Most Hated Book

[Dani257]

We've had most boring, but what book goes beyond that? What book would drive you to advocate book burning?

I HATE Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caufield is the most - words can't describe it, but whatever they are, they're negative and he's the most. I'm being vague because I haven't read it in ages (YES!). I wanted to grab him by his neck, squeeze, and then throw him off a cliff.

Um, I hate White Oleander, too. But, I've said that before

[murasaki]

Crime and Punishment with Anna Karenina a close second.

All that cerebrating and no action just drove me crazy. I wanted to scream at the characters to get off their butts and do something.

I loved Catcher in the Rye and White Oleander though.

--naomi

[tipu]

Originally posted by Dani257
What book would drive you to advocate book burning?

Mary L. Boas's Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences.

One of my classmates told me that near the end of the class where he needed this book, he got so frustrated with it that he walked out of his third floor dorm room and flung it across the courtyard...

... after having to use it myself when I was trying to pass the class in a credit by exam deal, I could understand his frustration. Imagine if you can a math book with as close to zero examples as it's possible to get without violating some fundamental laws of nature...



Hmmmm... someone has the Compleat Sandman Collection and hates Crime and Punishment... oh, if only Raskolnikov were here... here we have someone truly worthless to society... :p

[murasaki]

t-

One does what one can....

--naomi

[hadassahchana[$]]

Chekhov's 'Dama i Sobachkoi' (The Lady With The Dog)!

I loved 'Anna Karenina' and 'Crime And Punishment', but anything by chekhov is just past boring- it is wrong! A crime against humanity- or at least against third year Russian students. Here is the plot of a typical Chekhov play or short story:

A character is introduced. He/she does nothing.

More characters show up. They also do nothing.

Everyone is sad.

The story ends.

:

Cindy

[mshawpyle]

Originally posted by hadassahchana
(A)nything by Chekhov is *** (a) crime against humanity- or at least against third year Russian students.

As if Lermontov and Gogol are much better.

You recall the old joke. A group of international students are required to write essays over the Long Vacation concerning the elephant. Upon their return, they present their accomplishments to the tutor. Breezing in from India, the British undergraduate submits How I Shot My First Elephant. The French student's contribution is a yellow-bound volume, L'Éléphant et Ses Amours. The Russian's is a vodka-stained meditation entitled Elephants and Suicide; the German's, twelve volumes of An Introduction to a Preliminary Consideration of a Prolegomena to a Study Regarding Elephants. And of course Jan Lubowski weighs in with The Elephant and the Polish Question.

Back to our muttons.

As a human being and as a reader, I have a list of Bad Books, and Index Expurgatorium of volumes both pernicious and unreadable: all of Marx; Fanon; Sartre; Camus; Mein Kampf, of course, and the Protocols and all such rubbish.... The downside of being an historian is that you can't escape reading this dreck. As would Sir Karl Popper, I'd put most of Plato on the List, too, and for similar reasons: he's annoying and totalitarian.

But these are all universal 'givens.' For a real Burn This Book - And Its Author, At the Stake - candidate, allow me to present the collected works of that embarrassment to the craft of history, David Irving. Merely typing his contemptible little name causes my blood pressure to spike. Avoid the Holocaust-denying 'revisionist' bugger at all costs.

[CurtisEdmonds]

Can't disagree with any of MSP's choices, although I would add hisses and boos directed towards Rousseau as well.

The worst thing I have read in a very long time was The Shipping News, a shockingly well-regarded piece of literary claptrap about Newfoundland. Avoid.

[kuuleimomi]

What are you talking about? Chekhov is so much fun, seriously, you just don't know how to read between the lines. I also loved Lermontov and Crime and Punishment, but most of Tolstoi things bore me to death.

As a Russian student, I confess that reading War And Peace as a 15 year old kid was the worse experience ever. I truly hate that book.

And Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite books, btw. So I don't know, I guess I just have a weird taste in books.

Finn

[Dani257]

Originally posted by kuuleimomi


And Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite books, btw. So I don't know, I guess I just have a weird taste in books.

Finn

No, that would be me. Most people love Holden Caufield. They aspire to be him. they want him to be their best friend. I want to kill him in violent ways and resurrect him and kill him again.

[acinom]

Yikes Dani!

When I read that Catcher, I was indifferent. But you...well, if I ever hear of J.D. Salinger dying a mysterious and violent death, I'll know who's responsible.

My pick for most-hated book is: The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. In a word--AAAAAAAARRRRGH! 120 pages of okay writing drowned in 1000+ pages of "Howard Roark rocks and everybody else sucks" kind of writing. Let's just say it completely demolished her reputation as a legitimate philosopher in my eyes, and as for her reputation as a writer...HA!!!

