Books That Are Fun To Ridicule

[Wingsrising]

Er... I loved Frankenstein. I've read it several times.

I liked Moby DIck, too, but like most people, I've only read it once.

I enjoyed The Scarlet Letter, too.

Haven't read Tale of Two Cities, the Grapes of Wrath, or Catcher in the Rye.

[Joey]

Oh English class books... The ones I hate are Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm. Animal Farm especially. Could you shove the allegory down our throats any more?

Though I actually loved Catcher in the Rye, I thought it was a fantastic book.

I've somehow missed a ton of the big books that everyone seems to have read...

[bonecrivain]

I loved Animal Farm! But I tend to really enjoy dystopian books in general--it's one of my favorite genres.

[Madge]

I, too, enjoyed Animal Farm.

A book I didn't like was Pride and Prejudice. I understand why it's supposed to be good, but I didn't see it myself. It was a whole bunch of English girls running around trying to get husbands and commentary on British aristocracy. Uh-huh.

The funniest thing was, I didn't read it all the way through, and had no sparknotes available. So I asked the teacher if I could borrow the "good" BBC adaptation of the book that went for something ridiculous like 3 hours, and I watched that instead of reading the actual book. I ended up with a good mark, yay.

And a book I didn't read for school that I didn't like was Lawerence Krauss's "Hiding in the Mirror". The cover and blurb made it look like an interesting hypothetical examination of multiple dimensions. It had about one chapter that was interesting and the rest of it was very scary physics. And I'm doing engineering and am interested in lots of physics, which is saying a lot.

(I bought it using a book voucher, along with Michael Shermer's "Why Darwin Matters" - which I got him to sign when he came to Perth! Yay! and some book about aliens and SETI etc called "Why Aren't they Here?", both of which were VERY good)

[AngharadTy]

Hee, I love Pride and Prejudice, but I don't consider it a "classic"... unless it's "classic pointless feel-good junk" or somethin'. Mmmm Darcy. Plus I don't often get to read books about people named Elizabeth. That always entertains me.

[bonecrivain]

Pride and Prejudice is a classic; it's taught as such in universities, and Jane Austen's high in the ranks of English novelists. Being part of the literary canon isn't necessarily an indication of whether a book is good, or at least enjoyable, since different people respond to different sorts of books. But I think it's inaccurate to call P&P "pointless" and "junk." The quality of the writing certainly sets it apart from fluff-novels, and even from the novels of her contemporaries.

With that said, I used to hate Shakespeare! I respect his plays more now, of course, but I don't think they were taught very well in my high school. It took a lot of play-going for me to start enjoying things like King Lear and Hamlet.

[Madge]

I agree it was written pretty well, but no amount of good writing makes me care about English girls who want to marry eligible bachelors.

I mean, she should have at least put some explosions into the book, to cater to the lowest common denominator, y'know?

And I LOVE Hamlet, probably because he's so emo and for some reason reminded me of Damien, one of Anna's RP characters. But I think mostly because he's so emo. And it's so sad.

[bonecrivain]

Haha, I'm a sap at heart. But only for well-written romantic stuff--I haaate books written by people like Nicholas Sparks, for example. I just think it's important to draw a sharp distinction between Austen and genuinely fluffy authors. Regardless of whether you (general you--I'm honestly not trying to convince you to read more, Madge!) like her or not, she's a historically important author. Like Melville. Who I still don't like, although I'm sure there are many arguments as to why I should. =P

Oh, that's another book I really didn't like. A Walk to Remember. I thought it was clunky and badly written; I read it because one of my friends highly recommended it, and even mailed me her copy.

EDIT: Oh, and Ty, I'm trying to think of books with main characters named Elizabeth. I feel like I must know of several more, but I'm drawing a blank right now! Would you object if I started calling you Lizzy-Ty?

EDITED AGAIN: I keep editing this because books are one of the few things that make me truly passionate, hee. =) Even when my brain feels like mush from being sick.

I always find it interesting to compare the film version of Mansfield Park to the original novel. Ordinarily, I rant about inaccurate adaptations of books, but the movie pulls in aspects of Austen herself to make the heroine less drab than the book character, and also adds a wider social context (namely the slave trade) that her books don't address. It's sort of fascinating to set it next to the book and compare the two: I love both, but for very different reasons. Austen writes parlor novels, from the female characters' point of view, which definitely limits the action and can make the dialogue drag in places if you're not invested in it. There's a reason that modern attempts at Austen-style novels don't work--they're generally boring and kind of terrible!--but what Austen does, she does well.

