I Hate This Book 1/10

[seedee]

I'm in need of some ranting. That's reason enough to make you suffer and introduce you to ten books I really, really don't like.

Here's the first book. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't share my opinion. This one won four prizes, among them the Booker Prize in 1997. You're welcome to rant right back at me.

Warning: Please don't click the cut if you expect a thoughtful critique.



Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things.

I don't understand how this is supposed to be a master piece. I struggle to even start naming the things I didn't like. It was the language, the plot, the structure, the narration and the characters. Which leaves... nothing.

There's waxing, and then there is waxing, and then there is more waxing (and also, this was a fair representation of the sentence structure that is used). The author is so in love with her silly metaphors, purple prose and endless repetitions that the pages should be sticky from her salivating all over them.

This story is so edgy that it's round. This is the stuff literary critics wank over. It's also the kind of book that makes me go 'Bwuuuu?' Most likely this is because I don't understand. I don't get the message. (Imagine me making air-quotes).

Random Capitalisation Throughout The Book Was Driving Me Up The wall. (Are you wondering why I didn't capitalise wall? Good! You should.)

Plot: Everyone is a douche-nozzle. Love can conquer everything, except it really can't. Betrayal is everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

Try reading this out loud:
"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."

Remarkable is also the profound wisdom of paragraphs like these:
"When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less."

And there were passages that simply made me burst out laughing:
"Being with him made her feel as though her soul had escaped from the narrow confines of her island country into the vast, extravagant spaces of his. He made her feel as though the world belonged to them- as though it lay before them like an opened frog on a dissecting table, begging to be examined."

Of course, there's also the huh-factor:
"Heaven opened and the water hammered down, reviving the reluctant old well, greenmossing the pigless pigsty, carpet bombing still, tea-colored puddles the way memory bombs still, tea-colored minds."

Comments

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

Your review just made my day. LMAO. Seriously, this made up for a lot of agonizing of why in hell I spent so much time on beloved eljay when I should be doing all kinds of responsible, mature, work-relation things. I adore your plot summary.

Please post the review on amazon. PLEASE!!!!!!!

I haven't read the book, but the title is awesome. You have to give her that. ;)

[vanseedee.livejournal.com]

Let me preface this with a quote:
And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these only the Small Things are ever said. The Big Things lurk unsaid inside.

Last time I posted a review on Amazon, it was deleted. Don't ask me why...

I agree with you that the title is good. So is the cover, and what I heard about the book before buying it. It was a trap.

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

Full of Thoughts, you say? And even Things? Wow!

amazon are such shitheads! They NEED reviews such as yours. *shakes head* And I have no idea why they would delete a review by you. :)

[vanseedee.livejournal.com]

I don't know either. Just because I pointed out that there was not a single page in this book (that shall not be named) not riddled with typos.

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

Obviously, they should have taken the book out of their pages instead of deleting your review. ;)

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

And now I'm curious: have you ever read a book by German author Juli Zeh?

[vanseedee.livejournal.com]

I read 'Adler and Engel', and I saw a play of her.

Now that you mention it, there are parallels. It's been a while, but I remember that 'Adler and Engel' was full of similes. It does have a plot, though, and I quite liked it.

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

I will admit that I can't read one page of Zeh's stuff (I am only glancing at her books in bookstores). German high lit is just so not my thing. :) I try to read whatever shite book wins the Georg-Büchner-Preis, but in the last years I did not manage to get into a single one of them. An overboarding usage of needless and senseless similes are part of it, definitely.

[vanseedee.livejournal.com]

High literature is something I only read by chance. I'm usually more a genre reader.

I have a soft spot for the dark side, though, and 'Adler und Engel' is pretty dark. It wasn't too pretentious either, but it's been a few years - my opinion might have changed. I notice that I have far less patience with books than I had then.

Are you sure you don't like similes. Let me try to convince you with this beauty (I'm sorry, but I cannot stop quoting Ms Roy):
It was a grand old house, the Ayemenem House, but aloof-looking. As though it had little to do with the people who lived in it. Like an old man with rheumy eyes watching children play, seeing only transience in their shrill elation and their wholehearted commitment to life.

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

I LOVE SIMILES. But they have to be used for a reason. What I loathe and despise is that hallmark of high German lit that is random similes interspersed into words that make no sense whats'o'ever.

I read Hollinghurst and still am thoroughly intrigued by his books. And he won the Booker Award, too. ;)

[vanseedee.livejournal.com]

I've not yet read Hollinghurst, but heard many good things. I have to try soon.

[melusinahp.livejournal.com]

Bwah ha ha ha ha! Omg. Thank you for this warning! Those quotes are more than enough to keep me far away from this novel. I was just today trying to think of a way to describe this kind of writing that really rubs me the wrong way. When the author seems to be very self-consciously trying to prove she's clever by making poetic sounding observations about life that are ultimately just false, and in this case, almost cutesy.

There are people who do read novels for the poetry and word play. And if it's woven into the story telling well enough, if it's subtle as opposed to mashed into your face like wedding cake, then I can sometimes enjoy it. I generally prefer to distil the novels themes myself by dissecting the story and structure, without having them poured over me like syrup.

[vanseedee.livejournal.com]

I don't think she knows how to spell subtle.

I actually think that this book was almost worth reading for all the fun things you can quote at people.

For example:
Bottom up and out. When the gurgling, bubbling sound came, she listened with her eyes. A yellow brook burbled through a mountain pass. Rahel liked all this. Holding the handbag. Everyone pissing in front of everyone. Like friends.

Like friends!!

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

Another priceless quote. "she listened with her eyes" Oh my, where was the editor? No chance of this sentence going by me - high lit or not.

[vanseedee.livejournal.com]

But!!! High lit is ART! You cannot warp it with silly things like common sense. That would be like dissecting a cow's eye without poking the iris. (High lit, here I come)

[thimble-kiss.livejournal.com]

Wow. Opened frogs on dissecting tables beg to be examined? Somehow I doubt that they do. Poor little frogs. :(

Thank you for the samples, I shall steer well clear of this one. :D

[vanseedee.livejournal.com]

Some things come with their own punishments. Like bedrooms with built-in cupboards. They would all learn more about punishments soon. That they came in different sizes. That some were so big they were like cupboards with built-in bedrooms. You could spend your whole life in them, wandering through dark shelving.

*nods sagely*

[thimble-kiss.livejournal.com]

*nods sagely with you, without a clue*

[tree00faery.livejournal.com]

Uurgh. I don't think I would have been able to finish that book! Thanks for the warning.

[vanseedee.livejournal.com]

It's like a train wreck. Or like really bad porn. Once you start looking, you simply can't look away, no matter how much it hurts.

[la-george.livejournal.com]

Open frog......

Please tell me you made that up. Please?

Shudders.

Love you. Immolate the book.

[vanseedee.livejournal.com]

I swear I didn't. You can't make stuff like this up. It's all there in its ridiculous glory.