ITT discuss disappointing books to avoid

[containercore]

Now here me out, I'm not saying to avoid the Meditations or that it isn't worth reading. But it's been memed about 10,000x more than it ever should have been, to the point where it's probably the most read book from Classical Antiquity in the modern day. Seneca's letters are a way better read if you're determined to read the Stoics. The Meditations are pretty boring, repetitious and kind of joyless... You're better off reading literally anything else from the Greeks and Romans. But Stoicism has become a sort of self-help meme because it helps you be a more efficient grindsetter in late stage Capitalist Hell. Reading Aeschylus, Plutarch or Herodotus etc. will probably be a more substantive experience, even if your main goal is still to become one of the Spartans from the 300 movie (which is the type of guy I imagine is the target audience for the Meditations in current year).

 

[LostintheCycle]

I bought and read the first Nana manga volume.
All the characters irritate me, especially in the first half, the tiniest things seem to set them off. They all strike me as twats for wanting to go to art school, no offence to artists, just the kind who go to university irritate me. Blonde Nana's thing about being boy crazy and traumatized by some mildly bad relationship gets old quickly.
The second half was better, I have no complaints, but I also have no positive feelings for it. And something that's just alright is not worth it in my opinion.
Speaking of art school, the author could have used some... the photographic backgrounds weren't properly done, and characters sometimes had really weird proportions like tiny heads, and long hands and feet. It happened enough that it was distracting.
I might pirate the second volume to see if it gets better, but my confidence is low.

 

[SdclN]

Now here me out, I'm not saying to avoid the Meditations or that it isn't worth reading. But it's been memed about 10,000x more than it ever should have been, to the point where it's probably the most read book from Classical Antiquity in the modern day. Seneca's letters are a way better read if you're determined to read the Stoics. The Meditations are pretty boring, repetitious and kind of joyless... You're better off reading literally anything else from the Greeks and Romans. But Stoicism has become a sort of self-help meme because it helps you be a more efficient grindsetter in late stage Capitalist Hell. Reading Aeschylus, Plutarch or Herodotus etc. will probably be a more substantive experience, even if your main goal is still to become one of the Spartans from the 300 movie (which is the type of guy I imagine is the target audience for the Meditations in current year).

To be fair, the guy was writing for himself, the problem is that people want to find personal meaning in some else's self help diary.

 

[InternetGeist]

Atlas Shrugged

This presents itself as a clever, intellectual defence of Libertarianism and the free market, but bungles the representation so badly you could be forgiven for thinking it's parodying the whole concept. I'm not a libertarian so I already think the whole concept is stupid (because it is), but if I wanted to have a genuine good-faith investigation into libertarianism and it's merits, and was genuinely interested in seeing the ideology in it's best possible light, I wouldn't use this book at all because it makes the whole thing look insane and woefully inept.

It's also just kind of technically bad. Horrible sentence structure and word choice in places.

I fee like it is a popular opinion that Ayn Rand is a terrible writer and all her novels are just her desperate attempts at inserting her lackluster philosophy into characters who have zero personality beyond being the good boy (aka the successful rich handsome practical CEO who simps for capitalism and lives by objectivism) and the bad boy (aka anyone else who disagrees with me).

Atlas Shrugged is quite shallow in its content and the message it tries to convey. I would not even pick it for a gateway libertarianism 101 introduction.

 

[Member]

waste of my time. makes a lot of references to shit I either haven't read or don't care about, pretentious and drags out simple concepts way too long. camus was never meant to be a philosopher, I'm tired of people pretending he's anything more than an author. his sisyphus poem makes no sense. sisyphus does a meaningless, monotonous, tedious task for eternity, and this is good because... it just is okay? he also assumes that life is inherently this way, and that it's not just our shitty lifestyles in neoliberal modernity.