the list of shame
Back by popular demand
There is a wonderful moment in the life of (nearly) every writer, when he or she puts down a book thinking, "Wow, if this guy conned an editor into taking this manuscript, then I too can be published."
This list honors those books.
If you wish to defend any of the books on this list, go right ahead. We won't mock you . . . unduly.
There is a wonderful moment in the life of (nearly) every writer, when he or she puts down a book thinking, "Wow, if this guy conned an editor into taking this manuscript, then I too can be published."
This list honors those books.
- Forsyth, Frederick. The Phantom of Manhattan. Sharon and I are reading this turkey aloud. The prose is risible and the plot isn't worth mocking. Not that it stops us. Check out the Amazon reviews. **NOTE: NYT Bestsellers List. May I be so lucky.**
- B, Geoff. Easter Island. If you really want to know, just ask. I omit the author's last name out of consideration for his family.
- Redfield, James. The Celestine Prophecy. Proposed by Anonymous (below.) While I haven't read the book, I include it on the strength of this review by Publishers Weekly: "Originally self-published, the book sold phenomenally, sparked by word of mouth, and may be this year's The Bridges of Madison County --with which it shares some regrettable stylistic similarities."
- Brown, Dan. Angels and Demons. At the request of my older brother, who was highly entertained at the thought of an antimatter bomb created by some mad scientist and his daughter. (It's produced kind of like bathtub gin, I gather.) I bow to his superior knowledge, as he is the particle physics guy in the family. Although I personally find it highly plausible that someone managed to creep out of CERN with a bunch of antimatter up his shirt.
- McEwan, Ian. Enduring Love. Since I could not resist this review: "i regret that i spent the time reading it, when i could have been just repeatedly moving my eyes from left to right instead."
- Christie, Agatha. Passenger to Frankfurt. I hear you, sister. I read this monstrosity one summer by the pool. I'd read so much Agatha that I was starting to put the paperbacks in piles according to plot twist used. When I got to this one, I concluded I'd started to hallucinate. Surely it couldn't be this stupid. I must add, though, that Destination Unknown was excellent, although it had the same "The world is ending!" vibes.
- Quinn, Daniel. Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit. Oh, man. Two hundred and seventy-two pages. Telepathic gorillas. What's not to like? Amazon shows that customers who bought this book also bought Daniel Quinn's other books. I guess if you like gorilla philosophy, there aren't many other places to find it.
If you wish to defend any of the books on this list, go right ahead. We won't mock you . . . unduly.
posted by sophie at 18:57
5 Comments:
You simply MUST add the Celestine Prophecy. Sure, the writing was atrocious; but it had the crucial quality that made it not merely publishable, but popular...wildly, bizarrely popular...a phony religiosity. This also worked for Ayn Rand, but it was phony philosophy in her case.
Hey, Sharon paid $0.70 for hers. As I pointed out, you can get about 36 oz of Diet Coke for $0.70. What a tragic waste of money.
could i also propose ian mcewan's enduring love? it is a dumb, dumb book. i regret that i spent the time reading it, when i could have been just repeatedly moving my eyes from left to right instead. ah well.
n.
My former roommate, Emily, was working on her master's in philosophy when some very sweet, very earnest guy at a party guilted her into reading the book Ishmael: An Adventure of Mind and Spirit because it had Changed his Life and he wanted to know what she thought of it. For the next 6 months I had to listen to her tortured moans wafting up from the basement bedroom as she slogged through what apparently consists of nothing more than a telepathic gorilla spouting pop psychology and new-age spirituality as the solution to the evils of our jungle-crunching "mother culture" (aka western civilization). Here was my favorite review from Amazon:
'I think it is rare for an author to so effectively capture every literary (and intellectual) horror. Ishmael is the home of atrocious writing, painful logic, and quicksand pacing: it is the longest of short books. And Quinn, with sadistic flair, so pummels the reader with repetitive, tiresome pseudo-socratic ramblings, that one is left weak and confused, hoping for mother culture's only certain salvation: the whisper of "nuclear winter."'
Okay, this isn't a bad book review, but a bad movie review. My sister and her boyfriend are currently in the living room watching a pirated copy of a screening of Constantine with Keanu Reeves. I have not seen a single frame of the movie -- I've just been listening from the next room -- and I am convinced it is the stupidest plot ever committed to celluloid. Here is the intro to Roger Ebert's charming thumbs-down review that I just found:
"No, 'Constantine' is not part of a trilogy including 'Troy' and 'Alexander.' It's not about the emperor at all, but about a man who can see the world behind the world, and is waging war against the scavengers of the damned. There was a nice documentary about emperor penguins, however, at Sundance this year. The males sit on the eggs all winter long in like 60 degrees below zero.
Keanu Reeves plays Constantine as a chain-smoking, depressed demon-hunter who lives above a bowling alley in Los Angeles. Since he was a child, he has been able to see that not all who walk among us are human. Some are penguins. Sorry about that..."
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