Real god-awful books

[bgmnts]

Just finished Sal Polisi and Steve Dougherty's The Sinatra Club.

Unsure if I'm just way too old to find anything these awful cunts do glamorous or romanticised or not, but it was just an incredibly dull book, which is interesting considering every character in it is a violent sociopath by nature.

Unsure if it reaches god-awful status though, can boring be god-awful?

[PlanktonSideburns]

That's what I took from it, from what I can remember, Lester is presented as something of nature and that's kind of it, he's not really presented in a way in which you can pass judgement on him because there's not much humanity there.

But sometimes I think that some of the gratuitousness gets in the way of that?  I wasn't sure if it was a complete success.

I can pass judgment on him, watch;

Guys a TWAT

there, what do you think of that

[Pink Gregory]

I can pass judgment on him, watch;

Guys a TWAT

there, what do you think of that

So it was you that killed Cormac McCarthy...

[Deliciousbass]

If that's your bag I think you'd love it, Michael S. Judge is himself a huge Pynchon fan, for me it was a huge psychic drain - a hypnotic firehose of dense imagery and allusion.

Love this description, have ordered a copy and am looking  forward to getting stuck in (though maybe once the weather's cooled off a bit). Thanks @Zero Gravitas !

Michael Gira (of Swans) book The Consumer would qualify for this thread. Not read it myself and it's long out of print (unlikely to be reprinted since Gira seems to dislike it now), but there are excerpts out there:

I never went outside anymore except to buy alcohol and meat. I'd get drunk, loosening my attachment to myself, and I'd eat the meat raw, pretending it was my sister, planting her flesh inside my stomach so she could grow and live through me, like a cancer. When they sentenced her to that place, my own life started to drain out of my body immediately. As I walked away from the courtroom out into the poison sun of Los Angeles, I felt the light shooting straight through my eyes into my skull unfiltered, causing a tumor to grow in the center of my brain. The tumor was shaped like a rose and its petals were as sharp as razorblades. With each new thought, a petal would spiral away from the body of the flower and slice a passageway through the meat of my brain, slowly boring out large sections of my identity.

I hadn't seen her in three years when she arrived. It was the middle of summer. A constant regurgitation of corrosive yellow soot spilled out over the houses from the elevated freeway, burning my skin and eyes and tinting the neighborhood with a golden pigment that sparkled like sharkskin in the sun. The heat clung to the smog.

[Sex Festival Organizer]

The Room by Hubert Selby Jr & Cows by Matthew Stokoe

Christ, yes. Absolutely horrible, but Stokoe's follow-up, High Life, a sort of low-rent American Psycho, contains at least two scenes that are much, much worse than anything in Cows. The book is quite good, actually, but at times I thought, "What the fuck am I reading, and why?".

[Small Man Big Horse]

Just remembered another one. Kill Your Friends by John Nevin. which apparently was made in to a film with Nicholas Hoult, though thankfully I've never heard of it. The novel's a really tedious wank fest where an A&R man during the height of Britpop takes fuck loads of cocaine, is an utter cunt to everyone, and then turns murderous. I only read the first third, so maybe this is unfair, but it's the one and only book that I thought was so awful that I tore it in half and binned it. Now that might sound like the actions of a completely mental man, and perhaps that's the case, but I don't regret it, there's no way I was going to keep it, or take it to a charity shop where some other poor sod might have picked it up as the pr blurb made it sound readable.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Just remembered another one. Kill Your Friends by John Nevin. which apparently was made in to a film with Nicholas Hoult, though thankfully I've never heard of it. The novel's a really tedious wank fest where an A&R man during the height of Britpop takes fuck loads of cocaine, is an utter cunt to everyone, and then turns murderous. I only read the first third, so maybe this is unfair, but it's the one and only book that I thought was so awful that I tore it in half and binned it. Now that might sound like the actions of a completely mental man, and perhaps that's the case, but I don't regret it, there's no way I was going to keep it, or take it to a charity shop where some other poor sod might have picked it up as the pr blurb made it sound readable.

God yeah that book was absolute dogshit

[Kankurette]

Why am I not surprised that Gira's written a book where a guy imagines he's eating his sister?

