Great fiction or just crap?

[Komodo9Joe]

Y'know those books that English teachers make you write essays about that you find to be just meaningless? They always praise it to be top quality and 'insightful' and full of 'deep meaning' and a whole lot of other stuff which you don't find it to be. Yet, the majority of class becomes indoctrinated into thinking it's stellar work because of a combination of many students not having the spine to judge think objectively and rationally and/or just kissing butt to make themselves feel 'enlightened'...or they could sincerely have found meaning in it which you haven't.

Two books I thought were not particularly good were:

Catcher in the Rye: I don't give a holler about Holden Caufield calling everybody phony. This guy I regard as just an anti-social idiot with no 'great meaning' to it. Holden is just an abnormal introvert and it's plain abnormal for somebody to be analyzing this idiot with the hopes of learning something. I could analyze my dusty VCR and come up with a greater epiphany than I could from observing this book.

Macbeth: I didn't like this. Macbeth, urged by his wife, kills the king and is guilty about it. So what? Yeah, power tempts people and some might feel guilty. . Many killers in real life don't feel guilty about their actions: most gangbangers don't give a hoot about killing someone; matter of fact, they probably use it as bragging rights.

These books are just my opinions of course, so don't take offense. I also want to discuss shitty English teachers. Yeah, I know there are plenty of bad teachers in every subject but I want to focus on English as they can often be the most hypocritical and snobbish ones around. Some types of typical bad English teachers I've come across are:

The panderers. These English teachers often put well known writers like Shakespeare on a pedestal and regard every line he writes as full of great meaning. Granted, Shakespeare's work is generally meaningful but some English teachers just like to bandwagon famous writers and see it as blasphemous when you disagree with their sanctimonious view.

The hypocrites. These English teachers feed you a lot of BS on how they want you to stop writing standard persuasive essays and think 'originally' yet give A's to the essays which they apparently detest. Then, when you do try to write with originality, you are rewarded with B's. I'm not giving up my GPA to experiment.

The biased. Ever submitted an essay that is contrary to the teacher's beliefs and have gotten marked down for it? I've had my fair share of attempts to show the teacher the obvious: that even though she might not agree with me, my claim is both argued and backed up well. And then they preach in class about being inclusive of different viewpoints. English, unlike other subjects which often have established answers, is very open-minded yet some English teachers are the most close-minded, stubborn, and plain infuriating people.

This is not a thread meant to denigrate literature and English teachers as a whole, both of which I personally hold in high regard. Let's just use this thread to share our stories and observations on disagreeable/shitty English teachers that we have had to come across, and books that you thought were just rather bad, regardless of the teacher's glorious sermons on it.

[Esquire]

I haven't read Catcher in the Rye, and so won't comment on it, but I have to wonder just how incredibly arrogant you have to be to casually dismiss Shakespeare that casually. People much more intelligent than you have found meaning in his plays for 500 years now - perhaps they were on to something?

Guess what? Everything sounds stupid if you summarize it in such a cursory manner. Macbeth has helped people explore shame, fate, their view of the supernatural, duty, and honor since it was written, and if you really can't find anything worth considering in it then you're either an idiot or deeply, deeply pitiable.

[JLTucker]

Here are my picks for some of the worst reading material I've had to endure in literature courses.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich: A fantastic story about a man coming to terms with his fate and questioning who he was as a person. Did he live life as he should? Did he mistreat people? Why is he suffering? Is God to blame or is he?

Candide: A book that is still relevant to modern times. It appropriately satirizes religious conviction and the harm that can come about due to mass ignorance.

Things Fall Apart is an engrossing look into how cultures are torn apart through colonization and how some cultures themselves can be detrimental to those who are a part of them.

The Metamorphosis emphasizes the gross negligence in discriminatory and negligent behavior used on those who are different.

Edit: This is a troll thread.

[Terralthra]

Whether or not it's a good book and whether or not it's culturally important are two different questions. Even if you think a book is terrible, that enough other people think it's good and reference it and are influenced by it makes it worthy of study in its own right, for its impact on the society in which it exists.

[PeZook]

For example, the Bible is a terrible book, but not knowing it (at least in broad strokes) results in you having a poorer understanding of contemporary western culture and religious issues that drive and shape it still.

[madd0ct0r]

A great book is a mirror for your own thoughts, worries and philosophy. Komodo is clearly more of a lounge lizard.

