I was browsing through a list of "Fiction Novels featuring Prehistoric Animals, Mutant Beasts & Primeval Man" and I've been laughing at the absolutely terrible excerpts.
http://www.dinofan.com/dfFiction/FictionBooks.aspx
Like this one
Quote from: Clickers"Their barbed tails jabbed downward, bringing shrieking cries of pain from the old woman. Janice's limbs shook as giant claws dipped down, ripped flesh, stuffed them into their mandibles. Her stomach roiled as Mrs. Smith's abdomen began to swell, her housedress splitting from the intense pressure. Her body expanded and blew up like a hot water balloon, inflating to almost double her size before the skin split and reddish, meaty goo splashed over the crabs, drenching them in Old Woman Sauce."
So, it got me to thinking. What's the absolutely most ridiculously bad prose you've ever encountered that was actually published?
Why is Old Woman Sauce capitalized? Is it a trademarked name, like Pace Picante?
Actually published as in paid for and money spent on production and distribution? It would have to be a Margaret Atwood book, but that doesn't narrow it down. Maybe Alias Grace.
Anything by a Bronte.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKXNThJ610
Quote from: grumbler on October 31, 2011, 06:05:46 PM
Actually published as in paid for and money spent on production and distribution?
Yeah
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 31, 2011, 06:07:37 PM
Anything by a Bronte.
They weren't bad by 19th century standards.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 31, 2011, 06:22:34 PM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 31, 2011, 06:07:37 PM
Anything by a Bronte.
They weren't bad by 19th century standards.
Also known as the classic English literature period.
Languish has turned out to be less snobbish than I expected. :hmm:
Quote from: grumbler on October 31, 2011, 06:05:46 PM
Actually published as in paid for and money spent on production and distribution? It would have to be a Margaret Atwood book, but that doesn't narrow it down. Maybe Alias Grace.
Is that the one of Malthus fame, or is there another?
Quote from: DGuller on November 01, 2011, 06:04:58 PMIs that the one of Malthus fame, or is there another?
There is only one.
Does Malthus care that you guys are throwing this out there? :hmm:
Malthus is the one who revealed it. :mellow:
Quote from: Ideologue on November 01, 2011, 07:19:59 PM
Malthus is the one who revealed it. :mellow:
Here or in TBR? :hmm:
I'm pretty sure here.
Quote from: Ideologue on November 01, 2011, 07:19:59 PM
Malthus is the one who revealed it. :mellow:
I don't think Malthus has ever revealed that his aunt is the worst prose writer that he's ever read. :huh:
Quote from: jimmy olsen on November 01, 2011, 08:29:57 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on November 01, 2011, 07:19:59 PM
Malthus is the one who revealed it. :mellow:
I don't think Malthus has ever revealed that his aunt is the worst prose writer that he's ever read. :huh:
^_^
I've never read any of her stuff. Princesca described The Handmaid's Tale to me once and I said "Feminazi bullshit. No thanks." She tried to explain it wasn't just that, but once my mind is made up, IT IS MADE UP GODDAMN IT. :)
I think I saw the movie of that once. Don't remember a lick of it.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 31, 2011, 06:07:37 PM
Anything by a Bronte.
I love the Brontes. I'm a Wuthering Heights boy :sadblush:
Twilight saga. I couldn't get beyond 10 pages because I'm not a teenage girl. I say that as a gayman fan of the films.
Why would I read garbage? Though I do have a few favorite authors that write "badly" but oh so well, e.g. David Goodis and assorted pulp B-listers...
I like Margaret Atwood. There's nothing at all wrong with her prose style.
Quote from: Gups on November 02, 2011, 05:28:12 AM
I like Margaret Atwood. There's nothing at all wrong with her prose style.
My comment may not have been meant entirely seriously. :cool:
Heh, my aunt is not in fact my favourite writer - the themes that interest her are not those that interest me, reading her is often uncomfortably like overhearing my parents gossip - but, trolling aside, there is no doubt she's a very good writer indeed.
It is just odd that she mines so much of her fiction from family history, so I see echoes of it when I read some of her stuff.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 31, 2011, 06:07:37 PM
Anything by a Bronte.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKXNThJ610
I like Anne Bronte.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on November 02, 2011, 01:33:24 AM
Why would I read garbage? Though I do have a few favorite authors that write "badly" but oh so well, e.g. David Goodis and assorted pulp B-listers...
