Tim Footman and Patroclus, here you are:
TEN AUTHORS I MUST SMASH WITH A BAT UNTIL THEY ARE MOTIONLESS
1. Coming in at a solid numero uno is Ernest Hemmingway. Self impressed, mediocre, uneven...take away the Papa Hemmingway myth and that's what you have left. The guy was a drunk and he wrote like a drunk. Period.
2. JG Ballard. Just for writing 'Crash', a classic of the 'Oh My God I am So Incredibly Goddamned Cool' school of writing. It manages to be both icky and mind-numbingly dull for the simple fact that the entire point of the book is to showcase the author being all blase and intellectual while writing about sexual perversion. That's time I'll never get back.
3. Clive Cussler. The man responsible for taking action/adventure fiction to a level so ass-clenchingly bad it actually causes pain. Protagonist Dirk Pitt is to Clive Cussler as Ferrari is to balding man with erectile dysfunction. One weeps.*
4. St. Augustine of Hippo. I have tried, I have failed, I have tried again, rinse repeat, yes, if you want to understand the early church you need to read Augustine, but dammit, the man NEEDS TO FUCKING GET OVER HIMSELF. Reading the Confessio is like sitting next to a retarded kid obsessively picking a scab. GAAAAAAH.
5. Dante Rossetti.What a nasty little puke he was. More known for his artwork than for his writing. Seeing as how his artwork is all about him, I assume his writing sucked just as bad, dripping with false sentiment, passive aggression and self-aggrandization.
6. John Norman. His 'Gor' series constitutes a crime against both writing and humanity. On a more personal level this series was probably responsible for more than a few real crimes against women, simply by feeding the seething resentments and secret hate fantasies of abusive personalities. I have never known an abusive man who did not absolutely LOVE the 'Gor' books. (That latter is probably a generational thing. I can't see anyone nowadays picking up one of those pathetic 'Gor' abortions and thinking 'hey, this is REALLY cool'.)
7. Antonio Vasari. 'Lives of the Famous Artists' will actually make you stupider.
Plus I hate him.
It's personal.
He knows why.
Oh, yeah, he knows.
8. Maya Angelou. Everything after 'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings' is all about what an amazing, amazing human being Maya Angelou is. (Yeah, she's a good writer. She makes my butt itch, but she's a good writer. Fine.)
9. Margaret Cho, for writing 'I'm the One That I Want', a book so completely marinated in hate that I felt like I needed to wash my hands after I read it.
10. Steven King, for 'Cujo', and particularly for 'Rose Madder'. I know damn well he wrote that while Amy Tan was sitting on his face . Honestly, what the fuck, King; 'Rose Madder'? What the hell was that? (Although I like King more than not. He's a excellent writer when he tries. It's just that he knows he doesn't have to try anymore, and it's obvious. Being held in contempt is one thing, but King expects you to pay for the favor. And people do. And he knows they will. So, um, yeah.)
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So why aren't, say, Truman Capote or Hunter S. Thompson here? Because they never made any bones about the fact that it was all about them all the time. Although in certain moods Hunter S. makes the list because he reminds me of this one guy I hate named George.
Now I have all these pinecones piled up next to me here, but you just ignore them. Look! Bread! Bread heels! Mmmm! And stale dinner rolls! Look, I'm breaking them up! Heeeeeere, duckies...
Heeeeere duckies...
( I tag NOSHIT SHERLOCK who can just damn well come out of hiding and do the fricken meme even if she just does it in my comments lounge....CHAUCERS BITCH, MANGONEL and whoever else feels like it.)
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* well of course I've read all of them.
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Kudos for putting Hemingway in first place.
ReplyDeleteBest not to smash him over the head with his typewriter as it just fetched $2,750 at auction.
It has often been said of me that I am a drunk and I write like a drunk. I just ignore the critics and carry on.
D H Lawrence.
ReplyDeleteAn up his own backside mother fixated wanker.
Lady Chaterrley's Lover is probably the worst book ever published.
And he was fond of eugenics.
Erm ... I really like For Whom The Bell Tolls. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteStill, it's cancelled out by having read Death In The Afternoon while I was laid up with sciatica. All that densely written detail about the joys of bullfighting. Bollocks to Hemingway. All he makes me think about is my own backache!
*Thwacks bat repeatedly into palm of hand* Thanks FN. Wilco.
ReplyDeleteAnd SO yes on Hemingway. How could the guy fool so many people for so much of the time?
ReplyDeleteI like King tho I don't like him all of the time. I am hanging my head but I confess I reread 'The Stand' every year when I get a cold. Cures me everytime. AACHOOOOOO!!
