Jump to content
IB Survival is now part of Lanterna Education

Best/Worst Modern "Literature" Ever...

Daedalus

By Daedalus
in Literature

 Share

Recommended Posts

Daedalus

Daedalus

Posted
Posted (edited)

Was curious about what people thought about this. Just organized in a poll-like form I guess... and not comprehensive, just some examples. i.e. for me

Best: Ian McEwan's novels

Worst: Twilight series; Eragon series

What do you think? Dissidents welcome... thumbs up if you agree, down if you don't!

Edited by Daedalus
  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
JoeG

JoeG

Posted
Posted

Best: Chuck Palahniuk's early works (i.e. Fight Club, and Cormac McCarthy's The Road

Worst: 90% of novels that qualify as "Teen Fiction." While some of the works in this genre are great, make use of literary devices, and expose the world for what it truly is, most of the works are just garbage.

I don't know if "Teen/Young Adult" fiction is as popular in countries outside of the U.S., but if you look in any library/bookstore in the United States you're bound to find a section devoted to these works.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Daedalus

Daedalus

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

Best: Chuck Palahniuk's early works (i.e. Fight Club, and Cormac McCarthy's The Road

Worst: 90% of novels that qualify as "Teen Fiction." While some of the works in this genre are great, make use of literary devices, and expose the world for what it truly is, most of the works are just garbage.

I don't know if "Teen/Young Adult" fiction is as popular in countries outside of the U.S., but if you look in any library/bookstore in the United States you're bound to find a section devoted to these works.

I don't understand the obsession with McCarthy. I saw the Road and it was okay but not amazing, and then I read No Country for Old Men, which critics loved, and I thought it was terrible. Feel bad he even used a quote from such a venerable poem in such a nonsensical piece of work... maybe I have to read his other books though.

Also I didn't know Fight Club was a book... the movie was amazing though. Should read that too I guess.

Teen/Young Adult fiction, sadly, is popular everywhere: it just sells well. But I think fiction has always been 90% pulp... we got a break with HP (good popular writing) but now we're back with Twilight and the rest of it.

Edited by Daedalus
Link to post
Share on other sites
Sandwich

Sandwich

Posted
Posted

Hrm Ian McEwan is really good, but I don't think he's the best. Atonement was epic, I'll admit, but I think part of that is having already seen the film aaaand I also don't think the rest of what he's done quite matches up.

However I'm in absolute agreement with you that the Eragon books are basically the worst (serious) books I've ever read :) And by serious books I mean books that were actually intended to be of a decent quality. The writing is awful, the ideas are blatantly robbed, the storyline and execution are both poor and against all possible odds, they somehow made an even WORSE film out of the whole thing. Most of the time I spent watching that film was trying to suppress hysterics at how truly awful it was xP It was pretty funny. Especially the set.

Compared with Eragon at least Twilight is mildly original, readable and doesn't claim to be more high brow than it is. It's a literary pile of piddle, but if you disregard that it's actually a pretty enjoyable read :)

I would also dispute Chuck Palahniuk. I have enjoyed the books I've read by him, but I'm not sure if his literary punch comes more from writing about things in a very shocking way than it does from his writing style, which actually is quite straight forward. It works really well because he goes all in and doesn't withhold any punches -- he goes out of his way to push horrible things in your face and his blunt way of writing complements that superbly. I just wonder whether, were he to write about anything tamer, his books would seem as good. I dunno :)

I'm going to agree with Bishup on Steinbeck. He writes prose like it's poetry (also Michael Ondaatje should be mentioned here as somebody else capable of making sentences seem like poems :)). I'd also throw in John Fowles as a slightly contrast to Steinbeck. In my opinion, Steinbeck has AMAZING style and good content, Fowles has AMAZING content and good style :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
Globe

Globe

Posted
Posted

.

However I'm in absolute agreement with you that the Eragon books are basically the worst (serious) books I've ever read :) And by serious books I mean books that were actually intended to be of a decent quality. The writing is awful, the ideas are blatantly robbed, the storyline and execution are both poor and against all possible odds, they somehow made an even WORSE film out of the whole thing. Most of the time I spent watching that film was trying to suppress hysterics at how truly awful it was xP It was pretty funny. Especially the set.

Thank you! Everyone I know that read Eragon loved it. I didn't like it. It was extremely generic and a lot of the ideas were ripped out of Earth Sea, which was actually a good series.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Frozy

Frozy

Posted
Posted

Was curious about what people thought about this. Just organized in a poll-like form I guess... and not comprehensive, just some examples. i.e. for me

Best: Ian McEwan's novels

Worst: Twilight series; Eragon series

What do you think? Dissidents welcome... thumbs up if you agree, down if you don't!

i definitely agree abt the Twilight series :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
Sandwich

Sandwich

Posted
Posted

.

