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Book you hate that everyone loves
- Thread starter ronito
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yeah, that's what the book was about. I just think that general theme is stupid. I've been poor and lonely. I figure being alone is a foregone conclusion (even if you have someone it's rare that you really find someone that's so one with you that you won't feel alone eventually) so I can't imagine being rich would be so awful a compliment to it.GilloD said:
whytemyke said:
I think you need to remove the class struggle from it to get at the heart of the book. It's less about being rich and poor and more about being happy, the existential quality of happiness and how you can literally have everything and yet have nothing at all. The elevation of Jay Gatsby to super rich man is merely a vehicle to the message, I suppose.
Also, the book is usually praised for it's evocation of the opulent Jazz-era more than the storytelling, I think. Or, at least, that's how I remember it.
Star Power
Member
Homer's Odyssey. What a bloated, meandering, propagandist POS. Ugh. And the fact that I've been forced to read it on 3 different occassions makes me hate it even more.
Also, David Sedaris is REALLY, REALY overrated.
And Jonathan Safran Foer... don't even get me started on him...
Also, David Sedaris is REALLY, REALY overrated.
And Jonathan Safran Foer... don't even get me started on him...
Star Power said:
on your review of the Odyssey.I took a long time to come around to Sedaris. He seems like he'd be a great storyteller in person, but I've never found him to be a great writer. He comes across to me like a gay, profane Garrison Keilor. Library rental, total.
And I hated "Everything is Illuminated", but adored "Extremely Loud..." even if it was just packed with old tricks branded as new tricks. It's the only book in recent years I've read cover to cover.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Ragnarok said:
A lot of people DO praise it as great literature, actually. Look at the ponderous critical analyses of the books, or the college courses.
Adults can find the books satisfying, sure, but that's usually only the case if they haven't read the better fantasy out there. HP is good "ground floor" reading, but I'm disappointed that so many adults seem to be stuck there.
lilraylewis
Member
You just about hit on it. This book is not great for its moral. It's great for its writing. I haven't read the book in years, but those lavish late-night parties at Gatsby's house are still clear in my mind. Fitzgerald could do it with the best of them.GilloD said:
fatigues_gasolini
Member
Obligatory the Bible post
distantmantra
Member
Guileless said:
I took a course in college that focused on Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. I disliked both of them going into the course, and I came out of it with an understanding of Whitman's importance and also an ejoyment of his poems, whereas I came away with an understanding of Dickinson's importance, but still hated her poems.
Important as she may be, I will always view Dickinson as a nerdy little girl who sits in her attic pining for the love of a boy.
GilloD said:
My wife is a big Sedaris fan, it took me a while to warm up to him, but I now enjoy his books. We've seen him in person, he does a very good job at spinning yarns in public. Also, he's a regular contributor to This American Life on NPR if you'd like to hear him tell stories.
GilloD said:
I have a few friends who have been gushing non-stop about Everything is Illuminated (book and film), I think it's made me want to not read it even more.
Jugendstil
Member
Anything by Michael Chabon. I HATE HIM
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Guileless said:
I think he meant that rationally, there aren't many good arguments against Huxley's utopia. Of course the groups you mentioned could TRY to argue against it, but they wouldn't have a very good basis for their beliefs.
I have always, always hated The Great Gatsby. For various reasons, not the least of which is that his wife in all likelihood wrote it. I also feel that people think that since Fitzgerald's "contemporaries", Faulkner and Hemmingway were alcoholics and wrote great books in that time period, that since Fitzgerald was an alcoholic and wrote during the same time he was a great author. Not true.
Property of Jumpship
Banned
Johan van Benderschlotten said:
Then read Bodega Dreams. It's basically the Spanish equivalent of The Great Gatsby only worse.
Systems_id
Banned
To Kill A Mocking Bird. I really don't get it.
keeblerdrow
Member
The DaVinci Code. What a shitty shitty book.
Father_Mike
Member
GilloD said:
Yep, and it only made worse that the alienated/childhood inoccence theme gets shoved down our throts all the way though school. It destoryed to kill a mocking bird for me.
Guileless
Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
There are plenty of rational arguments on the left and the right against ceding your freedom to the state as long as it keeps you in a state of pleasant rapture. I guess it depends on how you define what is rational. The desire to create art may not be rational, but it's rational to want to live in a society where anyone can create whatever art they want to without a central authority censoring it.
Foreign Jackass
Member
Wow! A good answer, finally. I will go on the record against LOTR, too. Never went past half of the Two Towers. Too bad, the first one was pretty good.keeblerdrow said:
platypotamus
Member
For me, Steinbeck is unreadable (mostly, Of Mice And Men is amazing).
