This is a bit of a steal from Mumsnet but it got some interesting responses there and I’d like to know your take. What is the one book you regret reading? Maybe it was just dull and “wasted your precious time” to quote Dylan, didn’t live up to the hype, had a disappointing ending, or left disturbing images in your mind. Mine was a book of short stories by Stephen King I read when I had German Measles at 15. There was one I read at night about a man getting swallowed up by a large printer. Reading it I got more and more scared, then found it hard to breathe. ‘Panic Attacks’ weren’t largely known about at that time, which is what I was having though I didn’t know it. I thought it was a complication of the Measles and I was going to die. Terrifying!
Also there was a book in the school library called something like “Sex and Violence on TV”. Well I was amazed that such a book was in plain sight in our very religious school so I took it out. It turned out to be an extremely boring scientific book of methological studies. I learnt the words “desensitisation” and “catharsis” but little else. Over on Mumsnet American Psycho scored highly as did We Need to Talk About Kevin (upsetting) and The Time Traveller’s Wife (tosh).
Bingo Little says
In terms of unpleasant content, “The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things” by J T Leroy. Although it was undoubtedly powerful. That or “Something Happened” by Joseph Heller, which was unsettling for very different reasons but probably quite formative.
In terms of the shitness of the writing, “The Power” by Naomi Alderman. Found myself trapped on holiday with it. Unfathomably awful.
RubyBlue says
Oh I enjoyed ‘The Power’! Say more please, Bingo.
Regrets- ‘American Psycho’, for obvious reasons (I liked the film though, strangely).
‘The Rats’ I read at 14 because it had rude stuff in , hooray, but also…rats.
‘The Comfort of Strangers’.
‘In the Cut’.
Essentially anything with extreme violence or horror.
General regrets: anything by Cecilia Aherne who is always touted as good contemporary light reading but it has all been irredeemable shite. The last few Marion Keyes book have not been good either. I generally don’t regret reading so-called ‘chick lit’- of course we all know how they’re going to end but the journey can be fun.
Bingo Little says
I just thought it was really, really badly written.
Lots of chapters that start with sentences like “Deep in her underground bunker east of the Urals, General Urania Coldheart smiled wickedly as she surveyed the footage flickering on the monitor.”
I also thought it was a much less interesting and nuanced take on gender issues than it might have been (or than i’d been lead to believe it would be).
It’s basically a potboiler, and that wasn’t what I was looking for. My own fault for book shopping in a hurry.
OOAA
RubyBlue says
Yes, fair enough. I thought the gender stuff was a bit crudely drawn but it was an interesting idea.
Bingo Little says
Definitely a really interesting concept.
I was sold on the novel by staff at the bookshop comparing it to Margaret Atwood. I would dearly love to see where Atwood would have taken the same idea.
Gary says
I loved Comfort Of Strangers. (Big McEwan fan). Without spoilers, I got to a certain part (involving photos) and my heart started racing and I couldn’t put it down.
JustB says
American Psycho is the only one I can really think of off the top of my head. The film manages the intended satire so much more effectively – BEE’s obvious one-handed typing during the violent scenes of the book was so offputting.
Tahir W says
I haven’t read American Psycho but I read his Glamorama. I didn’t regret reading it because it did have some stylistic features that were interesting, for example mentioning many real-life people as a way of creating a sense of milieu. But there were certain parts where the detailed descriptions of sex and violence just went on and on, page after page. I don’t get that. Nothing attractive in it, or even realistic I would say.
But in general I wouldn’t say I regret reading something. I might say that I regret starting to read something, but then I just toss it. Life is short and the books they are many.
Gary says
As mentioned here recently, I found Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled a total waste of time. Which is a real shame as I’ve liked or loved every other book of his (although I haven’t read Orphans or Giant yet). KFD mentioned he liked it. But I don’t see how anyone could. It’s like someone telling you about their dream. (“Who cares? It was just a dream! STFU!”) I like slow films where nothing much happens and there’s no real plot (Terence Davies, yay!) but I can’t be doing with books of that ilk.
Tiggerlion says
The Bible. It tortured me as a child.
chiz says
Good twist at the end of Part II though. SPOILERS: He’s not dead after all! That whole ending is lifted direct from Stephen King’s Carrie.
