Books that you did not enjoy reading.

[Tadao]

I didn't enjoy reading Catcher in the Rye. The only reason I read it was to see what the hub bub was about. It felt like the only reason the story had curse words in it was to shock people they way many musicians do when they have no actual talent.

Another is The Art and Zen of Motorcycle repair. I enjoyed it up until the middle. The problem was that I feel the same way about life (I was also riding a motorcycle and repairing it) as he did. So it became a waste of time and boring.

I'm wondering what bad experiences people have had with books that are generally liked.

[El Oh El]

A book off my amazon recommended list called fan boy and goth girl.Just a badly written piece of crap that hopes to appeal to comic book geeks.

[Esuohlim]

The Kite Runner
The Old Man and the Sea
The Great Gatsby

I however did like Catcher in the Rye and I sure did feel an uncontrollable urge to assassinate someone after I read it :eek

[Tadao]

Yeah I wanted to see if I could see why he would shoot Lennon from reading Catcher in the Rye. I couldn't find anything. I wanted to read Old Man and the Sea but I have a feeling I won't like it.

[Pub Lover]

Does anyone hate a a book that isn't one of the great American Novels?

[Tadao]

There has to something good.

[Esuohlim]

Yeah seriously Tadao you jerk Art and Zen of Motorcycle Repair is a classic >:

[Tadao]

I can't get into Philosophy books. It gets boring agreeing with it. I cold be knitting a sweater instead.

[Esuohlim]

Does anyone hate a a book that isn't one of the great American Novels?

I find Greek plays like the Iliad, the Odyessy, and Antigone mind-numbing as well.

I generally only like satire, and by satirists born in the last 100 years (so you can rule that faggy Ovid out as well >:).

[Tadao]

I don't like reading Poe. I don't know why. It's good stuff, I'm just not interested in it at this point in my life.

[executioneer]

I find Greek plays like the Iliad, the Odyessy, and Antigone mind-numbing as well.

I generally only like satire, and by satirists born in the last 100 years (so you can rule that faggy Ovid out as well >:).

not even mark twain stuff :(

[glowbelly]

moby dick was a fuckin snorefest.

[Asila]

This really crap-tastic fantasy series by Robin Hobb that my ex-boyfriend insisted was the be-all, end-all in fantasy. It was so depressing that I almost slit my wrists afterwards THANKS BOOK LIKE I NEED ANY HELP WITH THAT.
Besides that I was really disappointed with Frankenstein (the book AND the character) but I read Crime and Punishment three times, so maybe I'm just weird.

[Esuohlim]

not even mark twain stuff :(

I've only read the Prince and the Pauper and didn't like it, but I've got Huck Finn lying around that I've been meaning to read.

[glowbelly]

try these instead:

http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/extracts-from-adams-diary/

and

http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/on-the-decay-of-the-art-of-lying/

and

http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/a-connecticut-yankee-in-king-arthurs-court/

:)

[executioneer]

oh man that art of lying one is awesome

[Emu]

Adam's Diary is only really good when you read it in conjunction with Eve's

[executioneer]

ohh didnt that creepy claymation adventures of mark twain do adams diary/eve's diary

i seem to remember watching it on youtube

[Dr. Boogie]

I've got two:

The Great Gatsby - I didn't get anything out of this book. Wealthy New England honkeys mess with each other. Boring. It could be that the teacher who gave us the book to read was a douche, but we watched the movie, and I still wasn't interested.

Ishmael - It's a book about a talking gorilla. Sounds like a great idea, but the whole book is just the ape proselytizing to some guy who thinks he's super deep. I don't think a single person in my grade enjoyed the book on any level.

[Grislygus]

I did not enjoy Fat Men From Outer Space. I gave it a whopping C- in my third grade book report. I stand by this decision.

[Sam]

As I Lay Dying was a chore and a half for me and I ended up just hating it and threw the book at my teacher because I told her it SUCKED READING ABOUT INBREDS AND RETARDS and she YELLED AT ME.

