post itt writers you think are bad

dave marsh

Poe

Lovecraft

George Gissing

ben lerner

Brad i love you but this will just turn into yet another "the pictures are not on trial" fuckwits of ilx thread

i say "will"

Jurgen Habermas

Not sure if I entirely mean this or not but dang he can be a slog, however insightful

No bad writers, read everything.

this thread should have been about other ilxors only for that extra needle

I am a bad reader

I don’t necessarily think Ann Beattie is a bad writer, but I’m not sure whether she’s a good novelist.

https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/book-review-a-wonderful-stroke-of-luck/

Read what terrifies you. Read tweets.

I don’t necessarily think Ann Beattie is a bad writer, but I’m not sure whether she’s a good novelist.

https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/book-review-a-wonderful-stroke-of-luck/

― We’re Up All Night To Get Lochte (Raymond Cummings), S

I have the same problem with her stories. I read ...Dana Falcon at the start of lockdown.

going for maximum controversy here, everyone ready?

David Walliams

Brad i love you but this will just turn into yet another "the pictures are not on trial" fuckwits of ilx thread

― The Scampo Fell to Earth (Noodle Vague), Saturday, February 13, 2021 5:27 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i feel like “this thread is a terrible idea” is there subtextually in the opening posts

Anyway Comrade Alph otm everything is good nothing is forbidden lol for biden

it is important to recognize what is bad so it can not be respected and/or repeated

ok yeah i know that recognizing it doesn't actually help

My moaning about other people's moaning is just as bad

Anyway D H Lawrence is for shit

otm

I dig many of his poems and stories, though I'm frightened about rereading WIL.

Bob Vickery

fucking orwell

also, nick cave (having seen a couple of passages from his books shared online)

fucking orwell

pvmic

Donna Tartt

A.J. Jacobs

(Actually that's it. Those are the only two bad writers. They happen to be bad in the same way - roughly, an Ivy-League idea of clever - but pretty much everyone else is okay, carry on.)

i used to dislike donna tartt, but then i read the goldfinch and loved it. i do think the secret history is not that good.

The Secret History isn’t good-good but it’s bad-good, is how I think of it.

The Secret History, The Little Friend, The Goldfinch were at least memorable

this one feels so boringly obvious but i might as well say it: bret easton ellis

yeah fuck that dude imo

i disliked him, which colors this opinion, but christopher hitchens's prose was a bit overwrought, no?

No bad writers, read everything.

― xyzzzz__, Saturday, February 13, 2021

Khaled Hosseini

don't remember much about The Kite Runner but liked A Thousand Splendid Suns

What do you think of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life? I was kind of shocked by how tortured and emotionally extreme it was but was also mesmerized by it

can understand people might see it as questionable though, it almost felt abusive to the reader

i love his short stories but found ‘hopscotch’ by julio cortazar unbearably pretentious

What do you think of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life? I was kind of shocked by how tortured and emotionally extreme it was but was also mesmerized by it

― Dan S

One of the worst books I've ever read: endless, masochistic drivel.

She did say that the story got away from her. I still liked it.

Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous was another hyperemotional novel I liked that I can see people coming down hard on

My moaning about other people's moaning is just as bad

Anyway D H Lawrence is for shit

― The Scampo Fell to Earth (Noodle Vague), Saturday, February 13, 2021 9:41 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

― horseshoe, Saturday, February 13, 2021 10:31 AM (twelve hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is reassuring - all my attempts to read him were painful and I assumed I was missing something

i disliked him, which colors this opinion, but christopher hitchens's prose was a bit overwrought, no?

― horseshoe, Sunday, February 14, 2021 12:48 AM (three hours ago)

yeah, the last couple times i tried to reread hitchens didn't go well.

Tom Friedman is a very bad writer in addition to being a professional nincompoop but that’s not a particularly spicy take.

I couldn’t stand trying to read The Scarlet Letter in high school, so I didn’t, don’t really know if that means I think Hawthorne was bad. Probably wouldn’t venture an opinion.

Honestly I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten mad at a writer for being bad in the same way I am mad about, say, Forrest Gump.

