I'm pretty easy to please in the book department, at least considering the fact that I'm a hyperpompous literary ******, but I have had a bad run lately, and figured I'd list some to stay away from (or, if you hate me enough, or think I'm sometimes wrong [believe it or not, these people exist. I swear to God], you may take them as recommendations).

Ulysses – for a book that gets pretty consistent billing as the best book written in English it sure seemed boring...and I LIKE this kinda' stuff. I should be a little embarrassed that I'm only just now reading it, be I'm so angry about its quality that I lost any desire to conceal that fact. Waste of three nights. SO overrated. Finnegans Wake is SO much better. It's still dry, but it's got a lotta' cool technical stuff going on.

The Cider House Rules – I don't know what made me think I'd like this book. Irving's a joke.

Confession: I like Jane Austen. Gay; yes; I don't care. Even still:

Emma – I didn't enjoy it AT ALL. What ever.

The Baroque Cycle (three novels by Neal Stephenson) – I had high hopes, but I think it's a bit much for me.

Finally, the two books I hated most:

Everything Is Illuminated

and

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – I read these when the came out, and I really, really didn't like them. But, a member of this forum seemed to like him, and I hated the books enough that I thought I could've been missing something. Turns out I was: Jonathan Safran Foer is, as I missed the first time around, the worst living author of literary fiction. Everything he does is a complete charade. He's like a little kid playing author. He uses an unbearable compilation of other writers' techniques in a way that comes off as hackney and cheap and borderline plagiarous, all mixed together into one big, horrible gimmick. But it gets worse. Luckily, while looking for people who share my hate, I found a guy who makes me seem like a fan: Harry Siegel.
Pretty much my sentiment.

"Foer isn't just a bad author, he's a vile one."

That whole review is pretty spot-on.

Here's a test: watch this interview, and if you don't hate him, think everything he says is meaningless drivel, and prett much want to punch him in the face, you might like E.L.A.I.C., and you and I can never be friends. I really don't get how people can call this kid a great new talent.

Stop spleening me.


I read this book when it first came out and I thought it was just ok. I remember the characters being quirky.

After reading this book I immediately read Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen which I absolutely loved.

I'm going to leave out some books by obviously bad authors, because nothing is expected of them.

Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities and Man in Full- After reading a couple of wolfes non fiction books ( which I loved) I decided to pick up Bonfire. It was dreadful, and I didn't finish it. And then, it's like I forget that Bonfire is dreadful, and I tried out man in full, which I had heard great things about. It was even worse. Wolfe is at his unintentionally funniest when he tries to write for minorities. Nothing better than a really square, unhip white writer trying to write "jive" For every Hurbert Selby that can truly capture the way " common" people speak, there are a dozen wolfe's.



Old Jules- a book about a pioneering farmer in western nebraska. I read this book in middle school, and still remember it with such vile, saying the name is like uttering an insult. It could be that this book is actually excellent, and I just wasn't ready to read it in the 8th grade.

1000 arces- this is a modern retelling of King Lear set in rural iowa. Utter garbage, it won several literary awards, and I cant' possibly see how.



Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged- There have never been two books I've felt so hot and cold about ever. On one hand, I think the philosophy of objectivism is completely fascinating. Kind of looney, but fascinating. On the other hand I think rand is an insufferably bad writer of fiction, I think those books read like bad romance novels but have delusions of utter grandeur. I think when a book has overt political and philosophical goals, often the art of the book will suffer to achieve those other goal. Anytime anyone asks me about atlas shrugged, and if they should read it, I say " Just read the chapter "John Galt Speaks' and toss the rest of the book into the garbage.

Finally, some qualified opinions from obviously qualified authors.

Thanks Dutch and McGee.

is your avatar pynchon?

i could recommend some pretty good japanese novels if you needed. lately i've been cumming over lorrie moore and charles d'ambrosio.

i assume you've already gone through most of william vollman.

