The Worst Great Literary Work You'Ve Ever Read

[Jo498]

The horror! The horror!

We didn't get any Lovecraft... never heard of him until much later, although I had read "The Outsider" in a ghost story anthology when I was quite young. (A very badly picked anthology that was marketed to children and had two funny stories at the beginning but then some that scared the sh*t out of me at 11 or 12, above all Benson's "The room in the tower" )

Maybe I have fairly positive memories of Goethe's Werther because I was surprised to like it much better than that GDR book.
In that 11th grade I had been listening to Classical music since a year or two and I was particularly offended by the protagonist in that 1970 GDR book denigrating "Haendelsohn Bacholdy"(admittedly not unfunny) in favor of "real music", i.e. mix tapes he somehow got from Rock bands.
Briefly, I was already a bourgeois snob at 17...
But I still think there is the effect of teachers (and esp. the education boards higher up) picking stuff that was new(ish) when they were younger themselves and not realizing how badly it had aged within a few decades.
A somewhat similar effect I only understood much later was that from my school days one could have gotten the impression that the most important philosophers ever were Sartre and Camus... precisely the stuff that was "hot" in the 1950s and 60s when most of my teachers had been students themselves.

[ritter]

King Lear. And while I enjoy Hamlet I'm not going to pretend that it's a perfect play.

I've never understood Hamlet. I always get the impression that what the guy needs is a couple of good slaps to stop the nonsense....

[Florestan]

Briefly, I was already a bourgeois snob at 17...

Congrats! 

[Florestan]

I've never understood Hamlet. I always get the impression that what the guy needs is a couple of good slaps to stop the nonsense....

What the guy actually needs is a couple of good strumpets. 

[Mandryka]

. . . there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is't to leave betimes?


It's here where the interest of the whole play lies for me, how he got to this point of view

[Cato]

We didn't get any Lovecraft... never heard of him until much later, although I had read "The Outsider" in a ghost story anthology when I was quite young. (A very badly picked anthology that was marketed to children and had two funny stories at the beginning but then some that scared the sh*t out of me at 11 or 12, above all Benson's "The room in the tower" )

Maybe I have fairly positive memories of Goethe's Werther because I was surprised to like it much better than that GDR book.
In that 11th grade I had been listening to Classical music since a year or two and I was particularly offended by the protagonist in that 1970 GDR book denigrating "Haendelsohn Bacholdy"(admittedly not unfunny) in favor of "real music", i.e. mix tapes he somehow got from Rock bands.
Briefly, I was already a bourgeois snob at 17...
But I still think there is the effect of teachers (and esp. the education boards higher up) picking stuff that was new(ish) when they were younger themselves and not realizing how badly it had aged within a few decades.
A somewhat similar effect I only understood much later was that from my school days one could have gotten the impression that the most important philosophers ever were Sartre and Camus... precisely the stuff that was "hot" in the 1950s and 60s when most of my teachers had been students themselves.

Speaking of German authors who were "BIG" some time ago, what is your opinion - and what is the opinion of others here - on Heinrich Boell and Guenter Grass?

I had to read several of Boell's novels, because my professor of German in graduate school was America's expert on him. 

Nicht mein Geschmack!     

[(poco) Sforzando]

King Lear. And while I enjoy Hamlet I'm not going to pretend that it's a perfect play.

But it's pretty damned good. And what is your issue with Lear?

[BWV 1080]

Speaking of German authors who were "BIG" some time ago, what is your opinion - and what is the opinion of others here - on Heinrich Boell and Guenter Grass?

I had to read several of Boell's novels, because my professor of German in graduate school was America's expert on him. 

Nicht mein Geschmack!     

Read The Train was on Time and thought it was excellent

All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski is another good German WW2 related book, follows a family fleeing the Red Army in East Prussia toward the end of the war


Tried reading The Tin Drum years ago and failed.  Grass's star has dimmed since his SS past was revealed, albeit it was late in the war when recruitment standards had declined, his hypocrisy and lies ruined his reputation

[Karl Henning]

There was actual one much worse book in my school time, called "The new sorrows of young W" by the East German author Plenzdorf who ca. 1970 wrote a GDR version of the Werther triangle story featuring a rebellious 17 year old. While CitR had in my view aged badly in almost 40 years, the Plenzdorf book did worse in less than 20. The obviously "brilliant" idea of education boards for German class was of course to read Goethe's Werther and "The new sorrows of young W" back to back

This is a kind of perfect, in a twisted way.

