Books that sucked
Only Revolutions was the disappointment of the year for me. I loved HOL.
I'm also having trouble getting into Lisey's Story...
On the flip side, I thought I'd hate William Gibson's Patern Recognition, but I'm enjoying it so far...
Anything where Irvine Welsh writes "Roight" instead of "right" and so on.
Thanks for making a bunch of nonesense dialogue thick as a brick.
Tomstrong, when I first started reading Trainspotting, I was waaaaaaay frustrated. I was so close to giving up after about 25 pages. The dialect and the phonetic spelling of the words irritated me. But I stuck with it, and fuck am I glad I did. Having now read Trainspotting, Porno, Glue, Filth and Marabou Stork Nightmares, I think the way it was written - phonetically in Scots - made the whole reading experience so much better. My feeling is that it forces you to become absorbed in the characters and the story. I got such a clear picture of Rents and Sickboy and Spud and company, because their gritty, uneducated dialect is impossible to forget when you have to incorporate it into your mental voice to read it. And when other characters speak...characters who are from more upper class areas and are more educated, words are spelled to reflect that.
Just my take on things as someone who regretted buying the book immediately after starting it and then gained a great appreciation for Welsh's style.
I find the main attraction to Irvine Welsh's stuff is the phonetics. A lot of Americans complain about the phonetics. It's not dialect, it's not uneducated, it's just a heavy accent spelled out phonetically. Actually, it's probably the Americans complaining about the phonetics I find most attracting about Welsh.
[QUOTE=tom9d;955269]Tomstrong, when I first started reading Trainspotting, I was waaaaaaay frustrated. I was so close to giving up after about 25 pages. The dialect and the phonetic spelling of the words irritated me. But I stuck with it, and fuck am I glad I did. Having now read Trainspotting, Porno, Glue, Filth and Marabou Stork Nightmares, I think the way it was written - phonetically in Scots - made the whole reading experience so much better. My feeling is that it forces you to become absorbed in the characters and the story. I got such a clear picture of Rents and Sickboy and Spud and company, because their gritty, uneducated dialect is impossible to forget when you have to incorporate it into your mental voice to read it. And when other characters speak...characters who are from more upper class areas and are more educated, words are spelled to reflect that.
Just my take on things as someone who regretted buying the book immediately after starting it and then gained a great appreciation for Welsh's style.[/QUOTE]
I see where you're coming from. I guess it just feels like lazy writing to me. If he used enough slang and syntax and other devices he could make it more readable. I wasn't a huge fan of [I]Last Exit to Brooklyn[/I], but it was far more readable and still had a strong dialect. Hubert Selby Jr. accomplished the same thing but did the work to make it accessible.
[QUOTE=corellion;955270]I find the main attraction to Irvine Welsh's stuff is the phonetics. A lot of Americans complain about the phonetics.[/QUOTE]
That's what I'm talking about. And maybe it is different being an american. I supposse I could read a book with phonetic spelling of a southern dialect and have a much easier time with it.
Im reading Trainspotting at the moment since Irvine Welsh is coming to town next week. Once a year we get treated to a famous writer. Yeah!
[QUOTE=tomstrong83;955274]That's what I'm talking about. And maybe it is different being an american. I supposse I could read a book with phonetic spelling of a southern dialect and have a much easier time with it.[/QUOTE]
Well I know I'd definately struggle to understand a southern american accent written phonetically. Especially when I don't know what one would be like in person.
[QUOTE=Barca Boy;955287]Im reading Trainspotting at the moment since Irvine Welsh is coming to town next week. Once a year we get treated to a famous writer. Yeah![/QUOTE]
That sounds like it'd be a treat. Enjoy yourself.
[QUOTE=tomstrong83;955272]I see where you're coming from. I guess it just feels like lazy writing to me. If he used enough slang and syntax and other devices he could make it more readable. I wasn't a huge fan of [I]Last Exit to Brooklyn[/I], but it was far more readable and still had a strong dialect. Hubert Selby Jr. accomplished the same thing but did the work to make it accessible.[/QUOTE]
See I actually see it as the opposite of lazy writing. There is a dialect called Scots, which is what Welsh's characters speak. What you see written is not the actual spelling of these words, nor the actual spelling of slang words in many cases. They are phonetic spellings that Welsh invented so that it's basically impossible not to pronounce the words in your head as they would be spoken by someone speaking Scots. I mean don't get me wrong - it was annoying as fuck to me at first, but by the time I got to the end of the book, I was pretty much in love with it.