PA DASSENT SWEAT BECAUSE I DON'T GIVE A FUCK HE IS YOUR DAD AND HE MADE YOU PREGNANT AND YOUR BROTEHR IS A FUCKING IDIOT WHO DRILLS SOME HOLES IN HIS MAMA'S COFFIN AND FILLS THE DEAD BROAD FULL OF HOLES BECAUSE HE THINKS SHE TURNED INTO A FISH YOU FUCKING RETARDED MOUNTAIN PEOPLE FUCKSAKES.

[Fathom Zero]

Something Happened by Joseph Heller. I tried really really hard.

[Esuohlim]

Did you like Catch-22 though, because I love Catch-22 and I was going to try that one next :(

[Dixie]

I cannot stand Charles Dickens.

[Asila]

If you drilled a hole in Charles Dickens--not that I am suggesting this--you could let the sap out.

Catch-22 is fantastic.

[thegrayhoodie]

moby dick was a fuckin snorefest.

Agreed. 8000 pages of explaining the minutiae of different knots and impenetrable sea-speak? Fuck you very much Ishmael.

[AChimp]

I've never understood why English teachers think that the sun shine's out of Shakespeare's ass. I think it's pretty dull.

[Fathom Zero]

Did you like Catch-22 though, because I love Catch-22 and I was going to try that one next :(

I fumble names, I'm sorry. Anyway, it took a while to get going. Something Happened, I mean. Eventually, I put it down after I felt the story was going nowhere for long enough. I can't speak for everybody, though. I think you should read it.

[El Oh El]

I've never understood why English teachers think that the sun shine's out of Shakespeare's ass. I think it's pretty dull.Hamlet is the only Shakespeare I can stand.

[Guitar Woman]

The Aeneid and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Yeah, I know they aren't really BOOK books, but fuck you. Although Aeneid was more because the copy I had was translated so that every two lines formed a rhyming couplet and it confusing and annoying to read

Also, I love Old Man and the Sea :(

[Cedar]

Don Quixote

[Tadao]

Don Quixote

This is one of my favorites, thank god I didn't read it in school, but of my own free will.

[Sethomas]

One time i was in some chain book store looking at Libros en Español and found a copy of Don Quixote in Classical Spanish. It was a beautifully-bound volume and surprisingly not a modern translation. I decided I MUST have it, but didn't buy it for some reason at that moment and wanted to come back for it later. It was gone later, and I was sad.

[Tadao]

What was the print date... not to drive the knife in deeper or anything :)

[Sethomas]

Since that episode was probably three years ago, all I can remember was that it looked like it was made in the past 15 years. I was amazed that it was at a lame chain store in the first place, where they usually only sell books in Spanish to pander to migrant workers. (Last time I looked at that section, half the books were various editions of La Biblia Sagrada and the other half were various editions of Mi Vida by Bill Clinton.) But, if that book happened to be a well-preserved 16th century codex missing from the Spanish Royal Collection, then I guess I really should have coughed up the $25 when I had the chance.

On that note, I have reason to suspect that one of my antiphonal leaves was part of a dismembered codex stolen from the Vatican. I did email the FBI office for the area where my dealer lives about it and they never responded, so I guess I'm in the clear.

More on topic, though, I really really hated reading House of Leaves. My friend demanded that I do so, so I did it because I love her. I've described it more than once as being "so pretentious that it feels grossly inadequate when the book pokes fun at itself for being pretentious". Once I was done, though, it began to plague my dreams heavily so I guess maybe my subconscious enjoyed it more than I did. Also, it made listening to Poe (the singer) more interesting.

[Tadao]

Another book I didn't enjoy,
On the Road.
And I'm a great Steinbeck fan, but Travels with Charlie didn't do it for me.

[Dixie]

Sweet Valley High

[Grislygus]

I just finished reading House of Leaves, and I really, really wish The Navidson Record was just a short story unto itself.

[JakeOfAllTrades]

Vapor by Amanda Philipacchi. She creeps me out more than Stephen King, in the wrong way. I mean, she gets kidnapped by him, he gets kidnapped by her, both have a psychopathic and shameless love affair, and there's a really unnecessary torture scene that is just horrible.

Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje was also terrible. It was a pretentious "Ooh, I wrote The English Patient, look at my pretty and wordy paragraphs that are beautiful yet gaudy baubles that add nothing to the story. And what was the deal with the ending?

Don't get me started on Eragon. It's like a train wreck filled with stolen Star Wars plots that got derailed by sheer genericness. Yes, the Mono-myth of Campbell is a worthy exploration but when you blatantly steal character designs from George Lucas and get away with it, is it truly an honest victory? (Not that I have any respect for George Lucas anymore after the "Prequels of Doom". You know what I mean.)

But by far The Secret is craptacularest of all. Do people honestly believe that the Universe will give them stuff if you ask for it? You have to earn it!

[Madman914]

Lord of the Flies.

[Fat_Hippo]

I didn't even think Eragon was that bad, since I don't analyze books. Sure, wasn't great, but it passed the time alright.

Any book I've ever read in school, except for the one about yellow fever, and I only liked that 'cause it made me glad to live in the 21st century.
Why is it that you only read books in school, which would ONLY be read in school?
I'm not even necessarily talking about classsics, but simply books, which are neither intriguing enough to be picked up by adults, and way to dull to be picked up by children? I DON'T GIVE A FLYING SHIT ABOUT SOME INDIAN GIRL WHO WAS STUCK ON AN ISLAND FOR 40 FUCKING YEARS! AND I CARE EVEN LESS IF SHE REALLY EXISTED! Island of Blue Dolphins MY ASS!:squigly

[Esuohlim]

Don't get me started on Eragon. It's like a train wreck filled with stolen Star Wars plots that got derailed by sheer genericness. Yes, the Mono-myth of Campbell is a worthy exploration but when you blatantly steal character designs from George Lucas and get away with it, is it truly an honest victory? (Not that I have any respect for George Lucas anymore after the "Prequels of Doom". You know what I mean.)

It's because Eragon was written by a 12-year-old

[Pub Lover]

George Lucas in no way invented the plot devices he employed in Star Wars.

[Emu]

A Separate Peace. I don't think anybody likes that book.

[AChimp]

Angela's Ashes

I was forced to read this in Grade 12. It's about some dumb guy's childhood where he was some Irish asshole in some city where he was racialized or some shit. There's like three scenes in the book where he masturbates.

My teacher was pretty pissed off at me for pointing out that it was inappropriate for a school environment and I mentioned in one of the essays I had to write about it that the main character's response to difficult situations was to jerk off on park benches. I didn't do very well on that essay. :posh

[Girl Drink Drunk]

The Stone Angel.

[Kilgore Cod]

Neuromancer by William Gibson

This was recommended to me a few times but I found Gibson's writing style to be an unbearable bore.

[Fathom Zero]

JOHNNY MNEMONIC. >:

[0dd1]

If you want a snorefest, read Harriet the Spy. It's extremely boring to the highest exponentially infinite degree possible and I didn't even want to read past the first 20 pages because it was so boring.

The only good thing about it is that a "Hey Arnold!" short was shown in theatres before it when the movie came out. Even so, I was little and knew nothing of it then :-(

[ElPila666]

I read Friedrich Nietzche "Thus spoke zaratustra", man what a loose of time it toke me at least 3 weeks finish that dawm book, just empty words some of those copycat from others philosofous of his time, what he was thinking, the superman, the will of power, fuck you nazi scumbag, i think nietzche was the first EMO ever, he only closed himself into his selfish being that doesn't even care about human beings, that crazy feeling was addopted later for hitler, so that, only nazi EMO racist like to read nietzche if you doesn't know that you'll found out. I mean why anybody even bothered to make an anime about that book maybe could be more interesting insted of reading or maybe cause is shit

[ElPila666]

Aldous huxley "A brave new world", i think was an awesome book at first but anyone espect that shitty ending i think he was to much fucked up with LSD, or maybe was the hangover of putting so much shit in their brains that become uninspiring to him write the end of the book, a fucking drug orgy party and he killed himself cause no one understand him, thats sound like kurt cobain, luckily holliwood make to that story a decent ending with Equilibrium a loosely based movie with Christian Bale on it. thanks hollywood

[Pub Lover]

heh, I agree with nietzsche in a lot of his stuff, and I thought the end of Brave New World was hell of poignant.