Gatz says
Douglas Coupland’s latest novel Worst. Person. Ever. is just unpleasant. According to its Wiki entry he intended it as an attack on earnestness and an attempt to write a book which would ‘damage the soul’ of the persons reading it, which sounds like a pretty earnest aim in itself to me. I’m sure there’s a level of satire involved which went above my head but I just found it random and mean spirited.
Campo says
For the same reason I regret reading Coupland’s J Pod. It is supposed to be a sequel to Microserfs, a book I loved, I loved Microserfs earnest and sweet characters. By making the protagonists in J Pod nasty and cynical he probably wanted to tell something about the times, but I hated it.
And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer (sequel to the Hitchhiker’s Guide) is not bad as such but it should not exist. Same goes for those new Lisbeth Salander books.
Rufus T Firefly says
These days I’m quite happy to abandon a book if I’m not enjoying it. Life is too short. I’d forgotten about “Something Happened”, but that was a complete waste of my time. “Good as Gold” was not much better. Maybe Joseph Heller peaked with “Catch 22”.
Bingo Little says
I really liked “Something Happened”. Once I’d finished reading it.
Moose the Mooche says
Oh god, same here. The only good thing about the book is that there’s a page with “I get the willies” in big letters. Tedious, painful.
chiz says
John Niven’s Kill Your Friends. Yes I know it’s satire, it’s hyper-real and so on. But it’s just nasty.
JustB says
Oh! Yes! This. It was a really nasty read.
Junglejim says
I laughed pretty much all the way through (on occasion out loud).
The protagonist is a Grade A ‘See you next Tuesday’ so nothing he does or says is surprising.
The kicker of course (spoiler alert) is that he doesn’t get his comeuppance but flourishes. Just like ‘See you next Tuesdays’ in the real world.
tinysuns says
Oh I’m glad it isn’t just me. I hated every letter of every word of it.
duco01 says
I much preferred John Niven’s “The Amateurs” and “Straight White Male” to “Kill Your Friends”
They’re far less nasty, for a start.
Junglejim says
I think ‘The Amateurs’ is a terrific read.
Very funny & made me appreciate some of the appeal of Golf, something I didn’t think was possible.
Gatz says
That made me remember that I’ve read it, after seeing it admired here on in this board’s predecessor. I wouldn’t go as far as saying it made me see the appeal of golf but it was ok. I was disappointed having enjoyed Kill Your Friends so much, unlike a lot of other people here.
SteveT says
Liked Kill your friends – yes it was nasty but I had not down as black humour which probably says too much about me.
On the other hand The Exorcist novel scared the absolute fuck out of me whereas the film was only moderately shocking.
chiz says
KYF gleefully indulges in nasty misogyny under the banner of satire. It’s like the ‘banter’ defence – lighten up, we know it’s wrong, but we do it anyway because it’s funny because it’s wrong.
Given the current debate about whether you can make jokes about abhorrent behaviour, it’s interesting that some humour is allowed and some isn’t – or more accurately, as James Corden and Michael Gove have found, some people are allowed to make jokes about sexual predators and some aren’t.
JustB says
I’m sort of with Isabel Hardman on this one. “For the “you can’t say anything now” brigade, you can still say it. It’s just that it makes you look unbelievably unkind and thoughtless.”
Arthur Cowslip says
I had no idea American Psycho was so hated. I loved it. Fine satire and black humour. I thought the film was a pale copy with all the guts ripped out of it.
I’m struggling to think of books I truly hated and regretted reading. I think usually I just give up and forget about them. Definitely Stephen King is one – I read one of his books (can’t remember which) and it was a real page turner- but just a damp squib of an ending with nothing explained properly.
In a funny way, I kind of regret reading Catcher In The Rye at the age of 13. I’m convinced it set me on an irreversible road to misanthropy. But I love the book. Maybe I should just have waited until I reached a less sensitive age.
count jim moriarty says
That’s typical of Stephen King. He’s never been able to write a satisfactory ending. Best he ever managed was when co-writing with Peter Straub on Ghost Story.
Sid Williams says
re American Psyco, me too, well I would probably just say I enjoyed reading rather than loving it because I dont remember much black humour. More of a “Jesus Christ, NO” and then eagerly turning the page despite myself type of deal. One book I regret reading is I am Legend, I remember being really pissed of that it ended just as it was getting interesting.
