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Overrated books

I had to do Moby dick for part of my Uni studies many moons ago.

14 pages in I bottled it and tracked down a video of teh B&W film to compete my essay :( ;)

Unfort. Im was not able to pull a similar fast one with Nathianiel hawthornes " Scarlet letter" and had to read the fucker.

page:mad:

by page :mad:

by page:mad:
 
Chairman Meow said:
Oh Christ yes - worst book ever! I don't care that he wrote it in his second language its still shit. Hard to believe that such a short book could be so totally fucking boring really.
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I like it, but Conrad has written far better books imo (the secret agent and Nostromo for a start). I think some people's problem with Heart Of Darkness is they heard of it through the Apocalypse Now connection and have the wrong expectations of the book.
 
ThierryEnnui said:
I like it, but Conrad has written far better books imo (the secret agent and Nostromo for a start). I think some people's problem with Heart Of Darkness is they heard of it through the Apocalypse Now connection and have the wrong expectations of the book.
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Not me. I didn't even know of the connection until after reading the book, and still loathed it with every fibre of my being.

Oh, and anything by Henry James.
 
oh i quite liked The Scarlett letter. At least it had a juicy storyline.

Another awful author i had to read at uni was Peter Ackroyd. He wrote some book about crime in london, can't remember the name, but my god i just found it absoultely impossible to read. I think I managed 2 pages.

yeah i forgot about Conrad's The Secret Agent. That wasn't too bad.
 
The Autograph Man!
I perservered; mainly because I revere books. But after that I swore I would never ever do that again; I mean, finish a book when I am not really enjoying it.
Had a book of short stories by, I think, Anita Desai and the first story depressed me sooooo much that I actually threw it away - and that I do consider sinful but I did not want something sooooo bad in my house.
But yeah, back to Autograph Man. Pile of shit!
 
Papingo said:
The Confederacy of Dunces. Everyone else who read it thinks it's hilarious. no, no it's not.
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Yeah I tried that a few years ago on someone's recommendation. Didn't get it at all.
 
I see your Foucault's Pendulum, Zen and the Art.., Confederacy of Dunces, and raise you Midnight's Children.

*hissing at the controversial choice*

But really, Salman Rushdie is very clever but he has nothing to say.
 
Brainaddict said:
I see your Foucault's Pendulum, Zen and the Art.., Confederacy of Dunces, and raise you Midnight's Children.

*hissing at the controversial choice*

But really, Salman Rushdie is very clever but he has nothing to say.
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I'll second that. In the wrong hands, magical realism is very, very tiresome.
 
Dillinger4 said:
Charles Dickens is crap.

And I second 100 Years of Solitude. What a load of rubbish.

I want to say Gravity's Rainbow but I am still sufficiently intrigued by it.
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Try Vineland, it's not quite as disconnected as GR but still shows Pynchons talents off
 
ThierryEnnui said:
Pretentious tedious bullshit, i think he'd been smoking too much 'tea'.
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I can't help thinking it only seems pretentious to you because ever since then pretentious people have been trying to copy it. On the Road is what they're pretending to.
 
Blagsta said:
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. Tedious.
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I love that book!!! Probably the last worthwhile novel that he wrote (although 'Baudolino' was an improvement on 'The Island Of The Day Before').

BB:)
 
Paulie Tandoori said:
But i do think that William S Burroughs was a tremendous author, with work that is visceral and vibrant, it doesn't work like normal books and does demand a lot of the reader but I think it's worthwhile making the effort. His books often aren't about anything at all as such but they are about all sorts of things, all jumbled up.
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I must confess that I thought that Ted Morgan's vast biography of Burroughs Literary Outlaw was much more interesting than anything Burroughs himself actually wrote. An interesting chap, though.
 
anything by that one plot unoriginality thinking cunt that John Grisham should be nailed to his head with a nail gun. (sorry only book I had to read when homeless in Lima in Peru for 3 days)
 
GuerillaPhoto said:
anything by that one plot unoriginality thinking cunt that John Grisham should be nailed to his head with a nail gun. (sorry only book I had to read when homeless in Lima in Peru for 3 days)
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yeah, but no-one really thinks Grisham is any good, do they? Its just airport fodder.
 
Chairman Meow said:
yeah, but no-one really thinks Grisham is any good, do they? Its just airport fodder.
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you would be surprised I managed to swap it for a Footprints guide to Chile and a copy of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
 
Neva said:
I haven't read it in a long time but I'm pretty sure that Holden doesn't lose his virginity and that's actually one of the points of the book.
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Ah. See I read it, the second I was finished I couldn't have told you anything that happened it, then a couple of years later someone mentioned it on telly.

I've said that loads of times and you are the first person who's noticed. :)
 
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