I didn't say it didn't suck. I just said read it, and make up your own mind. In the words of Holden Caulfield, "Anyone who says it sucks is a phony... a G**dam phony, and I hate phony people."
All you have to do is look at the so called "classics" they force down your throat at school to realize why so many people hate reading. I've never read a book I had to read for school for pleasure. Or maybe it's just the way the books are taught in school, the ridiculous overanalyization and being beat over the head with the themes.
There's a few books I've HAD to read that I've enjoyed. I think the Great Gatsby was assigned to me, and I love that book. I enjoyed "A Year in Provence" which was very good. Dracula as well. On the flipside, I was required to read "Life in a Medieval Village" and some book about some town in Ohio (Just looked it up--Winesburg, Ohio)which were both God terrible.
Off the top of my head, the only books I ever read in school that I honestly loved were: A Clockwork Orange, Canterbury Tales (what of it I actually understood), Frankenstein (and I didn't like that until I re-read it in college), and works of Shakespeare (yeah, I know, everyone hates ol' Willie). Beyond that, it was all pure suck. You're absolutely right in your analysis. It's all crap that is first force-fed, then overanalyzed like it's actually important.
The worst book I can remember having to read for school was Ethan Frome. Holy shit was that a snoozefest. There probably were a few books I didn't mind reading but not enough to remember them or read them again later.
Oh, and if you haven't read it yet in German, it's been translated to English for quite some time . . . Das Parfum by German writer Patrick S?skind -- Perfume in English It's crazy awesome. The movie adaptation with Dustin Hoffman was great too -- very true to the book.
Don't know if these have been mentioned yet, but these are some great fiction, both are long and character driven: Tom Wolfe - Bonfire of the Vanities Richard Price - Clockers
Dude...I was just thinking of that book today. The stock broker's cleidomastoid muscles of all things, while looking in the mirror. Great book! Then again, so is anything by Tom Wolfe.
not sure if you are interested in this type of thriller, but Memorial Day by Vince Flynn is phenomenal. It's a couple of years old, but it is about a CIA operative Mitch Rapp who is trying to stop a terrorist attack from happening. If you've ever seen the TV show 24 it is a little like this, but ranges from the USA to the Middle East in location and really all of Vince Flynn's thrillers are great, The Third Option, is phenomenal, corrupt senator's being murdered for reasons unknown... it's great.
Blood Meridian The last book I read was Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (No Country For Old Men). I can not tell if it was a work of genius or pure insanity. It really was an amazing read however. It takes about 2-3x as long to read as a normal book. I wanted to read it because it is on almost everyones top 2-3 best novels written this past century. I can not say they were wrong. However it was weird reading a book where basically every character had no redeeming value and still liking it. The main character was even more evil and deranged then the Chigurgh character in NCFOM, if anyone can believe that. It was about the Glanton gang that got paid to scalp Indians back in the 1850's in old Mexico/Texas. On second thought this may not be a book for everyone although this is never going to be a book that will be read in school. It will be made into a movie next year.
Clearly a lot of the required "classics" are pretty bad, but I read The Hobbit, Fahrenheit 451, A Clockwork Orange, Slaughterhouse Five, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Advise and Consent, The Grapes of Wrath, Flowers for Algernon, Brave New World, 1984, Animal Farm, and The Diary of Anne Frank in high school, and they were all fantastic (and I've reread many of them for pleasure).
Interesting. I bought this book after reading No Country and the Road and I haven't been able to really get started on it yet. I know what you mean about taking much longer to read then a normal book as I've read the first few chapters several times trying to wrap my head around it but not succeeding. The writing style is pretty much completely different from his other books I've read.
Yeah No Country is an order of magnitude easier to read and I hear The Road is as well. The funny thing is once you get past how dense the book is and his writing style (lack of grammar and quotations) it really is an interesting/impressive book. How McCarthy can make a book about people that are pure evil with no redeeming qualities and have you wonder in the end if that was a masterpiece/genius really is beyond me. You may or may not like it because of this but one thing is undeniable is that it was written well. My favorite part of the book is in the beginning with the Judge and the Priest as it lays out the Judges personality to a T. Oh keep a dictionary around because he likes to use archaic words.
I finished the bourne identity the other day very good book, although the movie has little in common....