[Ahriman238]

It is also possible that a book is quite good and you simply don't like it for personal reasons. It is likewise possible that you're missing the point.

Not all books exist to entertain, some are there to educate, to make you think differently about the world around you. Several high school I know read Upton Sinclair's the Jungle for that very reason, it's certainly not terribly entertaining.

And sometimes you're shown books to model good writing, after all, the whole point of the class is to make you a competent reader and writer. Did your teacher ever try and make you think about some elements of the stories you read, why they worked or didn't? By way of example, there's a very twisting-and-turning soap opera novel called the Good Soldier I largely despise. But I also love it for this one thing. Two lovers (each married) meet each year at a spa to conduct their affair. Their stated reason for these annual trips is that they each have a bad heart, something that is at once a lie, and the unvarnished truth.

I think Macbeth is one of the most interesting Shakespeare stories, just for how far outside his comfort zone he was willing to go. Far from being a rote fairytale of an evil king, it's an almost Gothic horror story, full of ghosts and witches, madness and murder in the dark of night.

For a token of a story I hated, I never liked R/L/ Stevenson's Kidnapped for a very simple reason. Stevenson went to so much effort to write this adventure story in genuine 17th Century Scottish gibberish for authenticity and, well, it's written in 17th Century Scottish gibberish. I suspect going back as an adult who reads Shakespeare for fun sometimes, I'd have far less trouble with it, assuming I could overcome the trauma of reading it the first time.

[Spekio]

I haven't read Catcher in the Rye, and so won't comment on it, but I have to wonder just how incredibly arrogant you have to be to casually dismiss Shakespeare that casually. People much more intelligent than you have found meaning in his plays for 500 years now - perhaps they were on to something?

Guess what? Everything sounds stupid if you summarize it in such a cursory manner. Macbeth has helped people explore shame, fate, their view of the supernatural, duty, and honor since it was written, and if you really can't find anything worth considering in it then you're either an idiot or deeply, deeply pitiable.

This is a fallacy.

Appeal to the Bandwagon, also known as the appeal to the people, such an argument uses the fact that a sizable number of people, or perhaps even a majority, believe in something as evidence that it must therefore be true. Some of the arguments that have impeded the widespread acceptance of pioneering ideas are of this type. Galileo, for example, faced ridicule from his contemporaries for his support of the Copernican model. More recently, Barry Marshall had to take the extreme measure of dosing himself in order to convince the scientific community that peptic ulcers may be caused by the bacterium H. pylori, a theory that was, initially, widely dismissed.

Luring people into accepting that which is popular is a method frequently used in advertising and politics. For example, All the cool kids use this hair gel; be one of them. Although becoming a “cool kid” is an enticing offer, it does nothing to support the imperative that one should buy the advertised product. Politicians frequently use similar rhetoric to add inertia to their campaigns and influence voters.

Whether or not it's a good book and whether or not it's culturally important are two different questions. Even if you think a book is terrible, that enough other people think it's good and reference it and are influenced by it makes it worthy of study in its own right, for its impact on the society in which it exists.

This. Books are a product of their time, and the way they were perceived then is different from the way a modern reader will perceive them.

[Terralthra]

Appeal to the Bandwagon, also known as the appeal to the people, such an argument uses the fact that a sizable number of people, or perhaps even a majority, believe in something as evidence that it must therefore be true. Some of the arguments that have impeded the widespread acceptance of pioneering ideas are of this type. Galileo, for example, faced ridicule from his contemporaries for his support of the Copernican model. More recently, Barry Marshall had to take the extreme measure of dosing himself in order to convince the scientific community that peptic ulcers may be caused by the bacterium H. pylori, a theory that was, initially, widely dismissed.

Unfortunately, argumentum ad populum is most applicable to things that can be either proven or disproven, and rather than provide evidence either way, the person arguing uses popularity as a substitute. Whether or not a book is good can't be shown by calculus or by infecting one's self with a gastric bacterium. It's a subjective opinion held by individuals, and one way (the only way, really) to figure out if any particular book is "good" is by taking aggregates of subjective opinions.

[Spekio]

Unfortunately, argumentum ad populum is most applicable to things that can be either proven or disproven, and rather than provide evidence either way, the person arguing uses popularity as a substitute. Whether or not a book is good can't be shown by calculus or by infecting one's self with a gastric bacterium. It's a subjective opinion held by individuals, and one way (the only way, really) to figure out if any particular book is "good" is by taking aggregates of subjective opinions.

