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My God, I can't believe Melville, Hemingway and Huxley are on the lists for you guys!
I found Moby Dick powerful... it presented the nature of passion in man... atleast that's what I read in it.
Old Man and the Sea defined hope and loss. I found it touching... and when it ended with the indifference of onlookers on the beach, I thought it was a profound statement about perspectives.
Brave New World? It made me feel like someone else could see what we're looking at around us.
However, two books tie for my worst: Howard Zinn's "A History of the United States" (if I recall the title correctly) and David Thoreau's "Walden's Pond".
I kind of resented the fact that Zinn presented himself as a historian but was so biased. I like my history, no matter how bad, stated as coldly as an algebra equation and I find it terribly annoying when an author tries so desperate to put a spin on it... Pathetic... especially his attempt.
Thoreau was the first really serious work I ever read. I loved the complexity of his sentences... much of it seemed like poetry to me. However, his arrogance was alarming. For some time, I simply assumed that if a book was considered a classic, it was something that you just accepted... Classics to me meant it must contain some sort of universal truths. (Moby, Brave and Old Man all did )
However, Walden was a celebration of self-centeredness. Early on, he borrows an axe. He writes that he didn't feel good about it-- he didn't like the dependance, I think. Then, he goes on to dismiss the use of it by saying that he returned the axe sharper than it was when he borrowed it.
As a young man reading it, I accepted the truth: Return that which you borrow in better condition and your debt is settled. However, I began to realize that he felt no authentic appreciation for use of the tool. That just didn't, and doesn't, sit right with me. It seems like a sense of entitlement to me.
He then spent so many acrimonious pages ripping on the townspeople. It was all just so childish.
I enjoyed his descriptions; I appreciated a few human details, for instance, when a person stopped by and stayed with him for the evening, a conversation became heated-- the concepts big-- he says something about having to slide his chair back to make space because his ideas needed room to expand. Statements like that touched me personally.
However, I just couldn't get past the guys arrogance and sense of entitlement.
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. That book really cheats the reader. The book is marketed as a police detective story and it is at first. But half way through it takes a turn into what you'd see in any number of Twilight Zone episodes. It starts out with 2 police detectives traveling to an island off the coast of Boston to investigate a murder at a mental institution. Halfway through the book you start realizing that (spoiler) they are actually inmates in the institution and this all a fantasy. Total ripoff.
UGH, indeed.
Reminiscent of those classmates, who in grade school, would end an oral book report with "And if you want to know how it ends, you need to read the book."
You know, it's one thing that the author liked his work, found it worthy of publication, but you just gotta wonder about the editor, who agreed, and worse yet, the publisher who sent it to the presses.
Well, I think Danielle Steele certainly deserves honorable mention for her treacly dreck.
But, I think this thread should be more about authors that actually somehow manage to connive their way into the literary limelight, whether through adept promotion or by outright bribery to make it onto Oprah's book list.
Anita Shreve would have to be right on up there.
John Grisham, too. Man, I really, really try not to be a snob. But what does the guy do? Have a template in his word processor where he just changes out the character names and locations?
What's more, I have to agree with the assessment of James Joyce. First let me give him props. Dubliners is, by far, the best volume of short stories ever written. The Dead is the very pinnacle of the short story. If you haven't read it, you owe it to yourself to read the last ten or so perfect, awe-inspiring paragraphs.
But Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake are both bloated, grossly overrated disappointments. Incoherent, unreadable, inscrutable.
Here's the thing. The main job of a writer is to communicate. And, after 800 pages, a reader with a master's degree should be able to clearly understand your point without pulling out a secret decoder ring or taking a college course on the subject.
If you really look at the masters of the English language, from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Fielding, Thackeray, Dickens, and Eliot, you'll find that they manage to be eloquent and profound, uncovering human truths rather than obscuring them.
But Joyce is a fraud, for he betrays the fundamental mission of a writer, which is to be understood.
But Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake are both bloated, grossly overrated disappointments. Incoherent, unreadable, inscrutable.
Here's the thing. The main job of a writer is to communicate. And, after 800 pages, a reader with a master's degree should be able to clearly understand your point without pulling out a secret decoder ring or taking a college course on the subject.
If you really look at the masters of the English language, from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Fielding, Thackeray, Dickens, and Eliot, you'll find that they manage to be eloquent and profound, uncovering human truths rather than obscuring them.
But Joyce is a fraud, for he betrays the fundamental mission of a writer, which is to be understood.
I don't necessarily diagree with you here, but allow me to posit this as an advocate in devilish form: Maybe Joyce's primary mission wasn't to be understood by the masses. I think there's something to be said for those works that don't take your intelligence for granted, and assume a base level of knowledge among their intended audience. It's silly to think that everyone will have that base knowledge, but not so silly to think that some do. If the audience you wish to address is the "elite," and the elite are the only folks that get your work... mission accomplished. I'm not saying I know or understand Joyce's mission, but I think that, if one admittedly doesn't understand his works, then there might be a bit of hubris involved in saying one understands his motivations as a writer. Perhaps the mission was to confound...
