Author hated most
- ParadiseLost19
- Posts: 27
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Re: Author hated most
- Nathrad Sheare
- Posts: 900
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- Favorite Book: The Scarlet Letter
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- Latest Review: "No Poverty Between the Sheets" by Pauline Kiely
-Edgar Allan Poe
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- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-lysithian.html
- Hearty Guy
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I would be inclined to agree with you, although I have never read this book. I wouldn't doubt that many actual pedophiles are sufficiently genius in some way, just as this writer acclaimed for marvelous feats in English bordering on genius may be, but that doesn't make the fictional character any more palatable than a flesh and blood parallel. I can see where, if you despise the characters in the book, even the wonderful writer and author of it will be tainted. Couldn't he have spent his enormous talent bringing attention to something less sordid?You wrote: "I can. In fact, I could give you two, but that wouldn't be answering the question properly, so let's go with Vladimir Nabokov. Why? Read Lolita. I'm an impecunious twenty-something with a grudge against dirty old men.
Just as bad news/trash news sells newspapers and magazines, so too do sorted topics sell books.
- Nathrad Sheare
- Posts: 900
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- Latest Review: "No Poverty Between the Sheets" by Pauline Kiely
-Edgar Allan Poe
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- kirknicola
- Posts: 9
- Joined: 15 Jan 2014, 09:15
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The repetitive thoughts in Bella's head that went on for pages and pages and pages in New Moon - the only book that I have ever given up halfway through and popped into recycling - were also painfully boring, long and slow - but clearly that's because I'm not the intended target audience.
There were moments of excitement that quickly popped up, half explored and quickly dismissed. I think the pacing was off. And yet, it was so popular that it went onto unimaginable success.
I know Stephanie Meyers's, Sookie Stackhouse series was a little uneven, but I think at least the characters were more plausible within the fantasy element, and they were grown ups with interesting backstories which gave a lot more scope for the stories.
I'm a sucker for stories. I'm not mad about reading thousands of frilly words before finding out what something's about. I love reading about real people, thoughts, decisions, dilemmas ... that's why I loved the Harry Potter world. Sure the books could have been written about the school, or another character ... but the decision that every writer takes at the beginning of a book is, "How am I going to tell this story?" and I think JK Rowling made a great decision that paid off.
- Alderica
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- Posts: 12
- Joined: 17 Jan 2014, 00:38
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- Alderica
- Posts: 9
- Joined: 16 Jan 2014, 16:58
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I've no objection to Emily Bronte, but I didn't enjoy Wuthering Heights either. Glad it isn't just meuab_blazer wrote:I can count on one hand the books I have tried to read and absolutely hated. At the top of the list is Wuthering Heights, so I have to go with Emily Brontë.
- H0LD0Nthere
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Lysithian, I don't know whether to laugh or cry with you over that. I, too would have been devastated if anyone, especially a teacher, yelled that at me. But seeing it in print, it is such a funny quote. More for what it tells us about the speaker than anything else. That is truly the attitude in your typical college. If you don't like this horrible thing I am forcing down your throat, that proves you are a narrow-minded prude ... but I digress.Lysithian wrote:Disliked Steinbeck. And that book I read in college that was so traumatic that I've totally forgotten the author! But I remember what the old teacher shouted at me when I couldn't answer a question about the book . . . YOU LIVE IN YOUR OWN LITTLE WORLD! AND YOU LIKE IT THERE!!! For a shy girl that was devastating!
-- 21 Jan 2014, 23:45 --
Mouseofcards, I am with you on that. That is why, while I might not hate him, I would not want to be in a room with Ken Follett. I've read two of his books, and each of them describes the mental landscape of a serial rapist in a way that is just a little too sympathetic for my comfort.mouseofcards89 wrote:I can. In fact, I could give you two, but that wouldn't be answering the question properly, so let's go with Vladimir Nabokov. Why? Read Lolita. I'm an impecunious twenty-something with a grudge against dirty old men.Bergamot wrote:Strange topic? I couldn't 'hate' an author, I'm sure each and every book has some pearls of wisdom in it.
- jamespoet
- Posts: 129
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- Latest Review: "Laikanist Times" by Dylan Malik Orchard
-- 27 Mar 2014, 13:30 --
The more I think about the issue as I worded it, the more I think about writers I don't particularly care for in regards to their entire work, John Updike came to mind suddenly. I can read through his short stories without getting too irritated most of the time, but his novels come off as pretentious and bratty--Updike's characters are very much like himself, New Englanders who are upper middle-class and of the WASP society, with exestential problems of depression without reason as opposed to real-world problems of grown up people.jamespoet wrote:I can't think of a writer at the moment who I particularly dislike based on the whole of their work or their personality, but one book I don't think is as good as it's cracked up to be is THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy. The story itself is well plotted, and the father and son work very well as characters, but his strange choice in punctuation--or lack thereof, rather--just kept reminding me that I wa reading rather than going into their world, and that irked me. I personally think that McCarthy's Border trilogy is better, beginning with ALL THE PRETTY HORSES.
It was as if the men and women in his books were high school students who never got out of their mentality. Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with high school kids, or am I trying to undermind the reality of their problems as they see them. But usually they grow up, graduate school, get jobs and college training, and they add some perspective to their problems and they realize that their ideas on love and interpersonal relationships must change.
Updike's characters, many of whom seem to be aged 35 and up, don't have any added perspective, and their ideas on love and relationships don't change, not in the abstract at least.
So with this in mind, I still say that I don't particularly hate an author, and I don't really hate John Updike. But out of the group of novelists who've won the Pulitzer, Updike seems one of the more confusing to me. If you look to William Faulkner, for instance, he had some more weighty, real world issues, such as religion and race and politics, that go well beyond the exestential problems of well-to-do men and women having to go to marriage counseling for Bill's low sex drive and Jeanie's midlife crisis. For me, it's not relatable, and it's too safe.
- sugarcherie
- Posts: 6
- Joined: 20 Feb 2014, 17:32
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- Posts: 11
- Joined: 10 Apr 2014, 14:32
- Bookshelf Size: 0
Partially for the poor quality of his writing. Partially due to the offensive, heavy-handed religious message of Shadowmancer (embrace Christianity because all who don't are Pagans who are going to Hell). Mostly because he always comes across as an arrogant and closed minded individual whenever he is interviewed.
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