Books that you did not enjoy reading.

[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]

Originally Posted by Protoclown

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]

Originally Posted by WhiteRat

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]

Originally Posted by Bahmo

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Bahmo

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]

Originally Posted by 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

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.