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Original poster

What's good about these books?

87 replies

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 10/11/2010 13:38

Following on from the overrated books thread, I realised there are some books that I really want to like, but can't help thinking they are a bit shite really. Am I being fick? If you like them please help me see the light.

Explanations of why I am spectacularly missing the point, or contributions of other seemingly shite books welcome.

So...

Villette - seems to be about a woman dripping around in France, pointlessly.

Metamorphosis - man turns into a beetle and gets pissed off then dies.

What am I missing?

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Original poster
ElephantsAndMiasmas · 10/11/2010 19:30

LCL - I think I do get this one. Women needs a good shagging from a real man grrrrr. Real man = working class with dirty hands and a tendency to do you up the arse but sufficiently pretentious intellectual to raise him above the Common Mass.

That DH Lawrence really hated his background. And women. They're just slutz who luv cok according to him - he'd be right at home on a youtube comments thread.

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boogeek · 10/11/2010 19:29

I love EM Forster though!

boogeek · 10/11/2010 19:28

Life of Pi - v odd, and one of those irritating books that makes you feel like there is somethingvery clever in there but you are too thick to get it Angry
Owen Meany, I rather liked though! Also odd, but you do have to read all the way to the end for all the oddities to click into place.

oldenoughtowearpurple · 10/11/2010 19:27

Lady Chatterley's Lover. Posh totty not getting it at home shags gardener. And?

Moab Is My Washpot by National Treasure Stephen Fry. Overwritten self indulgent twaddle.

dittany · 10/11/2010 19:25

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Blatherskite · 10/11/2010 19:10

Just had to chip in and agree wholeheartedly on Life of Pi. I couldn't even bring myself to finish it becasue it was that awful

LoudRowdyDuck · 10/11/2010 19:08

Agree, I didn't get Life of Pi at all. But most of the others I just haven't read. Blush

How about E.M. Forster? I know it's meant to be very important and special but I don't get it - they just seem like vaguely diverting but overly slow, meandering books.

dittany · 10/11/2010 19:03

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Original poster
ElephantsAndMiasmas · 10/11/2010 18:59

dittany - saw you were mentioning Life of Pi on the other thread. I was asking about it on this one. Do not get it at all!

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dittany · 10/11/2010 18:57

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BalloonSlayer · 10/11/2010 18:29

Anyone remember The Magus ?

Supposed to be such a fab book but all I can remember is some pervy old bloke being fawned on for his "pearls of wisdom" by nubile young females.

I was a nubile young female going out with an older man when I read it and even then I thought it was shiteola.

BelligerentGhoul · 10/11/2010 17:16

Agree re: Owen Meany - it went on and on and on and on with v occasional good bits.

I like Metamorphosis and Villette though.

Enduring Love - oh no, the balloon is going; oh dear, that's sad; now let's waft around being boring and crap for 300 pages whilst Ian McKewan pats himself on the back a lot and muses on his ego.

Original poster
ElephantsAndMiasmas · 10/11/2010 16:27

at "people weeping and wailing and examining the nature of existence because they've put the wrong hat on."

Lots of head/hair anxiety behind classic lit it seems.

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Original poster
ElephantsAndMiasmas · 10/11/2010 16:27

Wuthering Heights: I always read it as a satire of the dark side of overblown romance. Showing that people who are dark and brooding and romantic are actually just plain nasty.

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Jux · 10/11/2010 16:26

Well, elephants, it could easily have been about sex too. No idea Grin Hope an english lit lecturer will come on and tell us.

KurriKurri · 10/11/2010 16:25

I like The Woodlanders, even thought the female protagonist is incredibly irritating.

Also quite like Frankenstein, although it goes on a bit too long.

Metamorphosis - man turns into a giant beetle, what's not to like?

There's a lot of awful Russian classics out there - people weeping and wailing and examining the nature of existence because they've put the wrong hat on.

Original poster
ElephantsAndMiasmas · 10/11/2010 16:22

Thanks Jux. Was it? My teacher was a massive perve who told us it was all about sex. Hmm

Mm, yes - Life of Pi? Have only read a bit but I saw the play based on it and ...what? animals on a raft? is there a point?

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sieglinde · 10/11/2010 16:21

Reasons to like Wuthering Heights

  1. Emily Bronte KNOWS the characters are horrible, but wants to show that horrible people are MADE that way by cruelty
  1. Passion and love on that scale are always going to amke you a bit abnormal.
  1. Unreliable narrators... Double plots... ghosts... graves... undying love
  1. The landscape.

and besides some people who didn't like it sounded just like the Victorian clergy who dissed it for being immoral.

Jux · 10/11/2010 16:17

Can't stand Villette or really any of the Brontes' work except JE.

Ulysses; self-indulgent claptrap, but some people rate it and I hope one of them will come on here and tell me why it's so great.

Metamorphosis was an interesting allegory about individual's powerlessness within the state. Hope someone else will expound on that.

Jux · 10/11/2010 16:15

GrinGrinGrin at BalloonSlayer "someone might have had her hair cut". Brilliant.

BalloonSlayer · 10/11/2010 15:57

Well can someone tell me what's so good about Frankenstein.

Man makes a creature who thinks on him as a Father. Decides he finds it revolting and rejects it heartlessly. Spends the next 500 pages speechless with outrage, bewilderment and betrayal that the creature is rather upset at all this and reacting angrily.

Or how about Ulysses? What the fuck?

Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders, anyone? Nothing happens. Although I think someone might have had her hair cut.

Original poster
ElephantsAndMiasmas · 10/11/2010 15:49

Oooh now you're talking, I loved Middlemarch, although it was a bit slow to get in to. So reasons you should like it:

  1. really good exploration of the frustrations of being a smart/ambitious woman in the 19th century, having to realise your ambitions through marrying a man who shared them.

  2. believable well rounded characters especially Fred Vincy and Mary Garth and her parents

  3. a few loathsome characters to keep you going. Never have I shouted "noooo!" so loudly at a book as when Dorothea married that dreary old twat Casaubon.

Er, that's it :)

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GrimmaTheNome · 10/11/2010 15:42

I didn't get MiddleMarch - maybe I tried it too young. Planning to re-read next year when I'm 50.

Original poster
ElephantsAndMiasmas · 10/11/2010 15:10

Oh come on someone else must have books they just don't "get"

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Original poster
ElephantsAndMiasmas · 10/11/2010 14:52

Sargasso FFS.

Thankyou, Hully.

So Birdsong: I quite liked it, but seemed to be two books put together. One good one about war. And one rubbish one about oral sex with French women.

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