Harrumph.

I really think that I should stop taking book recommendations from my peers, because I almost invariably end up hating whatever it is that they decide I will like. It all started back when my ex-boyfriend demanded that I take up reading his style of novels, which largely consisted of the semi-coherent drivel known to some as Bukowski and Vonnegut, along with the even less coherent drivel of their imitators, such as Chuck Palahniuk. I'm sure I'm not being fair to Bukowski and Vonnegut when I write this, but, like with Hemingway, I have a really hard time swallowing blatant misogyny (ha!) in the books that I read. I will give Vonnegut credit for the rare occasion that his novels make sense, at which point they are freaking brilliant, but those moments are few and far between. I find very few redeeming values in Bukowski, at least in terms of his prose. I waver on the quality of his poetry; it always seems to hinge on whther or not I'm in the mood to hear about heroin-glazed gay orgies and half-baked ruminations on Zen Buddhism.

Palahniuk's writing, on the other hand, nearly always makes me crave death (as does the horde of his admirers who go on and on about how original he is without even a hint of irony). I inexplicably love Jim Carroll. I'm not sure if it's by association with Leonardo DiCaprio (I don't care what none of y'all say, I still love him) or if his work just elicits an emotional reaction. Structurally, it's not all that great and he shamelessly rips off Bukowski, but he has this naive sincerity that gives me the warm fuzzies.

Anyway. My dealings with that guy should have taught me to ignore the literary advice of others. If not with him, through my best friend from high school, who loves Salinger despite the indisputable fact that, apart from Franny And Zooey, which was vaguely tolerable, everything he's ever published has been messy, loose conglomerates of whiny, rich teenagers (that you just want to hit with a blunt object), inane or nonexistent plots, perpetual self-inflicted social alienaton of the most obnoxiously solipsistic variety and, again, half-baked ruminations on various forms of Buddhism. (Although I will give him credit for not being intellectually lazy and using forms other than Zen.) They're both English majors. When i take advice from my friends who aren't familiar with literature, even worse things happen- mainly, I end up reading trash or "feel-good" drivel and then having to find a polite way to inform them that OHMYGODTHATWASAWFUL without making them feel stupid or wounded.

Case in point: The DaVinci Code, which was so shit-tastically-written that I couldn't make it past the first fifty pages. I would have slogged my way through it had I not realized that it was yet another inane dramatization of the Gnostic heresy that had IRREFUTABLE PROOF that the blood of Jesus is alive and well in society today. I read the last twenty pages, returned it to whoever lent it to me, mumbled something noncommittal about not being that interested in Christianity (since I am, you know, not a Christian), and ran away quickly. The only good thing that came out of The DaVinci Code was the hilarious reaction of fundamentalist Christians, which may have been even better than the times they freaked out over the Harry Potter books. Heh.

I can now add a new book to my illustrious lists of horrible popular novels that have wasted my time: The Life of Pi. It's unfortunate. I wanted to like it, I really did, and it started out so promisingly. The narrator was charming, his commentary was insightful although it did fall prey to some degree of authorial preaching, and it was mostly entertaining. However, after about fifty pages of being stranded on the ocean with a tiger, I started to wish I were dead. I kept losing my place (thanks to how unbelievably repetitive it was), and found myself increasingly frsutrated with what had formerly been vaguely endearing childish idealism evolving into preachy inanities that made my head split along with a series of bizarre, nonsensical plot twists (for seriously- a Frenchman? A man-eating algae island? That was full of Meerkats?) that made my inner hater of all things bad fanfic run screaming into the night.

I then hit the last twenty pages and experienced a certain rage-filled vertigo that usually only comes when i read Russian novels-- the horrifying realization that I have just wasted several hundreds of pages of my reading life on something that could have been reasonably condensed to fifty pages without sacrificing the literary quality of the novel. I call it Literature: Raskolnikov Style and discovered it my senior year of high school, when my friends and I all had to read Crime and Punishment while on Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale. Worst beach read ever.

Next on my list? Finishing The Cider House Rules. At least I know I won't end up hating it.