I thought [U]The Hobbit[/U] by JRR Tolkien was a big disappointment. the entire book is just imagery and characterization. the plot was slow and terrible.
book summary: great imagery. shitty plot.
[QUOTE=corellion;955293]Well I know I'd definately struggle to understand a southern american accent written phonetically. Especially when I don't know what one would be like in person.
That sounds like it'd be a treat. Enjoy yourself.[/QUOTE]
I just found out that for Chuck's May 9th stop on the Rant tour in New York, Irvine Welsh will also be there! This is waaaaaaaaaaaay super beyond exciting for me, because Welsh is my second favorite author. I get to see my two favorite authors in one place in one day! AHHHHH! how awesome.
Infinite Jest. I haven't read this, I own it, but come on, 1079 pages full of acronyms, tennis, and general nonsense? I mean, what the fuck?
On Welsh:
I think a book shouldn't be actually physically hard to read, I'd much prefer to have a book that I had a hard time interpreting afterwards than one I had to struggle through just to understand.
I don't think the accent thing has too much to do with it either, I mean, Clockwork Orange is up there in hard to read and even made up words but it's still pretty easily understood no matter where your from.
[QUOTE=bearchaser;955334]Infinite Jest. I haven't read this, I own it, but come on, 1079 pages full of acronyms, tennis, and general nonsense? I mean, what the fuck?[/QUOTE]
you may have a point but don't list a book you haven't read. It just makes you sound like a moron.
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;955339]On Welsh:
I think a book shouldn't be actually physically hard to read, I'd much prefer to have a book that I had a hard time interpreting afterwards than one I had to struggle through just to understand.
I don't think the accent thing has too much to do with it either, I mean, Clockwork Orange is up there in hard to read and even made up words but it's still pretty easily understood no matter where your from.[/QUOTE]
Agreed for the most part...
But I don't think Welsh is hard to read at all once you get used to it. Maybe other people get into books easier, but I've read many books that took me 50-100 pages to really get into, but that ended up becoming some of my favorite books. So when it came to Welsh, I counted the initial difficulty in reading it as that "getting into it" period that I experience pretty frequently. With Welsh, it was just an initial adjustment...after that I read everything as easily as I would have if it was in standard American English. I mean we're not talking about Dostoevski (who I happen to enjoy), where the writing is just consistently difficult throughout. Welsh's writing requires only that you get used to the style.
[QUOTE=Robertpaulsen;955226]I hated Dracula as well, but for the most part, i feel that if i start a book, i must finish it, even if i just wanna quit and burn the book straight to hell. i totally couldn't connect with the characters. the entire book seemed like a play about drag queens or whatever. Everything was over-the-top and dracula himself wasn't even scary. huge disappointment from my view and tremendously over-hyped book. Dracula may be a classic, but it's a shitty classic.
A modern classic would be Dopefiend by Donald Goines. A must read for any true-to-life story reader. Highly recommend the book :)[/QUOTE]
I empathize with your need to finish a book. Honestly [U]Dracula[/U] was the first book I did not finish. After a few days I realized that I kept complaining about how crappy the book is, yet I would still read it. I read books to take me places, become things I am not, I do not read books to be frustrated, I can go to work and do that and at least make some money.
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;955339]On Welsh:
I think a book shouldn't be actually physically hard to read, I'd much prefer to have a book that I had a hard time interpreting afterwards than one I had to struggle through just to understand.
I don't think the accent thing has too much to do with it either, I mean, Clockwork Orange is up there in hard to read and even made up words but it's still pretty easily understood no matter where your from.[/QUOTE]
Definitely a combination of style and phonetic accent. As I mentioned, [U]Naked Lunch[/U] has kind of the same style, getting side tracked while describing something to describe something else. I think its done on purpose in [U]Trainspotting[/U]. If have ever observed yoruself while drunk or on drugs you will realize that your mind wonders. You will be thinking about one thing and then something else flashes in your mind, then you go back to your original thought.
