Tuesday, March 17, 2009

do not read these books

i like reading. i like to vary my reading and take chances on books (so i randomly pick out books at book stores). i have favorite genres, but generally speaking, i like em all.

what i despise is overhyped fucking classics. i understand that people praise highly subjective crap like art and call it genius (picasso? really? must i get high to appreciate his art?), but when it comes to books it really pisses me off. i present to you 3 classics that are best left to rot in a library somewhere.

1. george orwell's animal farm and 1984
the concept behind these novels is quite interesting. they deal mainly with censorship. however, animal farm is literally about a farm with speaking animals. and is like 80 pages or something. and 1984 takes the animal farm concept and applies it to humans, almost idea for idea. i did myself the injustice of reading them back to back, but i would also say i did myself a favor by catching his bs. either one of them written alone would've been enough. don't do the animal one, the human one analyses the ideas in much more depth

2. james joyce' a portrait of the artist as a young man
never in my life have i read such a narcissistic account of one's childhood as that pile of nonsense. i was brought up catholic but now i don't believe in god. boohoo. to be fair i didn't actually go through the whole thing, but damn it i tried to read the fucker 4 times and i couldn't past the first few chapters. it's boring as hell.

3. gabriel garcía márquez' 100 years of solitude
i had to google the novel to get the guy's name. that novel was an absolute agony to complete. it is so irrelevant that i'm surprised that people actually complete and enjoy it. it talks about a town with a train and bananas and something about an eating contest. i have no idea what the hell it was all about. i finished it and wondered why i ever bothered in the first place. but the eating contest part i'm sure of.

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