Worst novels

[Jim A. 0]

I don't want to spend much time on this, but nevertheless I'm curious as to what people on this forum would consider their "worst reads" in the field of literature, especially novels. I think some of the "nominees" could be funny. But it can also be instructive: "Don't write a novel like this!"

My nominees are:

1--Left Behind by LaHaye and Jenkins. I made a deal with an ex-girl friend; she would read my favorite novel if I would read hers. I did. It was absolute garbage. Left Behind is nothing but metaphysical absurdity and a religious tract and--supposedly--a "thriller". If you're ever poisoned and need to induce vomiting, read this book.

2--The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. When I read it I asked myself, "What's the point of this?" Vonnegut was a man-hater, an America-hater and a values-hater. His satire in this novel seems to attack alot of things, but the novel doesn't support or exalt anything. (Incidentally, I know a cousin of Kurt Vonnegut's, and he himself says that Vonnegut hated America.)

P.S. My ex-girl-friend starting reading my favorite novel, The Fountainhead, and was bored by it. That was a first. I've met people who loved The Fountainhead and people who hated it, but never before someone who was bored by it!

[Stussy88 0]

I don't want to spend much time on this, but nevertheless I'm curious as to what people on this forum would consider their "worst reads" in the field of literature, especially novels. I think some of the "nominees" could be funny. But it can also be instructive: "Don't write a novel like this!"

My nominees are:

1--Left Behind by LaHaye and Jenkins. I made a deal with an ex-girl friend; she would read my favorite novel if I would read hers. I did. It was absolute garbage. Left Behind is nothing but metaphysical absurdity and a religious tract and--supposedly--a "thriller". If you're ever poisoned and need to induce vomiting, read this book.

2--The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. When I read it I asked myself, "What's the point of this?" Vonnegut was a man-hater, an America-hater and a values-hater. His satire in this novel seems to attack alot of things, but the novel doesn't support or exalt anything. (Incidentally, I know a cousin of Kurt Vonnegut's, and he himself says that Vonnegut hated America.)

P.S. My ex-girl-friend starting reading my favorite novel, The Fountainhead, and was bored by it. That was a first. I've met people who loved The Fountainhead and people who hated it, but never before someone who was bored by it!

Crime & Punishment ~ I know it is seen as a classic, but it just kills me, I can't get through it, not even on audio book which I sometimes listen to on long commutes. This is the only audio book I haven't been able to finish!

You feel like screaming, yes, you are poor and destitute, everyone is miserable, everyone is poor, life sucks, I get it, scene set, now can we please move on! But oh, no. Let's have some more misery and woe. Narrative pace is completely absent. And thus I can't read it.

(And I might add, any chick-lit like "In her shoes" or "PS I love you" I was stuck at an airport one time for quite a while and tried both of my wife's holiday reads Have the sick bag on stand-by )

[Rose Lake 0]

One doesn't usually finish the worst ones, so it's hard to make sure which are actually the worst. I don't remember if I finished it, but... V by Thomas Pynchon stands out in my mind as the worst thing I've ever read. I read it (or started to) a really long time ago, and have virtually zero memory of it. All I retain is a descriptive adjective: Repulsive. I'd guess that there are novels that are far worse, though at some point of depravity 'literature' is no longer the right concept.

Oh yeah, another really icky one (I'm pretty sure I didn't get very far though) Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs. Also, anything I ever read by Henry Miller falls into the 'disvalue' category.

[Go 4 TLI 0]

Crime and Punishment was pretty dreadful. I only slogged through it because it was a reading assignment in high school English. Same with that Marxist drivel by Richard Wright, Native Son.

[AdamM 0]

Obviously books devoted to destroying the good are the most terrible -- "Nickel and Dimed" comes to mind. But for a book with no discernable agenda, I disliked A Farewell to Arms very much. It plodded along with the driest narrative I can recall. My only thought when I read it was, "If the narrator doesn't even care, why should I?" There is one thing I should mention -- I only read half of it because of my intense boredom.

[Thoyd Loki 0]

Crime and Punishment? Worst novel? Is this a gag thread? It is one of the best written books of all time! It is not about poor people or life sucking; it is not a hymn to the glory of man to be sure, but it doesn't mean it deserves your complete trivialization of the book. The psychology in the book is some of the best ever in literature.

Narrative pace is completely absent? Are you sure you were reading Crime and Punishment? That was one of the fastest reads I've ever had.

Crime and Punishment btw, is the easiest Dostoevsky (and fastest narrative pace) ,read so I wouldn't bother with the rest if I were you.