You can end up reading garbage when you didn't intend to. :huh:
Quote from: Malthus on November 02, 2011, 08:40:33 AM
It is just odd that she mines so much of her fiction from family history, so I see echoes of it when I read some of her stuff.
Doesn't seem that odd given that she had quite an unusual upbringing and spent a lot of her time with just her family in isolated locations. At least that's the impression I got from her Desert Island Discs slot.
My nomination for worst prose is Enid Blyton. Such a hack.
I read the first few hundred pages of a book called Shantaram a while ago. Sample sentence
"The hole in my life that a father should've filled was a prairie of longing. In the loneliest hours of those hunted years, I wandered there, as hungry for a father's love as a cellblock full of sentenced men in the last hour of New Year's Eve"
Somebody mentioned that line here before. It is indeed quite awful.
Probably me. I fucking hate that book, especially as loads of people seem to love it.
Quote from: Gups on November 02, 2011, 09:01:55 AM
Doesn't seem that odd given that she had quite an unusual upbringing and spent a lot of her time with just her family in isolated locations. At least that's the impression I got from her Desert Island Discs slot.
It's true enough. My grandfather was a forest entomologist and so their kids grew up rather isolated, in the woods. In fact, we still have the cottage they grew up in, in northern Quebec on an isolated lake (Lake Kipawa). Last year some tourists actually showed up there, in the middle of nowhere! :lol:
Worst published prose I've encountered?
The proposed language of Mississippi's proposition 26:
"Should the term 'person' be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof?
Initiative #26 would amend the Mississippi Constitution to define the word 'person' or 'persons', as those terms are used in Article III of the state constitution, to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof."
Hilarious. I can't wait to start filing 14th Amendment suits against MDOC on behalf of incarcerated pregnant females. Also, habeas corpus suits against fertility clinics, etc.
Quote from: Malthus on November 02, 2011, 08:40:33 AM
Heh, my aunt is not in fact my favourite writer - the themes that interest her are not those that interest me, reading her is often uncomfortably like overhearing my parents gossip - but, trolling aside, there is no doubt she's a very good writer indeed.
It is just odd that she mines so much of her fiction from family history, so I see echoes of it when I read some of her stuff.
I really hope your family history isn't like Handmaid's Tale. :wacko:
Quote from: Scipio on November 02, 2011, 10:29:09 AM
"Should the term 'person' be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof?
Initiative #26 would amend the Mississippi Constitution to define the word 'person' or 'persons', as those terms are used in Article III of the state constitution, to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof."
In this world, or in space.
Quote from: Scipio on November 02, 2011, 10:29:09 AM
Worst published prose I've encountered?
The proposed language of Mississippi's proposition 26:
"Should the term 'person' be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof?
Initiative #26 would amend the Mississippi Constitution to define the word 'person' or 'persons', as those terms are used in Article III of the state constitution, to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof."
Hilarious. I can't wait to start filing 14th Amendment suits against MDOC on behalf of incarcerated pregnant females. Also, habeas corpus suits against fertility clinics, etc.
:hmm:
I like #7 the best
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/10/mississippi_s_anti_abortion_amendment_the_very_weird_implication.html
QuoteMy Slate colleagues and I spent a few minutes imagining some of the possibilities raised by the Mississippi amendment. We came up with some interesting ideas (see below), but we bet you come up with even better ones: Please add them in the comments section at the end of the article, and we'll write a follow-up about some of your best notions.
Here are some of the questions we came up with:
1. If you are legal person at fertilization, does that mean you could drink at 20 years and three months? Could you drive at 15 and three months? Could you vote at age 17, and collect Social Security at 64?
2. For legal purposes, would your birthday still be your "birth" day? Or your fertilization day?
3. Could you get a tax deduction for your dependent embryo?
4. Could you post ultrasound photos of your fetus (naked) on Facebook? Or would that be child pornography?
5. Could you arrest women for smoking or drinking while pregnant? Could the state file a child abuse case against a mother who didn't wear a seatbelt or otherwise endangered her fetus?
6. Would you be an American citizen if you were conceived in Mississippi but born elsewhere? Could there be "anchor babies" whose parents come to the United States, have sex, and then return home to Mexico for their baby's birth?
7. What about ectopic pregnancies? If the embryo is not removed, it could kill the mother. Should the mother or the doctor be prosecuted for manslaughter if they remove it? Maybe it would be fairer to prosecute the embryo. If the fertilized egg is a person, isn't that person trying to commit murder-suicide?
8. What about freezing fertilized embryos? Would that be allowed? And why? If you're freezing an embryo indefinitely, isn't that effectively imprisoning it? We don't freeze people.
