I feel like people here haven't read enough terrible books, if supposed classics are on your list. I mean, there's an entire LEGION of ****ty, terrible literature. Robert Stanek is a great example, a self-published fantasy author who conned his way onto Amazon and literary conventions, with an entire forum populated by him, where he posts under hundreds of aliases. Look at his genius prose:
Quote:
The horse beneath her, confused by the mixture of opposing signs given it, reared upward. To regain a tight grip on the reins, Adrina twisted the leathers in her hands. This again sent misleading signals to the confounded and uneasy animal beneath her. It reared again.
A second pull on the reins caused the mare to shift sideways as it landed. The steed stumbled, and then faltered as it lost its balance on the uneven roadside. Adrina's tumultuous, wanton eyes spun around as horse and rider tumbled.
No longer a participant, Adrina became an observer. The torchlight seemed to dance around in circles before her as she felt herself falling to the ground. Her head was still spinning and her thoughts yet dazed as she landed with a splash into the murky waters and mud of the mire.
In a blur of frenzied thought, she felt herself sinking downward. A split second passed and she relived the fall into the water, eyes wide, cheeks puffed gasping at air, hands flailing, the light of the torch spinning wildly before her and then dying the instant it hit the dark waters with a sizzle.
A scramble to free feet from stirrups ended as she felt the movement of her body come to a sudden stop. Had she hit bottom? Was this it?
She held all the time in the world in the palm of her hands and she released a sigh of thankfulness, cut short by the horse landing on top of her with a horrific crunch. Adrina's pain was sudden, excruciating, and vividly real as her world careened to darkness.
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This, my friends, is just a sampling the terrible literature I'VE read. I mean, have you people read Terry Goodkind? Another example of TERRIBLE literature, but this time, published in the mainstream. Eragon is another example, the prose is atrocious. Same with Twilight. Or anything by L. Ron Hubbard.
Essentially, shame on those who put down Scarlet Letter, Catcher in the Rye and others as the WORST and expect not to get laughed at by me. What it means is that you haven't read enough.
Catcher in the Rye? Please. Try reading the Sword of Truth series and not stabbing yourself, wishing you hadn't read some bland, straightforward fantasy written by an author who jacks off to Ayn Rand, and has characters do giant speeches about the evils of a socialist system and then kick little girls(but they're evil) in the jaw, shattering their face.
Also, people who can't dig The Great Gatsby are people whose literary opinions I simply can't respect. Unless you aren't American, then I might be able to understand, but the characters are so human, so real. The prose is lyrical and gets to the heart of the lie behind the classic 'American Dream', it's a book about people past their prime, desperately trying to clutch at the one fleeting moment in their past when they were hot sh*t, and failing. It's a book about the shallow pleasures of a materialistic society which parties, goes to mansions and drinks but never seem to be happy or content. To me, The Great Gatsby is America in a nutshell.
Basically, I won't respect your literary opinion unless you like or respect these things which should be universally loved: The Great Gatsby, Slaughter-House Five and Vonnegut in general, The Wasteland/The Hollow Men/Rhapsody on a Windy Night by TS Eliot, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, Prose of the Trans-Siberian by Blaise Cendrars, part one of Howl by Allen Ginsberg, Neuromancer by Gibson, and assorted things by Robert Heinlein(The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for me) and Philip K. D*ck(screw you word filter, this guy is a legend, read A Scanner Darkly :P)
Those aren't my top favorites, but I feel they are great and shouldn't have a divided opinion, though Gatsby can cause haters for some reason, and T.S. Eliot has detractors, but at his best is one of the most amazing poets. I adore The Wasteland. Anyway. Keep on loving great literature and hating bad literature.