Slaying the sacred cow - literary "classics" you think are rubbish

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Talk about them here. Preferably explaining WHY.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 00:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I am going to put my fingers in my ears and sing loudly if anyone mentions Jane Austen. Well, Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion are quite rubbish, but no-one'd better diss the others.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:05 (twenty-one years ago)

FITE Markleby! Mansfield Park is a feckin' masterpiece!
(btw is this no longer on ILB now?)

― pete s, Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:08 (twenty-one years ago)

No one with a major literary reputation ever produced such terrible prose as Theodore Dreiser. Even Sinclair Lewis.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:08 (twenty-one years ago)

(The ILB thread is the BBC4 premier. This is the mainstream primetime proper TV version).

I don't like Jane Austen. I've only read Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, but both left me cold, in terms of entertainment provided and ideas floated.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac: "That's not writing, that's typewriting."

― andy, Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:19 (twenty-one years ago)

No one with a major literary reputation ever produced such terrible prose as Theodore Dreiser

I read Sister Carrie this summer and loved it, and I don't usually give a hoot for literary reputations.

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Lord Of The Flies was utter swill.

― petra jane (petra jane), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:41 (twenty-one years ago)

American Psycho was worse tho.

― petra jane (petra jane), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Wuthering Heights got pretty boring in the last third.

― Andrew (enneff), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Pretty damn boring.

― Andrew (enneff), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I really like all three of those!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Wuthering Heights got pretty boring in the last third.

Got?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:46 (twenty-one years ago)

I've said it before... the worst piece of literature in the history of English is "A View From The Bridge" by Henry Miller.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:46 (twenty-one years ago)

"The Lovesong Of J Alfred Prufrock". OK, that line about women in galleries is quite good, but... how long does that damn thing go on for? Prufrock was probably alive when he started writing it.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:48 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.pritchettcartoons.com/illustrations/cow.gif

SACRED COW
SACRED COW

― Aja (aja), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:49 (twenty-one years ago)

You mean Arthur Miller, and The Crucible is a terrible drag to read too (may be alright on stage, haven't seen it). Always hated its black and white morality with token ambiguity. A real bore.

― pete s, Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, why did I type Henry Miller? Who is Henry Miller?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:52 (twenty-one years ago)

The second half of Wuthering Heights in general gets a pretty harsh beating in litland, though. Somewhat unfairly, I think, although it does suffer from crap sequel syndrome.

Explain WHY people (I would about Jane Austen, but I haven't picked one of them up in three years).

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Henry Miller is Enrique. HA HA!

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:53 (twenty-one years ago)

He was also an author apparently.

Have I mentioned I'm an English literature major?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:53 (twenty-one years ago)

"Prufrock" is not an especially long poem. I'd hate to see what you'd think about, say, Ezra Pounds's Cantos.

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 01:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Agree about Wuthering Heights (its tediousness).
And my distrust of TS Eliot is partially vitiated by Four Quartets, where genuine passion and inspiration frequently attempt to quell his repressive puritan instincts/mask.
Henry Miller wrote Tropic of Cancer, sexus/nexus/blah
Erotic/pornographic depending on your

― pete s, Wednesday, 24 December 2003 02:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Don DeLillo's Underworld is a hugely overwraught and overrated book - it starts off with this fantastic baseball game setpiece and then completely fails to build on it, not for want of trying. It's cliche-ridden and doesn't really float any ideas that aren't expressed far more interestingly in White Noise or Libra (the latter of which represents my favourite use of chronology in any novel I've read). Also, the garbage/waste theme is just plain stupid.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 02:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I think 50 years spent on any piece of art deserves some grudging respect. William Carlos Williams hated Eliot as well, and he's America's greatest ever poet.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 02:01 (twenty-one years ago)

'50 years spent on any piece of art of art....'

What are you reffering to? Underworld?

― pete s, Wednesday, 24 December 2003 02:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't like Charlet's Web.

― Aja (aja), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 02:09 (twenty-one years ago)

That was a crosspost. From what I remember from American Authors, Pound spent near 50 years on Cantos.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 02:10 (twenty-one years ago)

What?

― Aja (aja), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 02:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not saying you have to like "Prufrock", I was just responding to your criticism above, which was basically that the poem was too long. I was kind of surprised that you made that particular criticism, since "Prufrock" is a relatively short poem. But I suppose if you don't like a poem, then any length can be too long.