If you have ever spoken to anyone in the 1000 club (1000 acid hits), you will be able to notice it, they get spacey and their mind wonders while they are talking to you. Its like part of you is someone else, an independent entity.
English, being my second language, made reading [U]Trainspotting[/U] a bit difficult to follow through, but after a few pages you can just start sounding things out in your head. As it was mentioned, it helps you get yourself in grained even more. Not only do you have the chance to be the main character but you start "thinking" like him as well.
I agree the phonetic thing is a great tool to get the reader inside the characters head but i think it should be used sparingly, to where the reader doesn't even realize he's starting to think like the character. Not slammed and packed and shoe-horned into the characters head like an over-packed suitcase of someone on the run from the law.
That's not how it is with Welsh though. Nearly all his novels are first person. In the area of Edinburgh where most of his novels are set - Leith (and the rest of Scotland for that matter) - playful language, slang and "the patter" are just totally ingrained into all kinds of communication.
So it's not shoe-horned in at all. That's the way it is.
Some people can adjust to it, some people can't. I find Irvine Welsh easy to read and a total laugh throughout - but I admit I find it easier because I know Scotland well.
Bear Like Me, a gay bear novel.
It just wasnt that well written.
but a lot of gay novel's arent that well written either.
when it comes to gay novels, the equation is simple:
basic plot + jokes about Madonna, Bette Midler, etc. + jokes about fashion + jokes about sex + cats + camp = gay novel.
Don't you think that severely limits who can read your work though? I don't mean that as a business thing but more who you're able to share your art with? It just strikes me as he could express the same exact story in a way that doesn't look like gibberish to almost everyone. Vernon God Little is filled with phonetic writing but it doesn't get bogged down by it does it? maybe it does
anyways, I'm still having a hard time with why CO is so readable but any of Welsh's isn't
I first thought maybe people seeing the movie for clockwork orange might have something to do with it, but the trainspotting movie seems to be pretty popular as well.
[QUOTE=bearchaser;955414]Bear Like Me, a gay bear novel.
It just wasnt that well written.
but a lot of gay novel's arent that well written either.
when it comes to gay novels, the equation is simple:
basic plot + jokes about Madonna, Bette Midler, etc. + jokes about fashion + jokes about sex + cats + camp = gay novel.[/QUOTE]
Are you talking about those novels with titles like California Creamin' and Corporal in Charge with pictures of suggestive cucumbers and muscle-guys on the front?
The only gay novels I've read were Anne Rice's son Christopher Rice's novels and they weren't like that. I really like them!
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;955404]I agree the phonetic thing is a great tool to get the reader inside the characters head but i think it should be used sparingly, to where the reader doesn't even realize he's starting to think like the character. Not slammed and packed and shoe-horned into the characters head like an over-packed suitcase of someone on the run from the law.[/QUOTE]
See this is where I think it is just a matter of adjustment that will differ from person to person. When I first began Trainspotting, I definitely felt it was a blunt and in-your-face bombardment of dialect. But its a fairly long book...and nearly all of Welsh's books are written this way. I see it as an investment...it's annoying as fuck for a little while, but it's not long before it is 100% natural and you don't even realize you're thinking like the character...and if you can get through that annoying period, you get all these other great books to read with ease that, individually, would be just as frustrating to read in the beginning.
But I realize that some people might take longer to adjust, and some just don't want to have to adjust to a book.
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;955415]Don't you think that severely limits who can read your work though? I don't mean that as a business thing but more who you're able to share your art with? It just strikes me as he could express the same exact story in a way that doesn't look like gibberish to almost everyone. Vernon God Little is filled with phonetic writing but it doesn't get bogged down by it does it? maybe it does
anyways, I'm still having a hard time with why CO is so readable but any of Welsh's isn't
I first thought maybe people seeing the movie for clockwork orange might have something to do with it, but the trainspotting movie seems to be pretty popular as well.[/QUOTE]
I think it's because CO is thick on slang, but not too heavy on phonetic colloquial dialogue.
