Recite lite poetry causing lite controversy

[venta]

Not quite correctly stolen from reddragdiva:

What's the worst novel you've ever actually managed to finish ?

For years I had a policy of never (deliberately) failing to finish reading something. I have not-finished very few books because some bizarre completist part of me thinks I ought to finish them because I started. However of late I have come to realise that, at the point at which you're only reading for Magnus Magnusson-like reasons and not enjoying it, you really ought to give in.

Up until a few years ago, I could confidently claim that the only two books I'd ever deliberately given up on where Dickens' Nicholas Nickelby and Wideacre by Philippa Gregory. The former induced a vow, aged 14, that I would never read another Dickens novel - a vow I have since broken, and I quite enjoyed Tale of Two Cities in the end. The latter was just mediocre bodice-ripper fiction with added miserablism and didn't teach me anything much at all (beyond, potentially, that shagging your brother is a bad idea and no good will come of it).

Since then, I may have abandoned other books, but am not terribly sure. You see, it's easy to conclude rationally that a book should not be finished. But...

I haven't quite got over the idea that it should be. At present, I am failing to finish Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang. By failing to finish, I mean "haven't picked up in some time, have been reading other books, have largely forgotten about". I have not, however, officially Given Up. Mr Carey has writen other good books, the True History... is an interesting concept and well carried out. It won a Booker Prize[*]. I just wasn't enjoying it and had discovered I didn't give a flying toss about any of the characters beyond wanting to bang their heads together to stop them making the same mistakes for the 3rd, 4th, or 5th time. However, at some point I feel the book should be given further chances. I certainly wouldn't call it a bad book.

However, to get back to the plot. The worst book I think I've ever finished (and thus, by analogy, ever read) is House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.

OK, so it's not the worst-written book I've ever encountered - there are plenty of cheap romance or fantasy titles on the market written by people who can't string sentences together. But for sheer belief-in-own-worth to actual-worth ratio it takes the biscuit. The main spur to keep reading it came from desperately hoping that something in the narrative would pull it all together and justify the time (and, the label tells me, the £9.99) I'd spent on it.

In the end, after I'd waded through the tedious prose passages, the pages where the text was printed sideways and upside down, the pages of scribble and diagram, and deciphered the sections of flashback and flashforward I came to one inexorable conclusion: the book was just not as clever as it thought it was.

Looking at a review on Amazon, a reader said:

"This genre-busting post-modernist book is like taking a rollercoasterthrough a Dali-designed funhouse. Alone in its genre, it's a work of art. It will scare you, twist you, and linger in your mind without cheap tricks or flashy devices. Astounding."

I'd agree it was certainly genre-busting, and so post-modernist that it almost hurt to look at it. And reading it was a bit like a rollercoaster through something designed by Dali (with a hangover), but I didn't find it in the least fun. To me, it was all tricks and gimmicks with practically no substance or purpose.

If anyone wants to defend it, I'd be interested to listen :)

[*] Always a dead giveaway that a book will be near-unreadable, according to the mother.

In other news, a few months ago I read Rebecca's Tale, by Sally Beauman, which is a sequel to du Maurier's Rebecca. Despite being a modern sequel to a classic, it... didn't suck. Which surprised me. In fact, I rather enjoyed it.

It's years since I read Rebecca, so couldn't comment on style, but plot-wise it seemed to my dulled perceptions an admirable sequel. It developed the original story rather than ignoring it, was well-written and intriguing in its own right and didn't commit the cardinal sin of trying to tie up all loose ends.

With the obvious proviso that die-hard du Maurier fans will probably dislike it on principle, I'd quite recommend it.

Comments

[wimble.livejournal.com]

I've just been talking/ranting to bluedevi about Eragon.

From the blurb on the back:

Paolini writes like someone gripped by his own story. Guardian

Or, to put it another way: We tried to tell him to stop writing the bloody thing, but even the threat of making him read David Eddings just made him say "Cool! I can use that!"

[wimble.livejournal.com]

http://members.aol.com/swankivy/eragon.html for a deconstruction, or see me if you want to experience the pain first hand.

Err... well. Um. Pah!

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

coincidentally people were recommending books they thought were great over dinner tonight & one of them was House of Leaves :-) I'm with you on the completist thing though, mine would be Of Human Bondage by a mile . . .

