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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy



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  		   Posted 12/1/2007 10:55 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Ahhh, Daniel. Do not assume that those who hold Rand in distain are incapable of understanding her. I do, thoroughly. I have spoken more than once with Leonard Peikoff, and walked the midnight streets of London debating with Andrew Bernstein. I have several times broken bread with Yaron Brook and his lovely wife. I know a great deal of Objectivism and find it souless, mechanical and selfish, even though these modern leaders of the movement are charming and personable.
Rand was a decent novelist, though too in love with her own voice

***

Impressive, Michael and a well-stated post.

Rand *was* a decent novelist. Bogged down in too much dogma and self-righteousness, but she did well as a novelist overall.

I agree with Darkbow's post: I wish she had put as much time in on writing as crusading. The novels are very good but suffer from bloatedness and irrational scene-construction sometimes.

"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."

Daniel

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humboldthny
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  		   Posted 12/2/2007 2:35 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
The worst book that I've read was Heart of Darkness...mainly it stands out in memory because it was assigned as required reading the last 2 weeks of my senior year in H.S. - so possibly it was just the timing and not the book - but this many years down the road I'm not willing to pick it up again and find out.

The worst book that I've never read was Message in a Bottle by Sparks - 3 pages in and I was ready to scoop my eyes out with a spoon. I should have known better but I was desperate for something to read.
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ScrewMoonshine
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  		   Posted 12/2/2007 1:47 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
humboldthny said...
The worst book that I've read was Heart of Darkness...mainly it stands out in memory because it was assigned as required reading the last 2 weeks of my senior year in H.S. - so possibly it was just the timing and not the book - but this many years down the road I'm not willing to pick it up again and find out.


I read that one just recently. It's a fascinating book, and blessedly short, but definitely not a good choice for high school required reading.

Robert Orme

Out now:
"Time in a Capsule" in Unparalleled Journeys II (www.journeybookspublishing.com/)
"On the Tree Top" in Ultraverse vol.3 #5 (www.ultraverse.us)
"The Scab, the Man, and the I.V." in Mount Zion Speculative Fiction Review #3 (www.mountzionpress.com)

Coming soon:
"Replacing Someone" in Aoife's Kiss #26, September 2008 (http://samsdotpublishing.com/aoife/main.htm)
"More Than One Way to Protect" in Lords of Justice (www.carnifexpress.net/blogs/)

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Despiciblus
Neophyte

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  		   Posted 12/2/2007 4:54 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
The worst book I’ve ever read has to be Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear. The book is racist (a blond, blue-eyed heroine helps the dimwitted, dark Neanderthals), and badly written. Also, according to a few anthropologists I’ve spoken to, Auel’s stinker is responsible for popularizing some really bad science. I haven’t read any of the sequels, but I’m told they’re worse.

Finally, I think I must be a nut job because I like James Joyce, and I’ve read Conrad’s Heart of Darkness a half dozen times. On purpose!
freaked
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Bill Ward
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  		   Posted 12/2/2007 9:01 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Not at all, Heart of Darkness is brilliant, a classic. As humboldthny suggests it was possibly the circumstances and not the book that soured it: I hope he gives it another chance.

I stopped reading Clan of the Cave Bear after thirty pages or so, I thought it was badly written also (or poorly translated?) and I remember some goofy bit about racial memory popping up to really turn me off. Its ok in SF, but I was expecting something more akin to anthropology than fantasy.

billwardwriter.com

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humboldthny
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  		   Posted 12/2/2007 10:46 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Bill Ward said...
Not at all, Heart of Darkness is brilliant, a classic. As humboldthny suggests it was possibly the circumstances and not the book that soured it: I hope he gives it another chance.


I'm a she..... smilewinkgrin

I may someday....just too much other stuff I'd like to read at the moment. I'm not in classics mode right now :-)
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Bill Ward
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  		   Posted 12/3/2007 12:14 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Then consider that a typo ma'am :-)

Best to read it when you are in the mood for that sort of thing, which is exactly why high school assigned reading can be the worst way to be introduced to a book (though not always).

billwardwriter.com

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Jordan Lapp
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  		   Posted 12/3/2007 4:20 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
I loved Heart of Darkness also, but I agree that it may be a little too advanced for High School.

Believe it or not, it helped that I'd watched Apocalypse Now, as I knew that the confrontation with Kurtz would be an interesting climax.

Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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nathan
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  		   Posted 12/5/2007 9:08 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
liked it. I often find myself in agreement with Bill W--to a shocking degree. He just seems so hip and smart when I find his opinions corespond with mine.

Love Heart of Darkness--but damn how is any but an insightful reader suppossed to get through in HS with such dramatic changes in languge these days.

VIEW IMAGE
"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
 
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages."

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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy



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  		   Posted 12/6/2007 11:04 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
The worst book I’ve ever read has to be Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear.

***

An insidiously bad novel, I agree. There are scenes in that novel (other than the sex scenes) which are so embarassing, I don't know who should be more ashamed, the author or poor fools like me who read the dang thing.

"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."

Daniel

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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy



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  		   Posted 12/6/2007 11:06 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
I was expecting something more akin to anthropology than fantasy.


***

Try "Quest for Fire" -- a really good prehistoric-age novel. Even in translation.

"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."

Daniel

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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy



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  		   Posted 12/6/2007 11:09 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Here's another really bad novel "Sleepers" by Lorenzo Carcaterra. Someone recommended this book to me and I read it, but really wish I hadn't. It is so exploitative and "mean" in its portrayal of child-abuse and revenge, a real turn-off and it sticks in your head the way bad fast-food sticks in your guts.

I need a brain-flush to get novels like this and nearly everything I've ever seen on television right out of my head.

"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."

Daniel

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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy



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  		   Posted 12/6/2007 11:12 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
And one more bad novel for the gallery! "Lucky Jim" by Kingsley Amis. I was assigned this novel in college and found it turgid, pompous, sexist, and racist -- you know things I usually gravitate right toward.

LOL

Kingsley Amis is a snore. His son, Martin, I really like his novels. Time's Arrow, Money, Success. All 3 of these I'd call brilliant.

"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."

Daniel

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RoberII
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  		   Posted 5/12/2008 6:51 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Noone mentioned Eragon?

I do! Eragon! How did that book ever get published, much less turned into an (equally bad) movie?
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ScrewMoonshine
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  		   Posted 5/13/2008 4:24 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
It was basically self-published, wasn't it?

Robert Orme

Out now:
"More Than One Way to Protect" in Lords of Justice (www.carnifexpress.net/)
"Time in a Capsule" in Unparalleled Journeys II (www.journeybookspublishing.com/)
"On the Tree Top" in Ultraverse vol.3 #5 (www.ultraverse.us)
"The Scab, the Man, and the I.V." in Mount Zion Speculative Fiction Review #3 (www.mountzionpress.com)

Coming soon:
"Replacing Someone" in Aoife's Kiss #26, September 2008 (http://samsdotpublishing.com/aoife/main.htm)

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crystalwizard
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  		   Posted 5/14/2008 5:41 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
ScrewMoonshine said...
It was basically self-published, wasn't it?

Robert Orme


Not really. The kid's parents published it and they own a publishing company so that's a pretty far cry from what most people mean when they say 'self-published'.
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Xenophon Hendrix
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  		   Posted 5/23/2008 12:13 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
The worst book I actually finished was Hart's Hope by Orson Scott Card. I thought much of the behavior of the characters was contrary to human nature and that the incidents in the book were revolting.

Somewhere on Card's blog he says that he thinks it's his best book.

Magician's Merger

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