Sometimes I enjoy reading crappy novels. Maybe it is the suffering through it that makes it worthwhile. One of my favorite bad books is Austin Wright’s, Tony and Susan. Other (dis)honorable mentions would be Evan Hunter’s ,Love, Dad and The Boy’s in the Mail Room, by Iris Rainer Dart.
So, Dopers, what novels do you read that suck worse than an Electrolux?
Feel free to comment how great the novels I mentioned were, heh heh
Sgt Schwartz
The Curse of Clifton by Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth. This was a novel by the most successful of 19th century American novelists. It was one of her many sentimental novels of the time, and dates badly, relying on improbably coincidences and other issues.
For instance, one of the subplots involves the hero’s best man meeting the hero’s bride’s sister while preparing for the wedding (I’ll call them John and Emily). They realize they’re in love.
Emily says (paraphrased), “too bad we can’t get married right now.”
John says, “Well, it just happens that I have an extra copy of the marriage license, signed and everything. The name of the bride and groom were left blank because I wasn’t sure how they wanted their names listed. But, of course, we’ll need a minister.”
Emily says, “See that hut down there? It’s owned by a minister who quit his ministry, but he’s still ordained. We can get married there.”
So they marry. A half hour later, John (a cavalry officer) is called back to fight the Indians. He is quickly reported dead.
Six month later, Emily is pregnant. Her family casts her out, and she is forced to take up the most degrading profession a woman might find herself in.
Yes, she becomes . . . an actress!
(And in case you’re shedding a tear over John’s death, it turns out it was a false report.)
The book was just plain terrible – and a hell of a lot of fun to read. Bonus: you can’t really appreciate Moby Dick if you haven’t read Southworth.
Thank you, Reality Chuck, that was what I was looking for. I forgot to add what makes my picks so bad. Tony and Susan, because the novel within the novel is read for you. Wright tells the reader what he/she should be thinking at the close of almost every chapter.
Susan is the ex-wife of a writer who sends her a copy of his manuscript called Nocturnal Animals. As she is reading the story, the reader reads it also and gets her reaction to the story. Noctural Animals would have been a good novel–a college professor’s family is kidnapped and killed and Tony Hastings, the protangonist, must figure out what to do about it. The story within the story doesn’t work.
SGT Schwartz
As I was reading Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher, I kept telling myself “Self, this is a stinker when compared to King’s best stuff.” And yet I kept reading, and I confess that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. In fact, I read it a second time. Something about this rather crappy novel really grabbed me.
However, I didn’t feel the same way about the rather more crappy movie version.
B…B…Bat…Battlefield Earth! sobs
Where the Heart Is. Unlike Starship Troopers, I cannot claim that it is better than the movie. It’s not. It is the same heartsick schlocky dreck that ran throughout the movie.
Yet, here we are.
Xenu help me, I was going to mention that. Perhaps we should start a support group. I join you in sobbing.
Tarzan of the Apes. In fact, Edgar Rice Burroughs in general- I have all of the Tarzan and John Carter of Mars books, and reread them regulary.
Come to think of it, I also love H. P. Lovecraft, whose writing… isn’t his best quality.
I love the works of Elinor Glyn, who was the Danielle Steele of 1900-30 (on the other hand, I would put my eyes out before reading Danielle Steele!). Her best-known works (and they’re both enjoyably awful) are It and Three Weeks, the latter of which is about a mysterious foreign princess whose lips are red, Red, RED!
I read Cussler and Clancy. I win!
Jay McInerney, both *Bright Lights, Big City * and Story of My Life.
Also, I feel that listing Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections, would not be out of place here.
These books did get some critical acclaim, but obviously also a lot of pans. Although I enjoyed the books at the time, I’m beginning to feel the critics were right. As they pointed out, there are no likable characters in The Corrections. Maybe there should be at least one likable character per book?
A virtual libation to the Doper that can help me come up with the name of this book and the author…
A sweeping epic romance kind of thing, with a large chunk of the plot revolving around the filming of an adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” at the family estate of one of the main female characters, Francine. The other main female character in the novel, with her stunning turquoise eyes, played Cathy in the movie, and the central male character, Victor, who was, of course, in love not with the one who played Cathy but with Francine, played Heathcliffe in the movie.
Glamorous settings, shifting alliances, dramatic irony, and a totally cheesy ending, where the character who played Cathy (and had screwed just about everyone else in the book, figuratively or literally) is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.
I can’t remember if Victor and Francine ended up together or not…
I read Jean Auel. Yeah, the Earth’s Children books. Those. She’s written five, I’ve read five. When she’s done with the sixth, I’ll read it. God help me.
Oh yeah, that was easy—***Horton Hears a Hoo * ** by Dr Seuss
Sgt Schwartz
Heathcliffe is a bad, bad man.
Victor plays him, best he can.
I do not like the bad, bad man.
I do not like Heathcliffe, by damn!
I think you’re right!
How enthralling. I must find a copy.
But why didn’t Emily whip out a copy of the marriage certificate when her family started questioning her honour?
Ha! I think I’ve got all of you trumped, with… [trumpets issuing rude-sounding raspberry blurts]…
Flowers In the Attic (and at least one of the sequels; I don’t remember how far along I got in the series) – V.C. Andrews
You wanna know what’s really funny? I gobbled up this crap when I was in junior high school and was desperate to learn about sex. From novels about incest between a teenage girl and her older brother [Christopher, riiight?] who were kept locked up in their grandmother’s attic for years and who not only go Adam & Eve with each other, but must perforce become surrogate parents to their younger sibs. IIRC, several children are born of this union, and maybe even from the younger sibs’ pairing off in later years (and installments).
[shakes head in disbelief]
Sigh.
E.E. “Doc” Smith’s “Classic” Lensman series. Truly appalling writing. He ran out of synonyms for BIG by about page 7, and thereafter was reduced to capitalising, and then to creating whole sentences, and then whole paragraphs, as synonyms for the one word.
Then there is the lurid soft-porn of the women nuding-up on strange Amazon planets. And who can forget Qadgop the Mercotan? The politics of the whole thing is hopelessly unrealistic. And IIRC, one whole volume (Triplanetary, perhaps?) seems to be devoted to Doc bitching and moaning about his own treatment in WW2.
And yet it all still makes me smile. Guilty pleasures. Who doesn’t love 'em?
Damn, I came in here to mention those. Not only do I read them, but I re-read them. Rather frequently. I’m at the Losadunai part of Plains of Passage as we speak. I’ve read them enough that I now skip the descriptions of the landscape and the porn scenes to get to the parts I like. 
Nope, you don’t recall correctly. She has kids, but not by her brother, although they raise them together. And both their younger siblings die very young to boot.
As I read the title of this thread, my only thought was “Surely the worst thing I’ve read and enjoyed was something by VC Andrews.” 
I couldn’t pick just one of her series, though!