I really really disliked A Farewell to Arms as well, though to be entirely honest, I read it so long ado I can't really remember what I disliked about it.
I've tried on three separate ocassions to get through LOTR, and never succeeded. Bores the hell out of me. Loved the Hobbit though.
Stranger From a Strange Land... I loved it up until about the halfway point, and then totally disliked the direction it went in.
I really really disliked A Farewell to Arms as well, though to be entirely honest, I read it so long ado I can't really remember what I disliked about it.
I've tried on three separate ocassions to get through LOTR, and never succeeded. Bores the hell out of me. Loved the Hobbit though.
Stranger From a Strange Land... I loved it up until about the halfway point, and then totally disliked the direction it went in.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Guileless said:
Brave New World had that autonomous island for people who wanted freedom, didn't it? For the bulk of people who care more about happiness than freedom, society is perfect. For those who feel otherwise, they're free to live in a different society.
I know that most intelligent folks don't like these, so it's probably kind of pointless to mention him here, but everywhere I go I meet high praise and stories of how "these books changed my life!!!" and so I have to vent somewhere.
Paulo Coelho, a turd-king of floaty sentimental metaphors and paper thin plots composed to go from one tear-jerking "learn about the world"-scene to the other. (All of his books).
Paulo Coelho, a turd-king of floaty sentimental metaphors and paper thin plots composed to go from one tear-jerking "learn about the world"-scene to the other. (All of his books).
Guileless said:
Rethink that. Art creates emotion, emotion leads to conflict, conflict is unhappiness, or, at least, a disruption of happiness.
Can we define "rational" as survivalist? That is, that within Huxley's world not only are our biological needs met, but our emotional needs are met, as well. Art could disrupt that. Art is irrational. Encouraging the creation of art is encouraging an irrational act is, yep, irrational. There are a few arguable postualtions in there, but I think the point comes across.
If your parents provide for you ceaselessly, why is it rational to doubt them? Interrupting the machinations of a state that provides for you is irrational.
Yang hits on this, there is a "reservation" for those who desire to live "irrationaly".
Agreed. Trying to get people in a group to understand alienation is like trying to get rich people to understand hunger by throwing a benefit dinn--
Uh. You get the point.
[q
SpeedingUptoStop
will totally Facebook friend you! *giggle* *LOL*
Honestly, the book blows cock.Systems_id said:
Learn2read
Member
Whaaaa? Grapes of Wrath just might be my all time favourite novel, I've felt more emotionally involved in a book.platypotamus said:
(Although at the time I was hardcore into Wilco&BillyBraggs' Woody Guthrie albums Mermaid Ave I&II and had started listening to Guthrie himself so perhaps the whole dustbowl thing had struck a particular chord)
Put me down for Catch-22. I've tried reading the book at least 3-4 times but always give it up around 1/3 of the way through. It's pretty funny at first but the unrelenting detachment/apathetic ironic tone of the book just wears me down. I can understand when it first came out how that detached ironic/sarcastic tone might have been groundbreaking (especially when dealing with the absurdities of war), but these days I'm ****ing drowning in it and am begging for some sincerity.
I did read his book God Knows and enjoyed it alot more.
Howard Alan Treesong
Member
I hated The Great Gatsby when I read it in high school, but I reread it a few years ago (about a decade later) and just loved it. I don't think high school students are old enough to really understand what the book is about.
If somebody mentions that they "really liked" The DaVinci Code, their opinion on all other things is immediately suspect.
For me the overrate-a-ton would have to be A Handmaid's Tale. Which is too bad, cause The Blind Assassin is actually really wonderful. But A Handmaid's Tale? The reason that 1984 and Brave New World are still well-through of is because of their prescience. There ain't nothing prescient about Handmaid's Tale, though, it's just totally unrealistic feminist hoo-ha. It's some terrible pulp 70s SF novel that's somehow been canonized as Great Literature.
Also, Objectionists are perhaps even funnier than Scientologists.
EDIT: If you like Tuesdays with Morrie or The Five People you Meet in Heaven you should be euthanized.
If somebody mentions that they "really liked" The DaVinci Code, their opinion on all other things is immediately suspect.
For me the overrate-a-ton would have to be A Handmaid's Tale. Which is too bad, cause The Blind Assassin is actually really wonderful. But A Handmaid's Tale? The reason that 1984 and Brave New World are still well-through of is because of their prescience. There ain't nothing prescient about Handmaid's Tale, though, it's just totally unrealistic feminist hoo-ha. It's some terrible pulp 70s SF novel that's somehow been canonized as Great Literature.