Re Ian McEwan, The Daydreamer - a book for kids - is a genuinely great book and there's a story involving the main character and his old cat that made me cry when I reread it recently. I don't find it smug at all, quite the opposite. Atonement, on the other hand, made me want to throw things. The ending just pissed me off. Actually, maybe that should be a thread, endings that piss you off, because Girlfriend in a Coma is one of the worst books for this. YES DOUGLAS WE GET IT. SEVENTIES GOOD. TECHNOLOGY BAD. Shut up.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Just remembered another one. Kill Your Friends by John Nevin. which apparently was made in to a film with Nicholas Hoult, though thankfully I've never heard of it. The novel's a really tedious wank fest where an A&R man during the height of Britpop takes fuck loads of cocaine, is an utter cunt to everyone, and then turns murderous. I only read the first third, so maybe this is unfair, but it's the one and only book that I thought was so awful that I tore it in half and binned it. Now that might sound like the actions of a completely mental man, and perhaps that's the case, but I don't regret it, there's no way I was going to keep it, or take it to a charity shop where some other poor sod might have picked it up as the pr blurb made it sound readable.

So its just cocaine bear without the bear

[Noodle Lizard]

Michael Gira (of Swans) book The Consumer would qualify for this thread. Not read it myself and it's long out of print (unlikely to be reprinted since Gira seems to dislike it now), but there are excerpts out there:

You can find scans online. It is very boring, and I read it back when I was properly into the guy. Some of the most tedious, repetitive grimdark guff imaginable with the occasional good turn of phrase that would probably be better as a lyric.

I did wonder if its legendary out-of-print status might have more to do with Gira knowing it wasn't very good and that it would be better respected in everyone's imagination. But then he went ahead and wrote a similar short story collection, The Egg, as a limited release decades later to support To Be Kind (I think). It's a bit better, but basically more of the same. It's as if his sole literary frames of reference are Denis Johnson and Cormac McCarthy, maybe skimming through some De Sade or Bataille every so often.

Then again, I thought Story of the Eye was crap an' all, and 120 Days of Sodom is the least interesting of De Sade's well-known works by some measure. Not to give Bret Easton Ellis too much credit, but I really do think he's among the very few to use that kind of thing well in American Psycho.

[Mister Six]

lord horror obvs

I'd totally forgotten about this. Wonder if there's a digital copy out there.

That's what I'd do if I was rich - just spend my days buying up absurdly expensive rare books then formatting them into epubs and mobis and uploading them to the web.

[madhair60]

libgen has it

[sovietrussia]

Christ, yes. Absolutely horrible, but Stokoe's follow-up, High Life, a sort of low-rent American Psycho, contains at least two scenes that are much, much worse than anything in Cows. The book is quite good, actually, but at times I thought, "What the fuck am I reading, and why?".

Another vote for High Life. I've nothing against transgressive fiction but this was just deeply unpleasant from start to finish. Alongside the aforementioned Dennis Cooper's The Sluts the worst (in both terms) I've ever read. I usually give books I don't want to reread into a charity shop but I put both of these into the recycling.

[Shaky]

This just popped up on my FB - really sounds like the worst thing ever written:

Beyond nature and nurture lies destiny.

Bark Gnarganfarkle was born male on a planet that banned men. A hundred and forty years ago, every last man left Earth for planet Toxicovia. Bark's birth on Earth was not only an accident, it was illegal. And now his family is on the run.

Fearing the tyrannical Matriarchs, the family settles in a mining community far across the galaxy. For Bark this means starting his senior year at a new high school. In a school full of aliens.

Bark soon discovers the cruise, where young motorheads sneak away from parents—and police—to race spaceships. Bark falls in love with the cruise immediately and, not so long afterwards, with Anna, a breathtaking alien beauty.

Anna is way out of his league. As is almost everything else in the universe. Bark's new friendships and would-be romance are fraught with danger from brutes, prostitutes, mobsters, murderers, and even the potential for intergalactic war.

What definitely begins is an internal war that Bark must wage against the forces of taboo, peer pressure, and so many narratives put upon him by family, friends, society, and government, much of which conflicts with his experience and sense of self.

Follow Bark as he takes on the universe in a fight for body, mind, and soul. His own and those of his family. And perhaps everyone else's, too.

A bit of googling reveals interviews with the author claiming this near-1000 page (!) opus isn't political - it's actually light-hearted and taking a fair and accurate look at "both sides." So not the ramblings of an angry divorced boomer Dad, then.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Gnarganfarkle.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Simon and Gnarganfarkle

[Camp Tramp]

Self-published surely?

1000 pages is a bit long.

[bgmnts]

I may be misreading but I feel 'the cruise' should be a proper noun.