However I'm in absolute agreement with you that the Eragon books are basically the worst (serious) books I've ever read :) And by serious books I mean books that were actually intended to be of a decent quality. The writing is awful, the ideas are blatantly robbed, the storyline and execution are both poor and against all possible odds, they somehow made an even WORSE film out of the whole thing. Most of the time I spent watching that film was trying to suppress hysterics at how truly awful it was xP It was pretty funny. Especially the set.

Thank you! Everyone I know that read Eragon loved it. I didn't like it. It was extremely generic and a lot of the ideas were ripped out of Earth Sea, which was actually a good series.

Oh yeah I can kinda see the Earthsea similarities. Personally I was just dying of affront that the Dragonriders of Pern, a seriously good series of books, had had every single dragon-related idea in the book ripped and put into Eragon. It was about the only decent bit of Eragon -- both the film and the book, because the dragon was animated pretty well! I always assumed that if you bred the Dragonriders of Pern series with Lord of the Rings you'd get a little baby Eragon. Only in this instance, two rights made a wrong :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
Globe

Globe

Posted
Posted

.

However I'm in absolute agreement with you that the Eragon books are basically the worst (serious) books I've ever read :) And by serious books I mean books that were actually intended to be of a decent quality. The writing is awful, the ideas are blatantly robbed, the storyline and execution are both poor and against all possible odds, they somehow made an even WORSE film out of the whole thing. Most of the time I spent watching that film was trying to suppress hysterics at how truly awful it was xP It was pretty funny. Especially the set.

Thank you! Everyone I know that read Eragon loved it. I didn't like it. It was extremely generic and a lot of the ideas were ripped out of Earth Sea, which was actually a good series.

Oh yeah I can kinda see the Earthsea similarities. Personally I was just dying of affront that the Dragonriders of Pern, a seriously good series of books, had had every single dragon-related idea in the book ripped and put into Eragon. It was about the only decent bit of Eragon -- both the film and the book, because the dragon was animated pretty well! I always assumed that if you bred the Dragonriders of Pern series with Lord of the Rings you'd get a little baby Eragon. Only in this instance, two rights made a wrong :)

Ah! I never made the connection between it and Dragonriders of Pern, as I've only read the original trilogy (fantasy really isn't my thing) but I see it now! I never sat through more than like half an hour of the Eragon film :) Maybe the fourth book will redeem the series, but I probably won't read it

Link to post
Share on other sites
Center Field

Center Field

Posted
Posted

hmm. What do you consider modern? Do you mean the actual modernist movement? Or contemporary works?

These are my contemporary favorites

Cormac McCarthy=awesome-although No Country for Old Men is not nearly as good at Blood Meridian or Suttree.

Jonathan Franzen= Corrections is awesome.

Philip Roth-American Pastoral

Thomas Pynchon=Gravities Rainbow-forty years old, but still awesome.

For the record, the Inheritance Cycle isn't so bad.

Twilight takes the cake as the worse, however.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Sandwich

Sandwich

Posted
Posted

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson is great.

I'm not going to damn any I think are bad as the only ones I can think of are the ones that everyone hates on to look cool.

You know it's alright to dislike them because they're genuinely rubbish too :blink:

Some people hate on them to look cool, but that doesn't mean that people who dislike them for an actual reason (other than trying to seem cool) can't say so without looking like they're being fake or showing off. I used to be dead set against doing anything which other people might perceive that way but, eh, it's just a waste of time and also vaguely liberating to not care what people think.

We all have a right to an opinion, after all, and even if the 'cool' people (who probably never even read the books or know what an actually decent book is because I doubt they're the sort of person who'd even bother to read... right?) want to 'claim' some opinions for their own as the 'cool' thing to think, that's their problem. Not mine. I'm not going to stop thinking things and saying things just because I don't want to be tarred with the same brush.

So yeah. Tell us what these books are! I always figure if you actually have reasons and say them, you're already different from the sheep people... at least you have a real reason rather than a parroted one to fit in :blink:

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
Evelina

Evelina

Posted
Posted

Best: Juloratoriet by Tunström

Worst: hard so say, I don't like Twilight, but I'm sure there are worse books.

And by the way, Evelina, I don't think Njals saga is really modern literature...

whoops :S no of course Njals Saga isn't considered as "modern" literature, guess I missed that part in the title when I wrote my last comment.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...