Also, Objectionists are perhaps even funnier than Scientologists.
EDIT: If you like Tuesdays with Morrie or The Five People you Meet in Heaven you should be euthanized.
It's hard for me to conceive of people that would hate Dune. Oh well, I read it when I was in 7th grade ... so maybe if I read it later in life, I would have a different outlook.
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For me, it's an easy answer. I must have had 3 or 4 people recommend Da Vinci Code to me. One of those people even bought it for me as a gift. Hated it.
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For me, it's an easy answer. I must have had 3 or 4 people recommend Da Vinci Code to me. One of those people even bought it for me as a gift. Hated it.
Howard Alan Treesong
Member
As terrible as the characters and plotting of DVC were, I found its puzzles and cryptography to be the most offensive.
Guileless
Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
I should reread BNW to really comment in detail. I do remember that some people who don't fit in with the society in BNW are sent to an island, but those would be a tiny minority of people from the highest class who are able to stumble upon free thought despite all of the society's rules against it. Most of the people would never have a chance to think for themselves. For some people, a society where the vast majority of people can't think for themselves would be irrational.
People who defined rationality as something like survivalism or maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain as an end in itself and the ultimate goal of life would disagree. You could also make a different argument and say the society of BNW--while appearing completely rational on the surface--is fundamentally flawed because it prohibits essential parts of human nature and so is doomed to failure and, in the end, is irrational.
People who defined rationality as something like survivalism or maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain as an end in itself and the ultimate goal of life would disagree. You could also make a different argument and say the society of BNW--while appearing completely rational on the surface--is fundamentally flawed because it prohibits essential parts of human nature and so is doomed to failure and, in the end, is irrational.
GilloD said:
If they would have formatted it like a Choose Your Own Adventure, I may have liked it more!
The worst part of the DVC, is that at the point I wanted to stop reading it, I had to press on and read it all. My sister-in-law (who bought it for me) would want to talk about it next time we met, so I felt like I HAD to read it out of politeness since she gushed over it.
That's why I never buy novels for anyone anymore. :lol
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
any book
Guileless said:
I can't remember whether it was Plato or Socrates (Maybe both!), but one of them very plainly states that human nature is irrational. Plato's Republic relies on the leadership of the Philosopher-King who is brought up away from men. In this sense, Plato's superman is a man who is not a man, but a machine, able to make super-rational decisions. Quashing human nature should be the first goal of any hyper-rationalist society.
I don't have the book in front of me (When I get home I'll page through it), but the goal of a BNW seems to be the propogation of the species. If things were to continue as-is, it would be a complete success. There's no sign that I can remember pointing to the fact that the society might be in decline. Rather, it's succeeding in the best way.
Nostrildamus
Member
Well, I'm going to have to echo the negative Great Gatsby sentiments. I didn't really see the appeal of it and found it to be fairly uninteresting, though I have to admit I'm not much of a fan of the era and it was many years ago when I read it. Perhaps my taste in literature has matured since then, maybe I'll make the time to read it again.
I'll add that: I didn't like The Bell Jar, The Hours sucks, I hate everything by Orson Scott Card and Stephen King (I shouldn't even have to mention that), and I find that most of Jack Kerouac's and D. H. Lawrence's ouevre is not that good.
I'll add that: I didn't like The Bell Jar, The Hours sucks, I hate everything by Orson Scott Card and Stephen King (I shouldn't even have to mention that), and I find that most of Jack Kerouac's and D. H. Lawrence's ouevre is not that good.
Objectionists? Don't you mean Objectivists?Synthesizer Patel said:
DonasaurusRex
Online Ho Champ
golduck342 said:
edit: I see people with it on the train or bus all the time. Makes me feel bad inside
doh got beat to it.
Howard Alan Treesong
Member
Nostrildamus said:
Er, yes.
I should also mention how much I hate Ender's Game.
"Oh, I'm so smart and nobody understands me and I have no friends, but if I was smart in the future I could be friends with Ender Wiggin and we would have such grand! adventures together." The book is wanky Mary Sueism of the worst sort; how it became the SF book for non-SF readers to love is beyond me. I guess cause everyone <3's poor Emo Ender.
Star Power
Member
I'm going to get flamed for this, but I don't like Ginsberg.
I mean, I like him in theory, but his stuff does nothing for me. Except for Howl.. but even that isn't nearly as good as I'd been lead t believe..
I mean, I like him in theory, but his stuff does nothing for me. Except for Howl.. but even that isn't nearly as good as I'd been lead t believe..
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