Can you tell I considered writing a thesis on Austen's heroines? I sort of wish I'd gone with that option instead of the comprehensive exam, blah.

[EofS]

With that said, I used to hate Shakespeare! I respect his plays more now, of course, but I don't think they were taught very well in my high school. It took a lot of play-going for me to start enjoying things like King Lear and Hamlet.

Although I always loved him, I didn't realise how good Shakespeare was until I read/saw his contemporaries. Suddenly a lot made sense.

[AngharadTy]

I call myself Lizzy, outside of the internet. Heehee. ^_^

And you're right; I shouldn't call P&P "junk." But I do think it's a bit frivolous, and I only read it when I'm in the mood for fluffy yayness. It's good fluffy yayness. It's lightyears better than Twilight--I mean, I don't even need to say that sentence, it's so obvious.

[Joey]

So I'm gonna bring this up again because I've actually spent the day reading Twilight. And it truly is like self inflicted torture. You can read excerpts of the worst buts but nothing compares to the sheer amount of awful this book contains. Edward is creepy in every way possible, and she keeps going on about how beautiful and perfect he is but every actual description she gives is ugly. Bella is terrible on so many levels I can't even begin. Edward keeps telling her all these creepy things like wanting to eat her and watching her sleep and she's somehow perfectly ok with all this. And the writing style itself is horrible. It's badly written and stale boring prose, with a bunch of more complicated words thrown in so it's obvious that Meyer is just pulling this crap out of thesaurus and it looks so awkward. And don't even get me started on the supposedly "romantic" scenes that make me ill to read.

Thank god my friend encourages everyone to write comments in the book, or else I wouldn't be able to get through this thing.

[Usul_Princess]

Re: The Classics. Most of them are really good. The only one I didn't like was "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and "The Great Gatsby". Both books went in circles over and over. (Actually 'Owen' felt all over the place, even though it wrapped itself up at the end)

But I loved the book The Scarlet Letter, and hated the movie (as posted above). C-rated budget, and lots of overacting. It was the first movie where I vowed never to see the movie if I loved the book ever again. Once you've put your own images to the characters, you don't want to see what someone else put on the big screen. (Especially if there are incorrect descriptions potrayed in the movie.) I liked Animal farm! But I can see how the the obvious references to overthrowing Stalin can grate on a person's nerves. (Had I not had the most eccentric 9th grade world history teacher, I never would've touched it.) The grapes of wrath was decent, but you have to be in the mood to read it. It does feel like the book just abruptly comes to a resolution. (Like "Lord of the Flies" abrupt).

Catcher in the Rye was one of the best classics ever written!! *high fives Joey* Not too generic, not to complex, not overly significant. And Holden's name....beautiful *snf* I want to say the same about 'To Kill a Mocking Bird', but I had such a bad experience discussing that book with a bunch of clueless, upper-middle-class suburbian 14 year olds who didn't understand the concept of oppression because they weren't taught uncensored American History. (And only learned "Multicultural" history when the school forced them to watch a random play by ethnic students once a year.

Hated 'The Color Purple'. *runs for cover* (And here I am flailing about loving dark fiction). This book is a different kind of dark fiction. It's so sadistic and morbid, that you can't identify with the characters because you've never had incestual kids, and people never question how you look like you got clocked last night by your husband because they know you didn't fall down the stairs. The mistress moving in, and participating in the beatings, and getting a vibe that Celie enjoys it because it "validated" her as a woman. The movie, though is a very gruesome parallel, but something about it was so intriguing you coudn't tear yourself away. (Probably the 5-star acting, but I digress.) The book/concept makes me ill, and it makes you wanna bathe afterwards. The good thing I will say about it, is that it's convincing. So convincing that I almost feel bad loathing it. You're really there; Trying to walk the fine line between "Jim Crow" laws and open freedom from oppression. An Era where you truly get a shit deal: Putting on a subserviant face is your life, slip up, you get jailed. Become too successful, you get lynched, Pass for white, or a more likeable ethnicity, get shunned by your black friends because you deny your family. You really do feel like you're in the 1930's; and are just thankful you weren't concieved any earlier.