ReplyDeletemj: thank you, thank you. i say you write like a woman with large, firm breasts, breasts like ripe cantaloupe, breasts like twin silver moons rising over the high school gymnasium in Chilliwack, out back by the water treatment plant.
ReplyDeletegarfy: oooooooo, you nailed one! I wish I'd thought of him because I agree 100% on all points. LCL was just shuddersome.
betty: all that means is that you are a nicer and more patient woman than I am. but honestly...The Old Man and the Sea? nononono.
mangonel: oo, I knew that you would! this I can't wait for! *spreads flame retardent*
gale: hey, I like King, and The Stand is one of his very best books. Everything of his thats pre-Different Seasons is top notch stuff, particularly his short stories. After all, how can I hate a man who worships at the feet of the god of the genre (H.P. Lovecraft-and Kings HPL stories do Lovecraft proud)...it's just that he needs a swift crack upside the head with a bat, is all :)
never read hemingway. i prefer lighter reading. but i did start to read these two good books (got distracted halfway through with my drama filled life and them promptly lost the feckers). one was about dracula and something, and the other one was about russia and tsars and what really happened with the royal family.
ReplyDeletei've been so busy lately, i haven't been able to keep up with my reading or my blogging.
Oh dear, I like Hemmingway too. Does this make me a bad person? or just someone drunk in charge of a paperback?
ReplyDeleteBut thank you thank you thank you for adding Maya Angelou to the list. I thought I was the only person who felt like that at about her.
I'd do the meme too but I can't think of ten authors I'd really like to smash with a bat until they're motionless...I'll have to think about this...
I agree with all of this ribald disdain for the modern self congratulatory hacks.
ReplyDeleteClassics schmassics. As far as Dante and Augustine..puh-leeze..it's the 21st Century and we realise how ludicrous (guilt ridden, tortured, and wrong) they were about everything.
Ain't hindsight sweet?
I hope that these wankers know that they made your sh*tlist..I mean shortlist.
I love the convenience of having these ruminations at my disposal. From now on you are in charge of forming and calibrating my opinions on all literary matters..that way I can free up valuable time and still have substantial soundbites at the ready to quell the media frenzy that surrounds my Life. YES!
I agree with you on most , altho I think king deserves a higher place for a whole raft of fomulaic crap amongst the good stuff , I would have also included Patricia Cornwell , the mixture of menopausal angst , CIA mularkey and the laughable supercharged perfect lesbian neice makes me want to catch the damn woman and force feed her all of her damn books......to add insult to injury my sister inlaw is convinced I like her and buys me the latest buggering hardback every xmas....which sets each new year off to a festering start :-)
ReplyDeleteOh and dont get me started on Shakespeare , not a novelist I agree........ but utter shite none the less
ReplyDeletenever heard of half of them - ignorant, that's me, although I've read Hemingway's Chair by Michael Palin and I quite liked that.
ReplyDeletepink: dammit, find them. they both sound like they're right up my alley and i'll be wanting to borrow them!
ReplyDeletehendrix: i would love nothing more than to have you hold forth on the subject! that would be too delicious!!! *spreads additional Nomex*
homoE: are you accusing me of...hubris? because you're right! (waaa! i LOVE dante!)
beast: oh dang, i cannot stand cornwell either. she just falls flat. but she doesn't arouse the ire in me that the others do because she doesn't seem to be trying to run a scam on her readers. just bore then to tears. i'd like shakespeare a lot better if he'd just fricken' speak english.
ziggi: i've never read anything (other than the scripts) by the boys and i understand they're quite good, esp. palin and jones. now we can be ignorant together!
okay, fn, i found one. the other one, well, who knows? there is so many boxes that have books in them i'll probably never find it. my new house's living room is already half filled and it just has boxes of books.
ReplyDeletesteve berry's the romanov prophecy.
"I know damn well he wrote that while Amy Tan was sitting on his face"
ReplyDeleteHahahahahaha! My mind immediately flashed to a three-way between Stephen King, Amy Tan, and Dave Barry, so I think it may be time for my medication to be adjusted.
And you are so right about Hemingway and Augustine. They both just loooove to hear themselves talk.
I'll agree with everyone on your list, except for J G Ballard. I've read most of his books now, and love them. Mind, I would only rate Crash near the bottom of his titles, so perhaps I'll agree with you. Or maybe now. I don't know. You choose. Oh, you already have, haven't you?
ReplyDeleteSo how come you didn't include Edgar Rice Burroughs in there? It would have meant going to 11, or course, but you're like that :)
Nathaniel Hawthorne's my vote. and OMG, AYN RAND.
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong with writing like a drunk..hic!
ReplyDeleteBack off Ernie. The boy done good.