[Industrialblog,
July 15, 2004]
Worst Books I've Ever Read
Cobb and Nykola are discussing the worst books they've ever read. Here's some of my initial choices:
1. Rabbit, Run by John Updike. Easily the worst prose ever. Most pretentious rendering of sex. As bad as Eyes Wide Shut and about as ponderous. And get this — the story is pretty good. But the prose: "His sea of seed buckles and sobs into a still chamber." Worst. English. Sentence. Ever. And if you find the original version, you've got a picture of twerpish John Updike pretentiously puffing a smoke. IMHO, Updike grew up and became a great writer. But I have no idea how he got published again after this monstrosity. Maybe it was daring for the time.
2. Plus, by Joseph McElroy. A brain is placed in orbit in outer space in a satellite. He think thoughts like "travel light" which is considered extremely humorous (see, the brain doesn't even bring his body with him. Heh). The brain eventually grows limbs. This takes 180 pages and that's all that happens. Meanwhile, the prose does things like "experiments" with "textual density," which is another way of saying you don't know what the hell is going on. Little Plus isn't all that interesting a character, anyway. When the author when he visited at our college, I told Mr. McElroy (a gentleman) that the book pissed me off, and I didn't know what point he was after. He nodded politely.
3. Blood & Guts in High School and Empire of the Senseless by Kathy Acker. Warmed-over Jean Genet and William Burroughs, from a feminist perspective. Not all bad. It has its moments, but they are few and far between. Empire loses points for sympathetic, even admiring, portraits of terrorists. Blood & Guts loses points for including Persian grammar lessons. (Or was it Turkish?)
1. Rabbit, Run by John Updike. Easily the worst prose ever. Most pretentious rendering of sex. As bad as Eyes Wide Shut and about as ponderous. And get this — the story is pretty good. But the prose: "His sea of seed buckles and sobs into a still chamber." Worst. English. Sentence. Ever. And if you find the original version, you've got a picture of twerpish John Updike pretentiously puffing a smoke. IMHO, Updike grew up and became a great writer. But I have no idea how he got published again after this monstrosity. Maybe it was daring for the time.
2. Plus, by Joseph McElroy. A brain is placed in orbit in outer space in a satellite. He think thoughts like "travel light" which is considered extremely humorous (see, the brain doesn't even bring his body with him. Heh). The brain eventually grows limbs. This takes 180 pages and that's all that happens. Meanwhile, the prose does things like "experiments" with "textual density," which is another way of saying you don't know what the hell is going on. Little Plus isn't all that interesting a character, anyway. When the author when he visited at our college, I told Mr. McElroy (a gentleman) that the book pissed me off, and I didn't know what point he was after. He nodded politely.
3. Blood & Guts in High School and Empire of the Senseless by Kathy Acker. Warmed-over Jean Genet and William Burroughs, from a feminist perspective. Not all bad. It has its moments, but they are few and far between. Empire loses points for sympathetic, even admiring, portraits of terrorists. Blood & Guts loses points for including Persian grammar lessons. (Or was it Turkish?)