Happy Harry says
I got about 100 pages in a book called ‘Shantaram’ that had been pressed upon me by an acquaintance. Complete and utter drivel.
I don’t often give up on books although ‘The Rainbow’ was another that I wasted time on
ruff-diamond says
Oh, Shantaram! Utter toss!!
Artery says
Like Carolina’s OP it was a Stephen King. I was in my late twenties and off work stricken with a virulent and feverish flu bug. It was Pet Cemetery (or however he spelt it). The protagonist’s cat dies, followed by his wife and kids then all are resurrected in increasingly grisly and unpleasant forms. It was the only book ever to give me nightmares. I finished it and tossed it into the dustbin to prevent my wife from suffering it. Surprised I ever read another book.
MC Escher says
Wow, I think that is his best book. Because it is unflinchingly remorseless in the logic of what grief can do to you. All the characters do just what they would actually do in that situation.
Okay it has a Maguffin in the “ancient Indian burial ground” but it doesn’t go down the “oh they were aliens” route of many of his supernatural stories. And it doesn’t suffer from the standard gripe I have with Mr King: he can’t write endings. The end of Pet Sematary is heart-rending and I felt numb. It’s his masterpiece.
Artery says
Well, you can’t say that it wasn’t relentlessly downbeat. I have never suffered from depression thank goodness, but I do have a positive outlook on life and I found no glimmer of light in that narrative. It was definitely the wrong time to read that particular book though.
I know that grief can be horribly destructive, but I do believe that most people can recover from bereavement eventually. I accept that the death of children may be an exception to that.
I don’t think that there is any remorseless logic in deciding to dig up the corpses of loved ones.
duco01 says
Atomised by Michel Houellebecq – a book which managed to be simultaneously offensive and boring.
Redemption by Tariq Ali – shite
Rancid Aluminium by James Hawes – also shite
Yellow Dog by Martin Amis – special prize for terrible book by fine writer
ruff-diamond says
Atomised – another example where the author clearly is typing some of the book with one hand….
JustB says
Oddly, I found Atomised extremely moving. I get why people don’t like it, but the ending had me wandering around in a daze for ages afterwards.
Carl says
My regret is Peter Carey’s Illywhacker.
I read it while travelling around Turkey in the late 80s. It seemed ideal beforehand, but I couldn’t relate to the protagonist, the Illywhacker of the title, at all.
If I’d had something else to read I would have done so. But this was my sole material and I persevered hoping against hope that something would magically click and all that had gone before would shine like diamonds in the dust. It never happened.
It didn’t put me off Carey though, and I loved Oscar and Lucinda.
Vincent says
From grim experience I recommend avoiding: books of neurasthenic “good taste”; “edgy” books (interesting so many say “American Psycho” as I also felt it was a good book with a gratuitous rat section that utterly ruined it in it’s sadistic indulgence) ; persons who fancy themselves as writing “the great American novel”; worthy Booker candidates; third world writers recommended by the Guardian (read a book because it sounds interesting not because someone else thinks it will do you good); transcribed snobbery about the Mitfords or Bloomsbury Set; “military” science fiction.
Douglas says
American Psycho is just nasty nasty nasty … whereas the film rightly hugely played down the explicit violence and instead focussed on Pat Bateman’s snobbery, prattishness, superficiality and desperate need to fit in with, and yet still be above, those around him.
We Need To … was interminably wittering and annoying, so I ended up (for “life’s too short” reasons) skipping ahead: however when I reached The Twist I discovered that at its heart is quite a nasty basic premise. I know people say it’s all about a mother’s ultimate love for her children, but again the nastiness just overwhelms that for me.
I now operate a “50 page rule”, if I just don’t get the book in that time then it’s highly unlikely I will.
JustB says
Entirely agree. If Ellis was trying to satirise the 80s culture of greed, he missed his mark: you’re much too busy being grossed out to realise Bateman is a figure of fun, a sad little buffoon. The film nailed him.
Junglejim says
‘All That Man Is’ by David Szalay
Passed to me by a very good friend but I absolutely hated it.
8 I think shortish stories concernng a variety of men, who all seemed utterly misereable & loveless.
For the life of me I couldn’t discern what the author was trying to convey beyond a major bummer. Not often I get next to nothing from a book but this was one. I even slagged it on Amaz*n, something I never bother to.
