Worst Book Ever

[Endymion9]

As far as worst famous book ever, I'd like to nominate "The Old Man and the Sea" and "As I Lay Dying." I read and understood both of them and I don't see what the big deal is.

"The Old Man and the Sea" was so awful that I refuse to read any of Hemmingway's other works (even though I hear some of them are actually not a load of crap). Even now, years after I was forced to read it in school, the mere mention of Hemmingway makes me want to fly into a rage and demolish a city, or curl up in the corner and cry, or some other such drastic action, just to avoid the flashbacks of the horrors of having to read tOMatS.
Ok, so that was a slight exaggeration, but only slight!

Auleliel, you're my new friend That's exactly how I feel, though a little understated.

As far as being a guy, I've only known one guy and a couple of females who actually enjoyed tOMatS (sick bastards), so I don't know what you have to be in order to enjoy it (high, maybe?)

The one I read and hated was The Sun Also Rises, IIRC. Never read any other. But I did like the imaginery Hemmingway that Dan Simmons created in The Crook Factory <grin>.

[danlo]

I liked The Sun Also Rises, sure it's self indulgent the dude was a raging alcoholic. A Farewell to Arms is a great book, that book and Orwell's Homage to Catalonia are some of the best "inside' works on the Spanish Civil War. I also liked some of his later books like A Moveable Feast and Islands in the Stream.

[Auleliel]

Hemingway was a journalist -- a war correspondent, right? -- before he was a novelist. The economy of the journalistic style *really* shows in his fiction. I suppose, looking back on it, that part of the artistry (don't hurt me!) of tOMatS is the way he objectively and pretty much dispassionately describes the old man's struggle with the fish and his fight for survival afterward. Those events would be grounds for purple prose in almost any other writer's hands. And yet Hemingway describes just enough to engage the reader's emotions. Well, okay -- around here, he's done a better job of raising people's gorge than raising their emotions. But you get what I mean, I think.

Just 'cause I get what he's doing doesn't mean I liked the book, tho.

Oh, I understood what he was doing, and it doesn't make me dislike the book any less!

[aliantha]

Hemingway was a journalist -- a war correspondent, right? -- before he was a novelist. The economy of the journalistic style *really* shows in his fiction. I suppose, looking back on it, that part of the artistry (don't hurt me!) of tOMatS is the way he objectively and pretty much dispassionately describes the old man's struggle with the fish and his fight for survival afterward. Those events would be grounds for purple prose in almost any other writer's hands. And yet Hemingway describes just enough to engage the reader's emotions. Well, okay -- around here, he's done a better job of raising people's gorge than raising their emotions. But you get what I mean, I think.

Just 'cause I get what he's doing doesn't mean I liked the book, tho.

Oh, I understood what he was doing, and it doesn't make me dislike the book any less!

Atta girl!

[Orlion]

Hemingway was a journalist -- a war correspondent, right? -- before he was a novelist. The economy of the journalistic style *really* shows in his fiction. I suppose, looking back on it, that part of the artistry (don't hurt me!) of tOMatS is the way he objectively and pretty much dispassionately describes the old man's struggle with the fish and his fight for survival afterward. Those events would be grounds for purple prose in almost any other writer's hands. And yet Hemingway describes just enough to engage the reader's emotions. Well, okay -- around here, he's done a better job of raising people's gorge than raising their emotions. But you get what I mean, I think.

Just 'cause I get what he's doing doesn't mean I liked the book, tho.

Oh, I understood what he was doing, and it doesn't make me dislike the book any less!

Atta girl!

Stephan Crane was kinda the same, a journalist of sorts. The main difference is that his books (with apologies to Danlo) didn't

Spoiler

suck

.

[Auleliel]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was also a journalist for many years, and his writing is fascinating. Being a journalist is no excuse for writing terrible stories.

[Kinslaughterer]

Don't no if its been mentioned but as a classic...The Leatherstocking Tales by Cooper...excruciating.

[Auleliel]

Cooper as in Fenimore Cooper?

[Kinslaughterer]

Yes, as great as the Last of the Mohicans...utterly dreadful is the Leatherstocking Tales.

[Auleliel]

I actually didn't much care for Last of the Mohicans, but I only read excerpts and watched the movie, so I guess if I'd read the whole thing my opinion could change.

[Kinslaughterer]

Perhaps I am hasty in calling it great, given that I read it a long time ago. At the least it was very good.

[Darujhistan]

Overrated - The Catcher in the Rye - pretty poor i thought, what is the fuss about? i hated the whiny brat. It was a real effort to finish it.

Maybe it's a novel to read when you're 14, not 28 though.

Awful - Island by Aldous Huxley, a very rare non-finish for me, i lasted almost 130pages and nothing had happened, maybe i'm missing something, but it was utter tedium.

[Endymion9]

Overrated - The Catcher in the Rye - pretty poor i thought, what is the fuss about? i hated the whiny brat. It was a real effort to finish it.

Maybe it's a novel to read when you're 14, not 28 though.

Awful - Island by Aldous Huxley, a very rare non-finish for me, i lasted almost 130pages and nothing had happened, maybe i'm missing something, but it was utter tedium.

I hated Catcher too. Although I really wanted to like it to be in the cool crowd <grin>.

[Krazy Kat]

I liked the style of writing used in the Catcher; the meandering from one event to the next with no clear connection or plot. It think it sumed up perfectly a kid who was lost, confused, and going nowhere in life. Someone who has just had an almighty whiff of the aerosol-grey-machine. I can't imagine reading it again though.

Sylvia Plath - the Bell Jar. It's a book I seriously wish I'd never read.

[sindatur]

The Old Man and the Sea. Had to read it in 10th Grade English, I felt like I was reading "See Dick and Jane..." it was written so juvenillely

[Cagliostro]

Ahh, so now I see....it was you lot that killed JD Salinger.

[matrixman]

Catcher killed my interest in Salinger.

[Tulizar]

Catcher killed my interest in Salinger.

heh

[Kalkin]

I think I might have read Taurus.

I co-worker of mine had this husband who fancied himself an author. He self-published this book, I have blocked the name, now. Anyway, she was a friend so I said I'd read it.

Wow. It was a story about the Aztec game, ullamaliztli, but he called it Pelota. I think that might have been the name of the book. There was this mexican millionaire who was trying to reignite the Aztec traditions so he was kidnapping people and forcing them to play this game or die.

Now, this might be all well and good for a SciFi channel movie, but for a book it was dreadful. On top of that, he had clearly based the hero and his wife on my friend and himself, and the character was an absolute bastard to his wife.. Talk about fruedian nightmares.

Of course, she wanted my opinion. So I had to finish it and then I had a choice: tell her what she wanted to hear; or tell her to leave her bastard husband before he kills her? What could I do?

[Avatar]

Pelota is an existing sport, played with wicker gloves to hurl a hard ball about the size of a cricket ball, IIRC.

--A