And if it’s not Catcher in the Rye, well, good thing you didn’t have to read Catcher in the Rye
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Worst book you had to read in school
- Thread starter Celticpride
- Start date
Spoiler: Holden Caufield's a lil bitch
the scarlet letter but the catcher in the rye was also pretty awful
idk if university counts as "school" but this semester we've been doing a lot of medieval literature & that shit is painful.
While I'm not sure it's the absolute worst thing my high school forced me to read, I hold on to the one laugh I got out of a non-shakespeare forced reading (Bill was trashy pop entertainment, and is actually pretty good if you like wordplay and don't take it too seriously. Better as a play, obviously).
The grade 10 main book in English class was Lord of the Flies. One of the points has a character's glasses being used to focus light to start a fire. Said character was confirmed as nearsighted, meaning their glasses could not do that. By sheer coincidence, grade 10 was when optics were notably covered in the general Science course. It was the one time I could point out how the entire plot fails because of some minor physics knowledge, and have a room full of people go "now that you mention that, you're right."
As for actually worst book, I'd probably go with the one that had me leave the French Immersion program after grade 10: Silence of the Sea. Allegedly, everything important that happens is a social undertone. Of course, if you can't pick up on those (such as, say, you are genetically predisposed to be bad at exactly that), nothing happens at all. I literally had five of my chapter summaries in a row look identical, that little happened that I could perceive.
The grade 10 main book in English class was Lord of the Flies. One of the points has a character's glasses being used to focus light to start a fire. Said character was confirmed as nearsighted, meaning their glasses could not do that. By sheer coincidence, grade 10 was when optics were notably covered in the general Science course. It was the one time I could point out how the entire plot fails because of some minor physics knowledge, and have a room full of people go "now that you mention that, you're right."
As for actually worst book, I'd probably go with the one that had me leave the French Immersion program after grade 10: Silence of the Sea. Allegedly, everything important that happens is a social undertone. Of course, if you can't pick up on those (such as, say, you are genetically predisposed to be bad at exactly that), nothing happens at all. I literally had five of my chapter summaries in a row look identical, that little happened that I could perceive.
In the first few pages of Jane Eyre, someone throws a book at Jane and this is what happens next
edit: for some positivity, some books I remember liking from school: Catch 22, The Kite Runner, The Stranger, Pride and Prejudice, Heart of Darkness
Even in 10th grade I had read fanfiction with less blatant “let’s establish how our protagonist is super awesome and smart” lines
edit: for some positivity, some books I remember liking from school: Catch 22, The Kite Runner, The Stranger, Pride and Prejudice, Heart of Darkness
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I'm glad that on a meme forum we've solved that books which have moved, delighted, and astonished readers for decades or even centuries are actually secretly bad, and not that we as teenagers and/or literary philistines who were forced to read these books against our will just might not have been the most perceptive judges of literary merit. Nice work crew.
i can understand how a work is important or influential and still think it’s boring as fuck lol
At the same time, we are not the culture that existed decades or centuries ago. Where we look for deeper meaning in creative works is allowed to change, as are the ideas that we want to find there. Let's use Don Quixtoe as an example. It was originally very cynical, decrying heroic fantasy and has the attempt at a happier ending being that the goofball identity is destroyed and normal life resumes. Modern stories that use the exact same setup (e.g. Man of La Mancha) don't follow those same ideas, sometimes instead embracing that creative nonsense can sometimes still produce good. To me, the original DQ gets a lot of flak for being the same "fiction will cause people to lose touch with reality and break stuff" I'm tired of hearing about videogames, while Man of La Mancha was an enjoyable musical with some good tunes.
Also,
I don't want to take this too seriously (admittedly my hackles go up when people slight literature, regardless of the context), so I'll end with this point. We all have our blind spots when it comes to perceiving greatness in different forms of art. Recognizing and admitting that we have those blind spots, rather than disparaging the art we don't "get," frees us to learn more about others and ourselves.
Just something to keep in mind when off smogoff and out in the world.
Just something to keep in mind when off smogoff and out in the world.
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I read Grapes of Wrath in high school and thought it sucked. I read it ten years later and it was pretty good (though not as good as Of Mice and Men or East of Eden). English class is a pretty stupid place to try to appreciate art. That's all Jasper is saying.
All mediums are great, but it's pretty fucking worth it to give literature a real shot as an adult. It's some high-tier shit, and even the more questionable lit books I've read were at least half-decent.
All mediums are great, but it's pretty fucking worth it to give literature a real shot as an adult. It's some high-tier shit, and even the more questionable lit books I've read were at least half-decent.
not even a Total Clef like...
fixed
Fahrenheit 451, The plot of this book is extremely dumb. It's just a radical boomer take on the future. The ending sucks ass too.
Australian school book choices bloody suck major ass big time. There was:
a coming of age poetry book, ”by the river” it was called,
This shit, critical acclaim my ass, I wanted to kill every character with my bare fucking hands,
This for gods sake
amongst others I have since deleted from my mind. Shakespeare is enjoyable compared to this.
a coming of age poetry book, ”by the river” it was called,
This shit, critical acclaim my ass, I wanted to kill every character with my bare fucking hands,
This for gods sake
amongst others I have since deleted from my mind. Shakespeare is enjoyable compared to this.
The Hobbit
