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Author Name: BoingBoing
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Famous Brits pick their most-hated books

2021-12-27 00:00:00

This list of most-reviled books is from 2003, but nevertheless entertains.

JG Ballard: Author Finnegans Wake by James Joyce Joyce's incomprehensible novel, which has provided a living for generations of English Literature professors, represents a lamentable tendency in 20th-century fiction: the quest for total obscurity. Finnegans Wake is the best example of modernism disappearing up its own fundament.

***

Jonathan Meades: Author and broadcaster The Harry Potter books by JK Rowling "I think they are absolute shit, just terrible, worse than Enid Blyton. I have discouraged my children from reading them. They are not particularly badly written ­ I don't mind bad writing ­ it's the smugness and the complicity with the reader that I dislike. It's like they're written by a focus group. JK Rowling is the sub-literary analogue of Tony Blair."

***

Dr Jonathan Miller: Director, author and broadcaster Anything by Jacques Derrida "When I plunge into the murky depths of Derrida I feel I am drowning ­ I can deal with difficult topics, but Derrida fails to make them interesting, as his writing is completely impenetrable. He purports to be philosophical, but in fact he's perversely obscure."

***

Sir John Mortimer: Author and creator of Rumpole The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien "Anything about Gandalf, and those little things with hair between their toes. I hate that sort of portentous, phoney, medieval-magical way of writing."

***

Ken Russell: Film director Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand "It has a huge reputation as a masterpiece, but I found it to be a fascist tirade about how wonderful American tycoons are in business. Still, it is very cleverly written."

What is your most-hated book? Mine's a toss-up between Ender's Game and The Secret History.
[END]

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