RubyBlue says
Yeah I had mixed feelings about that. It took me a long time to get into it; I thought it got more interesting towards the end. But yes, depressing.
duco01 says
‘All That Man Is’ by David Szalay
Yikes- I’m reading that book at this very moment!
slotbadger says
I thought it wasn’t bad at all, once you get comfortable with the admittedly rather grandiose underlying concept, charting the ages of man etc. And the chapter dealing with Murray, living an awful life out in Eastern Europe was really funny, in a grim relentless way.
I do really rate Szalay’s novel ‘London and The South East’ – just beautifully observed, poignant and (to me, anyway) bearing a few repeat readings. It has echoes of Patrick Hamilton’s novels of lost souls in 30s London, if you like that sort of thing.
Tahir W says
What is a lost soul, please?
slotbadger says
When you lost that bit out of your shoe?
Tahir W says
Oh. Well that doesn’t seem to fit me. I’ve always wondered if I am one or not. So I thought I’d ask someone who seems to know what it is.
RubyBlue says
@slotbadger Yes, the Murray chapter was the most effective (and affecting).
Dodger Lane says
Thanks JJ, now won’t bother with All that man is. Curiously it’s been recommended by a bookseller who has never failed me, but have skimmed it and just didn’t engage me.
These days I won’t bother finishing a book if it just doesn’t engage me. The last one I gave up on was Exposure by Helen Dunmore. It’s not the first time I have given up on her, I just find her dull. Kazuo Ishiguro’s When we were orphans was equally dull and un-engaging. The characters were just not interesting and what worked brilliantly with The Remains of the day just didn’t work here.
The absolute top prize goes to Michel Houllebecq’s Platform which I seem to remember made Word’s top reads of the year. It was a ridiculous read, a poorly written mucky book but because it was written by a Frenchman, it must be intellectual. It isn’t, it’s tripe.
moseleymoles says
Again, Houllebecq is divisive which of course is what he’s aiming for. I thought it was very well written, without believing a single word of what he was saying. And of course it’s not really about Islam, it’s about the flabbiness of the French intelligentsia – what all his books are really about
moseleymoles says
There are many books on my ‘1 star’ goodreads list, but the author I perhaps regret reading is Chuck Palahnuik. Diary and Lullaby are both shocklit that makes you feel a bit dirty for reading them, which is of course the effect he was going for. If I was 18 then no doubt I’d have thought he was really transgressive . And I’ve wasted my time trying to find anything in WS Burroughs. Great ideas, unreadable from start to finish Junky excepted.
JustB says
Palahniuk isn’t very good at all, is he? Trading off Fight Club since Fight Club. Increasingly clear that book was a fluke. The one about sex addiction – Choke, is it? – is absolutely risible.
moseleymoles says
His books are just awful, and they make you feel awful for reading them. Never read FC, like the first half of the movie.
ganglesprocket says
I once had to read Hospital by Toby Litt for a work related “thing.”
Dear God, one of the worst things I have ever read. The unpleasantness is leavened only by the pretentiousness. Just dreadful.
Ditto Atomised and especially The Possibility Of An Island by Michel Houllebecq. A more over rated and tedious writer never put pen to paper.
ganglesprocket says
On The Road. It took me something like three attempts to get to the end. I kept trying because Bob Dylan liked it so obviously it was me and not the book.
Folks, it was the book.
To this I will add anything from the “Beat Generation” I have ever read ever. The only value I have ever gleaned from them is to be confident to say something is shite despite what alleged cool kids think.
My last regret is any book which is basically “existential shagging” ; any book in which a sensitive young man shags anything with a hole and bemoans his lot in life. Tropic Of Cancer by Henry Miller is dreadful. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera is appalling. A Cup Of Rage by Raduan Nassar… atrocious.
Rigid Digit says
Not just me who failed to see “the importance” of On The Road then
moseleymoles says
Jack Jack Kerouac
Went on the road
And never came back
That rhyme is the only thing I’ve enjoyed about On The Road, couldn’t finish it, dull, dull, dull. At least Junky surprises you now and again, Didn’t like Kill Your Friends either, but the worst ever was The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway – I read it because he seems to be An Important Writer and it was the shortest book of his on the shelves. Pulling teeth.
Mrs MM xx
Moose the Mooche says
Henry Miller… not even worth a wallop. Twaddle.
moseleymoles says
I would say the beats as a whole are a triumph of marketing over substance. Burroughs, Kerouac, Miller, Ginsberg all basically unreadable but led fantastic lives and were just, so interesting.
