I’m not sure if this goes here, or IMHO, or Cafe Society, so I’ll stick it here. If this is the wrong place, the mods can move it as they see fit.
Anyway, I have two books that are the worst I’ve read for school. Brave New World, which I read in 8th grade. I couldn’t make head nor tails out of this mess. Just didn’t appeal to me. The second is what I’m reading for AP English now, Ethan Frome. My God, this book is terrible. It’s dark and depressing. It takes place in Snowyhellhole, Massachusetts, and involves a tale of “forbidden love”, according to the blurb on the back. “Forbidden love” is a phrase I look for in books, so I know the avoid them like the plague. The only good thing I can say about this book is that it’s short.
So, what’s the worst thing you’ve read for school?
Had to read Ethan Frome, but don’t remember any of it.
When I was 10 I was in an accelerated program and they had me read Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield - way, way too long, and written in mid-19th century flowery prose. I’ve never been able to read Dickens since, even though many people whom I respect sing his praises.
Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. I was in an advanced English class, and we all offered to take zeros for the semester rather than have to plough through one more page of Dreiser.
As Mrs. Parker once said,
“Theodore Dreiser
Should ought to write nicer.”
Sorry, Mooney, but The Turn of the Screw was the worst one. Ugh.
That was the one forced reading that sticks with me as worst book ever inflicted upon students. And we spent almost half the semester on the wretched thing.
The Fixer, by Bernard Malamud. I inherited a high school English class at the last minute and had to read AND teach it. I like both Brave New World and Ethan Frome. For real fun, there’s Daniel Deronda or Romola, though I would kill any little girl as syrupy as those who pop up in Eliot. I don’t mind most fiction–it’s poorly written textbooks, or inaccurate textbooks, that bug me.
The Man With The Golden Gun, what’s not to like about Brave New World?
The worst one, by far, was an Academic Decathlon selection from the early 90s: “Dhalgren.” The topic area was science fiction, and they managed to pick the single worst, most-over-rated, incomprehensible book ever written. All because it was PC to have a novel by a black author. Well, Chip Delany can’t write! With the wealth of GREAT SF out there, they picked this tripe.
Bambi in about grade 4… I mean, who knew that there even was such a book?
The whole class nearly revolted, realizing we were being seriously condescended to. Didn’t make any difference though. We still had to read it.
On my list are Tale of Two Cities, Pride and Prejudice, The Old Man and the Sea.
I also have bad memories of Huck Finn but that’s mostly because I couldn’t read a page without getting music from the show “Big River” stuck in my head.
Frankenstein–wouldn’t have been too bad, except the characters would declaim at each other for pages. One character would speak for five and then the person he was talking to would speak for five. And then…well, 30 pages later, the conversation was done and I was ready to kill someone, preferably Ms. Shelly. Argh. Woman needed an editor.
I hated Ethan Frome as well when I had to read it in high school. Then again, I hated most everything in that American lit class, and loved most of the selections in our British lit class. The fact that they were taught by the same instructor confuses me even more.