The orginal poster said he did not like sheakspere. Esquire said, and I quote, "People much more intelligent than you have found meaning in his plays for 500 years now - perhaps they were on to something?". People much more intelligent than me found meaning in christianity, and that is bollocks.

It does not matter who found it good, it does not mean that it is "good", whatever "good" is.

[PeZook]

If "good" is in the context of the thread, that is being meaningful, influential and an important contribution to English literature as a whole, then fuck yeah MacBeth qualifies.

[Terralthra]

Unfortunately, argumentum ad populum is most applicable to things that can be either proven or disproven, and rather than provide evidence either way, the person arguing uses popularity as a substitute. Whether or not a book is good can't be shown by calculus or by infecting one's self with a gastric bacterium. It's a subjective opinion held by individuals, and one way (the only way, really) to figure out if any particular book is "good" is by taking aggregates of subjective opinions.

The orginal poster said he did not like sheakspere. Esquire said, and I quote, "People much more intelligent than you have found meaning in his plays for 500 years now - perhaps they were on to something?". People much more intelligent than me found meaning in christianity, and that is bollocks.

It does not matter who found it good, it does not mean that it is "good", whatever "good" is.

You're treating this as if the idea of a book being good or not exists external to the minds of those who have read it. It does not. There is no platonic goodness or badness to a book beyond the reactions of the readers.

[Spekio]

You're treating this as if the idea of a book being good or not exists external to the minds of those who have read it. It does not. There is no platonic goodness or badness to a book beyond the reactions of the readers.

I remember one of the first examples of this fallacy I was taught was the "50 million Elvis fans can't be wrong".

[Terralthra]

I'm sorry, was that a rebuttal of some sort? If so, you may want to brush up on logical reasoning, as you have not responded to anything I have said.

[Thanas]

This thread is pointless. It would be better titled "fiction which I dislike" instead of trying to prove some work is not great.

[Spekio]

I'm sorry, was that a rebuttal of some sort? If so, you may want to brush up on logical reasoning, as you have not responded to anything I have said.

No, not a rebutall. I was just pointing out that is an example you find anywhere (including wikipedia), and I don't see the difference between that and this situation. But it has been years since I last studied logical reasoning. Conceded.

[Terralthra]

I'm sorry, was that a rebuttal of some sort? If so, you may want to brush up on logical reasoning, as you have not responded to anything I have said.

No, not a rebutall. I was just pointing out that is an example you find anywhere (including wikipedia), and I don't see the difference between that and this situation. But it has been years since I last studied logical reasoning. Conceded.

Ah, but did you read the "exceptions" portion of the Wikipedia entry? To wit, the portion that reads, "In some domains, however, it is popularity rather than other strengths that makes a choice the preferred one, for reasons related to network effects."?

[NeoGoomba]

Taste is subjective. News at 11.

[Lagmonster]

This thread is pointless. It would be better titled "fiction which I dislike" instead of trying to prove some work is not great.

It would seem to me, going by the OP, that the smarter thing to do here would be to figure out WHY kids are forced to study these works in the first place, or more appropriately, how educators fail to make parents and children understand their selection. It's easy to explain the math and science curriculum, by comparison. But try explaining to a group of adults why absolutely any work of fiction should be mandatory reading for children and you'll have to hire background strippers to keep your audience from leaving.

[TheFeniX]

These books are just my opinions of course, so don't take offense. Anyways, let's use this thread to share our stories on disagreeable English teachers that we have had to come across, and books that you thought were just rather bad, regardless of the teacher's glorious sermons on it.

My English II teacher in college, first day said something to this effect: "Everything you know about writing is wrong. If you try and write like you did in high school, you'll fail this class. If you try and skim content to dig for quotes, you will fail. You'll need to read each story/assignment 3-4 times before you even start writing."

So, I just skimmed the assignments for general themes and wrote basic TAS papers I've been doing for a decade and passed with an A.

For an earlier English class, my teacher "caught" me smoking outside and said that for my daily writing assignment, I had to do an argumentative paper (off the cuff) defending smoking (even though I would never try to justify the habit). I received a B because: "I don't agree with your conclusion to defend smoking." NOTE: she didn't say I did a poor job defending my position, only that she didn't agree with it.

When I brought this up, she claimed she forgot that she specifically gave me the assignment. And a B was good enough considering it was my lowest grade for any of my assignments. I laughed pretty hard at that.

