Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Literature, Music, Art & Entertainment => Topic started by: Nearly Sane on December 13, 2017, 01:19:52 PM
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In part, because of some reactions to Dan Brown on Sriram's Origin thread, I was wondering about what is the worst book you have ever read. As an addict, I was on holiday in Turkey when my kindle broke, I was thus thrust upon the delights of the books people had left behind that were offered by the hotel. I had many years before read a couple of Dean Koontz books, and while I thought them not great, I hoped it would pass the time. I started Relentless and was worried that it was bad after about 10 pages. Thankfully due to lack of choice, I kept going so I could discover quite how bad bad could be.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relentless_(Koontz_novel)
ETA: It is very disappointing that the summary doesn't include the plot part that the time travel invented by the six year old is activated with specially adapted salt and pepper shakers activated by mind control by the family dog, or that the shadowy organisation that murders writers and artists is inspired by Ayn Rand.
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A Song of Stone by Iain Banks.
If it was written by anyone else I would have thrown it in the fire after a dozen pages. But I persisted until it became a personal challenge to complete it before I stabbed my eyes out with the lucky rabbit foot on my keyring.
Then I threw it on the fire.
In fact I had to especially light a fire just to give myself that pleasure!
And yes, it was worse than Dan Brown's scribblings.
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How about worst plays we've ever seen? The Old Country with Alec Guinness when I was about 'A' level English. I'm sure it was very worthy but believe me it was boring in the extreme.
I've read so many books can't remember titles and authors but probably Jeffrey Archer figures somewhere, I dipped in when he was fashionable and immediately forgot all.
Having read 'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt and loved it, I eagerly awaited her next book.
I thought the second book was awful - boring.
I looked up her novels and can't work out what the name of the second one was unfortunately - but it was that one!
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The Goldfinch? If so, didn't finish it. I liked The Secret History but it always seemed overly praised.
Saw an adaptation of The Master Builder which even for a play I don't particularly like made the evening like Bonnie Langford as Violet Elizabeth Bott scream and be sick in my ear.
EtA if you have read something and forgotten it, it's not that bad.
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The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho.
Sold 30 million copies. Not possible. There aren't thirty million people that stupid.
Really. It's something to do with a shepherd and a shop that sells crystals, and the universe will look after you.
Yes. ok. Pseudo religious bollocks that a three year old would be ashamed of penning.
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I read one of Paul Coelho's books at the end of the nineties, everything since was a let down so I agree with you Trent.
The Celestine Prophesy(ies) was dreadful. It was recommended to me so I struggled to read it. I needn't have bothered.
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I have a lot of books.
I mean, really, really, really a lot. I don't just mean a large personal library of the kind that the odd individual might have here and there but decades' worth of bibliomania: so many that I can't even hazard a guess at the actual number.
With life being a short and uncertain thing I don't waste my time on bad books, but when it comes to the single worst book of which I have direct personal knowledge, no question.
I'm a great admirer of Henry David Thoreau (look him up if interested). I collect various editions of his own work (not difficult as his output is comparatively small, with the exception of his vast personal journal) and inevitably books about him by others - biographies and the like.
I can't recall the exact title or the author, but one of these studies is easily the foullest, most disgraceful waste of trees that I've ever encountered in my life. It's not a biography as such but a study of his writing by an American academic - female I think. It's the worst writing I've ever come across - there isn't an adequate vocabulary I know of to describe how pompous, pretentious, turgid and long-winded it is. It's like a parody of the very worst kind of academic writing except that it was apparently offered up in absolute sincerity. The author never uses a simple and direct word or phrase where a circumlocutory hippopotamosesquipedelian construction will do. All of the rules (variable, admittedly) that people advise about clear, concise and to-the-point writing are not just ignored but flouted with what I still suspect may be active and avid malice. In its own way it's something of a wonder, which is why I kept it as a curiosity a bit like a hideously deformed foetus in a jar; it's quite remarkable that anything so relentlessly horrific got past editors and proof readers and made it into print. I'd rather eat my own legs from the feet upward than dwell too much on it but if I could lay my hands on it I'd have quoted some brief passages from it to demonstrate the eyeball-bleaching horror of the English. Sadly I can't, and I can't track it down on Amazon either.
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The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho.
Sold 30 million copies. Not possible. There aren't thirty million people that stupid.
Really. It's something to do with a shepherd and a shop that sells crystals, and the universe will look after you.
Yes. ok. Pseudo religious bollocks that a three year old would be ashamed of penning.
Them's my sentiments.
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I was wondering about what is the worst book you have ever read.
Do we actually have to have finished the book for it to qualify? If not, I would vote for Holy Blood Holy Grail.
If I'm limited to books I have actually finished, it's more tricky. I once read the official novelisation of the BBC drama "By the Sword Divided" and it was pretty desperate.
