Burn After Reading

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
- Flannery O'Connor

I love reading. My favorite fantasy has always been this:

“Me in a wooden cottage somewhere in a snow clad region. A window through which I watch the snowflakes fall peacefully to the ground. A fire crackling softly in a fireplace. A rocking chair where I am cuddled up in a blanket with a large hot chocolate mug and a good book. Heaven.”

I have read a lot of books. Unlike people who purchase a book and then read it, I borrow a book either from a library or from my friends first and read it. Only if I love the book, I buy it. This is because someday I do want to have a big wooden cabinet lined with books I have bought and I want to make sure that every book on that cabinet is worth being there.

However, there are some books I have come across which I regret coming across. I regret wasting my time, energy and eyesight reading them. And that is when I think of the quote I mentioned above. Here’s presenting the crappiest of the lot I have read (in no particular order):

1. The Witch of Portobello – Paulo Coelho

I liked Coelho’s writing (Alchemist and The Devil and Miss Prym) until I came across this one. The title is what made me curious and I issued it from a library and read it. It’s the story about a woman named Athena (BTW, loved the name Athena and her daughter’s name Viorel) told through the interviews of people who knew her. It doesn’t sound that bad unless you are bombarded with needless abstract dialogues which make absolutely no sense however hard you may try. You might even think at one point that may be you are not intelligent enough to understand it. But I always feel that abstraction for abstraction's sake is stupid. Not only the reader feels that the author is strutting, but also it falls flat just as this book.

Eccentric characters are supposed to have dialogues laced with metaphors to give them that “intelligent” edge. But overdo it and the character comes out plain stupid. I have vowed never to read a Coelho book again.

2. The Broker – John Grisham

I like John Grisham’s writing too. I feel its slick (The King of Torts). However, The Broker was a complete disappointment. If I would have wanted to read a tourist’s guide to Italy, I would have read a tourist’s guide to Italy.

3. The Inscrutable Americans – Anurag Mathur

I finished reading it recently and hated it. I couldn’t find a single thing funny in it. What is laughable though is the book. This one is about a small town Indian boy who goes off to study in U.S.A., his views about what he perceives there and his ‘Americanization’. The comedy is just about comparable to any hindi comedy serial on TV these days. Lame.

4. The Three mistakes of my life – Chetan Bhagat

I left the book halfway. Not sure why I tried reading it in the first place. I could relate to the title well later.

5. One Night @ the call center – Chetan Bhagat

Another hindi TV serial story line with a blink-and-you-miss poor attempt to put in something different.

6. Twilight saga – Stephanie Meyer

It’s not that bad since it introduced me to Edward Cullen, the most amazing vampire ever. The series of 4 books are a page turner no doubt, but with little content. I wouldn’t want to trash it simply because I adore Edward Cullen, but what could have been wrapped up in a book or 2 is stretched on for 4 books and you have to put up with a whiny heroine and her adolescent dilemmas.

That’s what my list of Books to 'Burn after reading' reads of as of now…If I come across some more numbingly foolish books, I shall blog.