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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Books For The Recycling Bin

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05:46 / 18.02.02

has any book infuriated you so much you had to get rid of it? many years ago i got maybe a quarter of the way through john fowles' the collector and was so enraged by what i felt was the author thoroughly enjoying the female character's kidnap and terrorisation that i tore all the pages out and jumped up and down on it. should've read it all the way through before i did this, but there you go.

i'm a bit more mature these days, so during aldous huxley's biography (a writer i much admire), when it dawned on me that the bloke appeared to be not only an insufferable snob but somewhat homophobic, i stopped reading for a while so as to calm down and have recently gone back to it. i also picked up a copy of david icke's the truth vibrations in a secondhand shop the other day. so far the environmental stuff is sensible enough, but his 'mentally and physically disabled people are being punished/challenged for stuff they did in a previous life' had me very, very nearly hurling the tome across the pub i was in when i read it. but i will finish this book, too, to try and get the full picture. then, perhaps, i will trash it.

any others for the bin? and has anyone actually read 'the collector'....?

07:19 / 18.02.02

I very rarely throw books away (unless they have reached an advanced stage of decrepitude) - which is rather daft really, since I agree with Helene Hanff: 'I can't think of anything less sacrosanct than a bad book, or even a mediocre book...'

I *should* have chucked Irvine Welsh's Filth, since I disliked the main character so much I couldn't get past page 50, but I think I still have it somewhere, clogging up my bookshelves.

07:31 / 18.02.02

Yes.

I found The Collector to be a deeply disturbing but deeply wonderful book. Fowles clearly identifies with the female character (as an artist, as an intellectual, as a liberal and as a potential force for positive change in society) while the male-obsessive characterises everything he finds repugnant (his view of the stodgy middle class aspirant: narrow-minded, unimaginative, prudish and ultimately abusive). In fact if anything he's a little heavy-handed in this dichotomy.

Would it help if I told you that while the first half of the book is written from the male character's point of view, the second half is written from the female's with both devastating and revealing effect?

Also, see his book The French Lieutenant's Woman. It's written from the perspective of a fairly mundane and conservative Victorian gentleman, betrothed to the epitomy of a nice Victorian girl who finds himself falling in love with a 'fallen woman'. Once again, he uses the male character's perspectives, beliefs and behaviour to reveal the flaws, inadequacies, inequalities and sheer hypocrisy of both their (and our) times.

Hm... do you possibly get the feeling that I love Fowles? I really recommend a second attempt at this book ( or a first attempt at the other).

The Return Of Rothkoid

08:53 / 18.02.02

SFD, I haven't read The Collector - though I do have a copy of it at home, awaiting eventual perusal. I've read The Magus by him that I enjoyed greatly; though I was aware that there was a bit of rather early-60s objectification that I found a little puzzling; though in the overall scheme of the book, it seemed to fit - it happened to all the characters, not only the women. But still; dubious. Don't let the one experience put you off his work though; he may be an insufferable cock in some places, but what I've read is rather impressive.

I tend not to throw books away; my bookcase is testament to that - and I feel curiously strongly about not finishing books once I've started them. Though I've only this weekend past gotten the shits with Sinclair's Lights Out For The Territory because it's got too-high a posey bullshit-to-psychogeographical interest ratio; I dumped it mid-stream for a copy of a Bram Stoker novel. Which is fabulous. A book I didn't chuck but should've was The Illuminatus Trilogy - but that's been recorded elsewhere. Grr.

Ephemerat: What's The Ebony Tower like? As good as The Magus, or...?

[ 18-02-2002: Message edited by: The Return Of Rothkoid ]

The Natural Way

08:53 / 18.02.02

Thomas Harris. I just wanted to read and enjoy some pop fiction. Instead I was violently sick and had to go start a fight in order to chill out. Not really, but I hated Hannibal. As soon as I realised that I wasn't excited, I wasn't scared, I didn't care what happened next, I was clearly smarter than the big bad I was supposed to be reeeeaaally in awe of (w/ all his shitarse cod psychology bollocks) and I was completely fucking bored, I decided enough was enough.....

Pooo, Nesh, how can you get into his crap? It's so dull...

08:53 / 18.02.02

I'm in the camp that never throws books away, no matter how appalling they are. The only novel I've come close to slinging, however, was by the aforementioned Irvine Welsh; while it was technically very good, Marabou Stork Nightmares sickened me to my core. I thought it was completely gratuitously shocking, and I'm not easily shocked. Cheap, nasty, violent porn masquerading as "contemporary literature". If I had to throw one book away I own, it would be this one.

And another vote for John Fowles - I read The Collector when I was in my teens, haven't touched it since, but thought it was excellent. The Magus is my fave, though.

10:53 / 18.02.02

The only book I have tossed out was "Lord Foul's Bane" by Stephen R. Donalson. I was completely disgusted when around 50 pages in Thomas, finding himself in a magical world where his dick finally works again rapes some poor innocent girl. I don't care if he's not supposed to be a heroic figure. Rape does not belong in a fantasy novel.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

10:55 / 18.02.02

...in Bizarro world.