[Karl Henning]

I've never understood Hamlet. I always get the impression that what the guy needs is a couple of good slaps to stop the nonsense....

The classic remark is that Othello and Hamlet should have switched protagonists: Hamlet would have waited, and learnt that Desdemona was innocent, and Othello would have jumped on the ghost's word and slain his incestuous uncle.

[Karl Henning]

Briefly, I was already a bourgeois snob at 17

I see a B-movie: I Was a Teenage Bourgeois Snob.

[Ganondorf]

But it's pretty damned good. And what is your issue with Lear?

We've been over this. My issue with Lear is the same as with Hamlet. The protagonists of both works are most repellent piece of shits I've ever come across in theatre yet whom both Shakespeare puts on a pedestal as if they're heroes when in fact they're Shakespeare's two most repulsive villains (three when counting Antonio) - Hamlet is directly or indirectly responsible for almost every death in the play, has extremely unpleasant, unrepentant, sexist, violent, immature personality and has basically greater bodycount than even Iago. Yet all Horatio can say to him when Hamlet passes away is: ""Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. " That is even much more outrageous than Hamlet's fear that Claudius goes to Heaven and arguably Hamlet made things even worse for Denmark by killing him since while Claudius may not be a good man, he clearly is a good king. And to nominate Fortinbras of all people as the new king, WTF? Hamlet's only saving grace is that he's entertaining which is why I prefer Hamlet as a play to King Lear where the protagonist isn't even that.

[Cato]

Read The Train was on Time and thought it was excellent

All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski is another good German WW2 related book, follows a family fleeing the Red Army in East Prussia toward the end of the war


Tried reading The Tin Drum years ago and failed.  Grass's star has dimmed since his SS past was revealed, albeit it was late in the war when recruitment standards had declined, his hypocrisy and lies ruined his reputation.
 

Concerning Heinrich Böll: Billard um Halb Zehn (Billiards at 9:30) and Ansichten eines Clowns (Viewpoints of a Clown) were the novels I read, along with several short stories.

I found the writing unmusical and of little interest: it may be appropriate to use gray prose to describe gray characters with black-and-white themes, but...his style and stories just did not attract me. 

Same thing for Grass: I gave both Der Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum)and Der Butt * (The Flounder) a chance, but the thematic hammering was just too much.

* The original Plattdeutsch used in the story collected by The Brothers Grimm, to which the title refers, uses Buttje d.h. Buttchen, which is a diminutive for "Little Flounder."

[BWV 1080]

Concerning Heinrich Böll: Billard um Halb Zehn (Billiards at 9:30) and Ansichten eines Clowns (Viewpoints of a Clown) were the novels I read, along with several short stories.

I found the writing unmusical and of little interest: it may be appropriate to use gray prose to describe gray characters with black-and-white themes, but...his style and stories just did not attract me. 

Same thing for Grass: I gave both Der Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum)and Der Butt * (The Flounder) a chance, but the thematic hammering was just too much.

* The original Plattdeutsch used in the story collected by The Brothers Grimm, to which the title refers, uses Buttje d.h. Buttchen, which is a diminutive for "Little Flounder."

It may be with Boell - the Train is a dark, squalid story about the Eastern Front (but not a combat story per se) so it was depressing, but rightfully so

[Jo498]

Speaking of German authors who were "BIG" some time ago, what is your opinion - and what is the opinion of others here - on Heinrich Boell and Guenter Grass?

I had to read several of Boell's novels, because my professor of German in graduate school was America's expert on him. 

They were two of the most highly regarded post war writers, very popular both with critics and public. I have read almost no Grass but some Böll. AFAIS many of their books are closely connected to war/postwar issues. Böll is far more accessible (fairly simple, that's why some critics quite disliked him) and socially engaged (he was something of a "catholic's worker" guy, a Rhinelander, unlike Grass (who was from Danzig). For school, most of Grass is rather too long (and probably too bawdy), some of Böll's are/were read in school (although not in my class). Nowadays it seems that both, esp. Böll have not aged well being so much of their war/post-war time that was more present in my school days in the 1980s because everyone had (grand)parents that had lived through it but I don't know what they read in school nowadays.