[BurntToShreds]

The sheer majority of novels I read in school, except for The Outsiders and Ender's Game.

[BurntToShreds]

Also, a lot of H. P. Lovecraft's work, mainly because of all the pointless exposition.

[Fathom Zero]

Brave New World was a fuck of a good book, you sod.

[Girl Drink Drunk]

Aldous huxley "A brave new world", i think was an awesome book at first but anyone espect that shitty ending i think he was to much fucked up with LSD, or maybe was the hangover of putting so much shit in their brains that become uninspiring to him write the end of the book, a fucking drug orgy party and he killed himself cause no one understand him, thats sound like kurt cobain, luckily holliwood make to that story a decent ending with Equilibrium a loosely based movie with Christian Bale on it. thanks hollywood
What did you expect? He wasn't accepted back in the savage lands of Malphais, felt alienated in this society that shunned any sort of emotion or reasoning other than bliss and happiness, and in the end was condemned to live the life of a hermit and go insane. He isn't going to single-handedly bring down the system and liberate the people.

[Pub Lover]

Pila thinks John the Savage should have joined & enjoyed the 'drug orgy party'.

[ElPila666]

That could have been the greatest ending, he should get "on tune" to deal with his mother death at least is more happier than commit suicide

[Girl Drink Drunk]

I suppose that is a good arguement, except for the fact that it would be completely missing the whole message of the novel.

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

I thought Lullaby by chuck Palahniuk was really terrible. It was not as bad as Elminster: making of a mage though.

[Angryhydralisk]

And Then There Was None. As bad as some of the novels listed here are or can be, this book is fucking absymal. When I read this in High School, I didn't even bother to finish it, just letting the discussions and tests go by.

It's worth a failing grade to avoid this pisser of a novel, I assure you!

[Girl Drink Drunk]

The Stone Angel :(

[Dr. Octogonopus]

I freaking hate The Great Gatsby.
Fitzgerald: "What can I do to get more money for blow? I've got it! Rich people doing rich people things! Oh, and how about obscene amounts of symbolism? GENIUS!"

[Zomboid]

The Stone Angel :(
I had to read that in high school. I didn't like it either.

[Tadao]

I freaking hate The Great Gatsby

Seconded

[Protoclown]

I just finished reading House of Leaves, and I really, really wish The Navidson Record was just a short story unto itself.

I thought this book had some really interesting shit in it, but the ending just sort of fell apart for me. Were you disappointed by the ending as well? It just seemed to really go nowhere after all that.

And the COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY, bloated, self-important appendix pissed me off. But The Navidson Record was fascinating. I like how a lot of things about the house were suggested rather than flatly spelled out for the reader.

[GADZOOKS]

I like the Great Gatsby, The Old Man and the Sea, The Odyessy, Moby Dick, and most of the work of Poe and Twain. They don't make great movies though but I like them.

I do hate Tolkein books or pretty much anything dealing with eleves. Never read a science fiction book I liked either.

GUESS IM JUST CULTURED :rolleyes

[Fat_Hippo]

If thats culture then I can live without it.

[Colonel Flagg]

The One Tree , Stephen R. Donaldson's second book in the "second chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever"

600 pages of suck.

[GADZOOKS]

If thats culture then I can live without it.

AND I CAN LIVE WITHOUT YOU!

[Fat_Hippo]

No surprise there...:sleep

[Fathom Zero]

The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver

[BurntToShreds]

The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver The Giver

Hey, that book was awesome. It was the first dystopian book I read, and that was all the way back in 6th Grade. However, nostalgia may be clouding my judgment. I should go read it again.

[Dr. Octogonopus]

The Great Gatsby. By Jove, it never ends!!!!!

[Symphony of the Belmonts]

Moby Dick. Bad enough it was boring and worse that I read it because it was on a list of books one should read. I think I just skimmed large parts.