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 02:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I prefer 'Dubliners' to Joyce's 'Ulysses', and I think it's because the humility of Dubliners is more in line with what I can aspire to. I mean in Dubliners, he can only describe and at best, he can inform what he describes with melancholy compassion - that's the most it seems many people will be able to hope for - to be a compassionate observer, whereas Ulysses is confident and witty, the guy everyone wants to talk to at the party - and so on.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's books seem a bit gushing and inaccurate to me, although moderately enjoyable, but they're considered American classics.

P.G. Wodehouse I can't really enjoy entirely because I usually miss the jokes until they're pointed out to me, and because he so loves the status quo, I suppose.

― Amity (Amity), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 03:44 (twenty-one years ago)

On the other hand I've always thought of Eliot as someone it would be good to be able to find fault with, but I enjoy 'Prufrock' and think lines like 'measuring out his life with coffee spoons' are really clever (I hope that comes from that poem!)

― Amity (Amity), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 03:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Hey Amity can you say anything more about PG Wodehouse? One time I went to an art show to steal free food, where I talked to this snooty rich lady who was queen of an elitist book club. She recommended him so I expected it would be the kind of stuff you said.

I don't know whether Ayn Rand is regarded as classic very many places but put that next to laughable pretentious shit like "Dianetics".

― sucka (sucka), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 04:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Heart of Darkness is deliberately shapeless, therefor a bore, especially for making the Kurtz sequences in Apocalypse Now ridiculously stupid.

Portrait of the artist as a young man tries too hard to submerge the author/narrartor and reading it is like walking on broken glass.

― Leee Marvin (Leee), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 06:58 (twenty-one years ago)

fyodor dostoyevski -- the only things that he wrote that are worth a damn are "the double" and "the gambler," and really only the latter because the former is a gogol rip-off.

jane austen = well-written piffle. the Great Yenta of English Literature, the 19th century's version of Maureen Dowd.

anthony trollope -- why on earth is this didactic bore considered a great writer by some people?

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 07:17 (twenty-one years ago)

hello ernest hemingway !

― mike bott, Wednesday, 24 December 2003 07:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Pale Fire.

― toby (tsg20), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 08:42 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.english.udel.edu/lrussell/hemingway

Why hello there young fellow!

― -Ernest- (s_clover), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 08:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm a bit afraid to say anything more about P.G Wodehouse! After all, it doesn't seem right to criticise something because you don't 'get' it. But Sucka, I wish you would read some and then tell me what you think.

Anthony Trollope - I agree that he seems a strange choice as a 'classic' writer.

― Amity (Amity), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 08:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know if Jane Austin is rubbish or not, but Sense and Sensibility bored me to tears. I got to chapter 35 and gave up. I have a theory that its like p0rn, but instead of wading through bad acting to get to the juicy bits, you have to wade through pages of her telling you that "she did this, and he did this, and they went to London, and found it most disagreeble" before getting to the cool dialogue bits.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 08:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't stand the end of Executioner's Song but that probably just makes me stupid with a short attention span.

― TEH ONE AN ONLEY DEANN GULBAREY (deangulberry), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 09:02 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.english.udel.edu/lrussell/hemingway

The great author sized up the punk kid who didn't like his book. The author was older, not as spry, but he had been a boxer when younger. People used to call him "The Champ," and he smiled, remembering. The kid was a punk for sure, with a short attention span, and stupid to boot. The kids were all stupid now.

He shifted his weight, felt his muscles tense and release, reminded himself that he was all still there. His prose was muscular, even if he wasn't. The critics said that, or at least they used to. The great author remembered that he had been a punk kid too, and maybe a better writer then. Now he was just a sharper one.

The kid squirmed a bit, under his stare.

Yeah, he still had it.

― -Ernest- (s_clover), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 09:29 (twenty-one years ago)

this is more hipster/ high school canon but allow me to say:

1. milan kundera.
2. kurt fucking vonnegut.
3. & everything murakami's written since "sheep chase."

― yetimike (McGonigal), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Someone has just given Hemingway a comma transplant.

Matt DC, what are "ideas" and why do they "float"?

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 16:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Ya know, I think Shakespeare was shit ;-)

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Hey, Ernie... What good are muscles if all you do with them is flex?

― Prude (Prude), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 16:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I think I like well-written piffle.

I hated hated hated Faulkner, though I haven't read very much of him as a result. So this judgement is based on "The Bear" and various other stories by him I'd had to read for school.

Blahblahblah. And he was happy. And shut the fuck up Faulkner.

People always tell me I should give him another chance.

