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Bukowski Moments
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| Meat187 |
| quote: | Originally said by Charles Bukowski
Reading the poets has been the dullest of things. Even reading the great novelists of the past, I said, "Tolstoy is supposed to be special?" I go to bed, I read War and Peace. I read it, I read it, I say, "Where is the specialist in War and Peace?" I really tried to understand. I mean, and then many of the great poets of the past, I've read their stuff. I've read it. All I get is a goddamn headache and boredom. I really feel sickness in the pit of my stomach, I say "There's some trick going on here, this is not true. This is not real, its not good." |
So what were the moments when you encountered a piece of art that's critically acclaimed yet turned out to be nothing special at all and more like a load of crap that has somehow tricked people into liking it?
I'll post some stuff later, hopefully this thread won't derail until then. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| James Joyce. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| Oh, and Faulkner. |
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| Ygrene |
| *resists urge to derail* |
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| TranceOwnsLol |
| Jane Austen. What a load of . |
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| denys envy |
| bokowski is good . |
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| dj_alfi |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
So what were the moments when you encountered a piece of art that's critically acclaimed yet turned out to be nothing special at all and more like a load of crap that has somehow tricked people into liking it?
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| SkyHigh |
| Lord of the rings. |
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| trancechan |
richard wagner.
i get that his music is 'better than it sounds' but seriously, it is some dull . |
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| Meat187 |
- Orwell's 1984: Had to read this in class and still think it's utter crap. Badly written, uninteresting and generally not enjoyable for the reader at all. It may be intersting in a political or sociological sense (although it's main implication today is a stupid reality TV show) but that doesn't change the fact that I think it's a bad book.
- Günther Grass: One of Germany's most acclaimed authors. I tried to read "The Tin Drum" but failed. I finished "Cat and Mouse" and it was terrible. Weird storytelling, utter boredom and nothing of interest or quality whatsoever.
- James Joyce: Thankfully I didn't even bother with Ulysses but started with "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". That guy has got to be kidding all the critics. Large passages of the book are just annoying, confusing and inaccessible. And from what I've heard Ulysses is a hundred times worse. Call me ignorant, but a book where I need to read a professors explanations to understand what the author is trying to say is a book imho.
- The Beatles: Most people will strongly disagree on this one but I find their music completely unspectacular. Not really bad, just nothing special and not woth any of the fuss.
- The Departed: 92% on RT and all my friends liked it. Yet I went from bored to annoyed to even more bored and was even close to walking out of the cinema since that crap dragged on for eternity. Yeah, huge amount of big names but what exactly is so good about this movie?
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
I kind of feel this way about Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Then again, I am not that far into it yet so I will give it more of a chance.
Also, Saul Bellow is another, as I recently wrote:
| quote: | I think I finally realized what bugs me so much about Saul Bellow and why I can only rarely finish his books: none of his characters are very likable. I have read significant amounts of but not finished The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, and now Humboldt's Gift. I finished Ravelstein, but I think that was because it was about Allan Bloom and I was really interested in Bloom at the time. It's also shorter than many of his other books.
Anyway, Bellow's protagonists always feel like they're just avatars of the author. Bellow was married five times and divorced four: his protagonists always have trouble with women and failing marriages. He was at the University of Chicago during the "Great Books" phase instigated by Hutchins and Adler: his protagonists always seem to have a thing for old philosophy and history in general. But more than their obvious resemblance to the author, the protagonists annoy me because of their narcissism. The incessant narcissism and self-regard sometimes comes disguised as self-deprecation and "aw shucks" attitude, which annoys me even more than open preening. And the rest of the characters that fill the story are either almost as annoying or not fleshed out enough to be interesting. I mean, I know that realistic characters are supposed to have flaws, but that doesn't mean that every character has to have flaws that overpower anything good about them.
Okay, enough negativity. Bellow does write great prose and I enjoy his philosophical musings. His writing is even insightful sometimes. But I just can't get over his annoying characters. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
- James Joyce: Thankfully I didn't even bother with Ulysses but started with "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". That guy has got to be kidding all the critics. Large passages of the book are just annoying, confusing and inaccessible. And from what I've heard Ulysses is a hundred times worse. Call me ignorant, but a book where I need to read a professors explanations to understand what the author is trying to say is a book imho.
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I liked Portrait and found it quite readable. I don't really see what's hard to understand about it.
Ulysses I can see being difficult. I've only read excerpts of it (which I liked) for a course, but I picked up the book recently and will start on it soon. |
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