Anyway - as far as I can see the richness of the language is one of the biggest strengths in Welsh's writing. If some people can't get to grips with it, then so be it. After all, most writers are striving to find their unique voice - and the best don't necessarily aim to be understood by the greatest number, just by the people that get where they're coming from.
I have to say I kind of like the way plenty of people don't understand it. The culture it's from is so unique, brash and hilarious that it shouldn't be watered down just to please a (generally American) market.
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;955415]Don't you think that severely limits who can read your work though? I don't mean that as a business thing but more who you're able to share your art with? It just strikes me as he could express the same exact story in a way that doesn't look like gibberish to almost everyone. Vernon God Little is filled with phonetic writing but it doesn't get bogged down by it does it? maybe it does
anyways, I'm still having a hard time with why CO is so readable but any of Welsh's isn't
I first thought maybe people seeing the movie for clockwork orange might have something to do with it, but the trainspotting movie seems to be pretty popular as well.[/QUOTE]
Eh...limits, probably...but severely? I don't think so. I would guess that most people are willing to stick it out with a book long enough to get past the point where it is irritating/difficult to read. I can say there is no way I would have enjoyed the story as much without the dialect, because for me, a lot of the fun of reading it was the language, or was generated by the language. When I was reading Trainspotting and Porno, it was a different feeling than I've had reading anything else...I felt more immersed in them than in any other book I've ever read. And every time I finished a Welsh book, I wanted to read another of his books just so I could have a similar experience.
[QUOTE=Vendetta;955419]Are you talking about those novels with titles like California Creamin' and Corporal in Charge with pictures of suggestive cucumbers and muscle-guys on the front?
The only gay novels I've read were Anne Rice's son Christopher Rice's novels and they weren't like that. I really like them![/QUOTE]
yeah, most of those. but some other, less pornographic gay novels are like that also.
I also hate detective serials.
[QUOTE=tom9d;955420]See this is where I think it is just a matter of adjustment that will differ from person to person. When I first began Trainspotting, I definitely felt it was a blunt and in-your-face bombardment of dialect. But its a fairly long book...and nearly all of Welsh's books are written this way. I see it as an investment...it's annoying as fuck for a little while, but it's not long before it is 100% natural and you don't even realize you're thinking like the character...and if you can get through that annoying period, you get all these other great books to read with ease that, individually, would be just as frustrating to read in the beginning.
But I realize that some people might take longer to adjust, and some just don't want to have to adjust to a book.[/QUOTE]
I think what Nathaniel is trying to say is instead of writing the entire book with a dialect Welsh could have used only one person with an accent, or perhaps used accents in specific encounters/situations instead of the entire book. Granted the book is mainly narrated in a first person view and our accent does carry through inside our head.
No matter what though I think that we all agree his phonetic way of writing book makes Welsh a unique writer.
I think he could have gotten the same impact with it if maybe he just used the dialect in dialogue. maybe having it interspersed throughout the narration.
3 and 4 words in each sentence is bloody shite! Ah cannae lay!
meh, to each their own though.
He just wouldn't though. It would have been a totally different book, particularly because it's first person.
[QUOTE=monkeywright;955227]Only Revolutions was the disappointment of the year for me. I loved HOL. [/QUOTE]
It was a bit dissapointing to me, too.. the first few pages had some great passages, but as it progressed it didn't really seem to get anywhere. I could pick out a few [I]pages[/I] I really liked, but aside from that, the language became too cryptic and the plot barely moved.
four pages and nobody has mentioned The DaVinci Code.
[QUOTE=bearchaser;955455]four pages and nobody has mentioned The DaVinci Code.[/QUOTE]
Maybe because no one was stupid enough to buy it. :eek:
I instinctively stay away from books. The same reason why I never bothered watching The Passion of Christ...or Matrix 3. I just knew what was coming.
Now give me the [U]Last Temptation of Christ[/U] and I am all set. I am probably one of the few fortunate people to have read the original Greek version instead of the translation. Even though the translation is not bad at all.