To be honest I was disappointed with The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald. I just felt it was a little simplistic and there wasn't any overriding, unique style that I could identify. I intend to re-read it as I am sure I am missing something - the plotline and characters are definitely my kinda thing - but I need someone to explain to me what to look out for I guess. I always enjoy a book more when I'm aware of all the subtleties.

agreed. i mean it's good, but it's merit is probably more of a literary history one than an example of craft.

books i don't like: heart of darkness, all quiet on the western front, anything by steinbeck, and i don't care for that faulkner fellow either.

liking jane austen makes you a man. i only slept once between starting p&p and finishing it.

Good call. I think that's the only known photo or something.

Faulkner makes me vomit.

i recognized it earlier but didn't link it until this thread.

there is also a poster who goes by "trystero" (a group in the crying of lot 49)

but he posts mostly in tourney strat.

Untrue, there's this one:

as per usual, ron, you're a complete dou che. You have to be a published author, I suppose to enjoy or hate literature?

QFT

Well, I'm a douche, so that explains that, but I didn't put a lot of thought into my response.

I guess what I was saying was I'm constantly amazed at you and Dutch, and your need to start new threads and give your opinions on mundane things, like people care. I suggest you start a blog.


Yes, I know that this is a public forum and unfortunately, the Mods can't disengage your New Topic buttons, so I'll deal.

On second thought, I'll start you guys a thread and you can mentally jerk each other off in there. How bout it?

http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-foru...showtopic=94648

There you go

One of my favourites is Mark Twain's The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson.

as opposed to other threads in off topic, like " i bought a new X" or "here's a random game" . I don't think me and dutch start any more "random" threads than anyone else on here. YOu just don't like us, so you're a huge ****** about it. If you don't like our threads, do yoruself a favor, and stay the fck out of them.

I'd like to get it on record that, in general, I appreciate Dutch's threads. Especially the ones he starts about new superheroes at 4AM, megabaked.

But that's just me.

Wang

Dutch to me is like the drunk guy at the end of the bar; sometimes you just want to tell him to shut the f up, but in the end it really doesn't matter.

Meh, its not so much Dutch that annoys me. It's more BigUselessMcGee.

He's like a big Toolbox full of spelling errors and useless thoughts.

I realize that its my hangup, but somoene who starts a thread every time he farts just irritates me. I agree that there are a ton of worthless thread, but I'd love to see a list of threads he's started.

Again, its probably just me, but he's annoying.

Trolls don't bother me because they hop in other threads. he's a troll that needs to be noticed and validated.

HEY LOOK AT ME, I READ A BOOK.

HEY LOOK AT ME, I HATE STAR WARS

HEY LOOK AT ME, I INVENTED THE KRABLAR. Pinch yourself to death, please.


Wow, where did that come from?

This thread was a complete civil thread, talking about books, till you came in here, and picked a fight. Thanks for sharing, You don't like me, you've stated this in the past. Congrats.

No problem.

Carry on with the books.

let me clarify. I have a distaste for your posts.

I'm sure you're a doll in real life and I wish no harm to come to you.

Better?

So, I see John Grisham just released a new legal thriller. Anyone get their eyes on that baby yet?

I like books.

It's not hard to bypass the swear filter either. I despise seeing words like fck and dou che. It's fuck and douche.

I urge you to consult this thread to see how much I care about that

http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-foru...showtopic=94273

You and navybuttons have listed three of the ten or so major guys that our generation seems to have a problem with.

Steinbeck is completely overrated, but Faulkner can, now and again, be pretty dark and funny. He's also interesting as a counterpoint to Hemingway, given that they're the respective fathers of the two most popular prose styles of the '70s and '80s. (Minimalism isn't generally my bag, but a handful people used it to such genius effect during the '70s that Hemingway isn't really even the guy I'd go to for example, though.) As a whole, I think these three guys are only popular because of history.

