What books have you found to be utterly loathsome? Not necessarily famous books that you’re supposed to like, either.
I’ll have to think about this one a bit, but for starters I’ll nominate Alice Walker’s Warrior Marks. Never have I been so frightened by self-absorbed navel gazing. Oh no! Alice Walker saw a clitoridectomy ritual on her birthday, and she was so upset that she had to call her boyfriend long distance! Poor Alice- how dare the male supremacist patriarchy schedule a clitoridectomy on her birthday! Let’s read all about her spoiled birthday for ten pages!
Finnish wrestler Tony Halme wrote a book called “Tuomiopäivä” or “Doomsday”, which is a 200-page rant composed of tripe, mainly against immigrants, (who Halme calls, among other things, baboons, Bingo-Bango’s and snakes) gays, leftist politicians and anyone else who doesn’t catch his right-wing fancy. And the worst part is that he’s trying for the parliament (election’s at March) and likely will get elected. I fear for the nation.
L. Ron Hubbard’s Mission Earth series. I know, I know, I mention these books whenever a “bad books” thread pops up, and you’re probably all sick of hearing it, but DAMMIT! I’m on a personal crusade to prevent anyone from ever reading them again! You’d thank me if you knew.
Zombie, by Joyce Carol Oates. The narrator Quentin is a serial killer who we watch commit evil, loathsome acts until we are eager for his comeuppance, which never comes. He is wearing a trophy from his latest and most horrifying murder when the book ends. I wished I’d never read it.
I am the Cheese. (I can’t remember the author, but the same guy wrote The Chocolate War) Come to think of it, I may have hated that book so much because I read it in ninth grade honors English class. The teacher decided that I was a good reader, and we read outloud all class (which basically meant I read out loud all class). Reading a book outloud for an hour and a half while the rest of the class falls asleep would put anybody off a book. Also, the teacher himself didn’t even understand the book, and class discussions were limited to those started by either me or my friend.
Another much-hated book was Flatland. We read that one in eighth grade geometry. It’s about a two-dimensional shape that travels to pointland (zero-dimensions), line-land (1 dimension), lives in Flatland (two dimensions) and travels to a three dimensional world.
Christ… I listened to abridged versions of a couple of those on book-on-tape. (My small-town library’s selection was limited, and I desperately needed something for a long drive.)
I classify them, along with XXX, in the “written by a 13 year old boy, for 13 year old boys” file. Let’s recap, shall we?
The villain, like something out of a Jack Chick comic but instead of an atheist, he’s a Freudian psychologist, gets kidnapped by lesbians who use him in horrible ways which apparently we’re supposed to find titillating. Then the vaguely gay (or at least fey) cellologist reconstructs his penis, but now it’s abnormally large. Thus the bad guy is strapped to a gurney while the cellologists’ petite nurse (who is, naturally, Asian) rapes the bad guy, because she finds his new penis irresistible.
Hoo boy. Jesus? Buddha? Bollocks! Sign me up for Scientology. I just can’t wait to become as well-adjusted as L. Ron Hubbard.
Cripes. Your kidding, right? See, Smeghead your crusade has helped. And Ben with your book review I’ll know to stay away from that section of the bookstore. What kinda person writes stuff like that? On second thought I don’t want to know.
I read The Turner Diaries almost seven years ago to find out what had motivated McVeigh, and I am still ashamed of finishing that piece of trash instead of shoving it down the garbage disposal.
Harris has never been a very good author, but has been overrated because his books were turned into a few pretty good movies. “Hannibal” was the absolute nadir of his so-called career - a 350-page gross-out with not a single realistic character or scene to be had. Every scene in “Hannibal” was either over-the-top disgusting or laughably ridiculous.
I’ll second **Hannibal[/B}. I think Harris tired of all this “fame”, and decided to become infamous instead. He finished “Hannibal” cause it was a contractual obligation. And I waited 10 years for it. Ugh.
I hit submit too early. I wanted to add The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy. For a few chapters I thought it was just revelling in violence and misery but I could still respect it as a plot-driven mystery story. By the end I just wondered what the hell was the point, and that made all the disgusting stuff seem more disgusting.