to think this is the most over-rated book ever

[SlightlyJaded]

'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things'

I love books. From big dramatic plotlines and epic storylines to subtle and beautfifully written prose with well drawn characters. I like quirky books, classic books, modern literature, poetry - anything well written or engaging.

I almost never have to 'force' myself to finish a book but always do finish a book if I've started (why do we do that? ) but thought 'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things' was the dullest most over-rated dross I've ever read.

Or did I miss something?

And yes, this should be in books, but I prefer AIBU

Martin Amis is a pretentious plagiaristic tosser struggling to be as justifiably known a writer as his father

there is a rather hilarious interview where he sits with a bloke who believe to be a greatly better author - Tibor Fischer.

They were both doing the verbal equivalent of comparing willy size - quite ridiculous.

jybay- hold the shredder- I'm sure we could match up people who hate a book with the people who love it and do swapsies. or do that thing where you just leave it on a park bench or in a train.

apologies...my m,emory is incorrect...Fischer gave Amis book a duff review. The effect was the same however.

duchesse, I'm not sure we can be responsible for inflicting the horror of The Time Traveller's Wife or The Alchemist on innocent park-goers. If there isn't a law against that, there should be.

I'm afraid pulping is the only answer. Form an orderly queue.

PS Elephants, I think you mean Christopher Hitchens - another pompous misogynist.

that's the bugger, jybay, hope you've read this

"The march of time certainly hasn't altered one thing about Hitchens, which is, alas, his unaccountable pleasure in word games of the most puerile variety. Page after page is devoted to the infinite hilarity derived by Amis, Rushdie, McEwan and Hitchens from substituting in the titles of well-known books, films and songs the word "dick" for "heart", or "fuck" for "love", or "cunt" for "man".

"Oh, I know," he chortles, when I bring this up. "Shameful." He surely can't still find these jokes funny, can he? "Oh yeah, I do. I sometimes wake up laughing at them. Yup. Never get bored of it." And this from a man who once wrote that women weren't funny.

"No, come on," he grins cheerfully, "you have to admit some of them [word games] are funny." Emphatically not. He giggles, looking boyishly delighted. "Sometimes I'm sitting on a plane and start laughing when I think of another. And then I email it to Martin."

...Would he have slept with Amis, had his friend been agreeable? "Oh, I wouldn't have been able to refuse him anything." Hitchens smiles."

I hadn't, but I'm about to. Can see from the headline that I'm going to be riled. Will the shredder accommodate an actual author, I wonder?

Meanwhile, check out this other Hitchens classic

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - couldn't finish. SOOoooo dull.

The Road - not moving, not clever, not even punctuated - pretentious tosser.

TTW - was ok but I didn't understand what all the fuss was about.

Love in the Time of Cholera - agree with whoever said they wish the characters had just got cholera and died.

Bad books make me really angry. It is rare I give up on a book but when I read something crap I feel cheated that I gave up my time to finish it .

Is 100 Years of Solitude the other one with a stupid parrot (like Wide Sargasso Shagathon)? And some dreary couple who don't have sex for ages?

There's a stupid parrot in Love in The Time of Cholera I think.

Euphemia - I struggled through to the end of The Slap and on some sort of completion high from having actually finished it, I sent it to my Dad a few weeks ago. He's normally gracious about receiving gifts but this received a stony silence. I thought the characters were ghastly - not one had any redeemable qualities and the language was vile (and I'm not easily shocked) not to mention the dreadful sex scenes. It made me wonder if people were really like this under their facades? Please save yourself the trouble and wrap the fish in it.

Euphemia - I struggled through to the end of The Slap and on some sort of completion high from having actually finished it, I sent it to my Dad a few weeks ago. He's normally gracious about receiving gifts but this received a stony silence. I thought the characters were ghastly - not one had any redeemable qualities and the language was vile (and I'm not easily shocked) not to mention the dreadful sex scenes. It made me wonder if people were really like this under their facades? Please save yourself the trouble and wrap the fish in it.

Oh right thanks Elspeth. This thread is making me realise how many books I have read half of.

you don't like your dad much then, thebelle? :o

The exception for me was Vernon God Little, which I loved

Larry, here is why I enjoyed American Psycho.

First of all, I read it circa 15 yrs ago, way pre children, when I was less sensitive to violence in movies and literature (not that I was an insensitive cow, but being more or less omnivore of most genres both in movies and lit, I tried to overcome feelings of uneasiness at gruesome scenes).

I found it superbly written and difficult to put down. It is clear at some stage that the plot is supremely ambiguous, and I was eager to know what'd happen to one of the biggest loser in literature, mr Patrick Bateman.

It was funny (I've mentioned it in another thread, but it is funny how he plays with the character of Allison Poole, the main character of a novel by Jay McInenary, who in the 80s was considered the other great narrator of Manhattan and rampant capitalism). It was bleak. It was ambiguous. And yes, violent.

I really have tried to erase from my mind the most violent things, but all it is about is, imho, the squalid emptiness of life (or some lives)

I enjoyed American Psycho too, but I do have a tolerance for violent novels (not films though).
Plus I used to love all that Manhattan lit, Jay McInenary stuff and even Tama Janowitz, which I suspect if I read now would seem awful, dated and pretentious.

The trouble with this thread is I cannot read all 22 pages before I must say Cloud Atlas... so if it has already been put in the recycle bin I apologise.... but I just did not get it AT ALL< Gave up.

It's odd; I read American Psycho in a kind of detached way, similarly We need to talk about Kevin. Haven't read it recently though, it has to be said.
But I just finished The Road and it left me cold, so maybe I am frigid (in a literary sense)?! I didn't even respond to the shock factor...

I have to agree with whoever said they gave up on The Time Traveller's Wife after just a couple of chapters. It annoyed me intensely. Especially as literary fiction buffs often have a real downer on genuine SF. It seemed that it was going to be interesting neither as romance nor as SF. And I just didn't care about the characters.

Oh, and that DREADFUL thing about Ukrainian Tractors. Some woman who is not half as funny as she thinks she is. Utterly tedious.