As for Shakespeare, I do find him a bit overrated, but that's likely because his themes have been beaten to death in other mediums for a hundred years. Also, dick jokes which are only "hidden" because old English is harder to read than what we're used to. I always found it funny when my English teachers in high school (where we beat Shakespeare to death over the course of 4 years) would claim modern humor is too crass.

God damn if I have to hear one more person gush over Romeo and Juliet.... It was a fun read the first time, but Romeo's lines come off as fanciful bullshit, which is what it is. He's some immature little stud with a case of puppy love and a massive hard-on to get laid.

"True love story" my ass.

Also, loved Macbeth. I also love current writers butchering the shit out of it, like in Chronicles of Riddick. But it's all Sex, Drugs, and Violence which is fine. It's just people talking him up like the end-all to.... everything.

[Komodo9Joe]

My English II teacher in college, first day said something to this effect: "Everything you know about writing is wrong. If you try and write like you did in high school, you'll fail this class. If you try and skim content to dig for quotes, you will fail. You'll need to read each story/assignment 3-4 times before you even start writing."

So, I just skimmed the assignments for general themes and wrote basic TAS papers I've been doing for a decade and passed with an A.

For an earlier English class, my teacher "caught" me smoking outside and said that for my daily writing assignment, I had to do an argumentative paper (off the cuff) defending smoking (even though I would never try to justify the habit). I received a B because: "I don't agree with your conclusion to defend smoking." NOTE: she didn't say I did a poor job defending my position, only that she didn't agree with it.

When I brought this up, she claimed she forgot that she specifically gave me the assignment. And a B was good enough considering it was my lowest grade for any of my assignments. I laughed pretty hard at that.

As for Shakespeare, I do find him a bit overrated, but that's likely because his themes have been beaten to death in other mediums for a hundred years. Also, dick jokes which are only "hidden" because old English is harder to read than what we're used to. I always found it funny when my English teachers in high school (where we beat Shakespeare to death over the course of 4 years) would claim modern humor is too crass.

God damn if I have to hear one more person gush over Romeo and Juliet.... It was a fun read the first time, but Romeo's lines come off as fanciful bullshit, which is what it is. He's some immature little stud with a case of puppy love and a massive hard-on to get laid.

"True love story" my ass.

Excellent post. Not only is it clear, but it's ruthlessly honest. I've come across my share of English teachers who were plain wrong, yet start bullshitting when you call them on it. I've also come across hypocritical English teachers who scorn standard essay writing yet reward it with A's. Really does make you fill with mirthless laughter.

Anyways, good job in responding to the questions raised in my thread which is more than I can say for others here...

[Darth Holbytlan]

[God damn if I have to hear one more person gush over Romeo and Juliet.... It was a fun read the first time, but Romeo's lines come off as fanciful bullshit, which is what it is. He's some immature little stud with a case of puppy love and a massive hard-on to get laid.

"True love story" my ass.

Personally, I'd claim that this is because Romeo and Juliet isn't a love story; it's a tragedy about how the two families destroy what they most hold dear through their feud. Consider that of the 14 lines of Prologue, where Shakespeare summarizes what the play is about, only two lines mention the love at all, and the latter barely in passing. Their "love" was always an infatuation, but the point is that it could have bringing the families together without the tragedy, had the feud been less bitter. If I were transported back to high school and had to write about that play, I would make that my thesis and try to defend it.

The plot has never been the biggest point in Shakespeare's favor anyway. Those are mostly lifted from earlier sources, anyway. It's the quality of the language (if you're into that thing---I'll admit his writing doesn't do that much for me), the fact that he introduced so many terms and phrases into the English language, and the fact that his is the most referenced of any in English literature second only to the Bible that justifies teaching it.

[Terralthra]

[God damn if I have to hear one more person gush over Romeo and Juliet.... It was a fun read the first time, but Romeo's lines come off as fanciful bullshit, which is what it is. He's some immature little stud with a case of puppy love and a massive hard-on to get laid.

"True love story" my ass.

Personally, I'd claim that this is because Romeo and Juliet isn't a love story; it's a tragedy about how the two families destroy what they most hold dear through their feud. Consider that of the 14 lines of Prologue, where Shakespeare summarizes what the play is about, only two lines mention the love at all, and the latter barely in passing. Their "love" was always an infatuation, but the point is that it could have bringing the families together without the tragedy, had the feud been less bitter. If I were transported back to high school and had to write about that play, I would make that my thesis and try to defend it.

