Centrist Simon Steele Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 I actually think Shakespeare is quite terrible myself. His plots are simplistic. His characters paper-thin, singly-motivated, and behave INCREDIBLY unrealistically to a variety of situations and towards other characters. Take away the prose and you have a bunch of tiny, laughably simple narratives with ridiculously unrealistic characters, reactions, and outcomes. His shit is just plain stupid at times. And his prose may be poetry in action, but it's also fucking annoying to translate. (seriously...it could take ten minutes trying to figure out what he's trying to say in some short, obscure passage. No idea how people gather any but the largest, most broad points in the play form.) You mean like how in King Lear, Edmund, bastard son of Glocester, persuaded his brother Edgar that their father wanted to kill him, then persuaded his dad that Edgar wanted to kill him when no such animosity seemingly ever existed between these two before? And also how easily the whole thing could have been cleared up if the Duke of Glocester just went to his son and said "hey thou never wanted to kill me before, what gives?" and Edgar would have been like "I thought you wanted to kill me!" And then they'd both throw out their hands and say, in unison, "Edmund!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ebenstone Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 Got to say the thing I've enjoyed the least my first year teaching was The House on Mango Street....I wanted to jump out the window I found it so boring. I won't be doing it next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oorag Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 I absolutely hated Frankenstein when I read it in 9th grade, but I read it again about a year ago and loved it. It's quite awesome. I feel bad for complaining so much about some of the good books people had to force me to read. The "worst" book I had to read for college was What Maise Knew. Along with the movies of Robert Bresson, I just can't friggin' stand Henry James' style. Usually I like overwrought, flowery, complicated language, but James just takes it too far. Reading his prose was like hacking through jungle brush. I actually enjoyed The Turn of the Screw, however, since it was short enough to not wear out its welcome and very cleverly ambiguous. I'm a sucker for ambiguity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alarich Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 Reading this thread again, I realized that the anglophone boarder come up with different books and authors. The German boarders have only one: Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 i loved les mis, too! how can anyone NOT like it? i also did not like huck finn very much. We did a production of The Crucible in college (another play that's shoved down high schooler's throats by the by) in which none of the characters truly left the stage...when we weren't in scenes, we'd be sitting in chairs in the background under blue lights doing things our charcaters might be more prone to doing (it worked better in action then what I write here), but the point of all this is, as I played Reverend Hale my charcater did some reading when in the background...the book I had was Les Mis...and let me tell you, it WAS BRUTAL...thank god I didn't have the luxury of concentrating on it because my brain would have melted... And I'll ignore the swipes at A Wrinkle in Time...that's one of the best books to read in elementary school! Loved it! L'Engle is great...heh...Focused some of my Senior Essay on her in college, even had my Essay Advisor talked into adding A Ring of Endless Light to her 400 level American Lit in the 20th Century class (she was focusing on female authors that year)...Easiest "A" I ever got in college... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reposado Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 had to read this book ishmael by daniel quinn(actually had to look it up to remember author and correct title) my eyes were sore from rolling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tamyrlin Belgarion Targaryen Rahl Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 Little Dorrit....lmao I chose it for a grade 5 Charles Dickens reading project cause it was huge and I wanted to show off my superior reading skills over the other less educated children. LOL I couldnt get past the first chapter where they are in the prison. Anyway I ended up learning the art of bullshitting and reading the ending really early on in my education. Ishmael is prolly my second favortite book next to The story of "b" the sequel. lol. Really eye opening ... and I guess in some cases "eye rolling". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kat Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 The "worst" book I had to read for college was What Maise Knew. Along with the movies of Robert Bresson, I just can't friggin' stand Henry James' style. Usually I like overwrought, flowery, complicated language, but James just takes it too far. Reading his prose was like hacking through jungle brush. I actually enjoyed The Turn of the Screw, however, since it was short enough to not wear out its welcome and very cleverly ambiguous. I'm a sucker for ambiguity. Portrait of a Lady killed 11th grade English for me. Henry James--you make me want to stab myself in the eye. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercury Poisoning Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 In eighth grade, we had to read all those godawful Pigman books (The Pigman, The Pigman and Me, Revenge of the Zombie Pigmans...) The first one was mediocre. The rest could have been written by Christopher Paolini. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