Now, I've got three, real turds of literature for you right here.

Gravities Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. This guy likes to show off his encyclopedic knowledge (or spends time looking up anything that will sound obscure enough, it doesn't matter either way) by making esoteric references every other sentence. Some of the action is just bizarre. The viewpoint likes to jump all around. Pretentious, highbrow-ish literati speak is thrown in with vulgar slang. There is obvious attempts at obscurity. At some places you don't even know that a scene has changed to something else entirely. It is as if the author got a sense of accomplishment, or a sense of superiority by confusing the hell out of his reader. I only made it to page 60 or so, at that point I think some guy was chasing another guy with with a banana which he was using as a stand in for his unit. Or he was just eating a banana by himself or was playing football on the moon. Who knows and who cares.

He is either a very bad writer, or it is intentional.

Ulysses by James Joyce. Pure, unadulterated sh**. This is certainly intentional. The only thing I remember about it is my laughing at it. That kind of "writing" would be the easiest to do - if you wanted critical acclaim. Snobbish, boorish, most fake thing I ever read. If you want critic acclaim make sure you write like this - confuse the living hell out of them and they'll worship you as a GOD! "The water must be deep, I can't see the bottom!"

The Golden Compass series by Phillip Pullman. This is one of the worst executed books I've ever read by an author that was sincerely trying to do a good job. There is already a thread about that here though.

Any of the naturalist grand loved books of last century like Grapes of Wrath, Hemingway all that. Coma.

[bborg 0]

Crime and Punishment? Worst novel? Is this a gag thread? It is one of the best written books of all time! It is not about poor people or life sucking; it is not a hymn to the glory of man to be sure, but it doesn't mean it deserves your complete trivialization of the book. The psychology in the book is some of the best ever in literature.

Completely agreed. I was planning to respond on this myself. Dostoevsky has brilliant psychological insight, despite his malevolent universe premise. I found myself repeatedly thinking back to this character during my reading in criminology. What he understands but so few other people seem to, is that crime is a choice based on a view of reality, and that reality has to be sustained with evasion. And at the risk of sounding cliche you could cut the tension in that story with a knife. He also has a very sharp wit. After Crime and Punishment I read Notes from Underground, The Brothers Karamazov and his short story The Crocodile. I can understand if people are unable to look past his sense of life, which is dreadful, but he deserves his place as one of the world's greatest authors.

[piz 0]

Twilight - my son's girlfriend talked me into reading it some months before the movie came out. Nothing of substance happens for about the first 90% of the book, then there's a bunch of tacked-on action that follows from nothing. And I never want to spend that much time in a vapid teenage girl's mind again, ever. ("Vapid teenage" - isn't that redundant these days for the bulk of that population?)

The book was very obviously written to sell a ton to girls age 12 - 17, and for no other purpose whatsoever. I can't speak for the other books in the series, because I haven't and won't ever read them.

[Vespasiano 0]

One doesn't usually finish the worst ones, so it's hard to make sure which are actually the worst. . . .

My sentiments exactly. I really couldn't answer this question in all fairness because the books that don't "grab me" up front I just don't finish. Then, of course, there is the question of what standard one uses to make the determination (I notice the difference of opinion here on Dostoevsky, for example). Is one focusing on the plot or lack of one; the plot theme (as far as I can tell, most of the stuff being turned out today is pretty much worthless by this standard); the author's ability to draw vivid characters and/or psychological portraits; the use of language, etc.; or some combination of all these elements? There are books the plot/plot themes of which are fairly disturbing or even disgusting to me, but in which the author's mastery of language and characterization is so extraordinary as to capture completely my attention. Henry James comes to mind here -- as much as I may dislike much of what he write about from a thematic standpoint, I couldn't possibly classify anything he wrote as among the "worst" things I've read. Quite the opposite: I may be one of those rare people who actually revel in the luxuriousness of his language.

[Jim A. 0]

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Crime and Punishment.