The Great Gatsby, though, is different. Not only is the language beautiful, but it's so steeped in metaphor that most people don't even know is there that you could read it a dozen times and still miss a lotta' stuff. I think most people who like Gatsby didn't even get this, and they only read these guys because they think it seems smart to do so. It's like Vonnegut: I love Vonny; he's prolly my second or third favorite of all-time. But 90% of his college-kid ******* following doesn't get him. They read him because he's perceptionally intellectually, sometimes-dirty, and because you can read a whole KV book in the some time it takes to read the internet Cliff notes to anything else remotely within Vonnegut's smart-seeming-range.

Anyway, however we ended up there, Steinbeck and Faulkner and Hemingway are more or less read by people who want to look like they read (like jackasses who sit in coffee shoppes [thought I'dtry something new with the spelling] with copies of Crime and Punishment, but even lower), but don't know anything about books. If you really want to look like you read, and to throw off people who can see through that little ruse, read John Updike. Updike takes so much **** that that any poser would know better than to be seen reading him; anyone who read Updike HAS to like him.

(Note: no female should ever read Updike...unless the idea of Johnny U. masturbating, figuratively OR literally, appeals to you. [I know that's the envouge thing to say, the big joke is "he's just a penis with a thesaurus." But c'mon!)

I just sorta' follow whatever is floating around in there, don't I. I really landed on John Updike. Wow.

Nice catch.

I'm not familier with Lorrie Moore at all.

Yeah I've read a lotta' Vollmann. Rising Down and Rising Up was genius (Iplan to read the seven vol. version soon [I paid almost $300 for it in January])

I hate Faulkner, too.

Apparently, we are allowed to be friends. My favorite part was at 2:36 - 2:38 in the video.

Frankly I'm more than a little surprised, and proud, that anyone on these forums can read anything more compliated than the jr high drivel that we've all come to love here at fcp.

And it's been way too long since I've picked up a non-poker book.

I guess it's the ADD acting up again.

I've become inspired to get back to reading real books thanks to you all.

Thanks.

Catcher in the Rye can go suck a fat one.



And while I'm at it...Donnie Darko is terrible! I know it's a movie, but I'm a little worked up right now.

This is absolutely unacceptable. 'The Catcher in the Rye' is a masterpiece.

The Catcher in the Rye is a good book.

Depressed kid runs around being depressed and doesn't kill himself.

At least in Donnie Darko, the depressed kid dies in the end.

I hated the sound and the fury, I couldn't finish it. Stienbeck is okay, I haven't read much, I enjoyed of mice and men. I come from the midwest, so his whole migrant farmer/dust bowl thing has a certain appeal. Maybe if I was from the south, I'd like Faulkner more.

Hemingway I love, a whole hell of alot. I think old man and the sea is about the best short story that's ever been written. I also loved A farwell to arms.

Updike has never interested me in reading, as I've heard such scathing review of him.

Your whole coffee house thing reminds me of a good friend in mine in high school, who was was a super self conscious person, but in a really odd way, he was big on propriety and etiquette. I would embaress him throughly because I am very low on propriety and etiquette. Anyway, he would read certain books, but he's only take certain books in public, like to a coffee house to read, because he didn't want to seem like one of those guys who brought books like "on the road" to coffee house and smoked cigarrettes. This seemed absurd to me, because I really could give two shts what coffee house guy thought about my choice of books. But, I do think that On the road is perhaps the most embaressing book to read at a coffee house..

Which brings me to "On The Road". THe most over rated book of the 20th century. I don't get why this was the culture bearing book of the beat generation, there are so many other beats that are so much better that Keroauc. Burroughs by far was the best and most important beat literature writer. I am utterly clueless as to why Keroauc and on the road are classics.

I never read OTR. I do LOVE LOVE LOVE Burroughs, though. I think Cities of the Red Night kicks Howl out the 6th story window.

And amazingly enough it's the least good of his 4 books. And really not close.

Yeah and I actually like Kerouac. I really like Dharma Bums and Big Sur, and I think I read at least one other, but I couldn't even finish On The Road. Just got bored.


So, what about Tom Robbins? Any Tom Robbins fans? Maybe the wrong thread for it, but I'll start a new one if anybody else around here likes this guy.