9. If a doctor doesn't take all possible steps to stop a miscarriage, would that be manslaughter?
10. How would you determine the date of conception?
11. If a woman eats food contaminated by Listeria and miscarries, could the agribusiness be prosecuted for murder?
12. If you move to Mississippi from another state, would you legally be a year older?
13. How would it affect the census?
14. What would happen to astrological signs? Would I no longer be an Aquarius?
Quote8. What about freezing fertilized embryos? Would that be allowed? And why? If you're freezing an embryo indefinitely, isn't that effectively imprisoning it? We don't freeze people.
Maybe you peons. I'm going to the future.
Quote
7. What about ectopic pregnancies? If the embryo is not removed, it could kill the mother. Should the mother or the doctor be prosecuted for manslaughter if they remove it? Maybe it would be fairer to prosecute the embryo. If the fertilized egg is a person, isn't that person trying to commit murder-suicide?
Thinking on this one further, wouldn't the removal be allowed under the right of self defense?
You guys haven't read bad prose until you have a read a translation of a book with bad prose in it's original language.
Sometimes, sentences just stop.
I'm already drafting a form habeas corpus petition for any woman who is arrested while pregnant. Fuck bond- we're freeing the unborn child!
Also, pregnant illegal immigrants can't be deported, or confined, since their unborn child is almost a citizen.
Cavity search of pregnant dope peddler? Invades unborn child's privacy.
Conjugal visits for prisoners: only barrier methods of birth control permitted.
I'm loving this.
Lawtroll? :D
Quote from: Scipio on November 02, 2011, 12:10:07 PM
I'm already drafting a form habeas corpus petition for any woman who is arrested while pregnant.
Don't think it necessarily follows that jailing the mother acts as deprivation of liberty for the unborn child - its liberty is unaffected.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 02, 2011, 01:52:35 PM
Quote from: Scipio on November 02, 2011, 12:10:07 PM
I'm already drafting a form habeas corpus petition for any woman who is arrested while pregnant.
Don't think it necessarily follows that jailing the mother acts as deprivation of liberty for the unborn child - its liberty is unaffected.
Are you familiar with the level of maternity care in jail? nightmarish doesn't fully reflect how bad it is.
Quote from: garbon on November 02, 2011, 08:55:41 AM
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on November 02, 2011, 01:33:24 AM
Why would I read garbage? Though I do have a few favorite authors that write "badly" but oh so well, e.g. David Goodis and assorted pulp B-listers...
You can end up reading garbage when you didn't intend to. :huh:
You're absolutely right. I nominate John Rawls, "A Theory of Justice." :yucky:
Quote from: Ideologue on November 02, 2011, 11:55:03 AM
Quote8. What about freezing fertilized embryos? Would that be allowed? And why? If you're freezing an embryo indefinitely, isn't that effectively imprisoning it? We don't freeze people.
Maybe you peons. I'm going to the future.
So am I. I'm traveling into the future as I post this. In fact, I haven't found a way to stop going to the future.
Quote from: Razgovory on November 02, 2011, 06:53:57 PM
So am I. I'm traveling into the future as I post this. In fact, I haven't found a way to stop going to the future.
You could try joining a Southern Baptist congregation. :)
Quote from: Caliga on November 02, 2011, 06:56:33 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on November 02, 2011, 06:53:57 PM
So am I. I'm traveling into the future as I post this. In fact, I haven't found a way to stop going to the future.
You could try joining a Southern Baptist congregation. :)
Nah. They were always at my high school recruiting people. I thought they were really strange.
Some old novel about Soviets using icebergs sprayted with plastic to invade the US. Everything somehow revolved around a couple of overly precocious 11 year olds and lasers.
If I ever finish writing my fantasy novel, Redheads with Big Sloppy Titties and a tiny sword: Book I of the Strap-on Chronicles, I might win the award.
Quote from: Ed Anger on November 02, 2011, 07:31:59 PM
If I ever finish writing my fantasy novel, Redheads with Big Sloppy Titties and a tiny sword: Book I of the Strap-on Chronicles, I might win the award.
If someone will publish this sentence, you will win even if you never finish the book.
Quote from: Malthus on November 02, 2011, 08:40:33 AM
It is just odd that she mines so much of her fiction from family history, so I see echoes of it when I read some of her stuff.
Don't most authors write from personal experience? :huh:
Quote from: Caliga on November 03, 2011, 06:41:16 AM
Quote from: Malthus on November 02, 2011, 08:40:33 AM
It is just odd that she mines so much of her fiction from family history, so I see echoes of it when I read some of her stuff.
