Tag: dislike

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A Least Favourite Book

A couple of weeks ago, I answered one of the daily prompts that WordPress provides, talking about the book Room by Emma Donoghue. Today, I remembered I had another one stored for future use, and here it is:

Have you ever regretted reading a book — which one and why?

If you don’t want to know what happens in the novel Crawling Round South Oakwood by Stephen Slaughter, then stop reading here.

This book was released in 2012, and I first heard of it in Writing Magazine after it won an award for cover design. The words become fuzzier as you read down the cover, and they’re interspersed with pictures of beer glasses gradually emptying. I thought it deserved the award, but it proved the old maxim of Never judge a book by its cover.

It’s an tried-and-tested technique to hook the reader with immediate action. Just as Romeo and Juliet opens with a street brawl, I expected to see it all kicking off down the pub. Instead, we’re presented with the overwritten opening sentence.

Although I was more interested in the thought of a weekend break for two in Paris, which was the first prize of a competition in the local paper, the attention of my colleagues was firmly gripped by news which had not been reported in the paper and which was unlikely to ever reach its pages.

This sets the tone for the entire novel: dense with unnecessary detail and light on plot. We have to sit through pre-drinks at the narrator’s house, some uninteresting description of their favourite TV show So You Think You Know What You Are Talking About, and then a turn-by-turn account of how the group walks to the pub.

I don’t regret reading the book per se, but I do regret carrying on past the first chapter. Some authors can skilfully do virtually nothing with their characters, but not Stephen Slaughter.

The closest we come to any interesting action is a scuffle that breaks out in the middle of the book. There is no foreshadowing, no build-up of tension, just two characters who seemed like friends until they decided they had some sort of problem with each other.

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another book with as few redeeming features. The plot is so banal that that I can’t even remember how it ends, and I’m not buying another copy just to find out. It’s likely some idle chatter about their beloved TV show.

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When You Simply Can’t Enjoy It

Some advance warning that this entry is likely to give away major plot points for the film All of Us Strangers and the Michael Palin TV series Around the World in 80 Days.

A couple of weeks ago, my pal wanted to see All of Us Strangers at the cinema. I looked at the blurb on the website and it didn’t appeal to me, but I said I would take a chance on it. I’m rarely disappointed by a film, so the odds were in my favour.

I can’t fault the cinematography nor the soundtrack, but there were parts of the plot that didn’t make much sense to me.

Let’s start with the times Adam jumps on the train to see his parents. What is he actually doing while hallucinating? It’s revealed he can’t actually access the house, so is he sitting in the garden? And if so, why did nobody call the police on him?

The ending includes a twist where we also find out Harry has been dead all along. Yet if they’ve only met once, why did Adam think it was all right just to let himself into Harry’s flat. And when he discovered Harry was dead, why leave him there without reporting the incident?

While acknowledging I’m in the minority, I think the four- and five-star reviews are way off the mark here.

This brings me to the second production: Around the World in 80 Days, originally broadcast by the BBC in 1989. In this challenge, Michael Palin attempts to follow the steps of Phileas Fogg in the book of the same name. As the source novel was published before the advent of powered flight, he wasn’t allowed to use aircraft.

I was quite young when this was first shown – I might even have watched a repeat – but I do remember enjoying the sight of all the different lands he visited, plus a scene in the final episode where a vendor wouldn’t sell him a newspaper because he didn’t want to be filmed. As such, I recently took the notion to watch the first episode and see how it actually compared to my memory.

I lasted until halfway through it before switching off. While acknowledging the programme was supposed to be aspirational, I felt as though I was watching a posh boys’ club rather than a travelogue, as he dined with his fellow Monty Python members before leaving and then in the first-class area of the Orient Express.

The final straw came when the train stopped in Italy because of a rail strike so a replacement bus service was arranged for the next leg, and Palin threw down his magazine in disgust.

Perhaps this is merely the set-up for a redemption arc to be explored in later episodes, and I am willing to give the rest of the series a shot in the near future. At the moment, though, I agree with Alan Whicker’s terse assessment that the programme was a ‘seven-hour ego trip.’