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 17:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Markelby's question is, possibly, intelligent and challenging.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 24 December 2003 17:28 (twenty-one years ago)

My word... if you ever catch me using rubbish phrases like "float any ideas" again please kill me.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 17:30 (twenty-one years ago)

But yeah, it is a good question. What do you look for when you read a book? To what extent do you value things like "plot" or "character"? Is it enough for a book to say interesting things, or does it have to say interesting things in interesting ways? Do you look for fantastic individual passages or witty setpieces?

I dislike Underworld because I find it falls short on all these counts - its as if its canvas is too wide, its gestures too sweeping and it loses consequently loses focus and insight. And it failed to make me give a shit about any of the characters or anything that was happening to them.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 17:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 5 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

tom otm tom omg otm tom mog mot omt gom

― Patrick Kinghorn, Wednesday, 24 December 2003 18:12 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't think it's rubbish, i just didn't enjoy the literary map-drawing reference-building feel to it.

― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 18:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it was Truman Capote who said that "Nabokov is a writer's writer in the same way that a butler is a gentleman's gentleman." I always liked that line.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 18:15 (twenty-one years ago)

On my first date with my x-girlfriend, she mentioned that she was reading Atlas Shrugged. I said some understated thing about not liking her politics and ideas, but added, "I don't think she's as bad a writer as people say she is." She said something like, "Now I don't even want to finish it," which of course made me say, please, don't stop reading it just because of that, if you are enjoying it, etc. But she was genuinely oblivious to Rand's poor reputation in literary circles.

― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 24 December 2003 18:35 (twenty-one years ago)

You read Ayn Rand because it's just one of those things you feel like you need to experience. Maybe it's character-building or something. Or patience-building.

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 19:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe it's designed to break your head. It did mine.

― luna (luna.c), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 19:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd never thought of it that way, but now I have Ayn Rand to blame! Cool!

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 19:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I really dislike "The Catcher in the Rye". I found it really dull and although i suffered from more than my fair share of teenage angst, I didn't identify at all with the main character, I just found him really really irritating. I kept wanting to yell at him "WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM???"

― Melly E (Melly E), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 19:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I've never tried Ayn Rand because I felt I'd read enough Steve Ditko comics not to need to go through Rand as well.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 19:59 (twenty-one years ago)

*CATCHER IN THE RYE SPOILER*

I hate Catcher in the Rye because the only character we/Caulfield can respect in the book, his teacher, turns out to be a predatory peadophile. After giving that wonderful, inspirational speech which Caulfield would (otherwise) probably look back on as an epiphanic moment, Salinger pulls this grotesque, cynical prank which renders it all parodic. Caulfield learns nothing, we feel justified in continuing to empathise with him and his misanthropy, and i feel sick.
I can understand why it's a cult classic, but pshaw to those who claim its more than that.

― pete s, Wednesday, 24 December 2003 20:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know where my head is but I'd completely forgotten about what happened with the teacher - Pete otm.

― Melly E (Melly E), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 20:27 (twenty-one years ago)

When I read Sister Carrie in college, I remember almost everyone in the class completely panning it.

Kids these days...

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

i like the salinger story with the extended apology for catcher in the rye in it a lot

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 21:03 (twenty-one years ago)

also, most of the books mentioned so far have an "oh, him" reputation anyway

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 21:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Which story was that? (It might redeem him in my eyes)

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 21:12 (twenty-one years ago)

"seymour: an introduction"

salinger leaves it VERY ambiguous whether mr antolini is making a "flitty pass" at holden or just trying (in an extremely drunk and awkward way) to express affection for this poor mixed-up kid, and holden lashes out and leaves. i personally favor the latter interpretation, but the point of the episode is that holden is too paranoid to assume anything but the worst of other people.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 25 December 2003 03:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, it actually took me a sec to remember what this whole teacher incident was.
Now, I found Catcher In The Rye to be a very enjoyable book, I definitely didn't recognize myself in the character, but found him both fascinating and ridiculous (in both hilarious and annoying ways; ie "why the hell does he have to be such a prick?" and "hahaha, man, what a bastard")
Anyways, that whole scene with the teacher essentially struck me as the teacher essentially being drunk and trying to be affectionate, but in his stupour not quite controlling himself (Surely most have had an uncle or something who gets like that when drunk) and Holden's ridiculously negative outlook on everything immediately makes him interpret it in the worst possible ways.

Now, it's been many years since I read this, so my memory's pretty vague.
What I remember the best about the book was how anguished the kid was by the piano player.

Hrmm, I really didn't like Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World. I found his whole approach to trying to mix a story with teaching philosophy to be very hamfisted, and made me essentially want to throw the book in the trash and get a book with a good story and a book's overview of philosophy history. I don't think his attempts to pull it together worked at all.
Maybe I was too old when I read it though, as it's obviously a children's book.