I hate books that are written in english but use a lot of foreign words. Like Henry Miller's [I]Tropic of Cancer[/I], I had to stop reading that. It wasnt like whole pages were in french but it just seemed like I had to have a basic understanding of the language to understand anything, what the characters are tying to say.
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;955210]I was hoping to get something like that going with that book club secret santa thing but it didn't really pan out that way[/QUOTE]
I actually enjoyed the Secret Santa. Slackjaw was great, but never really got any kind of conversation going with the suggestion person. Oh well.
Maybe I've been lucky with the Richard and Judy thing. I bought The Historian which was rather chilling [though I never finished it because it's far too long and I'm far too busy] The Interpretation Of Murder, which was not fantastic but not unreadable.
[QUOTE=UbikRex;955477]I actually enjoyed the Secret Santa. Slackjaw was great, but never really got any kind of conversation going with the suggestion person. Oh well.[/QUOTE]
it's like all the parts were there, some liked their books some didn't, but it just never really seemed to come together.
maybe a second one will fair better
I don't think a lot of people finished their books or didn't know what to say about it after finishing it except for "I liked it." "Who reccomended this to me, cause I just wanted to say thanks." or they didn't say much at all. I don't know. Maybe people just wanted to participate in something new and then didn't care to do much afterwards when it relied on them spending several minutes describing what they thought without feeling like they were being criticized on what they had to say about it. I mean how hard is it to say, you liked a book for this and really enjoyed this bit and that or disliked how the book carried on this way?
[QUOTE=niko;955463]I instinctively stay away from books. The same reason why I never bothered watching The Passion of Christ.[/QUOTE]And the book it was adapted from needs some serious fact-checking. Decent self-improvement book, lousy textbook. 
But yeah, Last Temptation. Never read it, but what a killer flick.
[QUOTE=furleyguy;955512]And the book it was adapted from needs some serious fact-checking. Decent self-improvement book, lousy textbook.
But yeah, Last Temptation. Never read it, but what a killer flick.[/QUOTE]
The movie and the book were closely related but still the book was better. When Kazantsakis wrote it the Greek Church declared him an anathema and they no longer accepted him as a Christian. If you ask me, that along makes the book worthwhile to read.
I wonder if The Satanic Verses will ever make it to film
on the road-dreck, self important poodle fuck.
[QUOTE=morey;955532]on the road-dreck, self important poodle fuck.[/QUOTE]
you should just list the books that you actually like
it can't be more than 7 or 8
Ulysses is such a bad book. What kills me is that I have to do a study on it this entire term and on the back cover it says: "Everybody knows now that Ulysses is the greatest novel of this century." It makes me want to be part of some other century. I can't stand that quote, everyday on the train staring at that.
Two and a half days ago in class, my professor said: James Joyce is so talented he purposefully wrote this chapter badly. Purposefully made it boring. And its a masterpiece.
*What?*
[QUOTE=morey;955532]on the road-dreck, self important poodle fuck.[/QUOTE]
I agree, navel-gazing nonsense. I was so psyched up to love it but in the end I was just like...is this it?
[QUOTE=niko;955463]Maybe because no one was stupid enough to buy it. :eek:
I instinctively stay away from books. The same reason why I never bothered watching The Passion of Christ...or Matrix 3. I just knew what was coming.
Now give me the [U]Last Temptation of Christ[/U] and I am all set. I am probably one of the few fortunate people to have read the original Greek version instead of the translation. Even though the translation is not bad at all.[/QUOTE]
i'll have to disagree, the davinci code, as a book, a plot idea, a theory, etc. did not suck, especially if you're into mysteries. it was an entertaining, quick read for sure.
what sucked was the fact that dan brown plagerized.
additionally, secret santa rocked and i was really into it. my exchangee (or whatever you call it) never replied to me 
[QUOTE=niko;955395]I empathize with your need to finish a book. Honestly [U]Dracula[/U] was the first book I did not finish. After a few days I realized that I kept complaining about how crappy the book is, yet I would still read it. I read books to take me places, become things I am not, I do not read books to be frustrated, I can go to work and do that and at least make some money.[/QUOTE]
In the interest of providing an alternative viewpoint, I have to say I disagree that Dracula is a bad book. It was written 110 years ago. Of course the language and form are going to be different from those of a book written in 1993. I think in making value judgements of a book we should take into consideration how the intended audience of the book would have reacted to it--in Stoker's case, late 19th century England.