Also keeping the theme of grail stories I read a book called the Last Gospel (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6255805-the-lost-tomb). The protagonist is a one dimensional Mary Sue, a marine archaeologist coincidentally in the same profession as the author's day job. He starts off by discovering St Paul's shipwreck. Then he discovers the tombs of St Peter and St Paul and Boudica, also the body of the emperor Claudius trapped in Herculaneum by the Vesuvius eruption who had faked his own assassination and written an account of his meeting with Jesus, also, the tomb of Jesus (empty).
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Not sure about the finished thing, let's say you have to get through 2/3? Otherwise it may be brilliant for a substantial part.
As to your actual nomination, I read that too. It is frightently awful pish.
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There was an audio book club, which ceased quite a few years ago, but one of the choices was 'The Time Traveller's Wife'. I listened to the beginning, then dipped into various parts throughout the book and found it so repetitive and so totally boring that my opinion of it was 0/10! Just awful!
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Kylie the Dancing Princess, I read in in the checkout line at my local 99p store.
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There was an audio book club, which ceased quite a few years ago, but one of the choices was 'The Time Traveller's Wife'. I listened to the beginning, then dipped into various parts throughout the book and found it so repetitive and so totally boring that my opinion of it was 0/10! Just awful!
How interesting.
I read The Time Traveller's Wife and loved it. However, I did read it all through, from beginning to end, as it was written. It had great emotional depth. I suspect that by dipping into it you actually prevented yourself from experiencing the complex chronicity of the novel. Having said that, I then read another novel by Audrey Niffennegger, Her Fearful Symmetry and did not like it.
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How interesting.
I read The Time Traveller's Wife and loved it. However, I did read it all through, from beginning to end, as it was written. It had great emotional depth. I suspect that by dipping into it you actually prevented yourself from experiencing the complex chronicity of the novel. Having said that, I then read another novel by Audrey Niffennegger, Her Fearful Symmetry and did not like it.
I'd second that HH I liked the book as well. I was going to post as much yesterday but real life got in the way. Damned inconvenient of it.
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How interesting.
I read The Time Traveller's Wife and loved it. However, I did read it all through, from beginning to end, as it was written. It had great emotional depth. I suspect that by dipping into it you actually prevented yourself from experiencing the complex chronicity of the novel.
No, that was easy to work out.
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The worst book I've ever read . . .
The Bible
The even worse worst book I've ever read . . .
The Book of Mormon
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Madame Bovary, (Flaubert), a truly ghastly novel in its mean-spirited approach to life and everything in it. Famed for its literary construction, so what.
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I once read a book by someone who claimed to have recorded some past life regression sessions with people who had been Essenes with Jesus in previous lives.
Joseph of Armithea turned up at one point.
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Swiss Family Robinson, first book I just stopped reading in awe at why I didn't care about it.
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In part, because of some reactions to Dan Brown on Sriram's Origin thread, I was wondering about what is the worst book you have ever read. As an addict, I was on holiday in Turkey when my kindle broke, I was thus thrust upon the delights of the books people had left behind that were offered by the hotel. I had many years before read a couple of Dean Koontz books, and while I thought them not great, I hoped it would pass the time. I started Relentless and was worried that it was bad after about 10 pages. Thankfully due to lack of choice, I kept going so I could discover quite how bad bad could be.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relentless_(Koontz_novel)
ETA: It is very disappointing that the summary doesn't include the plot part that the time travel invented by the six year old is activated with specially adapted salt and pepper shakers activated by mind control by the family dog, or that the shadowy organisation that murders writers and artists is inspired by Ayn Rand.
yes, anything by Shakespeare ,however it makes for good kindling
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Jude the deservedly obscure by Thomas bloody Hardy.
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yes, anything by Shakespeare ,however it makes for good kindling
I'll echo that. I got belted in my third year at secondary school for describing him as a second rate Mills & Boon writer whose 'Macbeth; should be used as cat litter. The incompetant twit couldn't get names or titles right, invented a few who never existed....and didn't even know Grouoch.
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I started 'War and Peace', years ago, but just couldn't get on with it.
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'War and Peace' and most of Shakespeare are both brilliant, even if WS did make a few egregious errors, such as giving the ancient Romans clocks and Bohemia a coast, and even if Tolstoy (in the Maude translation, at least) was excessively fond of the "now this, now that" figure of speech.
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Macbeth was never supposed to be accurate history any more than the nativity stories are supposed to be accurate depictions of Jesus’ birth. Both are powerful pieces of literature/drama.
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Macbeth was never supposed to be accurate history any more than the nativity stories are supposed to be accurate depictions of Jesus’ birth. Both are powerful pieces of literature/drama.
Quite. The historical Macbeth was not a bad king by the brutal standards of the 11th century, and he ruled for some years, not the mere months implied in the play.
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'War and Peace' and most of Shakespeare are both brilliant, even if WS did make a few egregious errors, such as giving the ancient Romans clocks and Bohemia a coast, and even if Tolstoy (in the Maude translation, at least) was excessively fond of the "now this, now that" figure of speech.