[Jo498]

Read The Train was on Time and thought it was excellent

All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski is another good German WW2 related book, follows a family fleeing the Red Army in East Prussia toward the end of the war

I am not sure I have read that one but Kempowski's books (I read about 3-4) give an interesting "everyday" impression of German history from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, based on a slightly literalized account of his own family history of middle class businessmen (shipping) in Rostock (Baltic seaport city). Kempowski got into trouble as kid for listening to (and playing?) Jazz in the 1940s and also fell foul of the postwar East German regime and spent 8 years (basically his 20s) in prison for espionage, afterwards going to the West.

Tried reading The Tin Drum years ago and failed.  Grass's star has dimmed since his SS past was revealed, albeit it was late in the war when recruitment standards had declined, his hypocrisy and lies ruined his reputation

Grass was born October 1927, so not even 12 when the war broke out and only 17 when it ended. There were 1000s of German, Austrian etc. intellectuals who were more involved (or behaved cowardly) in the Nazi or other totalitarian regimes and they weren't teenaged boys.
I'd cut him some slack on that front.

[Cato]

I am not sure I have read that one but Kempowski's books (I read about 3-4) give an interesting "everyday" impression of German history from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, based on a slightly literalized account of his own family history of middle class businessmen (shipping) in Rostock (Baltic seaport city). Kempowski got into trouble as kid for listening to (and playing?) Jazz in the 1940s and also fell foul of the postwar East German regime and spent 8 years (basically his 20s) in prison for espionage, afterwards going to the West.

I will need to investigate Herr Kempowski!  Thanks for the information!

Grass was born October 1927, so not even 12 when the war broke out and only 17 when it ended. There were 1000s of German, Austrian etc. intellectuals who were more involved (or behaved cowardly) in the Nazi or other totalitarian regimes and they weren't teenaged boys.

I'd cut him some slack on that front.

Yes, look at the man's life in toto!  You remind me of the controversy about the movie Seven Years in Tibet, which looked at the life of mountain-climber Heinrich Harrer.  There were calls to boycott the movie, because of Harrer's Nazi past.  People do change, however, and I think Harrer's later life more than counterbalances his earlier choices.  (The movie shows him as a selfish, egotistic, and fairly terrible person at the beginning: in some scenes, he seems annoyed by the Nazis as people whom he had to endure in order to satisfy his own goals.  Whether those scenes depicted the truth...?)

Certainly the Dalai Lama accepted him:

https://savetibet.org/dalai-lama-says-harrer-was-a-loyal-friend/

Again, thanks for the mention of the books by Kempowski!

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Grass was born October 1927, so not even 12 when the war broke out and only 17 when it ended. There were 1000s of German, Austrian etc. intellectuals who were more involved (or behaved cowardly) in the Nazi or other totalitarian regimes and they weren't teenaged boys.
I'd cut him some slack on that front.

As I recall, the real scandal about Grass was not that he was a teenage SS member, but that he concealed or lied about this fact for decades, while at the same time presenting himself as some kind of moral authority. He was one of those writers who love to pontificate on the issues of the day. Therefore he came across as a gigantic hypocrite.

All of this, of course, is irrelevant to the literary quality of his work.

[Cato]

As I recall, the real scandal about Grass was not that he was a teenage SS member, but that he concealed or lied about this fact for decades, while at the same time presenting himself as some kind of moral authority. He was one of those writers who love to pontificate on the issues of the day. Therefore he came across as a gigantic hypocrite.

All of this, of course, is irrelevant to the literary quality of his work.

Ah, yes, that changes the perspective somewhat!

Earlier some people mentioned that they considered Goethe's Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers to be over-rated.

But what is the status of Goethe's Faust?  Is it still considered a national icon in Germany?

[T. D.]

Concerning Heinrich Böll: Billard um Halb Zehn (Billiards at 9:30) and Ansichten eines Clowns (Viewpoints of a Clown) were the novels I read, along with several short stories.

I found the writing unmusical and of little interest: it may be appropriate to use gray prose to describe gray characters with black-and-white themes, but...his style and stories just did not attract me. 

Same thing for Grass: I gave both Der Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum)and Der Butt * (The Flounder) a chance, but the thematic hammering was just too much.

* The original Plattdeutsch used in the story collected by The Brothers Grimm, to which the title refers, uses Buttje d.h. Buttchen, which is a diminutive for "Little Flounder."

I read Billiards at Half-Past Nine long ago and thought it was OK, though I recall little of it now. I found Grass's novels (which I read around the same time) somewhat more impressive.

But I also read a collection of Böll's short stories which I rather enjoyed. In fact, Murke's Collected Silences is one of my all-time favorite short stories and I still reread it occasionally.