True Blue Mug Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn *shudders* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smeech Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm. I remember nothing of this book that I abhorred it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alwyn Posted April 23, 2006 Author Share Posted April 23, 2006 In eighth grade, we had to read all those godawful Pigman books (The Pigman, The Pigman and Me, Revenge of the Zombie Pigmans...) The first one was mediocre. The rest could have been written by Christopher Paolini. WoW! I think you've just come up with the ultimate litterary insult! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scuba Steve Posted April 24, 2006 Share Posted April 24, 2006 WoW! I think you've just come up with the ultimate litterary insult! I disagree. He could have said they could have all been written by Terry Goodkind. :sick: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest rhaenys Posted April 24, 2006 Share Posted April 24, 2006 The Red Badge of Suckage. I am so tickled to find this mentioned a couple of times on this thread. It was what immediately came to my mind, as well. I haven't actually reread Catcher in the Rye since I was 15 and since I really liked it then I'm kind of scared to go back to it now after reading this thread... I also have to weigh in that people who are proud of having gotten good grades in classes without reading the books are, as was said, kind of appalling. It's called having a "performance orientation" and while it's a good way to get good grades and promotions, it's not really a good way to go through life unless that's all that matters to you. Oh, and while Atlas Shrugged does totally suck balls, really most works of "fiction" that are meant to be philosophical expositions for the masses offer suffer this affliction. Some, like the aforementioned The Stranger, are interesting read in the right way, but others, like The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are equally vomit-inducing from any angle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodQueenMaggie Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Forgive me for resurecting an old thread, but I couldn't help it. Recently, I loathed Jane Eyre. Yuck! That book was horribly boring, and Jane had to be one of the most hypocritical and downright annoying characters ever created. I had forgotten A Wrinkle in Time, but that one was pretty bad as well. I didn't like The Great Gatsby, The Lord of the Flies, or Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but that may be because I'm a girl. Frankenstein wasn't my favorite, but I can see it's merrits. My two favorite books I've read for school happened this past year. My high school English teacher this year (and next, thankfully) is WONDERFUL. She doesn't do the overanalyzing every symbol mess and acutally asks INTERESTING questions and assigns good books, which I love. We read Jubilee by Margaret Walker this year, which is simply fantastic... I don't know anyone who didn't like it. I also read Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut for my research paper this year, and it's easily one of my favorite books, ever. Doing the research paper actually helped me to understand it more... it pointed out a lot of the symbolism and meaning. I *love* that book. I also liked The Scarlet Letter a lot... sure, it's got it's boring spots, but the overall story is wonderful. Summer reading for AP English next year is The Grapes of Wrath, which I now have mixed feelings about. I'll do my best to keep my head up and look for the best. Another is Crime and Punishment. It's not my favorite so far, but maybe it will pick up. The last book is Kate Chopin's The Awakening, which I've heard wonderful things about. Finally, Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman. The theater geek in me is looking forward to it. First post, wheeeeeeeeeeeee! Lastly, I close with this. I <3 Les Miserables.... in musical form. I've never read the book, and I don't plan to... I don't want my memories tainted. I'll take my Thendardiers just the way they are, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kissed_By_The_Sun Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 White Noise, by Don Delilo. I hated every word of that damn book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tb0ne Posted May 31, 2006 Share Posted May 31, 2006 Jane Eyre Hated it, but I realise it is probably a good book to many, just not my cup of tea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Bandito Posted May 31, 2006 Share Posted May 31, 2006 Can't believe I never got in on this thread. Moby Dick can suck mine. I read the entire thing out of spite. The Scarlet Letter? Enough has been said about that pile of dried up worthless shit. I agree big time with -- Jane Eyre -- A "Gothic Romance", woe is my life, bloated monstrosity that needed to make it's point on a pamphlet and leave novels to Jane Austen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waterdancer Posted May 31, 2006 Share Posted May 31, 2006 Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy I couldn't possible care less about the book. Heck, I couldn't even keep awake long enough to retain anything other than what a reddler does for a living. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut (sp?) Writing crazy, tripped out shit while on drugs is so NOT a sign of literary genius or creativity. It's shoveling shit onto a page so people will buy the book and look for so-called deep meanings and analogies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeanMrMustard Posted May 31, 2006 Share Posted May 31, 2006 Look, if Mark Twain even comes near the periphery of your thoughts when thinking about this topic, just fucking kill yourself. Vonnegut is also a horrible, horrible answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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