Books You've Thrown Away

[viridian]

binkybetsy said:

And PolyGal, has The Things They Carried ever been subjected to any kind of scrutiny, a la A Million Little Pieces? Though I suppose, since O'Brien was not lying about having been in country, and is not making outrageous claims like having killed 10 VC with his bare hands, it's no great crime for him to have repeated a few vet legends. AMLP was, in my opinion, reprehensible because Frey slandered Hazelden; his own claims of badassery merely make him look pathetic. Still, I regarded TTTC as the ramblings of the drunk on the next barstool. Except for the beginning (and only the beginning) of the titular essay. Very moving. The rest of it? Yeah, I really believe that Green Berets would mentor some chick from Ohio.

I believe The Things They Carried is "inspired by true events", but it is fiction. As far as I'm aware, Tim O'Brien has never claimed the book's events actually occurred in real life, like James Frey did with A Million Little Pieces.

I'm still slogging through The Historian. I haven't given up on it yet, but it keeps getting bumped down the to-read list, or set aside after a while. Not a hateful book, but not an exciting one, either.

[Deleted]

I couldn't get into "The Tropic of Cancer" either, Margo. Are we missing out on a masterpiece by not persevering?

It's been years since I read "A Separate Peace", Abby, and can't remember much about it now but I do recall liking it. I completely agree with your description of "Da Vinci Code" though.

[Margo]

I actually liked A Separate Peace.
Today I gave myself permission to stop reading Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. Ugh. I'm either woefully undereducated, or it's a meandering peace of tripe. I leafed through her Sex, Art, and American Culture, which was only slightly more bearable.

[Deleted]

I liked Anne Rice's early vampire novels, but as the years went by each new book became more and more overwrought. She is another writer whose editor must have been cowering in fear of her displeasure.

Rice wrote soft porn under another name, and one of those books became my put-me-to-sleep-by-page-11 for at least a year. Yes, boring porn.
Now she is on to Jesus. I picked it up recently and opened the book randomly---baaaaaad. Not quite "Gee whillackers Mr. Nazareth! You just gotta save Christianity! You just gotta!" but heading in that direction.

[Ripley]

Icy, have you read the Anne Rice thread? We pretty much tear her to pieces there.

I agree with everything you wrote.

[Deleted]

Oh! So there is. Thank you Ripley I'll do that.

[minky]

I skipped a small portion of it, hoping it would improve, but John Irving's "Until I found You" was such a complete waste of time, I cannot even believe it. Suck. E.

[Smilla]

Yeah, I think Irving kinda...said his piece in World According to Garp/Hotel New Hampshire and then "lost it" as we sometimes say in my writers' groups.

[intlschizo]

If it wasn't my mother's book, I would light My Sister's Keeper on fire and dance around the flames, laughing manically. I still may do that and just cut my mother a check. It's just that fucking awful (or at least the parts I read - I give a book 100 pages before I ditch it), and offensive to boot. Don't get me wrong, I'm touched at the thought that a middle class, two parents, suburban WASP-y family has enough money and resources to genetically design a baby to be born just to save the life of another. But that's only what...20% of the American population and about 1% of the world? If you don't fall into that perfect little category, boy, is your sick baby FUCKED!

Oh, and "Story of O" made me want to ream needles in my eyes.

[kanding]

intlschizo said:

Oh, and "Story of O" made me want to ream needles in my eyes.

Now, why do I suspect that would prove a turn-on for many fans of the book. Of course, as long as you asked permission first to ream those needles in your eyes.