To Rose Lake and Thoyd Loki:

Thank you, thank you, thank you for mentioning Thomas Pynchon. I started both V. and Gravity's Rainbow when I was in high school and couldn't finish them. Because I chose a bunch of snobs as friends, and basically let them judge things for me, I concluded the reason I didn't finish either "novel" was because I couldn't understand them. The fault was with me, not the books. The truth is I was afraid to admit to myself that I hated and was bored by what I was reading, and that not only was there was nothing "wrong" with my ability to judge a book, but reading is a selfish thing, so therefore one should enjoy a novel. If a novel is drudgery, morally offensive or just plain unpleasant, one has the right to put the book away--or throw it in the garbage. My not having these beliefs came, obviously, from poor self-esteem. It wasn't until years later, when I was twenty-eight, that I finally came to believe in my right to enjoy literature (and other forms of art), rather than having a duty to "appreciate" "serious" "literature" such as V. or Ulysses. I credit that change, of course, to encountering Ayn Rand, in particular through The Fountainhead. It was like breathing pure oxygen or fresh mountain air after coming out of a sewer. (By the way, one of my snob friends raved and raved about Thomas Pynchon, especially for his "powers of description". Whatever. In any case, right after high school he became some kind of "born again" Christian and went on, I think, to enter the ministry. One more thing about Thomas Pynchon: I never trust writers, like him or J.D. Salinger, who don't grant interviews and don't allow their picture to be taken. What are they afraid of? Will their eyes reveal their soul to people? And what about that "immortal" opening line of Gravity's Rainbow: "A screaming comes across the sky." Okay. So what? Is that supposed to be profound?)

To bborg: Thank you for your praise for Dostoevsky. It's true that often he is difficult to get through. But I thought Crime and Punishment was interesting, and it's on my "re-read" list. Evasion--and criminal thinking in general--is what is intriguing about the book. You always ask yourself: How long can this guy keep this up? How can he stand it? He has to break down sometime. And when he does it is with complete resignation and acceptance of personal responsibility. He throws himself on the mercy of society. When he enters the police station, as you recall, he offers no justification or excuse. He merely tells those present that he is the one who murdered the pawnbroker woman and her niece and robbed them. That's all, and he says it twice. The novel reminds me of a few films, like Seconds, The Talented Mr. Ripley or Marnie, in which the main character is doing something they know they shouldn't be doing, or maintaining an evasion and the suspense comes from wondering when the collapse of the pretense will come, and what form it will take.

I want to mention another writer whom I consider to be abysmal (for the most part): Richard Brautigan, a counter-culture "novelist" and "poet" of the sixties and seventies. Very deconstructionist (understatement). And it's no surprise to me that he blew his brains out some years ago, not only because of his sense-of-life and irrational psycho-epistemology, but also because the "paradise" commune world he created in his novel In Watermelon Sugar he named "iDEATH". (There's the small "i" again.)

Then, of course, there are writers who aren't actually bad, but who are just plain boring. The first one I think of is: D. H. Lawrence. Jesus! I tried--I really tried--to read Women in Love (again, when I was in high school). For someone who supposedly preached the "passions" and advocated sexual freedom, that novel is extremely passionless. I couldn't finish the last one hundred pages (out of four hundred). (In contrast, I point to the love story in The Fountainhead--now that was passion! And most of it was in the dialogue!)

Boy, I sure did read alot of crap in my early years! And not to be self-effacing, but I do think it made me what I am today, in a sense: if, instead of all that garbage, I had read The Fountainhead when I was fourteen, chances are (given my own free will, of course), I would be much further into a career then I am at this time, at age 51. (It is true, though, that if I hadn't started reading The Fountainhead when I was twenty-eight, I would be even further "behind".)

[bborg 0]

To bborg: Thank you for your praise for Dostoevsky. It's true that often he is difficult to get through. But I thought Crime and Punishment was interesting, and it's on my "re-read" list. Evasion--and criminal thinking in general--is what is intriguing about the book. You always ask yourself: How long can this guy keep this up? How can he stand it? He has to break down sometime. And when he does it is with complete resignation and acceptance of personal responsibility. He throws himself on the mercy of society. When he enters the police station, as you recall, he offers no justification or excuse. He merely tells those present that he is the one who murdered the pawnbroker woman and her niece and robbed them.

If you remember, though, even when he decides to turn himself in he almost doesn't go through with it. It really takes an overwhelming amount of guilt and two other characters seeing him for what he is for him to give up the self-delusion.

If you want to know why my mind kept going back to this, you really must read Inside the Criminal Mind, by Stanton Samenow. I can't plug this book nearly enough. Absolutely essential to any rehabilitation of a criminal is that he see himself as he really is, meaning not only the misery he is but the fact that his behavior is responsible for it. And it isn't that the criminal doesn't feel guilt. He does, but he protects himself against that guilt with rationalizations, with claims of victimhood, ignorance or some imagined injustice of a reality that it doesn't follow his rules. This is why I have so much respect for Dostoevsky's psychological insight, even if I despise his philosophy. He understood that evil is not built on a confident certainty, but a cowardly refusal to face reality. Just think of James Taggart, so horrified by himself that he can live only by refusing to introspect.

