Tender isn't the night.

[davywavy]

One of the problems of having spent my formative years gamely reading all of the world's great literature that I could get my hands on is that these days I'm having to make do with the world's ho-hum literature instead.
This thought struck me with force this morning as I was looking for somehting to read on the train to work and my eye alighted on the half-read copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the night which has been sitting by my bed for some weeks. Like the copy of magical beasts and where to find them in Harry Potter, it squats there, malevolently daring me to try and read it, glaring vilely and promising dire retribution should I so much as pick it up.
For the life of me I can't understand how Fitzgerald has got the reputation he has (apparently he's a regular on A level English Lit reading lists); his prose is supremely unengaging, his characterisation repetitive and leaden, and his preoccupations (not matter how rich, successful, and pretty you are you'll never actually be happy. So ner) bloody irritating. This book reminds me in some ways of Yukio Mishima's Forbidden Colours; in that I'm bloody well not going to let it beat me, so I'll put my head down in a determined way and make it to the end if it kills me.

This leads me to the question I'm asking of you lot today; who, in your opinion, is the most over-rated "great" author? Is it perhaps Dickens, whose tiresome 'jokes' and supremely punchable characters are so beloved of English teachers everywhere? Perhaps it is Anton Chekov, who could do with just lightening up? Or perhaps someone more modern like Will Self, who you just want to punch and punch and punch until he takes the hint and stops? Let me know your thoughts.

Oh, and if anyone can recommend anything good to read I'd be grateful. I've got bloody Albert Camus next unless anyone can save me.

Comments

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Perhaps not so relevant to the English and sub country folks reading this but I detest Thoreau. The only reason I'm reading Walden again is because of my friend's suicide, which isn't a very good reason for literature at all. I find him tepid, sanctimonious and boring. He's like Bono, only in 19th century transcendentalist form.

I agree with you about Will Self, he's repulsive.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have always meant to read Thoreau, but the excerpts I've read have always struck me as so smug that I never bothered.
If anyone is going to be smug around here, it's me.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

Dickens for the "classics". Dull, depressing etc

or the Bronte's. Gods they were annoying

For Fantasy? David Eddings. Great characterisation, very very dull in all other ways. He wrote the same series of books 4 times, admits it even, and is considered amazing

Modern? Helen Fielding - FFS! Bridget fucking Jones must DIE! Give all single thiry somethings loveable anorexia and neuroses. Like we can't cope without a man????

If you like Celtic myth based fantasy, try Katherine Kerr, absolutely wonderful author.

For more modern, I can't remember the author, but The Happy Policeman is very good, and rather odd. The story isn't about the story, so to speak.

For SciFi/ Dark Futures (near futures), Fairyland is very strange and rather superb.

For fantasy but actually about anyone and everyone, Beauty by Sheri S Teper

Most things by CJ Cherryh and Orson Scott Card rock

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Good lord sistah, preach on about the Brontes. Ugh, ugh and more ugh. They make me want to bash my head in with a two by four so I can understand what it's like to be that two dimensional.

I think our Dave needs some barmy. How about Blake? Or maybe some symbolist French poets?

[wyrdness.livejournal.com]

I can't stand David Edding's, I agree with what you said for him. I couldn't even get far enough into his books to grow attached to the characters and I've tried far more times than I have to read The Hobbit.

[the-mendicant.livejournal.com]

I read every Bronte novel published and I can honestly say that Vilette and The Professor suck, big time and should be banished, never to see daylight again.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

I'd been thinking abuot reading Orson Scott Card for ages. Then someone pointed me at (http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1.html) these (http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html), and I went right off him. Sure, it doesn't mean he's automatically a bad writer, but... well.

[cygny.livejournal.com]

If you haven't read yet, I recommend Eiji Josjikawa. Japanese author who writes/wrote about Japanese Middle Ages, Shoguns, Samurai and the likes. Only found and read two novels by him but adored. 'Taiko' and 'Musashi'. This last is based on one of the most famous Samurai that ever lived, who became a legend and whose book about strategy became a must-read for everyone even remotely interested in any martial art. Musashi's book is called 'Legend of the five rings'.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have read The book of Five Rings, and also the Hagakure (can't remember who that's by).
I could not recommend Junichiro Tanizaki, who is just plain odd.

[kathminchin.livejournal.com]

Having plowed through The Great Gatsby I think I alienated my English teacher for all time by calling the female lead (cannot for the life of me remember her name) as being wet, self centred and whinging - rather like today's teenage girl magazines - and I put it in my essay as well.