That would be a fairly easy thesis to defend. Romeo is an idiot, and Juliet not much better. From start to finish, their idiocy and the feuding families are the foci of the action of the plot. It also serves as perhaps the best example of the truism that (at the time) a comedy and a tragedy have the same basic plot until the end, at which point in a tragedy, people die, and in a comedy, people get married. If you change the ending to be a comic "the plan works and they get married and live happily ever after," there are very few things one would have to change.

The plot has never been the biggest point in Shakespeare's favor anyway. Those are mostly lifted from earlier sources, anyway. It's the quality of the language (if you're into that thing---I'll admit his writing doesn't do that much for me), the fact that he introduced so many terms and phrases into the English language, and the fact that his is the most referenced of any in English literature second only to the Bible that justifies teaching it.

The Bible isn't exactly "English literature," to begin with, but I take your point. =] His influence is wide-reaching, and the predominant theory in many literary circles is that to understand the nature of the works and authors influenced by something, one must start with a basic understanding of that something. "All his stuff's themes have been done to death in the centuries since" is a pointless thing to say by that standard, since many of them were copying him.

[TheFeniX]

Excellent post. Not only is it clear, but it's ruthlessly honest. I've come across my share of English teachers who were plain wrong, yet start bullshitting when you call them on it. I've also come across hypocritical English teachers who scorn standard essay writing yet reward it with A's. Really does make you fill with mirthless laughter.

On the flip-side, we spent a few weeks dissecting Star Wars for what it was: an extreme mash-up (read: theft) of Shakespearean themes. I was a bit disappointed that we didn't also hit on the other themes Lucas cobbled together from stuff like Japanese epics and Bushido, but Shakespeare has to be the end-all.

Personally, I'd claim that this is because Romeo and Juliet isn't a love story; it's a tragedy about how the two families destroy what they most hold dear through their feud.

I don't think it's a love story either, but point taken. I just get so fucking tired of people talking up the interaction between R and J as the end-all to true love. Maybe kids back then had that kind of grasp of language. But I remember "sweet nothings" between hormonal teenagers in high school. It was much closer to what we saw in Episode 2 between Padme and Anakin: excruciatingly painful to listen to and extremely trite.

In my generation, we had "Can't Hardly Wait" where some dumpy loser writes a letter to his crush (who he hasn't spoken two words to in... ever) and they fall madly in love during the last 5 minutes because.... reasons. I always took away from that (annoyingly boring) movie that high school is bullshit and doesn't matter. Others (like the girl I went and saw it with because I'm an idiot) decided it was the most romantic thing ever and the complete point of the movie. Also, the dick jokes, which were pretty funny (ah, Seth Green, you loveable loser).

The plot has never been the biggest point in Shakespeare's favor anyway. Those are mostly lifted from earlier sources, anyway. It's the quality of the language (if you're into that thing---I'll admit his writing doesn't do that much for me), the fact that he introduced so many terms and phrases into the English language, and the fact that his is the most referenced of any in English literature second only to the Bible that justifies teaching it.

I actually don't mind Shakespeare. Any man who can come up with that many dick joke/sex puns and euphemisms is a hero in my book. I even bothered re-reading Macbeth and Hamlet after the fact (so I could actually enjoy them). I just get tired of people not only ignoring huge themes of his plays, but also taking him up as "teh best evar!" "I don't get it Bart, we started out like Romeo and Juliet, but it all ended in tragedy."

If you don't mindlessly worship his writing, you're a caveman. If you talk about how much of his writing is actually pretty "low-brow, " prepare for Armageddon. It's like when I commented on a random forum that "Season 2 of Game of Thrones was fairly weak and had problems keeping my attention." Holy shit, nerd backlash.

[Vendetta]

Catcher in the Rye: I don't give a holler about Holden Caufield calling everybody phony. This guy I regard as just an anti-social idiot with no 'great meaning' to it. Holden is just an abnormal introvert and it's plain abnormal for somebody to be analyzing this idiot with the hopes of learning something. I could analyze my dusty VCR and come up with a greater epiphany than I could from observing this book.

Holden is a self absorbed bellend (or: teenager) who eventually comes to the realisation that he might be a bellend via a process known as "growing the fuck up".

PS: Holden Caulfield is you, you just haven't gotten over it yet.