Friday , July 30, 2010
nogoodforme Superlatives: Beloved Books We Totally Loathe
LAURA JANE: "IF I WERE SET UP ON A BLIND DATE WITH JACK KEROUAC, I WOULD FEIGN ILLNESS"
Seen above is a composite image of what it would look like if Jack "Whiny-Baby-Crappy-Writer" Kerouac and I went out for dinner. He would be bored, disinterested and too cool (read: too LAME) for me; I'd be grimacing and giving him the thumbs down sign, though I'm sure he'd be too caught up in the complexities of his distress/malaise/childishness to even notice the cute babe sneering and snarling at his losery self across the table.
The only thing worse than getting stuck on a date with Actual Jack Kerouac would be getting stuck on a date with a Jack Kerouac Wannabe. There are tons of them; they are everywhere; I hate them all. Before today, my only two dude dealbreakers were 1) I don't date Virgos, and 2) I probably wouldn't date a huge Bob Marley fan. Now there are 3. I'm serious, G: if a dude claims that On the Road is his favourite novel in my presence, I will be on the road.
The real kicker of "loving On the Road" is that it is a logistic impossibility. Nobody actually loves On the Road. People just pretend to because they think it's cool to like, thus proving that they are even more of a loser than they would be if they loved this novel genuinely, which they wouldn't, because, as I stated earlier, such a condition does not exist.
To further validate my claim that On the Road is a bad book whose extreme badness has confused Normies into thinking that Bad=Cool (because they can't wrap their poor little Normie heads around how anything so bad could actually get published; for once, Normies are right), I am now going to open my copy of On the Road (a remnant from when 14-year-old Laura pretended to like On the Road to be cool) to a random page and sentence:
Heeby-jeebies, I'm classification three-A, jazz-hounded Moriarty has a sore butt, his wife gives him daily injections of penicillin for his thumb, which produces hives, for he's allergic.
Yeah. That's definitely "great writing" right there. Seriously radical, genius stuff. Yowza. Mind officially blown- NOT!!!!!!! A word to the wise: if you truly feel like you cannot exist in this world without naming a Beat classic as your #1 novel, trash On the Road and at very least pretend to love Naked Lunch in its place. The ladies can't resist a William S. Burroughs fan. Comparatively. (LJ)
KAT NEVER GOT THE BIG DEAL ABOUT DAVE EGGERS' FIRST BOOK
I have made myself read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers two and a half times, and you know what? I don't get it. The first time I felt it was nice enough of a book but could not suss out why people loved it so much, so I made myself read it again. The second time I started to really get irked by the book and really pick it apart in a super English major/book editor way, noting the boring rambling, the smug tone, the irritating attempts at "wit." The second-and-a-half time, I wanted to torture the book with fire and a barbed wire noose because I despised it with the intensity of all my being; instead, I gave it to a homeless guy on the train, telling him, "It sucked for me, maybe it'll be better for you." I'm sure Dave Eggers is a nice enough fellow: he seems really community-minded and philanthropically-oriented, and he's married to a cool novelist whose books are way more elegant and fun to read than his. He kind of represents the best of San Francisco white dudehood in those ways. But this book also represents the worst of San Francisco white dudehood as well: overtly clever, preoccupied with post-adolescent stupidity and way too impressed with himself and his aforementioned dudeness. People always talk about his clever use of form and what not, but whatever, man -- Sir Laurence Sterne was doing this shit in Tristram Shandy in, like, 1759. (The third time I looked at that famous "Here is a stapler" drawing, I wanted to scream, "God, I want to fucking staple your ass, motherfucker!") People also like to point out this book is supposed to be funny, but reading it was like being on a bad blind date and I was just rolling my eyes the entire time, being completely unamused. "Don't you find their predictament moving? Don't you love its honesty?" is always the last entreaty I get from the book's fans. Here are my thoughts: I do find the central situation of the book moving when I think of it in abstract terms, but the book had the weird, alienating effect of making me not give two shits as I read it. If the author can't seem to take it seriously enough to be sincere and honest in a way not masked by relentless self-absorbed "cleverness," whining-disguised-as-"emotion" and smirking allusions to pop culture, then why should I? When I read a book about death, family and other such weighty situations, I want to feel a little wiser at its end. Even the slightest, most comic novel has a bit of a pearl at the end of it, you know? Instead, I felt upon finishing this book twice that I wasted two weeks of my life that could have been spent reading something genuinely beautiful and aspiring to something other than being a showcase for someone's narcissism. Reading this book was like being at a party with that annoyingly smirky dude who talks about himself all the time, never lets you finish a sentence and generally is so attention-seeking and whiny that it's completely unattractive to even get through a polite conversation with them. There's no doubt that Dave Eggers can be a fine writer; when he's not being himself, he's great, which is why I like his What is the What about ten times more. Please, someone bring me that barbed-wire noose RIGHT NOW, I'd rather hang myself with that than spend another word trying to figure out why I think A Heartbreaking Work sucks the most tedious balls ever. This book is just so stupid, really. I hate it more and more as I write about it! (Kat)
LIZ: I'LL TAKE ANGELA CARTER OVER KATHERINE DUNN ANY DAY OF THE WEEK AND TWICE 8 ZILLION TIMES ON SUNDAY
First off: Katherine Dunn is a real crackerjack writer; bully for her. That said, I fucking hate Geek Love so much, and I desperately want to get back all the pukey hours I wasted forcing myself through it, especially those that passed on a hotter-than-hell summer Saturday afternoon in 2004 when I was very hungover and playing Sonic Youth's ickily subpar A Thousand Leaves on repeat. Of all the stupid ways my 26-year-old self chose to spend her time, that was STUPIDEST.