Bronte is so turgid, although for some reason it translates well to TV series. I remember enjoying a dramatisation of Jane Eyre but loathing the actual book. Likewise Austen - works well on screen, sleep inducing to read. Mind, that may be because I studied Pride and Prejudice at GCSE, and then again at A'level...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You think that the female lead in The Great Gatsby is bad, you just try - try, I dare you - reading Tender is the Night. In the same way that people at moments of danger and stress can perform astonishing feats of physical strength that would kill them normally, I will finish this book.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

David Eddings definately after his gawdawful series "Mummy Daddy and baby adventurer go to naughty land." The characterisation is terrible, they are all about as shallow as bits of paper, it's predictable to almost paragraph level and the dialogue made me go to sleep. Why it's considered any good is way beyond me.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I remember buying "Pawn of Prophecy" when i was about 13, reading it in an evening and being so impressed that I went out and bought "Queen of Sorcery" the very next day. That series is quite fun until halfway through "Magicians Gambit", and then it goes downhill.
Everything else he's ever written has been unutterable shite.

[omentide.livejournal.com]

I just finished reading 'A Suitable Boy' and would recommend it. I do like long books but I think I must be one of the last people on the planet to read it. Then the new Doris Lessing book of stories which wasn't long enough.

I am also in the market for recommendations...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Well, don't read The Famished Road that's for certain. Awful.
I rather liked Life of Pi recently, jasper ffordes books are good page-turners, and Sophies World was fun if predictable. I may re-read my Bill Brysons books, especially as his is the writing style I aspire to most of anybody I think.

[puddingcat.livejournal.com]

magical beasts and where to find them in Harry Potter
Do got your literary references right, dear :p The books are "Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them", and "The Monster Book of Monsters". The latter is the sweet Neville-eating one from the latest film.

Personally, I find Tolkien to be irritating; his style doesn't suit the stories. But that's just my opinion, and I know yours differs.

Certainly John Grisham doesn't deserve his reputation, although he's very good at what he does (predictable, repetitive and anti-capitalist). Also Anne Rice, though I think her reputation's been going where it shoudl following her decision to sack her editor. In a more highbrow sense (i.e. I'm about to boast), I can't get on with War & Peace or, indeed, Plato or Pliny.

I'd recommend the Aeneid, since you've read the Iliad & the Odyssey. I much prefer Virgil. You may borrow my copy if you promise not to turn cormners over :p

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Books are meant to be read! Turning the corners over is an integral part of the process!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Well, obviously I read War & Peace whilst a babe in arms, Plato I'm trawling through on an ongoing basis and pliny I haven't tried yet. Cicero goes on a bit, mind.

Tolkein I like, but can understand why a lot of people won't 'get' him, Anne Rice I've only read two books (Interview with the Vampire - not bad, Memnoch the devil - irredeemable crap). Grisham is like Dean Koontz - the first book of his you read is great and after that it becomes very clear he's a one-trick pony.

My Potter chi is weak, I know. But then again some of us aren't addicts :p

[stickette.livejournal.com]

I may be out on a limb here but Henry James gets overrated author status for me. Like a lot of these posts this was also prompted by school experience. We sweated and toiled through Portrait of a Lady's absurd over description and irredeemable dullness for a year. It seemed like twenty. At least.

I also particularly dislike Thomas Hardy - unremitting doom and gloom and with characters as unidimensional as Dickens.

Recommended reading? I would have said Jasper Fforde too - the rollicking good read type of book with the added attraction that you can congratulate yourself on spotting the literary in-jokes as you go along. If you like sci-fi, Neal Stephenson, though I suspect you may have read him already - especially Snowcrash. Also Michael Marshall Smith - one of my personal favourite authors, as you know. None of them truly great but good entertainment all the same which is a perfectly acceptable, if humbler, aim for a book in my view!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have placed an order for some Neal Stephenson today, as it happens. I haven't read any but so many people have recommended it to me that I decided to have a go - huzzah for amazon.

Michael Marshall Smith - I read "one of us" and hated it; the cop-out ended caused my blood pressure to rise a good dozen points. I certainly would have to be convinced to read any more...

[souldier-blue.livejournal.com]

I tend to read mostly sci-fi/horror/fantasy *shrug* But I can recommend Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden if you want something contemporary. Oh, Catch-22 if you haven't already read it - it is my favourite book of all time, and a "classio" to boot.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You gave me a copy of Catch 22 for my brithday in 1999, which I still have, read, complete with your handwritten dedication in the front cover :)

I've read the Lisa Dalby (which you lent me :) ) and Mineko Iwasaki Geisha books, but not Arthurt Golden. I may look it out.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

Tolkien.

Drawn-out, stilted and bland isn't a style, it's a method of torture. He's taken as the benchmark by which the whole of the subsequent fantasy genre is measured, but his actual prose is dire. He had next to no grasp of pacing, or even what actually makes for an engaging read, which is why we spend two hundred pages reading about how incredibly loooong and draaaaawn ooooouuuut the social habits of giant talking trees are, or how craggy and grey the grey, grey craggy grey crags can seem, but salient plot points that are necessary to the story getting from one place to the other are just inserted like some sort of distasteful chore, completely unembellished, and not in a stealthy "let's whiz the plot along for a dramatic change of pace" way, but simply in disregard for them.