[Rose Lake 0]

Now, I've got three, real turds of literature for you right here.

Gravities Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. [...]

He is either a very bad writer, or it is intentional.

Ulysses by James Joyce. Pure, unadulterated sh**. This is certainly intentional. The only thing I remember about it is my laughing at it. That kind of "writing" would be the easiest to do - if you wanted critical acclaim. Snobbish, boorish, most fake thing I ever read. If you want critic acclaim make sure you write like this - confuse the living hell out of them and they'll worship you as a GOD! "The water must be deep, I can't see the bottom!"

As I wrote my post I had a nagging sense that I'd forgotten writing even worse than Phynchon's. Because how, except by merciful forgetfulness, could I have overlooked James Joyce when horrible literature is the subject? It's hard to believe that someone actually wrote those books. Maybe Joyce's wife had the right idea. I think that she threw one of his manuscripts into a fire. I forget how it was (unfortunately) saved.

Ha. Another one by Pynchon, which I OF COURSE, would not have picked up after V.

Personally re: Dostoyevsky, I liked Crime and Punishment (the only one of his I read) though it was a literature assignment, and the teacher was good. But I tried to read the Brothers Karamozov (that was him too, no?) and didn't get too far. I just couldn't get interested.

[realitycheck44 0]

I love Dostoevsky as well. I was going to post, but luckily bborg took care of it for me.

The play Waiting for Godot is probably the most worthless peice of crap I've ever read.

Madam Bovary is...hmm...interesting. It's "generally considered" to be amazing, but it's so utterly Naturalistic and boring. It epitimizes the idea that an author should only be selective about style and characterization, but not subject matter. It is entirely devoid of a plot. And the theme is basically that a woman shouldn't try to be romantic. It's not so much bad as it is evil.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of right now. I usually try to do some research before wasting my time on a bad novel. Unless it's necessary for school.

[Stussy88 0]

Crime and Punishment? Worst novel? Is this a gag thread? It is one of the best written books of all time! It is not about poor people or life sucking; it is not a hymn to the glory of man to be sure, but it doesn't mean it deserves your complete trivialization of the book. The psychology in the book is some of the best ever in literature.

Narrative pace is completely absent? Are you sure you were reading Crime and Punishment? That was one of the fastest reads I've ever had.

Crime and Punishment btw, is the easiest Dostoevsky (and fastest narrative pace) ,read so I wouldn't bother with the rest if I were you.

Now, I've got three, real turds of literature for you right here.

Gravities Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. This guy likes to show off his encyclopedic knowledge (or spends time looking up anything that will sound obscure enough, it doesn't matter either way) by making esoteric references every other sentence. Some of the action is just bizarre. The viewpoint likes to jump all around. Pretentious, highbrow-ish literati speak is thrown in with vulgar slang. There is obvious attempts at obscurity. At some places you don't even know that a scene has changed to something else entirely. It is as if the author got a sense of accomplishment, or a sense of superiority by confusing the hell out of his reader. I only made it to page 60 or so, at that point I think some guy was chasing another guy with with a banana which he was using as a stand in for his unit. Or he was just eating a banana by himself or was playing football on the moon. Who knows and who cares.

He is either a very bad writer, or it is intentional.

Ulysses by James Joyce. Pure, unadulterated sh**. This is certainly intentional. The only thing I remember about it is my laughing at it. That kind of "writing" would be the easiest to do - if you wanted critical acclaim. Snobbish, boorish, most fake thing I ever read. If you want critic acclaim make sure you write like this - confuse the living hell out of them and they'll worship you as a GOD! "The water must be deep, I can't see the bottom!"

The Golden Compass series by Phillip Pullman. This is one of the worst executed books I've ever read by an author that was sincerely trying to do a good job. There is already a thread about that here though.

Any of the naturalist grand loved books of last century like Grapes of Wrath, Hemingway all that. Coma.

Well in all fairness to C & P I did not get through it, so maybe it undergoes a chrysalis-like transformation from standing start tedium to fast paced narrative, I'll never know. I can only wait so long after the gun has sounded for the race to start. I also need to vaguely care for some of the characters instead of wishing they all die on the next page! I am happy to agree with your recommendation; I have no plans to try any more Dostoevsky, despite Christopher Hitchens constant references to 'The Brothers Karamazov'

I agree with you on 'Ulysses' however, one of only three novels I just couldn't read, (the others being the aforesaid C & P and "Of Human Bondage") I suspect Salman Rushdie might fall into that category as well after seeing a documentary on Satanic Verses. He strikes me as a guy who likes to say controversial stuff pointlessly, rather like the six-year old who has just learned profanity.