Also, I'm slowly recovering from my p.-mod.ism, only in moving into Beat. I adore the Beat-style prose.

"...iron penis chimneys ejaculate blue sparks in a reek of ozone..."

"What a scene it was and off course there were plenty of cameras who freeze dried this edifying spectacle for posterity and export."

Lines like that blow me away.

Updike has never interested me in reading, as I've heard such scathing review of him.

I'm pretty indifferent. I think he gets a bum wrap, but I don't like him, so I guess I'm not the guy to defend him. If you like really classical, pretty prose, few do it better. I don't, though, so I don't really give a shit about him.

Definitely in my top 5 of favorite authors. It's rare that I'll ever re-read a book. I think I've read all his books at least twice except for Villa Incognito. That's only because I have to wait a couple years in between re-reads.

I still haven't read Wild Ducks Flying Backward since it's not a novel but a collection of articles from his previous work. I've been meaning to pick it up but I live in the middle of nowhere so I have to order it.

I actually really like Howl and Ginsberg.

I'll never get over p-modernism, I don't think. I'm too much a product of it.

I read another road side attraction. It was... pretty good, a little too hippy for my tastes, but pretty good.

I love Ginsberg, too, I just think WSB does't get his due. In fact, Ginsberg doesn't either, but Howl is famous, and little else from those guys is.

I'll never be over p.mod, it's the first thing cool enough to really get me reading in adulthood. It will always be my favorite style. But, it's ALL I'd been reading for a long time. Beat, which isn't entirely alien from p.mod, is the first thing since that's really excited me.

What do you think of Gaddis?

Nice, I'll make a Tom Robbins thread tomorrow or something. Wild Ducks is worth reading, but some of it is pretty boring. He includes things like reviews of art shows that happened 15 years ago by artists I've never heard of, but there are some really great stories. The first one, I think it's called Canyon of the Vaginas was my favorite.



edit: And oh yeah, Mexico City Blues is the other Kerouac I've read. Pretty much the only book of poetry that I've ever enjoyed, but I don't read much poetry.

I hate reading Grisham



boring slow and over rated


I really liked Day in the Life of Ivan Denovonivich (sp?) but the rest of the authors books not so much Gulag Archipelego etc.

I'm a Christian, but those Left behind books...the worst Hated to see them so popular amongst Christian readers, embarrassing

You just became my favorite christian. I read the first book out of curiosity one time.. it was easily the worst book I've ever read. Aside from it's weird, disturbing apocalyptic themes which I think our silly, the literal writing is so, so bad.

I think that DFW loves him, so there is no excuse for me to not have read anything of his.

I am a neophyte when it comes to reading since I have such a short attention span and I literally lost years of time trying to raise a kid by myself. However, I must say one of my favorite all time books is Herman Hesse's Sidhartha. It is just a beautifully written tale and the imagery is absolutely amazing.

Someone mention The Ciderhouse Rules and honestly, I thought it was a decent book. I read Garp in high school and I liked Ciderhouse more... I felt it had more restraint and more texture. The issue with Irving though is that he never makes his characters real likable, they are there, somewhat interesting but never heart wrenching.

I know you all are going to think I must be a complete illiterate but I just could not get into Crime and Punishment. I thought Dostoevsky painstaking descriptions were tedious and I don't think I ever completed reading the whole book. I was turned off reading any Russian author. I just don't understand how this book is considered a masterpiece.

I think part of it is Dost. gets lost in translation. Not that I've ever read the russian versions, mind you. I've just heard he's alot more poetic in russian. I haven't read C and P, but I've the bros k, notes from under ground, and the idiot. I think Dost's place has alot to do with he pretty much killed the romantic period that had dominated english and Victorian literature, creating the modern prose. In addition, the existential nature of his writing, and the complex view of human pyschology were light years ahead of their time. I think some aspects of his writing can become tedious but I think that's more a product of the era of writer that he was, more than anything else. Pretty much I can't stand any literature that was pre Fydor and contemporary to him. FD was pretty much the progenitor of the style of literature that I truly love.