The brummie bard was simply a toadie - a sycophantic chap who tried to sur the edges of power for gain, with a pretty turn of phrase thrown in.
The aforementioned 'Macbeth' is a prime example.
The Stewarts claimed some descent from Duncan's branck of the MacMalcolm family...Macbeth was from a cadet branch, primogentture not being a way in which kings were chosen.
Our Will, in order to please James VI, ignored, twisted and franlkly polluted the real story to please himself.
Far from killing nice old Duncan in bed, Duncan was killed in battle - and he was younger than Macbeth.
So successful was Macbeth that he ruled for 17 years, managing to go on pilgrimage to Rome halfway through his rule - unheard of in the violent climate of Alba at the time.
So confident was he that he left his queen, Grouoch, in charge while he was away.
Yes, Malcolm killed Macbeth in battle (not a siege), but Macbeth was successded, not by Malcolm, but by Lulach, Grouoch's son, ruling for nine months while Malcom eventually gained the throne of Alba with aid from the Norse forces of Orkney and Ypork.
Oh, and not a witch in sight.
That was another nod to James VI's obsession with witchcraft.
All in all, sycophantic rubbish which Willie dribbkled out in lieu of drama.
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Macbeth was never supposed to be accurate history any more than the nativity stories are supposed to be accurate depictions of Jesus’ birth. Both are powerful pieces of literature/drama.
Sorry, Rhi, given the events at the time the drivel was written (Lizzie of England popping her clogs and Jamie the Saxt coming down to take over the shop) Willie was trying to ingratiate himself with the new regime. If he had been trying to make a political point which struck a chord, he could havesurfwed the unease at the English court when a lot of Jamie's pals came south with him.
Instead he went with the flow, much as the tame literati in Soviet Russia penned stuff lionising the heroes of the revolution.
Macbeth was little different.
By the way, that other play - Hamlet - showed the 'good guys' in Denmark coming through in the end....and some of those names would have struck a chord with Jamie Stewart's wife....Margaret of - oh, look, Denmark!
Coincidence, eh?
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How tiresome AM - I know you filter everything through your nationalist spectacles but he was a bloody playwright. He wasn't recording history. The reality of his historical plays, for example, bore as much resemblance to real life as Young Victoria on TV bears to Queen Victoria's actual reign.
Anyway anyone who can pen this from one of my personal favourite's is ok by me:
“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit
of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star.”
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I'll echo that. I got belted in my third year at secondary school for describing him as a second rate Mills & Boon writer whose 'Macbeth; should be used as cat litter. The incompetant twit couldn't get names or titles right, invented a few who never existed....and didn't even know Grouoch.
To be fair, your antipathy towards Shakespeare and Macbeth in particular is really because of that massive chip on your shoulder about the way some people who lived in Scotland four hundred years ago were treated by some people who lived in England four hundred years ago.
It's called fiction. Get over it.
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To be fair, your antipathy towards Shakespeare and Macbeth in particular is really because of that massive chip on your shoulder about the way some people who lived in Scotland four hundred years ago were treated by some people who lived in England four hundred years ago.
It's called fiction. Get over it.
I did Macbeth for 'O' Level English Lit, I am still trying to get over it! ;D
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Sorry, Rhi, given the events at the time the drivel was written (Lizzie of England popping her clogs and Jamie the Saxt coming down to take over the shop) Willie was trying to ingratiate himself with the new regime. If he had been trying to make a political point which struck a chord, he could havesurfwed the unease at the English court when a lot of Jamie's pals came south with him.
Instead he went with the flow, much as the tame literati in Soviet Russia penned stuff lionising the heroes of the revolution.
Macbeth was little different.
By the way, that other play - Hamlet - showed the 'good guys' in Denmark coming through in the end....and some of those names would have struck a chord with Jamie Stewart's wife....Margaret of - oh, look, Denmark!
Coincidence, eh?
You make my views on "London" seem moderate! Hey they could use you in FSR Moldova!
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How tiresome AM - I know you filter everything through your nationalist spectacles but he was a bloody playwright. He wasn't recording history. The reality of his historical plays, for example, bore as much resemblance to real life as Young Victoria on TV bears to Queen Victoria's actual reign.
Anyway anyone who can pen this from one of my personal favourite's is ok by me:
“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit
of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star.”
Whoa!
This has diddly squat to do with politics - it's a history thing.
Aftyer all, the fifteen year old me with the sore hands after telling the twit teaching English how I felt had eight or nine years to go before I became a nationalist.
My history teacher was trying to teach me to be analytiv and observational; to deal with facts and not embellish them with speculation - and at one on the same time this numpty was imparting what he called literature.
What was I supposed to do?
Come off it, the brummie bard knew ziltch about history (Scots, Englsh, Danish or for that mattrer, Roman.) What he DID know was that keeping up with current politics and being a syophant was a nice little earner - so he sacrificed tyruth history, honesty and reality to toadie up with the idiot on the throne of England at the time.
What's nationalistic about that?