~Acinom

[Redlass]

This is coming from a person who loves Russian novels (but agrees with Cindy's assessment of Checkov), but I absolutely hated what little I could get through of Lord Jim.

And how about that travesty Waiting for a Play, er, Godot?

[quasar]

Originally posted by tipu


Mary L. Boas's Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences.

Hmmm, I like Boas. It's a lot better than any of the alternatives, or at least it was 10 years ago

Janice, who owns two copies

[quasar]

I've said this before, I'll say it again. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner should have been killed off before it ever had a chance to live.

Let's see, other books I hate. I hated L'Etranger but I've only read it in French and my French is less than sparkling so some of that could have been the language barrier. I liked Sartre though, and I've only read him in French too. *shrugs*

I should have mentioned it in most boring books if I didn't (shame on me if I didn't) but Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations is just about the most boring thing I've ever heard. I was indifferent to the content though, so I couldn't really say I hated the book, just the process of listening to it (yes I have had the dubious displeasure of listening to WoN from cover to cover because when I was in college everyone always printed it in really tiny print because it's so freaking long and I couldn't read it).

Janice

[pageclot[$]]

Hey! I liked the Wealth of Nations! Granted, it's not gripping thriller material, but for an economics major, reading about theory in plain language sure beats the arcane symbolic lingo of Koutsayannis "Econometrics", or "Principles of Corporate Finance" by persons unknown.

The most hated modern book - hated especially by people who had never read it and weren't in a position to read it - is probably The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

I believe I'm coming to the conclusion that Off The Road by Carolyn Cassidy is my most hated book. Couldn't finish it; couldn't stand another 200 pages of whining and fantasies. It seems unfair to think this way, because Carolyn unrolls tale of woe after tale of woe, but I think she made a big mistake marrying that Neal guy, and that she should have waited for the right guy, who wasn't an unfaithful speed-freak jerk.

p

[ThePirateKing]

Heh. I even wrote a review on this very topic... once burned a copy of Fascinating Womanhood by Helen Andelin. Horrible anti-female claptrap, feh.

[CurtisEdmonds]

As I Lay Dying is one of the more accessible (and funnier) Faulkner novels, IMHO. Don't say you don't like it until you have bulled your way through The Sound And The Fury.

[bupkiss]

*gasp* Holden is my demigod! (No, I am not a serial killer or psychotic zealot of any kind, I swear.) My least favorite book is THE SCARLET LETTER. Most like it or can at least stomach it when it's assigned for English class, but I refused to read it after muddling through the first few chapters and ended up scoring a meager 65 on the exam back in the 10th grade. And I'm now an English major!

[mtbat]

Oliver Twist-really-and most of Dickens other books as well-bleck

recently though, I found a book called "A Train To Somewhere" which was the worst children's book I've read in a long long time

[Grouch]

Originally posted by mtbat
Oliver Twist-really-and most of Dickens other books as well-bleck

"I am trying not to take that personally," says the bearded gentleman to the left.

[mtbat]

Grouch-I'm sorry-I hope I didn't hurt your feelings-I was force fed Dickens as a child and couldn't stand it-
not only did I have to read his work, but I had to watch the PBS shows regardless if I wanted to or not.

I don't know, maybe I should give him another chance-It's been a LONG time since I've read any of his books.

anyone yell at me if I say I hate the Bobsey Twins?

[CurtisEdmonds]

I was force fed Dickens as a child and couldn't stand it-

I feel your pain; had something similar happen to me. However, I went back and read Bleak House not too long ago and was pleasantly surprised. The key is to read Dickens a chapter at a time, the way it was meant to be read. Trying to swallow a whole novel at once will give you indigestion.

[lambchops]

I absolutely despise The Illiad by Homer with all of my heart. I had to wade through it for two seperate college classes. Talk about pure, unadulterated hell!

[Trebor1415]

No question, Catch-22 is my most hated book ever. I've tried to get through it on three separate occassions, but have never finished the beast. He just hammers the same point about the absurdities of war at you over, and over, and over, ad naseum.

I'm not horribly fond of Catcher in the Rye either, but at least I was able to finish it. I have absolutey no desire to ever reread it though, and I'm big on re reading nearly everything I read at one point or another.

Rob

[Dani257]

there are a few books I coudn't finish. Paradise Lost (I HATE Milton), the next book after Flowers in the Attic.

I'm still (slowly) working my way through The Old Curiosity Shop. I like it, but for some reason, I can't read it straight through.