James Fenimore Cooper

William Golding (as a writer for high school children, not adults)

Lauren Oyler (again)

China Miéville

Gillian Flynn

Craig Stanley Robinson

Jill Lepore

Richard Florida

Jonathan Chait

Fuckin Wilbert Audry

Oops I meant Craig Shaw Gardner

Simon Rich

this is a thread about writers being bad. nuzzi was a useless reactionary even before she started to sleep with presidential candidates. I’d prefer that her comeuppance be related to her awful journalism itself, but I’ll accept what we’re currently working with

xp i think it would've been fair to say that it's a position of trust and that journalistic ethics exists because there's a presumption that journalists serve the public and if you're writing puff pieces about the governor you're fucking, then you're not really doing that and on some level people might get upset about that. but obviously these people never even think in terms of ethics except when it's convenient for them, they are so obviously motivated by wealth and fame and rubbing shoulders with the ruling class, it's honestly pretty annoying that they ever have the gall to act like they are part of this noble brotherhood of truth tellers when in fact so many of them are utter leeches and scum

to advise and elevate the world’s most prominent anti-vaccine activist to the most influential health position in the United States.

RFK Jr elevated himself to his cabinet position by the simple expedient of buying it from Trump in return for his endorsement and millions of dollars in cash. I dunno, maybe Nuzzi masterminded that deal, but it hardly took a political genius to see Trump was corrupt enough to make that deal.

The way it is phrased is so paint by numbers. “Hey chat gpt, condemn olivia nuzzi using 2025 buzzwords about privilege and power and platforming and that kind of jazz. Make this tawdry sex scandal *serious.*”

*2015 buzzwords meant to say

agreed

i keep clicking on this thread because i like the people posting in it but the topic is just .. i don't see any value at all in it, there isn't a take on earth that could give it a smidgen of edification, you guys should post about movies you like instead.

I am glad I don’t have to go to a large Thanksgiving gathering where someone is likely to use the word “harvest.”

Are RFK’s cum musings the worst (non-criminal) celebrity sexts to have been leaked?

I am glad I don’t have to go to a large Thanksgiving gathering where someone is likely to use the word “harvest.”

(whispers into george bush’s ear) part three has dropped

this is like the politico trapped in the closet

Hahaha, "dropped".

this is like the politico trapped in the closet

haha

btw https://gofile.io/d/Ap4v35

the way he calls RFK jr “bobby” throughout is kind of sending me

Anybody here
Seen my old friend Bobby

new lizza installment kind of boring

A bit about the David Szalay's 'Flesh'

The sparseness is what stood out for me--the dude didn't seem in touch with his feelings, loses his wife and son and we don't get any idea of what he's thinking and feeling. a stereotypical male who has a tragic trauma early in his life and never thinks about it, only talks to a therapist once early on after he's in war. or maybe he does think about it, only we don't get access to it.

the short non emotional paragraphs made me think it was written by an unfeeling robot.

― a (waterface), Monday, 17 November 2025 16:55 (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

but you do get feelings in places; and also feelings conveyed through action. i think it's an effective representation of a certain contemporary state of being/person, cut off from one's feelings and internal monologue.

again, i don't think it has anything to do with being a man - that's a red herring. (there are even sequences not from Istvan's pov, and they are similarly cloudy.)

i found the book was much more sensual, moral and emotional than the Tao Lin kinda alt fiction that superficially relies on a similarly flat style.

but above all, i don't think there's anything wrong with you for not-liking it. Szalay is clearly working with a strong flavour, it's not gonna appeal to everyone

― sean gramophone, Monday, 17 November 2025 17:02 (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Cannot agree with waterface here, sorry. Or at least, I agree that the book is sparsely written, but not that this is a flaw. In fact it's largely the reason the story exists and that the book succeeds.

The stark, objective style is entirely the point, and in its own way reflective of the main character's inner-life.
The language Istvan uses, and which the narrative voice uses in turn, is deliberately unflowery because he is unflowery. His character feels things, but he lacks the linguistic tools or the willingness to express these feelings. This is repercussive throughout the book. His passiveness, or at least the fact he cannot (or will not) reveal his inner life - to the people he meets, to the reader, and even to himself - makes him subject to events beyond his control.

(Mild spoilers hereon)
Early-on, Istvan does nothing to acknowledge the apparent PTSD caused by prior tragic events in the army, and also likely residual from being groomed as a teenager, and the way his lifepath branched afterwards.

This is expressed as a random, seemingly involuntary act of violence which he has trouble understanding himself. A proper course of therapy would have helped - it may have changed the entire course of his life, in fact. But perhaps due to a failure of the system, and likely because of Istvan's reticence to open-up, he is prescribed antidepressants and sent on his way.