Let it be known: I like twisted, I like grotesque, I like fucked-up. Dude, Angela Carter is my favorite writer, and she's not exactly a ray of wholesome smiley sunshine. But I don't like hating the world - in fact, I hate hating the world! Probably this is because I'm a total Pollyanna Jerkface, which is awesome. Like, I just checked my Netflix and found out that Happy-Go-Lucky is shipping to me today, and then I did a cartwheel and an electric-purple daisy sprouted from my head like Athena springing from her dad's skull. Now I'm gonna go try to sell my copy of Geek Love on Half.com; maybe it'll get me enough to buy half a pack of Juicy Fruit gum. That would be beautiful! (Liz)
(Above: Instead of reading Geek Love, read these.)
Tags: Angela Carter, bad books, codename: Pollyanna Jerkface, daisies, dude dealbreakers, Greek mythology, hypothetical dinner dates, Jack Kerouac, Jack Kerouac sucks, Juicy Fruit gum, Laura Jane hates Jack Kerouac, losers, Normies, On the Road, On the Road blows, Sonic Youth's lesser efforts
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23 Comments!!
Say something so insightful and witty, it will blow us away. (No pressure.)
Got something to say? We'd love to hear it! Name, email and "type in the weirdo drunken text" thingie are all required to comment; don't worry, we won't email you or anything, we just want to make sure you're not an evil spambot. Keeping in mind the good-times mentality we like to keep going here, we've worked hard to keep NOGOODFORME.COM as fun as possible. We welcome all kinds of comments, but insults/abuse/general bitchery are not tolerated. In other words, we put the smackdown on evil troll posts. If you want to be a hater, please go elsewhere. Now, as Salt 'N Pepa say, "Only the sexy people..."
kat, next time we're all hanging out, i really want you to scream "God, I want to fucking staple your ass, motherfucker!" at some point (although not at me, please).
laura, i just looked at my bookshelf and "geek love" and "on the road" are stacked right next to each other! COINCIDENCE?! yeah, probably.
By Liz
on March 10, 2009 1:30 PM
Kat, for some reason last night I randomly started thinking about Dave Eggars and how much I can't stand his writing . . . an ex-boyfriend made me read Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and I think I was dumb enough to pretend that I liked it at the time, even though I secretly hated everyone in that book, Dave and his obnoxious cleverness especially.
By Rhiannon on March 10, 2009 1:58 PM
Oh I totally hated AHWOSG too!! I forced myself to finish it, even though it drove me nuts. A friend saw it on my bookcase and wanted to borrow it, and I was torn between giving it to her for good or refusing for her own protection.
By Jenna on March 10, 2009 2:06 PM
yeah fuck kerouac for reals. I remember my 8th grade bffs all freaking out about how awesome the Dharma Bums was and I read it and was like "In a few years you guys are going to be mad embarrassed that you told everyone that this was your favorite book."
By Coco on March 10, 2009 2:46 PM
omg I loathed that Dave Eggars book too for all the same reasons. so much that a few chapters in I threw it across the room against a wall. I thought I was the only one!
By lisa on March 10, 2009 2:47 PM
This is a very important post.
We are true luminaries.
PS: Kat? Liz? Who wants to ring up the Times and tell them that we've knocked it out Shea Stadium once more?
By Laura
on March 10, 2009 3:24 PM
kat: that is how i felt about the book when i first read it. i only read it 1.5 times though. and still DONT GET IT.
By serena on March 10, 2009 3:26 PM
i can't tell you how much it totally heartens me to know that others share my loathing for AHWOSG!! we should all get together and use the book as a dartboard or something!! xo k.
By Kat
on March 10, 2009 3:57 PM
AHWOSG is terrible.
"On the Road" is really good, though. It's misunderstood, I think. It's a genuinely sad book about sad people.
By Derek on March 10, 2009 4:49 PM
The phenomenon of "liking Jack Kerouac" is similar to the late middle-ages when writers began writing in plain, every-day speech rather than Latin so that the masses could understand the stories. Also, sure, Kerouac's language isn't beautiful, but it's fun. That's actually an awful word to describe it. But I'm sure you get what I mean.