Moose the Mooche says
I loved Kerouac’s appearance in the Biff strip, The A-Z of Cool:
“Fashion is meaningless… I wore the same plaid shirt for four consecutive paperbacks!”
Douglas says
Entirely agree. Ted Morgan’s biog of WSB is fantastic, proving his life was much more interesting, entertaining, thought-provoking and all-out weird than anything the Old Bill ever wrote.
Artery says
I read lots of Kerouac as a teenager, loved it then but less keen now.
However, you are wrong about Allen Ginsberg. I saw him deliver one of the greatest live performances I have ever witnessed. He was charismatic, charming and theatrical, and the poems that he read, chanted and sang were so vibrant and alive that I was enchanted and delighted. I met him afterwards and he was just as delightful face to face. This was in 1979.
Moose the Mooche says
Him and Dylan Thomas invented performance poetry. I’m serious. Before that it was a chore for poets, the young dudes made it a part of their art.
Fuckin’ ‘ell. I’m wankered.
retropath2 says
On the periphery of the beats, drunk, in the corner of a bar they frequented, I give you Charles Bukowski. I recommend Tales of Ordinary Madness. Not always an easy read.
Thanks above to the commender of Szalay, London and the South East, which I will look for, loving those Patrick Hamiltons documentations of despair. @slotbadger, I think.
Odd, innit, how a thread like this should draw in those seeking a read purely because found difficult or disgusting by others…….
Gatz says
Different sort of ‘beat’ writer.
Junglejim says
I recall my response to finishing OTR was ‘Oh, it that it then? They drive there, then they turn round & come straight back again. Hmm. Decidedly underwhelming. However, I’d read a stack of ‘hitch hiking’ sagas, loads of hippy stuff & all of Tom Wolfe & Hunter Thompson BEFORE OTR & therefore it felt like a hackneyed parody.
I’m sure it was important – at the time – as it was a catalyst for the counter culture generation but like a lot of trail blazing stuff, the impact is often about the timing rather than how well it stands the test of time.
Of the ‘beats’, For me only Burroughs stands up as an author, although I know loads of people can’t stand him.
moseleymoles says
I like everything about Old
Bull Lee except his actual writing. Have tried many many times but he’s the Harrison Birtwhistle of lit. Hard work.
atcf says
Twice had to read Jane Austen while studying English. That’s several hours of 19th century Mills & Boon I’ll never get back. Also managed to get good grades on 2 essays about ‘Ulysses’ without getting past Chapter 3.
Moose the Mooche says
As a literature PhD I am outraged at the idea of people writing essays about books they’ve not completely read or perhaps haven’t even opened.
Absolutely OUTRAGED.
atcf says
Ulysses is like the Velvet Underground & Nico of literature. Not packed with unit shifting hits (prose), but spawned an industry of articles about it.
Moose the Mooche says
Mmmmm yes.
atcf says
I’ll have you know that’s the sort of intertextual analysis that would have got an A from my long-haired dope smoking lecturers.
Tahir W says
Give me Jane over James any day
Bingo Little says
I once turned up to an English degree seminar not having read the book (I can’t remember what it was, but it was definitely boring, there was no exam and I wasn’t planning to write an essay on it).
During the session, the professor rumbled me and got quite annoyed. I told her that I was still interested to hear what others had thought about the novel, even though I hadn’t personally read it. She complained “but then you’d be learning based on the hard work of others”, to which I responded “isn’t that the basis of all education?”.
Reader, I married her.*
* I massively did not. She immediately threw me out of the seminar (quite rightly – the self satisfied little prick that I was) and barely spoke to me thereafter, although she did give me a very good grade in the end for something I wrote on Heart of Darkness, a novel sufficiently short as to not impinge on my Goldeneye career.
Moose the Mooche says
“She immediately threw me out of the seminar” – crikey, I’ve taught in university and if you threw out all the people who clearly hadn’t read the text you’d be left to entertain yourself and a crappy pot plant.
Bums on seats, luvvy. Bums on seats.
Bingo Little says
I did point out that less than half the group were in attendance, so at least I’d met her halfway.