Don't most authors write from personal experience? :huh:
Quote from: Ed Anger
If I ever finish writing my fantasy novel, Redheads with Big Sloppy Titties and a tiny sword: Book I of the Strap-on Chronicles, I might win the award.
:huh:
Quote from: grumbler on November 03, 2011, 06:27:56 AM
Quote from: Ed Anger on November 02, 2011, 07:31:59 PM
If I ever finish writing my fantasy novel, Redheads with Big Sloppy Titties and a tiny sword: Book I of the Strap-on Chronicles, I might win the award.
If someone will publish this sentence, you will win even if you never finish the book.
:D
Quote from: Caliga on November 03, 2011, 06:41:16 AM
Quote from: Malthus on November 02, 2011, 08:40:33 AM
It is just odd that she mines so much of her fiction from family history, so I see echoes of it when I read some of her stuff.
Don't most authors write from personal experience? :huh:
Perhaps, but most authors aren't writing about personal experience I actually know about. ;)
Quote from: Lucidor on November 03, 2011, 07:15:49 AM
Quote from: Caliga on November 03, 2011, 06:41:16 AM
Quote from: Malthus on November 02, 2011, 08:40:33 AM
It is just odd that she mines so much of her fiction from family history, so I see echoes of it when I read some of her stuff.
Don't most authors write from personal experience? :huh:
Quote from: Ed Anger
If I ever finish writing my fantasy novel, Redheads with Big Sloppy Titties and a tiny sword: Book I of the Strap-on Chronicles, I might win the award.
:huh:
:lol: You win the thread.
Quote from: Malthus on November 03, 2011, 07:54:24 AM
Quote from: Caliga on November 03, 2011, 06:41:16 AM
Quote from: Malthus on November 02, 2011, 08:40:33 AM
It is just odd that she mines so much of her fiction from family history, so I see echoes of it when I read some of her stuff.
Don't most authors write from personal experience? :huh:
Perhaps, but most authors aren't writing about personal experience I actually know about. ;)
Sucks to be you then. :(
Quote from: Caliga on November 03, 2011, 08:34:16 AM
Sucks to be you then. :(
Sorry but why does it suck to be him?
Quote from: Scipio on November 02, 2011, 02:01:20 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 02, 2011, 01:52:35 PM
Quote from: Scipio on November 02, 2011, 12:10:07 PM
I'm already drafting a form habeas corpus petition for any woman who is arrested while pregnant.
Don't think it necessarily follows that jailing the mother acts as deprivation of liberty for the unborn child - its liberty is unaffected.
Are you familiar with the level of maternity care in jail? nightmarish doesn't fully reflect how bad it is.
Are you familiar with the typical level of prenatal care the typical jailhouse mother receives while not in custody?
Quote from: Barrister on November 03, 2011, 08:38:15 AM
[Are you familiar with the typical level of prenatal care the typical jailhouse mother receives while not in custody?
I just want to point out that standards in Canuck prison may be just a bit different than in Mississippi prison.
Quote from: Valmy on November 03, 2011, 08:39:42 AM
Quote from: Barrister on November 03, 2011, 08:38:15 AM
[Are you familiar with the typical level of prenatal care the typical jailhouse mother receives while not in custody?
I just want to point out that standards in Canuck prison may be just a bit different than in Mississippi prison.
That has very little to do with it actually.
Minimal prenatal care is better than none.
Quote from: Valmy on November 03, 2011, 08:35:49 AM
Quote from: Caliga on November 03, 2011, 08:34:16 AM
Sucks to be you then. :(
Sorry but why does it suck to be him?
I admit that it
does, but am also unsure as to his reason for asserting it. :D
Perhaps the lack of tasty gas station BBQ here? :hmm:
Quote from: Barrister on November 03, 2011, 08:38:15 AM
Quote from: Scipio on November 02, 2011, 02:01:20 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 02, 2011, 01:52:35 PM
Quote from: Scipio on November 02, 2011, 12:10:07 PM
I'm already drafting a form habeas corpus petition for any woman who is arrested while pregnant.
Don't think it necessarily follows that jailing the mother acts as deprivation of liberty for the unborn child - its liberty is unaffected.
Are you familiar with the level of maternity care in jail? nightmarish doesn't fully reflect how bad it is.
Are you familiar with the typical level of prenatal care the typical jailhouse mother receives while not in custody?
Yes.