(In case anyone takes umbrage at this, for the record, of course he has the right to say it and no, violence in an attempt to censor free speech is not justified).

[bborg 0]

Well in all fairness to C & P I did not get through it, so maybe it undergoes a chrysalis-like transformation from standing start tedium to fast paced narrative, I'll never know. I can only wait so long after the gun has sounded for the race to start. I also need to vaguely care for some of the characters instead of wishing they all die on the next page! I am happy to agree with your recommendation; I have no plans to try any more Dostoevsky, despite Christopher Hitchens constant references to 'The Brothers Karamazov'

A chrysalis-like transformation? Not really. If you didn't like the beginning, I doubt you'd be won over by the rest. But to each his own. By the way I mentioned his wit, and that I'd read his short story "The Crocodile". It's hysterical and bizarre. A man is eaten by a crocodile, but remains living inside it and is able to talk. At the concern of his friend (well, sort of concern) he says he's doing well, because as it turns out the body of a crocodile is hollow! And this follows into one of the looniest exchanges I've ever read:

"Is it possible?" I cried, in a surprise that may well be understood. "Can the crocodile be perfectly empty?"

"Perfectly," Ivan Matveitch maintained sternly and impressively. "And in all probability, it is so constructed by the laws of Nature. The crocodile possesses nothing but jaws furnished with sharp teeth, and besides the jaws, a tail of considerable length--that is all, properly speaking. The middle part between these two extremities is an empty space enclosed by something of the nature of gutta-percha, probably really gutta-percha."

"But the ribs, the stomach, the intestines, the liver, the heart?" I interrupted quite angrily.

"There is nothing, absolutely nothing of all that, and probably there never has been. All that is the idle fancy of frivolous travellers. As one inflates an air-cushion, I am now with my person inflating the crocodile. He is incredibly elastic. Indeed, you might, as the friend of the family, get in with me if you were generous and self-sacrificing enough--and even with you here there would be room to spare. I even think that in the last resort I might send for Elena Ivanovna. However, this void, hollow formation of the crocodile is quite in keeping with the teachings of natural science. If, for instance, one had to construct a new crocodile, the question would naturally present itself. What is the fundamental characteristic of the crocodile? The answer is clear: to swallow human beings. How is one, in constructing the crocodile, to secure that he should swallow people? The answer is clearer still: construct him hollow. It was settled by physics long ago that Nature abhors a vacuum. Hence the inside of the crocodile must be hollow so that it may abhor the vacuum, and consequently swallow and so fill itself with anything it can come across. And that is the sole rational cause why every crocodile swallows men. It is not the same in the constitution of man: the emptier a man's head is, for instance, the less he feels the thirst to fill it, and that is the one exception to the general rule. It is all as clear as day to me now. I have deduced it by my own observation and experience, being, so to say, in the very bowels of Nature, in its retort, listening to the throbbing of its pulse. Even etymology supports me, for the very word crocodile means voracity. Crocodile--crocodillo--is evidently an Italian word, dating perhaps from the Egyptian Pharaohs, and evidently derived from the French verb croquer, which means to eat, to devour, in general to absorb nourishment. All these remarks I intend to deliver as my first lecture in Elena Ivanovna's salon when they take me there in the tank."

[ruveyn ben yosef 0]

Any novel by Edward Bullwer-Lytton is bound to be a bummer. If a novel you are reading starts out "It was a dark and stormy night..." consign it to the flames.

ruveyn

[joebob 0]

Anthem - Ayn Rand

What a waste of 43 minutes....

[Betsy Speicher 0]

Anthem - Ayn Rand

What a waste of 43 minutes....

Why?

[Jim A. 0]

A good question--"Why?"

Why, JoeBob, do you consider Anthem to be garbage? Not that somebody cannot read a short novel in 43 minutes, but I always wonder when someone does that. How intently did you read it? Were you in full focus? If you were, I think you would see that every sentence of Anthem, even when describing concrete action, expresses the theme of the book. Unless there is something I, a lover of Anthem, may have missed?

Maybe you can explain how Anthem could have been better. Or maybe you should write the novel Anthem should have been.

