Agreed, Childers has a perplexing history. After getting involved on the side of Irish rebels, some compatriots mistrusted him as a potential spy for the Brits (he was referred to as “that bloody Englishman”) and he eventually was executed for the offense of owning a gun. Then his son (also named Erskine Childers) later became President of Ireland.
Quite a family.
I think it was Isaac Asimov who said it was an unimaginative mind that could think of just one way to spell a word.
I love The Riddle of the Sands and have re-read it often; though I have some sailing background from childhood, I definitely don’t qualify as an “avid weekend sailor”.
Just goes to show, as I said, that trying to categorize classic works that we don’t personally happen to like as objectively “bad”, much less “worst”, tends to say more about us than about the works themselves.
Wrong: the (supposed pseudonym of the) narrator is Carruthers. The experienced sailor “alpha guy” is (pseudonymically) called Davies.
Also agree. The only Shakespeare plays I enjoy reading are ones I’ve seen played; I have a sense of the line readings, and what’s going on.
I don’t think that’s all that controversial an idea, really. After all, Shakespeare’s dramas are plays; he wrote them to be acted on a stage.
I love Shakespeare, but I dislike the cult around him that says he was a Very Serious Author and must be approached with proper gravitas. He was an entertainer, who knew his living depended on getting butts in seats. If he were alive and working today, he’d be a screenwriter. The fact that he managed to produce amazing literature while doing this is a testament to his genius.
Thanks ! I liked my theory, so wanted it to be right; but, one learns, it wasn’t !
Note that the poster’s actual words were that when he/she finally saw the move, “my only burning question **going in **” was why a sled was a plot point. The burning questions after watching might have been different. There’s no indication that the poster didn’t understand the movie.
For what it’s worth I’ve never seen the film myself, and know only two things about it: that it’s about William Randolph Hearst, and that “Rosebud was the name of his sled.” So I would have had the same “burning question” going in. I expect that’s true of a lot of us who were immersed in Peanuts, but not “classic” movies, as kids.
Carla did the same thing to someone on Cheers!
Kewl. |3u+ //4z |-|3 L337?
Absolutely. I got about two-thirds through it and the only strong memory I have of the story is “This Moriarty guy is a complete prick”.
Not really a ‘classic’, but Mein Kampf was absolutely un-readable crap.
@Gatopescado, re your opinion of Mein Kampf – I gather that many convinced Nazis felt exactly that way about the book – though they’d have died rather than admit it.
In freshman year in college, I had to read The Death of Artemio Cruz, by Carlos Fuentes. It isn’t a classic novel, but it was definitely the hardest slog I had encountered to that point. Even though it has quite a bit of violence and sex, it seemed to go nowhere.
Surprisingly, I kept the book and then read it again 40 years later, finding it much better.
Aside from “A Christmas Carol” I could never “get into” Charles Dickens, AT ALL.
Lolita My professor was some kind of Nabokov expert, so he was enthusiastic about this book, but I hated it. The writing is bombastic and over the top, and I couldn’t get past the fact that the central character is a pedophile.
im told by literary people that Lolita is considered something of a practical joke in book form these days
since the authors stated intent pretty much was " lets make a beautiful book with great writing … with what would be the worst subject in the world and see what happens ……. "
Another book is 1984 sure the premise is chilling (and admittedly true in parts) but the book its self is illogical and you don’t really care about the characters …. but a lot of it is impossible even today……
Nabokov reportedly wrote the novel about what appeared to be incredibly salacious material, he said, in order to lure the unwary in, but delivered a blistering critique of American culture with negligible sex content.