I suspect it was the insolence that got me kicked out, rather than the indolence.
atcf says
I once turned up with a bad case of the flu when I should have stayed in bed and was basically very spaced throughout the whole seminar. My friend had a seminar with the same lecturer an hour later and she complained about “the drunk guy” in the previous session 😃
Moose the Mooche says
Remember that wit is well-bred insolence, mon ami.
You would reeeeeeally struggle to get kicked out of a seminar these days for anything short of physical violence (which would have to have been directed towards another student, not a member of staff).
I may well be the first person ever to say this to you Bings, but you are showing your age there 😉
Bingo Little says
As if the Goldeneye reference wasn’t bad enough!
Moose the Mooche says
But, that’s the new James Bond…. isn’t it?
mikethep says
If this had been The History Man she would probably have thrown you a sympathy shag later on.
Moose the Mooche says
The ultimate revenge on utter wankers like Howard Kirk – who were very real, well into the 1990s – is how dated THM is.
1975: “Sociology is the only discipline of the future.”
2017: “What-iology??”
Heh heh.
Tahir W says
Oh I remember sociology!
Bingo Little says
Angry academic sex is the best sex there is.
Tiggerlion says
Nonsense! Academics are far too middle class to be any good at sex.
Bingo Little says
Hey, man – don’t lay your excuse on the rest of us.
Tiggerlion says
I only have sex with working or upper class people these days. I learnt my lesson. Miss.
Moose the Mooche says
“Working class” – that’s what they’re called these days?
Tiggerlion says
Probably not. But, then, I don’t live in these days.
Sniffity says
If I’d read Go Ask Alice when I was, say, 10 years old, I’d have been dead impressed by the stark realism, the naked emotion, the cry for help in the darkness.
As it was, I picked it up for 10 cents at a church fete 20 years later and dismissed it straight away as old tosh. Thankfully it was a fairly short in-one read.
John Walters says
“Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad.
I am a huge fan of the “Apocalypse Now” film so I thought that I’d read the book that inspired it.
It is only a short book but I found it the literary equivalent of wading through thick gloopy mud.
Apparently the author deliberately made it difficult and impenetrable to read to reflect the hellish journey to find Kurtz………..The Horror!!!!
H.P. Saucecraft says
This may make me sound like “a stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet” milksop mikethep, but I don’t regret reading any books. Part of my success lies in not reading anything I even think I’m not going to like, which means very nearly all and any contemporary fiction by authors I don’t already know. So no American Psychos, latest talked-about novels by foreigners, young persons etc. Another reason is the ability to know from the first page if the thing is going to irritate me or hook me in, in the way a first impression you make of a person determines if you want to get to know them or not. This may mean I miss out on Great Works because I don’t have the patience or will to suffer acclimatisation, but I don’t care. I can also reject books purely on subject matter – so no relationship dramas, family epics, and there are many entire genres I won’t even approach.
What’s left? Mostly stuff by Dead White Western Males. Crime, thrillers, SF (nothing contemporary), Buddha, with the very occasional surprise sneaking in (David Benioff’s City Of Thieves is as perfect a novel as I ever read). I’d be entirely happy to limit myself to Raymond Chandler and Proust – no, let me have my say – for the rest of my life. Both authors I can re-read a seemingly limitless amount of times.
As I spend a large chunk of my day – at least four hours, every day – actually writing a novel I hope I may be forgiven my Narrow Field of Classic Reading, but I’d make a dull dinner companion amongst you lot. Fair dos, though but – you’d bore the pants off me too with yer Houellebecqs and yer Ishiguros!
mikethep says
Proust? What a ponce.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Oh, absolutely.
Locust says
There are an awful lot of books that I regret buying, but I can’t say that I regret reading any book, because if I don’t like it, I don’t finish it. I may not love or even like every book I finish, but they’ve been interesting enough to keep me reading on, so I must have gotten something out of the experience.
BTW, I definitely prefer style over substance, thank you very much. I don’t care how great of a story you’ve got, if you can’t dress it in nice tailored language all I see is the Emperor’s knob. And if you have the language, I don’t care if it’s worn by a very dull man with no tale to tell (and no knob to hide), I’ll still enjoy the beautiful costume. 🙂
Tahir W says
I fully agree on the question of style, but there is something to be said for plot too. It does at least help to keep the pages turning. I think I would be a novelist, but I just don’t have the plot type of imagination. Wish I did, because I admire it.