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Thursday, 25 December 2003 23:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Errr, come to think of it, that's not much of a classic, heh. It was just really popular here in Norway for a while; lots of people acting as if it was some Norwegian Alice In Wonderland.

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Thursday, 25 December 2003 23:19 (twenty-one years ago)

On my first date with my x-girlfriend, she mentioned that she was reading Atlas Shrugged. I said some understated thing about not liking her politics and ideas, but added, "I don't think she's as bad a writer as people say she is." She said something like, "Now I don't even want to finish it," which of course made me say, please, don't stop reading it just because of that, if you are enjoying it, etc. But she was genuinely oblivious to Rand's poor reputation in literary circles.

But without Atlas Shrugged, we wouldn't have gotten Telematchus Sneezed. And that would be a true pity.

― Christine 'Green Leafy Dragon' Indigo (cindigo), Friday, 26 December 2003 04:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I never finished The Fountainhead; it was kind of a cute story until it got boring and creepy.

On a similar note: I absolutely loved what I've read of Tom Jones. But I have never been able to finish it!! I get to like, boox 18 or something and then it just.. peters out. About the time they're getting to London, which OUGHT TO BE the most exciting part of the book. Fielding's fault or my own?

― Ian Johnson (orion), Friday, 26 December 2003 05:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the world of Dostoevski, even for what shouldn't work - implausible coincidental meetings, hysterical behavior, etc. Faulkner is top though I sadly haven't read him in a while - I would say try The Sound and the Fury but first go read the character outline which I think is in the Faulkner Reader, it saved me from being lost!

Kundera makes me ill, Nabokov bores me, DH Lawrence (if anyone considers him worthwhile anyway) is completely 100% horrid.

― daria g (daria g), Friday, 26 December 2003 07:38 (twenty-one years ago)

this thread is the most cringiest, it's like, display your philistine tendencies without shame here, be a ignorant boor without compunction! really if you don't know about shit about poetry/literature keep your opinions to yourself, you'll only feel embaressed later on when you grow up. i blame the study of english literature... encouraging spotty faced teenage twats to beleive they have ANYTHING worthwhile or intelligent to say about blake or conrad is just plain fucking stupid, let em play computer games dumb little fucks

― luke............., Friday, 26 December 2003 18:09 (twenty-one years ago)

haha! you're a naughty boy luke!

if you can't be an ignorant boor/bore/boar on ilx where can you?

― pete s, Friday, 26 December 2003 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree with Luke, the only way to be a true literature powermagnet is to read tons of journals and make sure your opinions always match what the literature establishment tells you is right.

Also: Fun is for the weak.

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Friday, 26 December 2003 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Luke, are you in the Stereophonics?

― Ricardo (RickyT), Friday, 26 December 2003 20:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Many "classics" I was forced to read during my high school years completely and utterly BLEW (Ethan fucking Frome, Moby fucking Dick, My fucking Antonia). I resent my teachers for making us read that stuff when we could have been reading much worthier stuff. Though I'm tempted to pick them up again and see if it wasn't ME who had the problem.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Friday, 26 December 2003 20:26 (twenty-one years ago)

'Luke, are you in the Stereophonics?'

Surely you mean Black Box Recorder....

― pete s, Friday, 26 December 2003 21:16 (twenty-one years ago)

wow, that was a funny post by Luke. despite the fact that I am supposed to be studying literature pretty much full-time these days, I still manage to not get all offended when folks who aren't hanging out in the ivory tower tell me what they think about it.. who'd have thought. or is he just taking the piss?

― daria g (daria g), Friday, 26 December 2003 21:49 (twenty-one years ago)

erm, well i think the give-away line is 'i blame the study of english literature...', if not then that's an unintentional 24 Karat Klassic. We really should be encouraging more takers for those plumbing degrees.

'you know what i put this down to the break-up of? Society.'

― pete s, Friday, 26 December 2003 21:59 (twenty-one years ago)

considering you can make a tidy £100,000 a year as a plumber in london i wouldn't stick my nose up at it if i were you. i'm not joking i really do think its crazy to try and teach teenagers about literature though, they should read it, not try and think about it. i'm being meanspirited sure, but it's christmas, so it's allowed. but it's one of those things innit, if you rubbish something you know nothing about you end up looking foolish, like if some kid came up to me and started trying to say sam cooke was rubbish cissy music, you just give em a clip round the ear and tell em they'll understand later, or if some old cunt starts telling you hiphop isn't music you just ignore them, take the piss in a way that they won't understand, jump in front of them in the bus queue and knock theyre flat cap of there head

― luke....., Saturday, 27 December 2003 09:21 (twenty-one years ago)

What the fuck is that sandcrab doing in the bathtub?