[Fat_Hippo]

Seconded. 10 pages on one preacher's sermon and at the end I didn't have the slightest idea what had been said in it, or 2 pages of philosophizing why one shouldn't have a fireplace in your bedroom? No, thanks.

[Tadao]

Moby Dick is still on my list to read.

[Fat_Hippo]

Don't bother, it's not worth it.

[Fathom Zero]

Unless you want to read it.

[Pub Lover]

Although many critics praised it for its unique style, interesting characters and poetic language, others agreed with a critic for the highly regarded London Athenaeum, who described it as: "An ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed."


Wikipedia makes me want to read it & not read it at the same time.

[Grislygus]

I thought this book had some really interesting shit in it, but the ending just sort of fell apart for me. Were you disappointed by the ending as well? It just seemed to really go nowhere after all that.

Well, I wanted the book to be a full-on horror, but since it was more of a realistic character study than anything, so I felt the characters breaking down rather than resolving the situation fit the mold.

Of course, that's only if you count the Navidson record. I unfortunately got the impression that goddamned, tedious, retarded-ass commentary was building towards something big, so I stupidly read all of it (and, even worse, paid attention). Finally figure out that everything involving Truant and Zampano amounted to a whole mess of literary masturbation pissed me off a little bit.

I mean, edgy and experimental writing is cool, but not if it's completely detached from and irrelevant to the meat of the story.

[BLEU]

Gravity's Rainbow.

I tried to enjoy it. I really did.

[Asila]

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.

DOESN'T THAT JUST SOUND SPOOKY GUIZ! Well, it's not. It's a random collection of random events that loosely relate to each other but never actually conjure up any dire emotions. And I like Ray Bradbury.

[WhiteRat]

World War Z. What a shitty, shitty book.

[BLEU]

World War Z. What a shitty, shitty book.

Really? I've heard nothing but good about it. Well that sucks.

[Bahmo]

Oh, where to start.

The Great Gatsby wasn't terribly painful for me, but it certainly didn't strike me as being at all important enough to force High Schoolers through. I still don't get what the message of that book was supposed to be. A book that I hate with every fiber of my being, and one whose author must have been truly sadistic, is The Call of the Wild. What the fuck?! I have always loathed "touching dog stories" because the dog usually dies in them, but this "classic" is by far the most depressing piece of shit out of all the depressing pieces of shit.

In general, I love Mark Twain, but I found his story The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County to be stupid, and not very funny compared to what its reputation suggests. In fact, that's not a solid story; it's a written monologue that just drones from subject to subject.

Shakespeare writes incredibly well, but I dislike his style. All of his characters speak the same high-poetry sort of English, from the University Graduate in London right down to the illiterate peasant, and not only is that unrealistic, the sort of dialogue it leads to actually starts to (in my opinion) upstage the content of the actual story, and make it less immersive.

My single most hated author that I read in school, based on everything I've read from him, is Ray Bradbury. I admit he writes well, but all that talent is wasted on what he writes. He's simply a one-sided blowhard; almost all of his stories are the same bit of luddite propaganda over and over again. It also enrages me that the mass of literary critics have the nerve to call him a great science fiction writer, when many of his stories are completely contemptuous of actual science, such as facts about what the climates of Mars and Venus are like. Bradbury is just a big ego.

[ZeldaQueen]

The Great Gatsby wasn't terribly painful for me, but it certainly didn't strike me as being at all important enough to force High Schoolers through. I still don't get what the message of that book was supposed to be.

I actually enjoyed The Great Gatsby. The point (which I got from it) was that most people are shallow morons who only like you if you have money and give parties (not to spoil the ending, but check out how Gatsby's guests act before and after the "trigger" bit)

A book that I hate with every fiber of my being, and one whose author must have been truly sadistic, is The Call of the Wild. What the fuck?! I have always loathed "touching dog stories" because the dog usually dies in them, but this "classic" is by far the most depressing piece of shit out of all the depressing pieces of shit.