My point is, we can't dismiss a book as crap just because we have a hard time understanding it today. That's my gripe.
Hm. I still have a problem with subjective criticism. I'm trying to draw the line between subjective criticism ("I dislike something, therefore it is trash") and objective criticism which is... any ideas? (Perhaps a topic for another thread.)
By the way, yeah, I'm Brandon, joined about a month ago but my time was squandered with the rush of due projects in the final weeks of semester. Come summer time, I hope to post more, write more, review more, make more friends, etc. All right.
(And I can't think of any bad books. I very much try to avoid value judgements. I'm not confident enough in my reading ability to know whether or not I'm reliable in making such decisions...)
[QUOTE=izen;955038]agreed, i didn't make it more than 1/3 of the way through.
another good idea/book writing: Jennifer Government. i had been looking so forward to it and finally got a copy and started reading, and it reminded me of the shiite i wrote when i was sixteen trying to write books with "sweet action scenes" and anti-big-government themes.[/QUOTE]
Absolutely agreed. In fact, I'd say that everything Max Barry writes is pretty awful. He's all plot, no character. And, though the plots are conceptually interesting, he just isn't able to support those concepts with this writing. He definitely writes the sort of books that need to be movies in order to be entertaining.
[QUOTE=bearchaser;955455]four pages and nobody has mentioned The DaVinci Code.[/QUOTE]
Da Vinci Code isn't that horrible. it's not great by any means, but it's not a terrible read. i avoided that book for the longest time, and finally read it while in Iraq due to lack of anything else to read, and i have to say it was about what i expected: cookie-cutter suspense plot and mildly interesting characters, but all the "facts" and conspiracy shit was incredibly interesting. there's so much more in the book than in the movie. i can't read non-fiction very often, i get too bored, luckily a bunch of heavily researched material on secret societies and religious history came christmas wrapped in "suspense novel" fluff. kind of like a candy coating of sugar on a pill.
i had already read Angels & Demons, which was just about the same thing, so i went and read Brown's other two books, which were also the same thing.... except Deception Point, which was actually a fairly good book. nothing i'd put on a list here or run and tell all my friends about though.
[QUOTE=sphinxvc;955535]Ulysses is such a bad book. What kills me is that I have to do a study on it this entire term and on the back cover it says: "Everybody knows now that Ulysses is the greatest novel of this century." It makes me want to be part of some other century. I can't stand that quote, everyday on the train staring at that.
Two and a half days ago in class, my professor said: James Joyce is so talented he purposefully wrote this chapter badly. Purposefully made it boring. And its a masterpiece.
*What?*[/QUOTE]
Thank god someone else thinks this aswell!! It's only liked my pretencious people, who think that just because they have read it, it makes them some kind of interlectual.....errr no.
The thing which makes me laugh the most about the Da Vinci Code, is that Dan Brown puts that pretencious statement about things being based on fact and then all the therioes get disproven by Tony Robbinson who also played Baldrick in Black Adder!! 
[QUOTE=niko;955223]
Another book I really did not like and never finished reading was Bram Stoker's [U]Dracula[/U]. The plot is quite good however the style of writting was really hard for me to follow. I felt like I was reading a blogger's diary. As a reader I like imersing myself in the book, become the hero, the anti-hero, reading a book that is written like a diary/letter was pushing me away. It was a constant reminder that I am not part of the story.[/QUOTE]
I hated Dracula as well, but for the most part, i feel that if i start a book, i must finish it, even if i just wanna quit and burn the book straight to hell. i totally couldn't connect with the characters. the entire book seemed like a play about drag queens or whatever. Everything was over-the-top and dracula himself wasn't even scary. huge disappointment from my view and tremendously over-hyped book. Dracula may be a classic, but it's a shitty classic.
A modern classic would be Dopefiend by Donald Goines. A must read for any true-to-life story reader. Highly recommend the book