11:01 / 18.02.02

The only book I have destroyed was Lawrence's Women In Love. In truth I did not like it at all, but I would not have ripped it up except that it was a cheap edition and already falling apart, adding to the annoyance of reading it. Anyway as it happens I was making little day of the dead figurines & I cut up the pages to put in my skeleton's typewriter--used the chapter heading to "Gladiators," if I remember correctly.

11:06 / 18.02.02

'The Collector' is excellent - but yeah, deeply disturbing. Don't think I've ever destroyed a book but, recently, Stephen Fry's 'Tennis Balls of the Stars' was such a heap of bollocks that it hit the bin the moment I'd skim-read to the last page...

12:02 / 18.02.02

Try John Norman's 'Gor' Books... writing out his wank fantasies of dominating women etc.

[ 18-02-2002: Message edited by: Opalfruit ]

12:13 / 18.02.02

I picked up a few of John Norman's books but I knew that they were adolescent wank-fests when I bought them. When I picked up "Lord Foul's Bane" I thought I was buying a tolkien rip-off so I didn't exactly expect a rape scene 50 pages in. Terry Goodkind's books are just as bad, there's at least one rape per book.

So to keep this on topic, I just remembered another book I actually tossed out. It was some book by L. Ron Hubbard about dianetics or scientology, something of the sort. I bought it for 10 cents expecting a science fiction novel.

13:26 / 18.02.02

Some shit called "Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America" because it was simply horrible.

quote:The only novel I've come close to slinging, however, was by the aforementioned Irvine Welsh; while it was technically very good, Marabou Stork Nightmares sickened me to my core. I thought it was completely gratuitously shocking, and I'm not easily shocked. Cheap, nasty, violent porn masquerading as "contemporary literature". If I had to throw one book away I own, it would be this one.

Haha. Just finished that one! Didn't manage to get shocked until they raped that girl, though that experience only last for a few seconds. I consider myself shock-proof, so I'd say that my few seconds of shock were a Good Thing. I became so disgusted with the protagonist that it left a profound effect on me. Very few books leave such an effect. I also liked the symbolism in this book, especially the metamorphosis at the end.

13:34 / 18.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Kit-Cat Club:
I *should* have chucked Irvine Welsh's Filth, since I disliked the main character so much I couldn't get past page 50, but I think I still have it somewhere, clogging up my bookshelves.

It's up on my bookshelf now, taking up needed space... If I sold my books, it would probably be first.

If I actually owned the copy I was reading, Memoirs of a Geisha would have been burned and the ashes scattered....

13:48 / 18.02.02

I threw away 'Apocolypse Culture', about 1/2 a page into reading the interview with the charming Peter Sotos. More out of disgust than shock. I umm-d and ahh-d a bit, but it came down to the fact that I didn't want it in my flat.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:14 / 18.02.02

A (female) friend of mine in my English class at college took such a strong objection to the poetry of Rochester, that she tore her copy of his poems in two and handed that in instead of an essay.

I've still never quite decided how I feel about that. On the one hand, I quite like Rochester, and feel that while there is a significant amount of misogynistic content in his work, there's also a lot of quite savage satire aimed at the society of the time, and other things of value, with the result that there's more to be gained from a critique of his poetry that includes a demolition of his misogyny, rather than physically tearing it up... On the other hand, I'm not stupid enough not to realise that the misogyny in Rochester's poetry may have affected her directly in a way that it didn't affect me, and so I'm reluctant to condemn what she did - and there's also a part of me that thinks "Punk rock!".

Back on topic: I've never thrown away a book, as far as I can recall, although I have lost quite a few... Basically my hoarding instinct is such that I keep far too many magazines that could well be thrown out...

Worst book I own is probably Jay McInerney's Model Behaviour (a gift) - before that it was Jane Owen's hilariously bad Camden Girls (not a gift), but that has vanished into the ether.

[ 18-02-2002: Message edited by: Flyboy ]

gentleman loser

14:14 / 18.02.02

Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, a book I'd have taken outside, doused with lighter fluid and burned had it not been a loaner.

Yes, postmodernism can be a very bad thing!

Some Sci-Fi by Ben Bova (Privateers, Kinsman Saga). Started two of those, mistaaaake! His 2-D female "characters" are mere ornamental wallpaper meant to prop up the egos of his 'merican uber-male leads. Thank fate we don't have too many SF authors trying to imitate Heinlein anymore.

Anything by Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton (in this case Red Storm Rising and Jurrasic Park), two "authors" who prove that technical knowledge doesn't mean that you can write a story that isn't full of trite cliches and paper thin characters. I'm embarrased to admit that I actually tried to read any of their crap. Again, two writers that will be blessedly erased from book history. Give it time.

[ 18-02-2002: Message edited by: gentleman loser ]

14:33 / 18.02.02

well, i feel i must pick up another copy of the collector and try again, so thanks for the comments on that one.

i have just thought of another one i should've trashed. called let's go play at the adams' (the author's name escapes me), it was about a young female babysitter who gets kidnapped, tortured and killed by her charges. i think it rather dressed itself up as the kids vs adults war, but was really an excuse for gratuitous violence and had the victim enjoying being raped by one of the boys, who 'had' to do it because he was aroused.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

14:37 / 18.02.02

Fuck me, but Camden Girls was an abortion. If I was going to destroy a book, it could well be that one for its sheer dreadfulness.