I know! In fourth grade, we read this story about a boy who lives in Alaska (or somewhere similar) with his grandfather and faithful sled dog. The grandfather falls ill and the boy has to have the dog enter into a sled race so that he can win the prize money to keep the house. Again, I don't want to ruin the ending but it was so freaking sad the teacher (who apparently hadn't read this book before) broke down crying and gave it to a student to finish reading.


Shakespeare writes incredibly well, but I dislike his style. All of his characters speak the same high-poetry sort of English, from the University Graduate in London right down to the illiterate peasant, and not only is that unrealistic, the sort of dialogue it leads to actually starts to (in my opinion) upstage the content of the actual story, and make it less immersive.

I like Shakespeare quite a bit, but I can understand why you wouldn't like him. I took a Shakespeare analysis class in 12th grade, and the teacher pointed out all of these funny little details. For example, everyone remembers the "Get thee to a nunnery" part in Hamlet, right? Apparently in Shakespeare's time, "nunnery" actually meant "brothel". So Hamlet wasn't exactly telling Ophelia to repent and serve God there.

Most of the books we studied in high school I'd have liked, but what soured me to them was the whole talking and picking it apart and writing a stiff paper about it and generally just making it a chore.

Though it's more of a play, I hated when we read Strindberg's Miss Julie, which is basically about a sadomasocistic count's daughter (Miss Julie) who has sex with a servant and then the rest of the play is them bickering and fighting and trying to figure out how best to run away and hide so that the count doesn't figure out what they did. The idea of actually just staying and keeping their mouths shut occurs for all of two seconds (the servant claims that if they stayed, they'd be tempted to "do it again" until they were caught). They never actually come to any conclusions or anything.

Finally, in Religious Studies I read this ridiculous book called Sidhartha. One chapter, I kid you not, described how Sidhartha wants to leave his father's home to visit the Buddha. When his father refuses, Sidhartha stands in the living room perfectly still. His father wakes up multiple times in the night, sees his son, "his heart was troubled" and he goes back to sleep.

[kahljorn]

siddharta's an alright book to read if you want something quick to read and you're bored. I bought it for 80 cents at the good will :(

[Bahmo]

Never liked E.E. Cummings. His poetry's blatant disregard for grammar is allegedly individualistic, but a true individualist gains enough notability from talent alone. I find looking at ungrammatical text gives me a headache.

To go off on a tangent a little bit, I don't understand why everyone is getting all sack-cramped about their allegations that Huckleberry Finn is a "racist" book. The book is one of the most socially advanced works of its time, and yet people hate on it just because it contains the word, "******." I point out that the only reason it contains that word is because it phonetically writes all common Southern slurs, another major one being, "I druther" in the place of "I'd rather." Also, people seem to ignore Tom Sawyer, which not only contains the slur "injun," but clearly portays Native Americans in a negative light.

Edit: And sure enough, I-mockery also does not censor the latter ethnic slur. I suppose that everyone thinks it's less offensive to use ethnic slurs to refer to minorities the US Government willingly murdered than it is to refer to those the government grudgingly freed. What fucking hypocrisy.

[Grislygus]

"Injun" is just redneck for "indian", actual slurs were terms like "Diggers", as in "40 Diggers bagged by the Ukalamente Mining Group"! Have fun talking out of your ass, sweetheart

[Sam]

Never liked E.E. Cummings. His poetry's blatant disregard for grammar is allegedly individualistic, but a true individualist gains enough notability from talent alone. I find looking at ungrammatical text gives me a headache.

To go off on a tangent a little bit, I don't understand why everyone is getting all sack-cramped about their allegations that Huckleberry Finn is a "racist" book. The book is one of the most socially advanced works of its time, and yet people hate on it just because it contains the word, "******." I point out that the only reason it contains that word is because it phonetically writes all common Southern slurs, another major one being, "I druther" in the place of "I'd rather." Also, people seem to ignore Tom Sawyer, which not only contains the slur "injun," but clearly portays Native Americans in a negative light.

Edit: And sure enough, I-mockery also does not censor the latter ethnic slur. I suppose that everyone thinks it's less offensive to use ethnic slurs to refer to minorities the US Government willingly murdered than it is to refer to those the government grudgingly freed. What fucking hypocrisy.

