Astrophysics Like Melville

[mrissa]

Quote of the evening: "And there wasn't even any nifty astrophysics like there would have been if Melville had written it." -- timprov

No, this was not a complaint at the book club discussion of Tam Lin. In the car on the way up, we were discussing the worst books we've read. So I have questions for you: what's the worst book you were ever forced to read in school? And what's the worst book you ever read on your own? (For my purposes, "on your own" includes "my best friend/grandmother/other important person wanted to discuss it.")

Comments

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Worst book in school? I assume you mean fiction, because otherwise it was Mintz's Sweetness and Power, in which it takes a book to make the points of a ten-page essay.

Worst book in school... you know, heretical as it is, I found Oliver Twist to be just awful. Everything was so contrived and sensationalized, which I realize was Dickens doing his job, but please. Stop. Making. Me. Read. It. (was all I could think). I think anything else I wouldn't have otherwise enjoyed was made up for by good teaching, like all the Faulkner. I quite liked Faulkner after Killer Miller got through explaining him. Oh, and Jude the Obscure. There was nothing in that story that mitigated the unrelenting depression of Jude's life.

Worst book on my own: The Scarlet Letter. I say that, and not any of the myriad of romance novels which have been far, far worse, because I expected more out of it. A lot more. A book devoid of any redeeming emotion, that cannot be read for pleasure on any level, in my view.

I may be answering this wrong.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't know how you could answer this wrong, Mer, although I don't mean to exclude nonfiction if it's the kind you sit down and read.

I can't stand Hardy or Dickens, and I don't find that heretical at all. Also, there is an F-word we prefer not to hear used in our house gratuitously. We prefer euphemisms like "The Sound and the Fury's author."

And I can see how high expectations play into the most memorable bad books. Makes sense to me.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Well, see, I *do* like Dickens, some... everything I hate about Oliver Twist, I like in A Tale of Two Cities. I also like Tess, or maybe I don't like it, but I respect it, because I turned critical theory on its ear when I wrote a term paper for it and impressed the hell out of my prof. So, I associate it with personal triumph.

But I suppose you're right: there's no wrong way to answer this question. I'm just over-analyzing. But it's what I do. :)