the 'Send a Writer to Devil's Island' thread

[asterix]

Not quite in the intended spirit, but I nominate Dan Brown - for having the nerve to call himself a writer.

You just stole my thunder but I don't mind in the least. Just make sure he travels steerage.

 

[coffeejo]

James Joyce. He and I did not get on at university.

 

[Archie_tect]

(I'll stick up for Hardy on the basis of his poetry)

Sadly I found Hardy's poetry worse than his books... depressing, lifeless, broodingly self-obsessed and unlyrical.
My daughter's A level set his poetry and I really gave it a good go to overcome my adolescent bias after Mayor of Casterbridge [only read the revision notes, never finished the book before the exam- it was too torpid], but alas, no. What sealed his fate was reading the biographical notes... he was a prat as well.

[If you don't like him, say so and stop meandering....]

 

[Archie_tect]

+1 forjamesjoycesonsandloverswehadtoreadportraitofanartistasayoungmanandasforulysesiwouldcheerfullythrottlehisdeadandbloatedcorpsetiltheendoftime.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

I just cannot remember what I read for English O level, so I'm guessing that the author is already there.

In Standard Grade English, it was John Steinbeck for subjecting us to 'Of Mice And Men' (or Of Mince And Men as we called it). It wouldn't have been so bad, but we all had to go along to a local cinema and watch a film version of it with Gary Sinise (spelling?) and John Malkovich

'Glove fulla' Vasoline!'

Nina Bawden for endless tedious books about troubled teenagers finding themselves. Aargh.

Those were pre-GCSE, though, in the days when the class read a book together by each pupil in turn reading a paragraphout while the rest were supposed to follow. I'd be at the bottom of the page and trying to sneak onto the next one before the reader
got.
to.
the.
end.
of.
the.
first.
par-
para-
paragraph.

We had that all the way through, but if you want crappy books about Teenagers 'finding themselves' then I seem to remember Betsy Byres being fairly awful.

 

[srw]

Ulysses is a work of genius. I loved it. But then I was reading it in the garden of a holiday house in blazing sunshine in Sardinia. I even enjoyed Paradise Lost, and I loved Chaucer.

O-level was the usual stuff - One flew over the cuckoo's nest, Catcher in the Rye, Twelfth Night, To kill a mockingbird, none of which I particularly want to banish. Mercifully I didn't do Eng Lit beyond that stage, and the other set texts I did have to study (the Polyphemus episode from the Odyssey, the letters of Pliny the younger and Cicero, Plato's Phaedo, Iliad book 6) all retain happy memories. As, for that matter do Brandenburg 5 and Creation.

Sorry - that's a particularly poor show for an ostracism thread.

 

[srw]

In Standard Grade English, it was John Steinbeck for subjecting us to 'Of Mice And Men'..... or Of Mince And Men as we called it. I wouldn't have been so bad, but we all had to go along to a local cinema and watch a film version of it with Gary Sinise (spelling?) and John Malkovich

At some stage before O-level I studied Walkabout (the novel). As was the fashion, we were also sat in front of the film version...

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Will Self, I have never read anything he has produced, but he always comes across as a pretentious tw*t.

I happened upon a book signing of his once, and got a signed copy of his book 'Dr Mukti' (or something similar) from him personally. He seemed nice enough, but I never even finished reading the book, even though it was a series of short stories, as they were all a bit odd*.



* - I probably misunderstood them, I know.

 

[User169]

Will Self, I have never read anything he has produced, but he always comes across as a pretentious tw*t.

He always seems to come over as quite a decent bloke IMO. The roof fell of his house this week.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

He always seems to come over as quite a decent bloke IMO. The roof fell of his house this week.

I was at a reading he did in Hackney quite a few years ago and he was great fun. I wasn't aware of any part of his house collapsing at that time though.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

I know this will be herressy and all, but Shakespere. Not for the stories or anything, but purely for having to decode what the hell he was saying!
We did The Merchant Of Venice as well as Romeo And Juliet at school, and you couldn't just sit down and idly read it unless you happened to have a Ye Olde English dictionary to hand

 

[Archie_tect]

I'd choose Erasmus...for O'Level had to translate him from Latin grrrr (latin is a dead language, dead as dead can be, first it killed the Romans and now it's killing me).

Three other authors (hopefully not on any syllabus) - Jeffrey Archer, Jordan and Sarah Ferguson. I wouldn't even send them to Devil's Island - summary execution would be better.

Ah you see, Mses Jordan and Ferguson can't be chastised as they aren't, technically, authors.

 

[Fnaar]

Coles notes... they just gave you more stuff to read, when the book itself was enough already.

 

[User169]

I was at a reading he did in Hackney quite a few years ago and he was great fun. I wasn't aware of any part of his house collapsing at that time though.

Pretty impressive (unless you happen to live there of course).

 

[dellzeqq]

Archie would be tempted to point out that a lot of Georgian houses were built to fall down, and would have done so years since had they not been re-built, tied back and propped up.