Happy Birthday, Preston Michael Spears Federline and other Certain Special Someones!

[ABBAKiss]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
What material is it? Powered?

Some of it is gross fats powered by donuts and ice cream. I do not use this type.

Some of it is young hots powered by tequila and gym visits. This is the type I use.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by bold_n_brazen
Absolom, Absolom... William Faulkner

Did the guy write anything that doesn't require someone to explain what he meant? And I read a novel, Dollar Cotton, by his brother john http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/faulkner_john/ - curiously it was in English and enjoyable. So I don't blame Willaim's education for his communication problems.

I don't get why Flannery O'Conner isn't the famous Southern author from the middle of last Century.

[Captain]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Shane
Goodbye, Mr Chips (thicker than maple syrup)
Billy Budd (Melville wrote that just to annoy the reader)

No one ever made me read Goodbye, Mr. Chips, which up until now I thought was just a mediocre movie, but I have to agree on Billy Budd. And Melville is otherwise a big old favorite. Did he just need some cash or something?

But the most annoying was undoubtedly when the teachers decided to make great literature more accessible by showing us really bad PBS movies of great books.

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Shane
Goodbye, Mr Chips (thicker than maple syrup)
Billy Budd (Melville wrote that just to annoy the reader)

Shane is a book? Huh. I thought that it was just a great western -- although, AoN, I like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence better. And maybe Rio Bravo. And Blazing Saddles, of course.

But Shane is still great.

[soup sandwich]

Originally posted by Not Bob
But Shane is still great.

I used to like Shane until last week when those "Celebrities Heights" links were posted. Turns out Alan Ladd was only 5'6". How can the original "reluctant warrior" be only 5'6"? Ridiculous.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
LOTR was nothing compared to some the crap forced down our throats. Come on:

"A Separate Peace"?

"Catcher in the Rye?"

"The Old Man and the Sea"?

[And as I referred to earlier, I nearly burned down my high school for making us read that Dreiser book]

So go ahead - name the worst books your teachers forced you to read:

Rudyard Kipling's Kim in 8th grade.

ETA: Although we also "had" to read Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions and God Bless you Mr. Rosewater. I should go back and thank the teachers who assigned those.

[barely_legal]

Originally posted by greatwhitenorthchick
The only books I remember from highschool are A Separate Peace, Catcher in the Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird. The worst was a Separate Peace and Phinny wasn't even hot in the movie version. And Parker Stevenson - don't get me started. I liked the two other books a lot. And the movie version of TKAM.

eta: We did have to read the Old Man and the Sea as well. I don't remember anything about it. But it's now coming back to me that we had to read a whole slew of Canadian books - i.e. Surfacing, The Stone Angel, and of course Bear, which is about a woman who falls in love with a bear and they almost do it, except when they are trying to consummate, he gouges her back with his claws (not fatally, but enough to make her back off). Go Canada.

I had to do a presentation on "Surfacing" in college. It sucked (both the book and the presentation).

Although I enjoyed it, I thought it was weird that we had to read Rebecca in sophmore advanced english. The boys hated it and I think its literary quality is dubious. But since I had to read The Red Badge of fucking Courage, I didn't feel bad for all the boys having to read about evil Ms. Danville and the hot and brooding Mr. DeWinter.

[SlaveNoMore]

barely_legal
Although I enjoyed it, I thought it was weird that we had to read Rebecca in sophmore advanced english. The boys hated it and I think it's literary quality is dubious. But since I had to read The Red Badge of fucking Courage, I didn't feel bad for all the boys having to read about evil Ms. Danville and the hot and brooding Mr. DeWinter.

One of the rare instances where the film adaptation is far, far superior to the original book.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Rudyard Kipling's Kim in 8th grade.

ETA: Although we also "had" to read Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions and God Bless you Mr. Rosewater. I should go back and thank the teachers that assigned those.

The lack of Vonnegut (only SH5 made it) on that Time List is the best proof of the list's inadequacy.

You can't put one Vonnegut book on such a list. All of his books are part of one larger goofy narrative. You could read half of one, put it down and then read half of another and probably still feel like you'd read a cohesive work. I've read them all and still mix up all the scenes and characters.

[Captain]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Rudyard Kipling's Kim in 8th grade.

ETA: Although we also "had" to read Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions and God Bless you Mr. Rosewater. I should go back and thank the teachers that assigned those.

Reading Slaughterhouse Five is one hour of my life I'll never get back.

Luckily, I read it while watching back-to-back episodes of "Welcome Back, Cotter."

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
LOTR was nothing compared to some the crap forced down our throats. Come on:

"A Separate Peace"?

"Catcher in the Rye?"

"The Old Man and the Sea"?

[And as I referred to earlier, I nearly burned down my high school for making us read that Dreiser book]

So go ahead - name the worst books your teachers forced you to read:

Lord Jim. I actually could not remember anything about this book, other than that I found it skull-splittingly boring, until I looked it up on the internet. Even the brief description I saw on the internet is skull-splittingly boring.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
defensive much?

To.

Tal.

Bu.

Rn.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Captain
No one ever made me read Goodbye, Mr. Chips, which up until now I thought was just a mediocre movie, but I have to agree on Billy Budd. And Melville is otherwise a big old favorite. Did he just need some cash or something?

But the most annoying was undoubtedly when the teachers decided to make great literature more accessible by showing us really bad PBS movies of great books.

BB is written in that strange passive voice they must've used at the time. The hanging scene, where Melville tries to get all classy on our asses by refusing to describe the physical drop, sucks. You don't lead someoby along for 20 chapters and then give them a clouded, barely discernible "money shot" at the plot's climax. It needed to say, simply "Billy dropped, and his neck snapped, and his body moved not a centimeter save the subtle shifting caused by the waves." Melville stretches that simple fucking point for 8000 words, and tops it with some absurd shit about Billy "rising like a rose in the sun" or some other such silly shit. It reminds me of the end of Contact... "The Aliens look like her dead father? All that shit so she could get ssome cheapass near death experience? Fuuuuuck Sagan."

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Pretty Little Flower
To.

Tal.

Bu.

Rn.

Hey my brother, can I borrow a copy of your "Hey Soul Classics"?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Pretty Little Flower
To.

Tal.

Bu.

Rn.

A reu iny ourS topM akin gSe nsep hase?