[zotz]

I really liked House of Leaves. I found it really gripping.

[condign.livejournal.com]

Count me in with the House of Leaves fans. True, the author had a tendency to disappear up his own backside in several sections--generally the ones that didn't have to do with the house. But the house sections, as well as the bits about finding the book, kept me interested.

Sadly, it also made me conclude that I'm too goal-oriented to ever write post-modernist fiction.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

What's the worst novel you've ever actually managed to finish ?

Battlefield Earth.

In some ways, I recommend it as a textbook for anyone who wants to write science fiction... on the basis that if anything you write ever resembles anything in it then you should probably burn the lot. And then stamp on the ashes.

[thefon.livejournal.com]

Me too.

[zandev.livejournal.com]

I quite liked House of Leaves, but probably mainly because of the similarities to the Lovecraftian horror genre.

I thought some of the tricks were interesting. However, the gimmick to content ratio was extremely high, and I came to the conclusion that it wasn't nearly as clever as the author thought it was.

[zandev.livejournal.com]

Oh, and on the topic of House of Leaves and being completist, did you actually read all of it? If I recall correctly, one of the gimmicks was that there were a few parts that were clearly meant to be skimmed past, so I skimmed past them. :)

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking possibly No Mean City. Poorly drawn, overdidactic and offering marginally less insight into the Scots working/fighting/fucking class than Oor Wullie. Most disappointing.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

If that's the book I'm thinking of, I did at least get through it, but something else (The Shipbuilders?) was better.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I quite liked HoL, although I definitely agree that it's not as clever as it thinks. Maybe in a less patient mood I'd have given up.

Far be it from me to accuse your esteemed mother of a generalization, but I've found some Booker-winning-books very readable... *whimper*.

As for the worst book I've ever finished, I'm looking round my bookshelves for inspiration, but unfortuantely I've packed almost all the books up in boxes so it's not much help. By your measure of thinks-it's-good / actually-is, maybe it would be Donna Tartt's The Secret History.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I've found some Booker-winning-books very readable

Life of Pi, for example, put me in the unusual situation of thinking it a most excellent and compelling book, despite disagreeing with everything in it.

[mr-flay.livejournal.com]

The Da Vinci Code. It's not that I found it a struggle - I read it in one five-hour sitting - but within sixty pages I was roundly cursing it for the tedious drivel it surely is, and my reaction at the end was to regret the passing of five hours of my life that I wouldn't be seeing again...

I Married A Communist, by Philip Roth, was dull and unending.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I will shortly embark on the Da Vinci Code. Not that I expect it to be much cop, but it seems to crop up in conversation so often that I feel I should be able to scathe more intelligently.

I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail years ago, so figure I should be able to join in with the chorus quite easily ;)

[timeplease.livejournal.com]

Surely the worst book ever written is "The Swords of Lankhmar" by Fritz Leiber, in which the gigantic and hairy-chested Fafhrd and his smaller and nimble companion, the Gray Mouser, hurtle themselves through the land of Nehwon. There are other equally colourful - though less attractive - characters: Glipkero, the effete beanpole overlord of Lankhmar for instance, a neurotic whose twitchings can only be controlled by watching the fat and masculine palace mistress as she spanks the nude (and bald) servant maids. Lankhmar is incidentally being over-run by a plague of rats which only sorcery and the cunning of our heroes can halt. How? As Ningauble, the seven-eyed wizard, says to Fafhrd: "You're a hero. You should know."

Quick poll: am I making this up?

[pm215]

Looks suspiciously like GROAN output to me :-)

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Quick poll: am I making this up?

Not unless you're Leiber in disguise having faked your own death.

Except that it's Glipkerio.

[(Anonymous)]

The worst novel I never finished was a Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint, which was being much lauded at the time (mid 1960s). In an office full of people who all, fom time to time, reviewed books, I got the furthest (about 50 pages in).
When reviewing, I did feel obliged to finish the book and only once failed to do so, with a huge doorstop by Collen McCullagh (of Thornbirds fame) all about ancient Rome. About two-thirds of the way through, I decided I'd had enough of her showing off her classical knowledge with huge chunks of non-vital background and using ten words where one would do, and gave it a scathing review.