Go craw about it somewhar elst, nagger.

[ZeldaQueen]

One of those booklets writen by Patricia Pulling. I swear it killed half of my brain.

On second thought, those had good entertainment value. I think I nearly cracked a rib laughing at some of those (like where she describes teenagers who could possibly be involved in Satanism).

[Fathom Zero]

I had to read Bless Me, Ultima (Rudolfo Anaya) this year. Fuckin' awful.

[Brandon]

The Great Gatsby wasn't terribly painful for me, but it certainly didn't strike me as being at all important enough to force High Schoolers through. I still don't get what the message of that book was supposed to be.Literature isn't about delivering a message. If you leave a book with more answers than questions, you've probably just been lied to a whole lot.

[Bahmo]

"Injun" is just redneck for "indian", actual slurs were terms like "Diggers", as in "40 Diggers bagged by the Ukalamente Mining Group"! Have fun talking out of your ass, sweetheart

You can use the same "redneck" arguement for the N word. The real point is not that it's a colloquialism; what separates it from things like "Brit" or "Aussie" is that it was originally used by people to refer to a race for which they had contempt. So yes, "Injun" fits pretty well into the latter designation.

[Grislygus]

Injun is the equivalent of negroe. Impolite, not offensive. "Redskin" and "******" are insults that denote utmost contempt. Remember what Franklin, Lincoln, and Twain said, "it's better to be thought a fool and remain silent, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"

[Bahmo]

I'd say if it denotes skin color, "Redskin" is closer to Negro. It also bears mentioning that negro is an actual word, it simply is Spanish for "black." No African American objects to being called black in English.

[Grislygus]

Jesus Christ, you're retarded.

[ZeldaQueen]

Can I add "squaw" to that list of impolite/not politically correct terms?

[QUOTE]"it's better to be thought a fool and remain silent, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"[QUOTE]

Amen sir, amen.

[Tadao]

Who the fuck cares. Being a certain race is not an achievement, so there is no way that it is an insult. Anyone who is insulted by being called a racial slur has a ad life awaiting them because there are far worse things out there than that.

[executioneer]

guys i love how this thread is about being racist now

way to jew it up for everyone, bahmo

[Bahmo]

Slurs alone aren't offensive, so if you read my comments dissing on the people who think the book Huck Finn is offensive, you'd know I actually agree with you on that one. (Don't get used to it!)

The point is really that Tom Sawyer is a more arguably-racist book because it actually portrays the minority as the villain, whereas Huck Finn is progressive in its views, yet the former is considered a classic halmark of children's literature, while the latter gets slammed as racist. Still, I do apologise for steering the thread off course, as I actually did enjoy those books.

So, to get it back to basics, anyone else forced to read The Abolition of Man? I fucking hated it. It's not that I disagree with the points it advanced, so much as the percieved reason it did so. Basically a bunch of Christian propaganda against moral relativism, and almost the entire first chapter is a bunch of babbling that's barely even relevent to that point. I never really liked the Narnia series, either, so reading this book pretty-much sealed my opinion of C. S. Lewis.

[Grislygus]

It was written in the forties as a response to what amounted to a bunch of muddy horseshit from King and Ketler

What I like about high school intellectualism is that, having been raised on literary standards and conventions first helped along by the very books that they trash, they feel they are justified in their attempts to be (what they believe is) unique and cynical through masturbatory criticism of classic novels. You're not smart or original, and Oscar Wilde beat you to the punch centuries ago (he was a lot better at it than you, by the way).

[Bahmo]

You may be right about me not liking it just because I don't understand exactly what he was dissing. However, I'm coming into this as a guy who's come to loathe fundamentalists in general, so I don't have a lot of sympathy for Mr. Lewis and his work.

[Grislygus]

Considering that he was the only "Fundamentalist" on the entire planet who made a point of admitting that he could easily be wrong and that it wouldn't bother him too much, I'd recommend actually paying attention to what people are saying rather than half-reading and reinterpreting. But you're kind of crippled in that regard, huh sport?