[Zeus 0]

2--The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. When I read it I asked myself, "What's the point of this?" Vonnegut was a man-hater, an America-hater and a values-hater. His satire in this novel seems to attack alot of things, but the novel doesn't support or exalt anything. (Incidentally, I know a cousin of Kurt Vonnegut's, and he himself says that Vonnegut hated America.)

This discussion is so relative and subjective. There's no accounting for taste! I relished Vonnegut's second novel (but not his first!) The Sirens of Titan. A sheer pleasure, from the very first pages, virtually all the way to the end. A marvelous hybrid of normal novels and the unique style Vonnegut was to develope -- plus outstandingly good on its own!

[The Gattacan 0]

I agree with the posters here that said they don't finish or get very far in a bad novel. Having only a limited time alive, I don't usually finish bad books, or even bad articles or essays. It's a question of values. I value my time too much. I will add that I have never seen a case where a book started out badly and then became worthwhile. I have seen several that start well and finish poorly or even lose my interest by the middle. An example of that is The Testament by John Grisham. The first 100 pages are among the best in popular fiction. I did not finish the book. Contrast this with a great writer like Ayn Rand, whose stories always get better as they go. As an example of great finishing, I would put the final 100-150 pages or so of We the Living against any writing in world literature.

Rather than the worst novels, which I consider myself unqualified to comment on since I don't finish them, I will give a listing of some of the most overrated authors:

Hemingway - hard to finish anything of his. A bore.

Joyce - goes without saying. Has the power to actually turn people away from studying literature at college.

Faulkner - I haven't run into a single character that I could possible care about in his books.

In popular fiction:

Grisham - has completely run dry. Not only that, for a long time has infused his books with his political ideologies.

Patterson - (Along Came a Spider, etc) - can hardly write 3 sentences without referring to the brand name of something (cars, drinks, shops, etc.) Annoying. Not only that, his writing will be dated due to this naturalistic tendency.

[Nathaniel Hale 1775 0]

A good question--"Why?"

Why, JoeBob, do you consider Anthem to be garbage? Not that somebody cannot read a short novel in 43 minutes, but I always wonder when someone does that. How intently did you read it? Were you in full focus? If you were, I think you would see that every sentence of Anthem, even when describing concrete action, expresses the theme of the book. Unless there is something I, a lover of Anthem, may have missed?

Maybe you can explain how Anthem could have been better. Or maybe you should write the novel Anthem should have been.

Obviously, we are supposed to be impressed with his prodigious intellect.

From my experience, "speed readers" are looking at, not comprehending, the words. It took me around an hour and half to finish Anthem; though, I naturally tend toward the ponderous.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

Obviously, we are supposed to be impressed with his prodigious intellect.

I gave new member JoeBob time to answer my "Why?" and he didn't. I suspect he's a troll. He is now on moderation for that little hit and run attack.

Back to the topic.

[Jim A. 0]

To Zeus:

Well--I'm very curious, now. May I ask you to expand on the reasons for your high regard of The Sirens of Titan? I'd like to know, especially if there was something I missed in it.

I'll admit that occasionally Vonnegut--that is, the works of his I've read--has some very funny moments. Like in Sirens: I laughed when I read the part where a supporting character who was a Jehovah's Witness was kidnapped by an alien while trying to hand him a copy of The Watchtower; that was funny. And Vonnegut's idea of the "chrono-synclastic infundibulum" was amusing: a place in the universe where all opposing views are reconciled. That was amusing to me because there is no such place; contradictions don't exist (though I don't think Vonnegut was convinced of that).

There are some lines in Slaughterhouse-Five that are pretty hilarious. And Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" is black humor/horror used for a legitimate purpose: it savagely satirizes the view that everyone should be made equal. But Vonnegut, nevertheless, was not a believer in free will; Slaughterhouse-Five especially testifies to this; the "superior" aliens in the book--the Tralfamadorians--explicitly denounce the existence of free will, and the main character of the novel is "unstuck" in time; he has no control over whether he is living right now, or during his POW days in World War II, or is a child again, being thrown by his father into a pool to either "sink or swim".

But back to my question: what, more specifically, do you find to be the true virtues of The Sirens of Titan? And are there other Vonnegut works, or satirical works in general, that you recommend?

[jordanz 0]

Thankfully, I don't remember the terrible ones. But, there is one that stands out: Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins. A friend gave to me as his favorite book. It's complete stream of consciousness nonsense. The only way to read these things is to turn your mind off and let the syllables "sing". In that regard, it can be a bit fun I guess. But, really, it's a waste of time.