Locust says
Oh, I love a good plot, but I can absolutely live without it if the writer is good enough to entertain me with words alone. But I can’t put up with bad writing for any reason, it’s bad for my blood pressure…
There’s nothing better than finding a sentence (or a page of them) that just demands to be read aloud, so you can taste those words and eat them!
retropath2 says
Lovely way to rationalise the love of style, @locust, And made so well, style exuding all over the fabric.
Aeons ago I had a clinical piece, about Sleep Disorders in Children, declined by one of the dull medical trade magazines, suggesting more style than substance. I took it as a compliment, appreciating then I was in the style free area, by and large, of medicine, as opposed to here, where I try and stick to opinionated substance, my style being insufficient to compete with so many.
Hamlet says
I happily ditched Keith Richards’ book after the 18th drug story; I completely accept the argument that if you buy a book by Keith Richards, it will include drug-based stories…I just found it a bit tedious.
Mill on the Floss: a painful experience.
Tahir W says
So you didn’t get to his shepherd’s pie recipe?
MC Escher says
😀
It was horsemeat pie wasn’t it?
Mike_H says
Wild Horsemeat.
slotbadger says
His tips for perfect bangers’n’mash are spot on too
TRMagicWords says
Took me many years (decades!) to get around to reading Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and when I did I thought it was a bunch of arse. However, of the same generation of authors, Kasuo Ishiguru’s The Unconsoled is one of my favourite books, though I know plenty of people hate it.
Also, really didn’t like the Marquis de Sade’s 100 Days of Sodom. It was unpleasant, unerotic, long and made me feel a bit grubby afterwards.
Tahir W says
Well the Unconsoled is a frustrating book. The plot keeps getting stuck when you want it to go forward. But I think that was a deliberate experiment on the author’s part. It’s not a favorite of mine and it took me ages to read it, but I’m glad I did because it’s certainly memorable.
Tony Japanese says
I struggled with ‘Moby Dick’ when I read it, but at least managed to get all the way to the end. The same cannot be said for ‘Crime and Punishment’ or ‘Paradise Lost’ – both of which I abandoned near the beginning. I’ve never regretted reading anything because, like most people say, you just stop reading if you’re not into a novel. Chances are, I’ll at least go back to ‘CandP’ when the time is right.
Tahir W says
And I might go back to Moby!
Gatz says
I loved Moby Dick, but I approached it as a project rather than a casual read. I spent 5 nights in a row with just the radio, no television or other books (and this was pre-internet) so I could immerse myself.
Arthur Cowslip says
You read it in five nights??
Gatz says
Yep, but that was getting home by 6 and dedicating the whole evening to it each night. I’m not a fast reader, and this isn’t something I have repeated with any other huge book, but as I remember (and it was about 25 years ago) I found it hugely rewarding and spent my days treading the deck of the Pequod in my imagination, waiting to get back on deck again.
Arthur Cowslip says
Moby Dick is a monster of a book that still eludes me. I’ve never finished it. The experience of trying to read it and never getting there is like… oh I don’t know…. pursuing some kind of large creature or something… I can’t think of a suitable metaphor.
Whenever I delve into it, I love the vibrancy and immersiveness of the writing. You can smell the sea from it. But it’s big, too big, and modern life is busy and fraught with distractions. I’ll get there one day.
Moose the Mooche says
Mrs M read it a couple of years ago and was astonished by the amount of technical detail in it.
If you don’t fancy the book, there is a crackin’ film of it starring Gregory Peck.
Again.
I stab at thee!
Gary says
I think you’re getting all confused there Moose. “I stab at thee, bloody annoying mockingbird!” was indeed Gregory Peck, but playing Professor Plum, with the dagger, in the billiard room.
Neela says
I read a lot of classics when studying literature. Some of them I really liked, some of them I found awful.
To Kill A Mockingbird was a very long and boring way of telling the reader rascism is bad. Important? Probably, especially at the time of writing. But the people who really need(ed) to read it wont. Enjoyable and well written? No. I did pretend to like it though. The professor had an orgasm every time she mentioned the title.
Also recall very much not enjoying Young Adolf (?) and something by Paolo Coelho, the Sting of literature. More orgasms there. Not a good idea to say “this is utter shite, I need drugs” during one of the lectures.