The story of Lord of the Rings isn't actually too bad. Carefree innocents cast into a world of intrigue, human failing, corruption and dark sorcery, combatted not only with martial might but noble sacrifice, staunch camaraderie and strength of will, in which the most unlikely become heroes. Sadly, he takes this story and turns it into one about prancing midgets and inescapable homoeroticism.

How, how can you spin that story out to eleven thousand pages? Let's just have a look at it, shall we? First hundred and fifty is Bilbo's birthday, which, in a very long-winded way, explores the simple, carefree world of the Shire. That this happens before we learn the whole of Middle Earth is going to be consumed by the wrath of the Dark Lord Sauron means this loses impact, as we don't see it in a light of what will be lost if this comes to pass. True, it shows the source of the unlikely heroes-to-be, and provides a state they can fall from, but The Hobbit managed to do that in about 20 pages, and that was full of dwarves to boot.

Then let's look at the last hundred and fifty pages; the bits that happen after the proper end of the book. Sauron has been defeated, the ring has been destroyed, the repercussions are felt and a semblance of balance has been restored to Middle Earth. Then they go home. Only they don't just go home, they gooooooo hoooooooome. Saruman gets shot somewhere along the way, and it's all highly poetic and in contrast to his once mighty status that he dies lying in a muddy road full of arrows, but aside from this bit of narrative tidying this stretch is still, true to form, long and tedious.

About 40 pages of third-rate masturbatory poetry, rhapsodised by all and sundry in the book as the wittiest ditties to be penned by the hand of hobbit, which are, in fact, just plain bad, inserted in all the points that succeed in killing any sense of suspense. A couple of hundred pages about trees. Sure, they talk, but they still behave like trees. The Ents could have possibly been made more interesting by having them as inanimate foliage, so they wouldn't have said "HOOM" as much. What kind of word is "HOOM" anyway? About two hundred pages of Frodo and Sam in a forest, being hungry and saying how much they love each other. Once is the sign of brothers in arms, twice is true friendship that will never die, three times and they may as well be wandering through Hampstead Heath.

Oh, and so many of his sentences begin with "they". They did this. They did that. Then they did this. If you handed that in to an A-Level English teacher, you'd never hear the end of ridicule.

Don't get me wrong, Tolkien was a genius. He was a true prodigy when it came to linguistics and his worldbuilding skills were beyond compare, but his actual writing sucked so much it drew blood. Ultimately, that's what Lord of the Rings is. It's Tolkien flexing his incredible imagination. He just could have done with flexing it a little better.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Frankenstein is pretty crap as well.

And finally...

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

...my recommendations for you. The recommendation of books is not a matter to be taken lightly, so I had to mull it over for a while, and limit it to five.

Mikhail Bulgakov The Master and Margharita

Written in 1938 by my favourite Russian author. The devil makes a personal appearance in Moscow accompanied by two demons, a naked girl and a huge black cat. Mayhem ensues. I think it would appeal to you, though I fear you might incorporate aspects of The Master into one of your RP characters...

Cormac McCarthy All the Pretty Horses or Blood Meridian

He writes about the American West and Mexico, subverting all the expectations that statement might suggest. The writing is amazing, daring: it sings off the page. Not for the stupid though, not that accessible. I love the way he writes about men. You might hate it.


Barabara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Another American. A thoroughly gripping saga about an American family that go out to the Belgian Congo as missionaries - so about the insane logic of fanatical fundamentalism, the personal face of colonialism, but the plotting and characterisation are absolutely superb. I'm pretty sure you would enjoy it.

Zoe Oldenbourg The World is not Enough

Aha, a French book for you. Definitely one of the best historical novels ever written, in my far from humble opinion. It is set in twelve century France and the Holy land and is basically the story of the marriage of a minor nobleman. It is incredible evocative, really transports you into an entirely credible mediaeval world and mindset - smells, beauty, squalor, honour, brutality, passion, pain. Written from the perspectives of both the wife and the husband you get a fascinating sense of just how separate men's and women's lives were. I think you'd get pleasantly sucked in to it.

EL Voynich The Gadfly

Written in 1904 by a British woman who married a Polish revolutionary, this is an amazing novel set in Leghorn (Livorno) in Italy in the 1840s when Italy was under the rule of Austria and the church. It's effectively a spy novel, and a left wing, anti-religious one, but it is beautifully written and thoroughly engaging, and a startling period piece. You will, I think, really like the hero.


You may borrow any of them that appeal to you.

Re: And finally...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have at least heard of most of those; and I'll take your recommendations any day of the week.
The first reminds me vaguely of Enoch Soames by Max Beerbohm - do you know it? I'll lean on H to lend you somne of hers - I rather think you'd like Max.

I've just pciked up a copy of the The Rise and Fall of House Medici, which will keep me going for a bit along with all the other stuff I must finish. Perhaps talk when I see you next about this?