I don't necessarily diagree with you here, but allow me to posit this as an advocate in devilish form: Maybe Joyce's primary mission wasn't to be understood by the masses. I think there's something to be said for those works that don't take your intelligence for granted, and assume a base level of knowledge among their intended audience. It's silly to think that everyone will have that base knowledge, but not so silly to think that some do. If the audience you wish to address is the "elite," and the elite are the only folks that get your work... mission accomplished. I'm not saying I know or understand Joyce's mission, but I think that, if one admittedly doesn't understand his works, then there might be a bit of hubris involved in saying one understands his motivations as a writer. Perhaps the mission was to confound...
Not disagreeing with you, but if that's the case who's going to admit to not understanding it? And how will we ever determine whether it's a bad work or just a mysterious one? It's kind of like "The Emperor's New Clothes". If I ever create something I'll be sure to remind it's critiquers that only those with a "superior intellect" will understand it. I think I'll start a religion on just that premise...I am going to be so rich! LOL
Not disagreeing with you, but if that's the case who's going to admit to not understanding it? And how will we ever determine whether it's a bad work or just a mysterious one? It's kind of like "The Emperor's New Clothes". If I ever create something I'll be sure to remind it's critiquers that only those with a "superior intellect" will understand it. I think I'll start a religion on just that premise...I am going to be so rich! LOL
Agreed, to a point. Although, to be fair, lots of people just on this forum have admitted to not getting Joyce. Is it because there's nothing to get?
To be my own devil's advocate, I think James Patterson writes crap. Danielle Steele, Dan Brown, Robin Cooke, etc. are, in my opinion, very sub-par authors... dreck-peddlers. The argument could be, though, that I just don't get it.
So, do we just assume that all authors are good? Of course not.
Do we assume that authors in the literary canon are good, and if we don't like them then maybe we just don't understand them? I don't know. That feels a little closer to the mark, but leaves the judgment of worthy or unworthy to others, which doesn't feel right either. It obviously all boils down to taste, the quality of which there is really no accounting for from one person to the next. Taste though, can be refined through exposure. Does a person who has read nothing but Nicholas Sparks and James Patterson really have the tools to accurately judge Joyce or Faulkner? How much weight does a Dan Brown fan's opinion carry in literary conversation? On the other hand, can a person who has read nothing but Shakespeare have the tools to judge, say, Cormac McCarthy or Franz Kafka?
Maybe the answer is that when we enter conversations on literature a certain amount of literary "street cred" should somehow be established so each person knows where the other is coming from. But how tedious...
I don't know. No answers here, just more questions.
Agreed, to a point. Although, to be fair, lots of people just on this forum have admitted to not getting Joyce. Is it because there's nothing to get?
To be my own devil's advocate, I think James Patterson writes crap. Danielle Steele, Dan Brown, Robin Cooke, etc. are, in my opinion, very sub-par authors... dreck-peddlers. The argument could be, though, that I just don't get it.
So, do we just assume that all authors are good? Of course not.
Do we assume that authors in the literary canon are good, and if we don't like them then maybe we just don't understand them? I don't know. That feels a little closer to the mark, but leaves the judgment of worthy or unworthy to others, which doesn't feel right either. It obviously all boils down to taste, the quality of which there is really no accounting for from one person to the next. Taste though, can be refined through exposure. Does a person who has read nothing but Nicholas Sparks and James Patterson really have the tools to accurately judge Joyce or Faulkner? How much weight does a Dan Brown fan's opinion carry in literary conversation? On the other hand, can a person who has read nothing but Shakespeare have the tools to judge, say, Cormac McCarthy or Franz Kafka?
Maybe the answer is that when we enter conversations on literature a certain amount of literary "street cred" should somehow be established so each person knows where the other is coming from. But how tedious...
I don't know. No answers here, just more questions.
Very well said and I agree with you completely. I don't think the "street cred" would work. I've had people who see me reading Trollope or Dumas or Melville, try to sell me on Dan Brown or the "Celestine Prophecy". I don't know how to tell them nicely that we are worlds apart in what we consider worth reading. I've never read Joyce. I've tried to avoid him but I think it's about time...
I don't necessarily diagree with you here, but allow me to posit this as an advocate in devilish form: Maybe Joyce's primary mission wasn't to be understood by the masses. I think there's something to be said for those works that don't take your intelligence for granted, and assume a base level of knowledge among their intended audience. It's silly to think that everyone will have that base knowledge, but not so silly to think that some do. If the audience you wish to address is the "elite," and the elite are the only folks that get your work... mission accomplished. Perhaps the mission was to confound...
That was his mission, and he said so. He wanted to keep all the scholars busy and guessing for years. I don't enjoy reading him, so I did not join their legions after I read Ulysses.
I don't begrudge those that wish to spend their lives decoding Ulysses (or the bible), searching for hidden meanings, literary allusions, secret messages and the like. Some people really enjoy a good puzzle, I prefer a good story.
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