Worst book you've ever read?

[ebikeerwidnes]

Can I mention The Silmarillion???


asking for a friend called Drago

 

[matticus]

I read Lord of the Rings as a teenager. It was the done thing.

Wow. We clearly grew up on different sides of the tracks!!!

 

[wiggydiggy]

I read Lord of the Rings as a teenager. It was the done thing. I don't remember what my opinion of it was. I do remember it was very thick, so I would have been relieved to get to the end.

We read The Hobbit in Year 5 or 6 of Primary School, a couple of us had a go at LOTR as well. I remember getting very bogged down in the middle of The Two Towers and nearly gave it up but I persevered. I've read it again since several times over and loved it but that first time I was probably too young.

 

[Beebo]

That could equally well apply to some of the longer sentences in 'Moby Dick', let alone the whole novel. One comes in at 467 words, and there are, iirc, plenty in the 200-300 range. To be clear, I really like 'Moby Dick',

Wow. I just looked it up. Totally unreadable.

HERMAN MELVILLE, “MOBY DICK.” 467 WORDS.​

“Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognized a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title “Lord of the White Elephants” above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things- the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.”

 

[Alex321]

We read The Hobbit in Year 5 or 6 of Primary School, a couple of us had a go at LOTR as well. I remember getting very bogged down in the middle of The Two Towers and nearly gave it up but I persevered. I've read it again since several times over and loved it but that first time I was probably too young.

The bit that bogged me down a bit the first couple of times I read LoTR was the bit in the Old Forest (Tom Bombadil etc.)

 

[tyred]

I've just thought of another I gave up on as being 😴

I have read all Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger books many times and considered myself a fan of ACD.

I decided to read one of his historical romances. Sir Nigel or something. I just couldn't get along with it at all.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I've just thought of another I gave up on as being 😴

I have read all Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger books many times and considered myself a fan of ACD.

I decided to read one of his historical romances. Sir Nigel or something. I just couldn't get along with it at all.

There was a documentary about ACD on telly recently. He was desperate to stop writing Holmes (which was highly original and everyone loved) so he could concentrate on what he saw as his serious, proper historical stuff (which was derivative Sir Walter Scott knock-off, that no-one liked).

Also there was a bit of film of him and he precisely fitted my mental picture of Dr Watson.

 

[Reynard]

Wow. I just looked it up. Totally unreadable.

HERMAN MELVILLE, “MOBY DICK.” 467 WORDS.​

“Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognized a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title “Lord of the White Elephants” above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things- the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.”

Eeeeek! And I thought I could be a florid writer...

 

[Reynard]

The bit that bogged me down a bit the first couple of times I read LoTR was the bit in the Old Forest (Tom Bombadil etc.)

Likewise here. I just flick past that bit now. Obviously, the first time I read it...

 

[Yellow Fang]

That's a fair point. W&P is one of several books I have multiple copies of due to spine cracking, which actually brings me to the point of this post, slightly revising my previous comment - thinking about it for a moment I realised I'd only read the new copy once as it's a different translation and I didn't find is as readable. I'll have to look to see who did the Penguin Classics version though.

I also have three copies of Don Quixote - none of which I find particularly easy to read despite being different translators. I'd hoped that one of them would have been less stilted, but probably that's partly down to the underlying text.

I slogged my way through the first half of Don Quixote, then abandoned it for a few years. Then I started reading it backwards from the end. Well, not entirely backwards. I read the last chapter one day, then the second-to-last the next day, etc. The second part was better than the first part.

 

[Yellow Fang]

The first half of the Silmarillion is a bit like Genesis in the Bible. Not much more than a genealogy list. But the second half is completely different. And much more readable.

I thought the Silmarillion was like the Old Testament. Even the later bits were a bit like the Old Testament, but the more fun books like Genesis, Judges and Kings. Not like the boring prophets and the last three-and-a-half books of the Torah.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Been mentioned in passing, but for me Moby Dick. Tried 3 or 4 times, the best I've managed is just under halfway. Tedious to say the least.

I thought it was a great book, although it took a while for it to grow on me. It had all those side chapters on the cultural significance of whales, whaling technology, whether a whale was a fish, and much, much more. I liked Captain Ahab's discussions with his crew, particularly the Manxman. I was on Moby Dick's side, a hero to his people.

 

[Yellow Fang]

I remember the worst book I ever read: The Alexandria Quartet written by Lawrence Durrell, brother of Gerald, the naturalist who write My Family and Other Animals. The Alexandria Quartet was about similar events in Alexandria after the war from four different perspectives. It sounded ok, but it was often ludicrously pretentious. The third part was not too bad. That part was from the perspective of an ambassador and read like a spy book. The first part was written from the perspective of a sex mad Englishman who was oblivious to the political situation developing around him.

 

[steverob]

Dickens is alright in short stories, where he was forced to cut the descriptions down, but the long descriptions in his novels, well, couldn’t he have just drawn a picture?

I was told that originally Dickens wrote his stories not to be published as novels (until later anyway), but rather to be serialised in journals and newspapers of the time, with one chapter printed a week or what have you. Therefore he got incredibly good at padding them out so that he would get paid for 20+ weeks instead of say 10-12.

 

[steverob]

When I first got an iPad-style tablet many, many years ago, one of the first apps I downloaded was one that was essentially a Kindle-type app (but long before Kindles existed) which already had a large collection of copyright free books pre-downloaded in it, many of them regarded as classics of their various genres.

Most of them I could either quickly see why they had been rated so highly or they weren't ones I was interested in so I didn't bother reading them, but there were two that I had been looking forward to that I was incredibly disappointed by.

The first was Les Miserables by Victor Hugo - I liked the stage show so thought I'd like the book, but it was so overly descriptive, spending time explaining absolutely everything in minute detail, regardless over its importance (or non-importance) to the plot. I was almost 100 pages in and we'd only just reached the part where Valjean meets the priest, which in the musical is dealt with before you've even got to the end of the first song. Whoever edited that book down for the stage and kept it under 2 hours deserves a medal!

But the absolute worst was The Wizard of Oz. I wasn't expecting great things from it, but I was hoping for something readable given how many movies have been made about the world it was based in. It came across as something written by a distracted schoolkid - things would just happen out of the blue, then just as you thought there might be some drama, whatever situation the protagonists had got themselves in to, would immediately be resolved equally as quickly with barely any concern. There were absolutely zero consequences, things would come to a screeching halt at some impassable challenge, but then magically it would be waved away by the author without any reason and a minute later that whole story thread would be completely forgotten about and never referred to again. Total and utter nonsense from start to finish.