And I guess my equivalent to your "my favorite book is On the Road just to be cool," is "my favorite book is Hamlet." But I do actually genuinly like plays about hot-but/and-depressed danes.
Anyway.
By Clara the annoying fourteen-year-old on March 10, 2009 6:12 PM
oh god, i am totally with you about 'on the road'. i consider myself a pretty smart, well-read person, but that book is just incredibly pretentious and lame. i feel the same about 'catcher and the rye' - if someone claims to really relate to holden, i pretty much know that we can't be friends.
By gina on March 10, 2009 11:44 PM
I understand why so many people are put off by AHWOSG, but have you dudes read any of his short fiction? Read the story After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned, and then tell me you still think he's a hack. Because if you don't like that story, then you don't like dogs. And if you don't like dogs, then I don't know what.
By Brady on March 10, 2009 11:53 PM
Been reading your blog for over a year, but had to finally write 'cause 1) I love Angela Carter! I'm so glad to find others who do 2) am 100% behind On the Road-loving guys being lame; too true! alas for wasted time in college learning this lesson 3) had a suspish about DE, will skip that one with a clear conscience.
By sneha on March 11, 2009 1:39 AM
I KNEW Kat & I were book-soul-mates! (I already take Liz's book advice to heart, so while I thoroughly enjoyed her post, it wasn't super surprising. Geek Love=no fun.) And I agree with LJ that JK is overrated, but since I live in his birthtown and there's a park here dedicated to him with super sweet stone-pillars-with-quotes, I can't be a JK hater.
ngfm is so, so good, yall.
By sarah on March 11, 2009 8:09 AM
Okay, so you didn't like AHWOSG.
It didn't "speak to you", or whatever.
But, like mentioned above, Eggers' short fiction is incredibly brilliant, and his other two best-known books, What Is the What and You Shall Know Our Velocity just knock it out of the park with every Goddamn sentence. He is really quite exceptional at writing in the perspective of someone he could never possibly identify as.
So, perhaps, could you try looking at his first, autobiographical book in a different light, considering? Dude had the horrible experience of losing, not one, but two of his parents, and, consequently, had to take care of his prepubescent brother. The fact that he can bring himself to write about the death of a parent with such humor and poignancy is, in itself, BIG.
By Jo on March 11, 2009 10:02 AM
Oh, and LJ: WORD.
I am so tired of the generation of middle-class-bred faux-bo's that On the Road boasts as a following.
I must admit, though, that the idea of hopping a train is very romantical.
By Jo on March 11, 2009 10:08 AM
we LOVE dogs, except for ones that have bushy eyebrows and live in eagle rock. (KIDDING!) i actually haven't read much dave eggers beyond the column he used to write for 'spin,' which definitely had its moments...
By Liz
on March 11, 2009 12:16 PM
For Thee Rekkid: I love Dave Eggers and AHWOSG (despite the annoyingness of having to figure out that acronym)- such is the beauty of nogoodforme.com! One man's ceiling is another man's floor! Variety is the spice of life! To each his own! You say tomato, I say tomahto!
Actually, I say tomato. Who the hell says tomahto besides British people? They should change that expression to "Some people are British, some people are not British."
lj
By Laura
on March 11, 2009 12:39 PM
I have read You Shall Know Our Velocity and liked it. I also read What is the What and liked it a lot, and even said so above. I have read AHWOSG 2.5 times and still find it completely unfun as a literary experience. Sorry! I tried to make it happen, but some things just never do. xo k.
By Kat
on March 11, 2009 1:06 PM
LJ, truer words have never been spoken! I read On the Road when I was around 14 too because it seemed like the "cool" thing to do, really didn't get what the big deal was, thought maybe i was too young to "get it," and proceeded to speak highly of the book whenever it came up on conversations. Now I'm old enough to realize that there wasn't really much "to get." Coincidentally all the people I know who claim to love Jack Kerouac/On the Road are pretty lame... I might have to add your dude dealbreaker #3 on my list too.
By Amy Luo on March 11, 2009 6:10 PM
may i make a suggestion?
sometimes your posts are really long. the size of font, the spacing of lines and the general format of these long posts make it really hard to get through without worrying i've got tunnel-vision. my suggestion is to change the way your longer posts appear as to not kill the eyesight of your readers so we can continue reading your posts. reading off the web is bad for you to begin with.
By elle on March 11, 2009 6:25 PM
hahaha...PollyAnna Jerkface I love it.
i do have quite a soft spot for the characters in geek love...it was just so dark and grotesque, i know i know thats what everyone says but i was just completely enthralled into the freak world.
i will def have to check out Angela Carter.
btw..i adore this blog, its my alltime fav, i just started one this month, haven't even told anyone about it yet..geez i'm a shy geeky loser...it won't be nearly as cool as you chickies but you were a wonderful inspiration.
another btw- i like your long posts!!
By Kathleen on March 12, 2009 12:16 PM
thanks, kathleen! i just checked out yr blog and am dying over those kitty photos...
By Liz
on March 12, 2009 1:32 PM