Moose the Mooche says
I’m sure it’s not true, but it sounds like you didn’t read TKAM all the way through or very attentively. The “racism” bit of of the book is only about a quarter of it… it’s actually mostly a book about childhood generally, it’s just that the trial dominates the film and, er, the racism angle is an easy “in” to the book for English teachers.
Neela says
I did read the whole book and I haven’t seen the movie. I think I checked out emotionally long before the last page though, so you have a point there.
I now also recall being annoyed by the little girl. She’s one of those kids I can’t stand in real life.
“I’m too old to have all the answers”, to quote Oscar Wilde. She wasn’t. The characters over all are very one-dimensional. Good or bad, nothing in between.
Moose the Mooche says
Ha! Not liking Scout won’t help. I’m currently rereading A Prayer For Owen Meany, which I first read when I was 18. This time round I think both of the main characters are pricks, so a book that i think that I like I turn out not to like very much at all. Never go back, eh?
You should try the film of TKAM, not least because it has Gregory Peck in it, who was possibly the coolest person ever to have existed.
Neela says
I tend not to re-read books, and for that exact reason. Don’t want to ruin the younger Neela’s experience.
And also because there ‘s so many books I haven’t read yet.
Maybe I should watch the movie. Is it true Scout is kidnapped by aliens and turned to stone? Heard they changed that from the book.
Moose the Mooche says
Can’t remember clearly, but I’m pretty sure that in the book Atticus Finch didn’t kill that mad dog with a light sabre.
Gary says
You’re right, Moose. IIRC, it was Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the lead piping.
Hawkfall says
I remember reading A Prayer for Owen Meany and enjoying it until right near the end when (Sort of Spoiler!) Hester becomes a sort of punk pop star called Hester the Molester and my disbelief crashed to the floor, spraining its arse something awful.
Hawkfall says
Oh and I don’t think I’d like to read it again because I think I’D FIND IT A BIT MAWKISH WHEN OWEN SPEAKS IN CAPS ALL THE TIME, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
Moose the Mooche says
It’s supposed to represent the alarming squeakiness of his voice. I don’t think it works, and it’s too much like reading an email from my Dad.
The Hester character…. JI doesn’t do women very well, does he? Tragically, I think he thinks he does.
At least there’s no f***ing wrestling in it.
Carolina says
But is there a bear?
Moose the Mooche says
No. But there’s a hell of a lot of detail about the education system in New England, so all is well.
Junior Wells says
Every Greil Marcus book after Mystery Train.
slotbadger says
I loved ‘Trainspotting’ and ‘Filth’ – two great Irvine Welsh novels, the latter especially grim and deliciously dirty. But that last book, where Begbie’s living in LA and an artist? Ridiculous. It reminded me a bit of that v. good film with Billy Connolly playing a jailbird turned sculptor, pursued by a demented former detective. But I couldn’t get past a few pages of the Welsh book.
bigstevie says
Glad at least one person agrees with me on Welsh’s latest. Drivel.
In real life, long ago, there was a Scottish gangster/hardman jailed for life. Held in a special isolation unit in Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow. I remember him getting special art lessons. Maybe my memory is playing tricks, but I think the (rehabilitation) art instructor was an American woman, and on his early release, they became a couple.
I need to look it up, or get someone to wikimansplain it to me.
retropath2 says
Jimmy Boyle is the fella you recall, who married his psychotherapist, Sarah Trevylyan. I know cos he lived next door to my first wife’s granny, who found them both charming.
I enjoyed the book, the Blade Artist, but it isn’t a patch on any of the other Welsh Leith books, being lite lite lite, little more than a screenplay in waiting. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had already made the film, in leftover moments from T2, to spring a “surprise”.
Strangely I can’t stand his books or stories set elsewhere.
bigstevie says
Yep, that’s the fella. Well remembered! I wonder if that’s where he got the idea?
I found his Maribu Stork Nightmares good, but difficult to read because the words are often all over the page, instead of a straight line. The bloke in the book is in a coma, but aware of his surroundings, though the doctors don’t know this, and they suggest playing music to him could be helpful. That night, the parents bring a walkman filled with Abba type pop music, and fit the earphones to his head. Inside his head he’s screaming for them to remove the crap music and leave him in peace. Hilarious!
Droogie says
The most unpleasant read I’ve ever read is Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Has there ever been a more relentlessly bleak and violent novel? Makes American Psycho look like Anne Of Green Gables