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We all know them: books we are supposed to like and actually can't stand, for various reasons. Here are five that I particularly despised:
1. The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. I still remember a friend of my mother's urging me to read this because I allegedly reminded her of the protagonist. It was only much, much later that I realized how insulting it was to be compared to Esther Greenwood, who was mentally ill, self-pitying, and did one stupid thing after another. There's a couple of very striking images, but why anyone would suggest that an intelligent teenage girl read this is beyond me.
2. Jude the Obscure and pretty much the whole of Thomas Hardy's works. Horrible, depressing books full of horribly depressed people living in grinding poverty and ignorance, suffering from horrible (if unrealistic) events like drowning in ponds, having an entire herd of sheep shoved off a cliff by insane collies, and flinging themselves out of windows to avoid having sex.
3. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway. Boring, boring, boring. Maybe I would have a different opinion if I'd read this when it was first published, but man oh man was this disappointing. Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return is a much better look at the Lost Generation.
4. Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. As I am not a mathematical genius, dislike clever word puzzles (or, why I fantasize about killing Will Shortz DEAD DEAD DEAD for those asinine puzzle sequences on NPR), and am not a Victorian maiden willing to pose naked for the kindly maths don, this book left me cold. Never finished it.
5. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. Can someone please run over Holden Caulfield with a bus? Please?
BONUS:
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. Heathcliff is a sadist, Cathy is a fool, and the whole book left a nasty taste in my mouth. It's a shame, too, since Jane Eyre, by Emily's sister Charlotte, was flat-out brilliant.
Anyone else have a Great Book they'd love to shove down the literary shredder?
1. The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. I still remember a friend of my mother's urging me to read this because I allegedly reminded her of the protagonist. It was only much, much later that I realized how insulting it was to be compared to Esther Greenwood, who was mentally ill, self-pitying, and did one stupid thing after another. There's a couple of very striking images, but why anyone would suggest that an intelligent teenage girl read this is beyond me.
2. Jude the Obscure and pretty much the whole of Thomas Hardy's works. Horrible, depressing books full of horribly depressed people living in grinding poverty and ignorance, suffering from horrible (if unrealistic) events like drowning in ponds, having an entire herd of sheep shoved off a cliff by insane collies, and flinging themselves out of windows to avoid having sex.
3. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway. Boring, boring, boring. Maybe I would have a different opinion if I'd read this when it was first published, but man oh man was this disappointing. Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return is a much better look at the Lost Generation.
4. Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. As I am not a mathematical genius, dislike clever word puzzles (or, why I fantasize about killing Will Shortz DEAD DEAD DEAD for those asinine puzzle sequences on NPR), and am not a Victorian maiden willing to pose naked for the kindly maths don, this book left me cold. Never finished it.
5. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. Can someone please run over Holden Caulfield with a bus? Please?
BONUS:
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. Heathcliff is a sadist, Cathy is a fool, and the whole book left a nasty taste in my mouth. It's a shame, too, since Jane Eyre, by Emily's sister Charlotte, was flat-out brilliant.
Anyone else have a Great Book they'd love to shove down the literary shredder?