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Saturday, 27 December 2003 09:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay then Luke, what literary classics do YOU think are rubbish?

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Saturday, 27 December 2003 11:17 (twenty-one years ago)

saying 'rubbish' abt stuff is part of learning about it.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Saturday, 27 December 2003 11:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Luke, the entire point of this thread is where you point out the places where you think the literary establishment is talking bollocks.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Saturday, 27 December 2003 13:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Is Gravity's Rainbow rubbish?

Somehow I think not; I think its author may have had too much talent for that.

― the pinefox, Sunday, 28 December 2003 11:37 (twenty-one years ago)

talented writers (or even geniuses) can write rubbish books of course. GR probably isnt one of them though, I mean, just cos i couldn't finish it doesnt make it rubbish.

― jed (jed_e_3), Sunday, 28 December 2003 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Utter bollocks. Nice idea and all but so poorly characterised and badly structured that it's laughable; by the mid-section of the book the story is being told in about the seventh person! (Aunt reading letters from ship captain telling scientist's story about Frank who is telling the monster's story who is describing what is happening to the family in the woods, or something.)

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Sunday, 28 December 2003 16:20 (twenty-one years ago)

saying 'rubbish' abt stuff is part of learning about it.

This is, of course, rubbish.

Hey! I feel smarter already!

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Sunday, 28 December 2003 16:53 (twenty-one years ago)

good for you sean.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 28 December 2003 19:39 (twenty-one years ago)

i've only read 3 things by herman melville -- moby dick, billy budd, and "bartleby the scrivener" -- and of those 3, i only liked "bartleby." the other 2 bored me to tears, esp. billy budd which was so damn cryptic that i might as well have read it in finnish.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Sunday, 28 December 2003 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

and i have an entire shelf on my bookcase devoted to vladimir nabokov, so that should say something re how much i like his books.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Sunday, 28 December 2003 20:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't enjoy reading Nausea, but i imagine you're not really supposed to enjoy it.

― peckham rye, Sunday, 28 December 2003 21:13 (twenty-one years ago)

oooooooo, i forgot about Sartre ... god, i hate Sartre!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Sunday, 28 December 2003 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

'you know what i put this down to the break-up of? Society.'

or even 'you know down to the break-up of what i put this?' etc

― OleM (OleM), Monday, 29 December 2003 12:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Daria OTM re Lawrence. This mock summary of 'Angela's Ashes', written by a local critic, could equally apply most of the time to 'Dave the Herbert':

'We were poor and cold and sick and oppressed and life kept kicking us in the teeth but underneath it all, we always mananged to stay miserable.'

'Kangaroo' by all accounts, is an especially spectacularly bad novel.

― Fred Nerk (Fred Nerk), Monday, 29 December 2003 16:06 (twenty-one years ago)

"I didn't enjoy reading Nausea, but i imagine you're not really supposed to enjoy it."

Perhaps the central difficulty with Sartre's Nausea comes from his own admission in the book: "I have no need for flowery language. I am writing to understand certain circumstances."
The internecine fighting between Sartre and Camus over what existenialism was and whom could claim to be that philosophy's master led to both writers increasingly displaying a rigid didactical pursuit of their own specialised doctrine, which created some particularly difficult reading from both sides.

― Canada Briggs (Canada Briggs), Monday, 29 December 2003 16:11 (twenty-one years ago)

And Nausea drove me proper insane for about three months too!

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 29 December 2003 16:13 (twenty-one years ago)

"no exit" was interesting, though sartre was so ham-handed a writer that he fucked that one up too. though "hell is other people" is a great line, i must admit.

anyway, sartre = ayn rand in a beret.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 29 December 2003 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

mADAME dEBOUVRY- BoRe
ScUm-Shite

― Vacillating temp (Vacillating temp), Monday, 29 December 2003 18:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Re: Luke and the K-rub debate. Literature and lit-crit are such long-lived and varied beasts now that there are a near infinite amount of ways to read. The question posed here is despite all the literature-as-history etc. and other such values you can place on works, you can still pick up something that is supposed to be a pinnacle of human achievement and think "This is shit". And long may we all do so.

To whit - Jane Austen, Jack Kerouac, Whatsisname Achebe, Angela Carter . . .

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Monday, 29 December 2003 18:32 (twenty-one years ago)

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