Burroughs reminds me a lot of Gore Vidal in his writing, and I don’t mean that in a good way. Generally I think Vidal writes brilliant essays [whether I agree with them or not they’re usually well done] but I rarely care for his novels because they never seem real- it’s how I would imagine Sheldon from Big Bang Theory would portray characters and emotions if Sheldon had to write a novel for some reason- an outsider looking in.
I basically think all memoirs- at least the good ones- are basically autobiographical novels. Not even Abraham Lincoln or Amelia Earhart could write a memoir that was 100% true and not have lots of slow moments, and I think there’s a certain amount of embellishment that is not only fine but doesn’t even compromise the truth value. Sewing two or three events together in interest of narrative and time for example, or using dialogue to provide exposition and at the same time establish the character (nobody actually remembers word for word conversations from 25 years before) I see as fair as long as you have a disclaimer to that effect, and from my own writing and experiences I know that the stuff people usually call “Bullshit” are usually the least embellished. That said, I was calling “Bullshit” all the way through RUNNING WITH SCISSORS.
We trashed it at bookclub for the same reasons, then decided that since we’d all read Flowers in the Attic at the Twilight age that perhaps we shouldn’t throw stones at glass houses.
I tried to read it once - I even inherited among a mass of history books a nifty pre-WW2 copy in English - and it was boring beyond belief.
I was hoping for entertaining kill-'em-all style ranting. What I got was emo style whining. How on earth is this book considered “dangerous”, even to this day? It’s only dangerous because it could bore you to death.
Terry Brooks “Sword of Shannarra” - the ultimate Tolkien rip-off; unimaginative, poorly written in itself. Yet it sold tons and set up its author to grind out lots more. ugh. I can feel my blood pressure going up just thinking about it.
Deep End of the Ocean - oh man. It was a “throw across the room” bad book. I only read the whole thing because I was on vacation with nothing left to read. Has a completely unbelievable plot twist about 2/3 the way through, which should have been the end of the book. The book then inexplicably slogs on for another 100 pages and gets more and more pointless. I left it at my parents’ house when I was done and my mom read it and screamed “WHY DID YOU LEAVE THAT TERRIBLE BOOK HERE?!”
Runner up: Catcher in the Rye. Good call.
I have to say John Grisham is really hit or miss for some reason, but nothing he’s written would go in this category I wouldn’t think (though The Client was pretty damn bad.) I had to chuckle because when I read his A Painted House I was thinking: "This is just like a corny Oprah book…it’s almost as if he said: ‘Pfft, anyone can knock out one of those damn Oprah books’ and when I finished it I went “Hee hee. I see what you did there.”
Can I get a vote in for “The Lovely Bones” – wait, is it Lovely or Lonely? – that Alice Sebold thing, whatever it’s title. That made me want to bathe in lye, bleach my eyeballs and gargle with Lysol.
I wanted to track Nick Hornsby down and stab him in the face after reading the first third of that book. The main character was the whiniest, lamest, dumbest excuse for a character in any book ever. “Oh, hot ladies like me but they don’t understand me and my love for music proves that I’m special and waaaaaahhhhh!” Seriously, face stabbing was imminent.
I’d put Sword of Shannara ahead of Lord of the Rings as far as writing goes tbh - it’s sort of the anti LotR in some respects. Highly derivative, no creativity in world building, insubstantial but written in a competent, breezy fashion by a workmanlike writer - decent characterisation, pacing etc. LotR is a towering edifice of achievement and influence in many ways, but the good professor couldn’t write his way out of a wet paper bag.
Samuel Delany’s *Dhalgren *was a bestseller in the 70s, though I guess few would read it now. I’ve posted before on what a headscratcher this is - really dense and marginal book to hit the bestsellers list. I like it because I’m a big admirer of Delany, but it is massively flawed and self-indulgent.
Nabakov’s* Pale fire* wouldn’t be a popular book that’s widely read, but it is well known as a literary work. I’ve seldom picked up something so revered and been so disappointed. Confused even - just thought it was ham-fisted antisatirical garbage. Happy to concede that I’ve missed the point and need to read it again, because it is praised to the skies and I couldn’t see any quality there whatsoever.
Someone gave me the sequel to The Bridges of Madison County as a graduation gift, and I read it to be a good sport. I remember nothing about it, not even the title, so I think my brain is protecting me. But I think it was just 100+ pages of the main characters pining for each other.
Can we do non-fiction? My feelings about Hawking’s book for the general public are in this [post=10608325]post[/post]. Sold a zillion copies, and almost nobody understood it. Because Hawking is a bad writer.
I will second The Kite Runner. I didn’t hate it, but I felt that it had some major problems - namely, that the villain was like a cardboard cutout of a bad guy. He seemed to have no reason for his behavior other than that it was evil muwahahahaha.
I am a huge fan of Salman Rushdie, but I will say that The Satanic Verses is one of my least favorite of his books. (I also didn’t like The Ground Beneath Her Feet too much.) I seriously have no fucking idea what he was trying to say a lot of the time.
I found Running With Scissors annoying.
I liked The Lovely Bones and Memoirs of a Geisha (much to my surprise), though.
While I liked the general story, I didn’t think Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was very good. It featured various voices but they all sounded the same. Didn’t she write it in a weekend or something?
