jane Austen's Emma for sure. It just seemed so damn pointless at the time. I got about a third of the way through, and used a study guide to fill in the blanks. Got a pretty high mark on the essays for it, too. We were comparing it to the movie Clueless, which while not too bad, had a very similar story, so it was quite easy to figure out.

[nutinhoney]

What I really liked about the books they assigned in school is that they tended to be books that I wouldn't have considered reading on my own. Even if I happened to buy the book, there's a high probability that I wouldn't get past the first chapter or 2 before getting distracted by another book. With school, I forced myself through the books, and generally, by the time I got to the end, it was quite satisfying. There have been far more books that I've picked that resulted in the "!@#$% that was waste of the last 3 hours..."

That said, I must nominate "Fun with Dick and Jane". Talk about predictable!!

In all seriousness, probably "Taming of the Shrew"... not because it was a bad play, but because the experience was so bad. The teacher handed out the plays on a Friday saying that we're going to start "studying" the play on Monday. So I took it home and read the play on the weekend (something I had to do when I was in Honours English... downgraded to regular due to a schedule conflict) thinking that we're going to have some discussion. On Monday, we started READING the play out loud in class for the next MONTH!! What a waste of time. Apparently my teacher knew full well that if she asked us to read it at home, 90% of the class wouldn't bother.

[Vintertroll]

We don't get to read good books at school... Last year, we read this stupid unknown book called "Lies of Silence", for the reason that it was about the troubles in Northern Ireland (which we learned about for half a year. I though we were supposed to learn about England in the English classes...). I don't even remember the author. It's probably the most miserable thing I've ever read, and I have read both Brooks and Eddings, so that says quite a lot. Even the teacher hated it. The plot was unbeliveably simple; it was about a bomb that was about to go off or something, and the characters in Winnie the Pooh has more debth than the charachters in that book had. The only reason I remeber it is because it was so unbeliveably lousy that it has been burnt in my memory forever. Argh!

I hope we get to read some Victorian literature this year. Only problem is that I have already read quite a lot of it. But a good book can't be read too many times! As long as it isn't Wuthering Hights, it's the most overrated book. Ever. I found myself hating all the charachters of the book. That is not a positive thing in a love story where you are supposed to feel sorry for the characters - and not cheer when they die...