On the other hand, to destroy a book is a very charged event, especially in a public context. Fly's friend was registering a protest against Rochester, but sahe was also deliveringan accusation through a highly performative route. Like writing "paedo" on the side of someone's house - it may or may not be justified, but by god people will notice it.

[ 18-02-2002: Message edited by: The Haus of Deletia ]

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

14:39 / 18.02.02

quote:Originally posted by shortfatdyke:
well, i feel i must pick up another copy of the collector and try again, so thanks for the comments on that one.

i have just thought of another one i should've trashed. called let's go play at the adams' (the author's name escapes me), it was about a young female babysitter who gets kidnapped, tortured and killed by her charges. i think it rather dressed itself up as the kids vs adults war, but was really an excuse for gratuitous violence and had the victim enjoying being raped by one of the boys, who 'had' to do it because he was aroused.

Oh....God. Yes, I read that, it was bloody awful. Utter trash, nasty and exploitative.

14:47 / 18.02.02

haus - from what ephemerat has said, it appears i read too little of the collector and did my angry stampy thing before i'd got the whole picture. i'm fifteen years older now and quite prepared to admit i was hasty, and should've read the whole thing. john fowles may well deserve a belated apology from me!

[by the way, my original title for this thread was 'the book burning club', but it rather threw up images of facism, so i remembered the lesbian avengers' action, where they dumped a load of copies of a misogynist gay men's magazine into a recycling bin, and thought it was a more constructive title.]

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

14:52 / 18.02.02

Yep, SFD - have edited post to take this into account. Although I do like the idea of a mass rally and book-recycling - very responsible...

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

15:34 / 18.02.02

I agree about the Thomas Covenant books...they were really horridly little nasty boring things. I can't believe how popular they were when I was in High School, and much I hated them. I kept reading them because I was constantly being told that "Oh they get better..." and they never did. I don't see much around by the author anymore, does he still write?

When I was reading pop novels, I read some Grisham...and by The Client, I was sick of his pulling endings out of a hat. In The Client, I got to the last 50 pages and he tossed out the ENTIRE plot and motivation for his ending and I literally chucked the book in the lake I was itting near while reading it.

But then again, I don't think Stephen King has written a decent ending to one of his books since It, which had the worst ending of any novel I have ever suffered through.

15:53 / 18.02.02

The Celestine Prophecy. What a piece of crap. I agree with Apocalypse Culture. I had to get rid of it because it was too disturbing.

Time's Arrow by Ian Banks. More crap. If the protagonist is living backwards, why the hell is the observing consciousness going forwards? That one went into the dumper right quick.

04:53 / 19.02.02

[pedant] Time's Arrow = Martin Amis [/pedant]

05:45 / 19.02.02

I've only ever thrown out books I'd cut pictures out of for collages, but last week I literally threw a book across the room in disgust - The Genocides by Thomas Disch. It was a scene at the end of the second chapter, where the stoic protagonist rejects his brother's unfaithful wife, then hits her, and she enjoys being hit. It wasn't just the sexism, but the extraordinarily cliched sexism which anyone with three-quarters of a brain cell should have been able to avoid. And it's not like I had high expectations for the book.

By the way, that Lesbian Avengers action sounds brilliant.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

05:45 / 19.02.02

My nominations: Chariots of the Gods, and absolutely anything, ever, by Martin bloody Amis. Rotten writer, complete prick.

22:21 / 19.02.02

Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero was less than pleasant: snuff films, bored teenagers raping a twelve-year-old girl, etc. Never read American Psycho; heard quite a few people threw that one at walls.

Has anyone read Pauline Reage's The Story of O? Is it erotica or misogynist porn? From what I've read of the author, she sounds like an abused girlfriend who took up writing anti-female D/S in order to please a sadistic male lover.

23:16 / 19.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Traz:
Has anyone read Pauline Reage's The Story of O?

Got it a few weeks ago, haven't read it yet... it's sitting on my bookshelf rather malevolently, and the more I don't read it the more afraid I get about it.

23:18 / 19.02.02

Perhaps you could incarcerate it in the freezer compartment a la Joey-from-'Friends' and his Scaaary Little Women?

23:23 / 19.02.02

Then you'll wind up with a Douglas Adams-style refrigerator that births a Guilt God.

23:26 / 19.02.02

I'm a dork, right.

23:34 / 19.02.02

I'm too scared to even touch that book without prior approval from an accredited literary feminist.

01:06 / 20.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Trijhaos:
It was some book by L. Ron Hubbard about dianetics or scientology, something of the sort. I bought it for 10 cents expecting a science fiction novel.

and it differed from that, how?

08:29 / 20.02.02

It didn't differ from a sci-fi novel too much, but the protagonist was a bit boring always going on about this religion thing. Actually the plot wasn't any good either, it was mostly the protagonist saying "give us money, join our cult".

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