It wouldn't be the same book if it were filled with exposition like "Istvan felt sadness well up in himself"; or if Istvan were suddenly able to express himself in long sentences.
The fact he drifts - the fact he largely lets the world happen to him in this passive way - is largely the point of the book, for me. For most of his life, Istvan is a person with few aims. That's why exchanges like "How are you?" / "I'm okay" / "What does that mean?" / "I don't know" speak volumes.

This isn't simply a matter of "boring man is boring". If it is an exploration of a certain type of masculinity, it's the tight-lipped fragility behind it - i.e. the fact that many younger (and older) men have difficulty expressing themselves, and are therefore seen and treated by others as unthinking golems who can be manipulated accordingly.
Not just masculinity, it is also an exploration of foreigness, mental health, sex, trauma, money/class, parenthood and many other things.

All through the book, Istvan is taken advantage of by others and he just goes along with it. So it's interesting to witness how, as a father, he responds to his own son's being bullied: Refusing to entertain the idea of moving schools and talking-up the importance of sticking up for oneself. This is a man who has arguably never stuck up for himself; who has let people push him around all his life, with varying results. Note how baffled he is that his son would rather play Minecraft than go skiiing or ride on a motorbike.

There are a couple of exceptions: When he meets the doctor who binds his hand, and realises they went to school together, he understands that their lifepaths diverged. This galvanises him into finding a new life in the UK, even if the reality ends up being uninspiring. Later, he does attempt to read some business books and get a life in property development. But we get the impression that any success or interest he receives from others has little to do with his personal acumen, and entirely about the money he has access to. His business partners are leeches who dump him as soon as they realise he can't come up with the goods.

There is one single line towards the end of the book that presents an exception to Istvan's reticence. The one where he admits to believing that he is "not a very nice person". This may or may not be true. I'm not sure if he believes it himself. He hasn't lived the best life, and in many ways he has acted immorally, callously even, to a lot of people. But how do you measure morality against a man who, for most of his life, has let the world passively happen to him? Someone who has simply fallen into relationships, work, money, parenthood and the rest?

So it baffles me that a lot of readers came away criticising this book for the fundamentals of how it works. Do we all need our characters - especially modern, male characters - to be strong, Pollyanna-ish role model types who are comfortable expressing their emotions? I'd find that unrealistic and infinitely more boring than Istvan, who I'd say is incredibly complex and rich as a character even if it's not shown on a superficial level.

great post. the book wasn't for me, that's for sure, but i'm glad it resonates with some.

Do we all need our characters - especially modern, male characters - to be strong, Pollyanna-ish role model types who are comfortable expressing their emotions?

I feel like this is a false choice and don't want to come across as arguing with you or w/e, but i think there's another way forward that toes the line between what Szalay expresses in the book of a reticent dude who goes through shit and never talks about it vs. someone who's constantly processing it. in a way, the main character is constantly processing it because he can't move past it. but for me, it doesn't make for an interesting character or a book to have a character like that. and again don't want to come across as yuking someone's yum. but a slightly more complex, emotionally aware character would have gone a long way for me.

yeah, fair enough - the whole mechanic worked well for me. maybe it's because i listened to it as an audiobook in spurts over the Christmas break while driving to and from various people's houses that it worked so well. I will say, the narrator really brought it to life. He was able to body the different voices (and accents) really well. I honestly felt like I could picture it all in my mind, even with such bare description. If it had had more going on, I don't think it would have been as powerful or effective, you know?

for sure. he's definitely making a choice with his writing and I admire that

Just one more thing about this book, while I'm thinking about it:

It's only once Istvan finds he has access to money that he starts to come out of his shell, and starts to express himself and try to take agency over his life. He starts reading business books (but only ostensibly at the behest of his mother who warns him to prepare for the future). He's even able to express an opinon on these books when asked, beyond "It's okay" (he says they're a bit corny and American or something - which is more than you'd ever have got from him previously). Like it or not, many people's ambitions are defined by the paths most easily accessible to them. For Istvan, there had been few clear paths or apparent opportunities open to him until he marries a rich woman. I thought this was quite an interesting comment on privilege - one minute he's a driver and a doorman, and next he's a property developer with his own suite of offices. And it's all driven by a mixture of luck and who he knows.

Is this like a Robbe-Grillet kind of vibe?