CaB read along to that would be very fun!

[axel2019]

This just popped up on my FB - really sounds like the worst thing ever written:



A bit of googling reveals interviews with the author claiming this near-1000 page (!) opus isn't political - it's actually light-hearted and taking a fair and accurate look at "both sides." So not the ramblings of an angry divorced boomer Dad, then.

Reads like a badly plotted L Ron Hubbard novel Not good enough to start a religion around unfortunately.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

gnarganfarkle

fetch a space cloth

[Zero Gravitas]

I'm reminded of the fact that I discovered Neal Asher's blog and politics just before I read his The Departure.

Swear to god it's genocidal Angela Merkle sadistically crushing the people living under the evil burocracy of the EU Committee.

Haven't read him since, which is a shame as Gridlinked was pretty good sci-fi-Bond with catgirls.

[Kankurette]

Bark Gnarganfarkle? I had to check that it wasn't a Douglas Adams book.

[Shaky]

I'm reminded of the fact that I discovered Neal Asher's blog and politics just before I read his The Departure.

Swear to god it's genocidal Angela Merkle sadistically crushing the people living under the evil burocracy of the EU Committee.

Haven't read him since, which is a shame as Gridlinked was pretty good sci-fi-Bond with catgirls.

Having a sneaky hate-look at his blog and recent posts praise Critical Drinker, talk at length about working out and complain about the internet connection in Crete. Christ.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

we have something on our shelf by a person who can only be described as a twitter personality, who gets lots of abuse for bullshit reasons so i wont name them.

however this person is fucking odious and their writing is on a level with Stephen Post Hitchcock/Roy Orbison Wrapped In Clingfilm presented as if its the most mindblowing and subversive thing in the world. clumsy, petty and hateful. i wont mention who it is because they get shit for bad reasons, but their work is genuinely worse to me than anything posted so far in this thread. loads of people seem to tee hee about it but no one out and calls it terrible.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

also... Stephen Post Hitchcock's dirty fap material has totally been vanished from Google. That's really creepy. there's not a single hit.  (edit : there's a "steven post hitchcock" but it doesnt direct to any creepy misogyny fic anymore, just vague conspiracy rambling)

hope its not some right to be forgotten stuff.

[Noodle Lizard]

Christ, yes. Absolutely horrible, but Stokoe's follow-up, High Life, a sort of low-rent American Psycho, contains at least two scenes that are much, much worse than anything in Cows. The book is quite good, actually, but at times I thought, "What the fuck am I reading, and why?".

I consider myself fairly unflappable, but I'm reading this on your recommendation(?) and ... yeah, there are definitely a couple of bits which properly had me groaning out loud. Quite enjoying it, though. I'm not sure it'd amount to much without the extreme content, but I haven't decided yet whether that makes it good or bad.

[Small Man Big Horse]

This just popped up on my FB - really sounds like the worst thing ever written:



A bit of googling reveals interviews with the author claiming this near-1000 page (!) opus isn't political - it's actually light-hearted and taking a fair and accurate look at "both sides." So not the ramblings of an angry divorced boomer Dad, then.

Somebody I met at university and stayed vaguely in touch with via social media self-published a novel which was a crime thriller, but it's mainly a long rant about the clearly autobiographical main character repeatedly cheating on his wife, and he wasn't a particularly great father to their kids either. But she still shouldn't have left him as he was the true victim in all of this, as he was a white male who couldn't say anything now or he'd get in trouble with "the politically correct police". It was free on Amazon for a while so I tried to make it to the end, but even when just skim reading I quit half way through,

[checkoutgirl]

Honestly the closest thing to a god-awful book I've read is the The Alchemist by Paulo Cohuelo.

Ha! I remember putting this one forward in a similar thread a few years ago and always comes to mind in bad book conversations. I haven't read that many books but I'd still be confident that this is one of the worst ever written. If I wasn't reading it while stuck in a car on the way to a big family reunion in Sligo there's no way I'd have finished it and I was sorry I did. Never been as angry after reading something.

Amazingly it seems to have loads of fans who swear it's a brilliant book.

[Ferris]

The Catcher in the Rye was absolute dog dirt.

[Senior Baiano]

Catcher has one fantastic bit where he's bullshitting the mother of a particularly horrible little shit from his school, telling her how her son is just the most popular, kindest guy, and the boys at school got together and voted him school president, but he was just too modest and humble to accept and of course, he'd never tell his family about anything like that.

The rest- arsed, cigs