In every literary space we find recommendations to find those novels, essays, stories and others that satisfy us as readers. Books by classic authors or current bestsellers. In many of these cases, the recommendations leave much to be desired and only replicate the official synopses. All for a few crumbs of notoriety in the oversized ocean of the Internet.
Furthermore, few of those book influencers will free you from the heavy burden of starting a book that you will not know how to finish. And if it at least helps you get some sleep before going to bed, then not so bad. But the truth is that starting a bad book, and clinging to the hope that it can improve, can rip years of your life away.
So, in case it may help you, I go there with those titles that as soon as you come across them, you should score a retro ford and encourage you first with the instructions for the washing machine, and thus obtain greater reading pleasure for black on white masochists...
As I find new billets I will add them here, in their corresponding position in the ranking. So if you want to make a recommendation you can write in this same post and we will add your consideration as long as we slightly agree with it. Because what may be a problem for one reader, has to be for many others.
The worst books in the world.
The maid's daughters, by Sonsoles ónega
The Planeta prize is no longer what it was, if it ever was (take a Socratic phrase). In the hard task of survival and the widest profit margins, we no longer find any romanticism in a contest like this. Neither romanticism nor interesting discoveries, surprising in their proposal or in their creative imprint.
Perhaps the background of this story could be interesting if it were not a rewriting like so many other historical-dramatic novels with a romantic splash, from the nineteenth century and stretched towards the current saga. In other words, a vital development of grandparents, parents and grandchildren between secrets, desires, failures, successes, hopes and some war that disrupts everything. What dozens of authors and especially female authors visited before. We could quote Maria Dueñas, Anne Jacobs or Luz Gabás (the three of them with much more grace than Sonsoles Ónega).
But the thing is that the forms of "The Servant's Daughters" are also very poor. Unfunny descriptions like “The blood flowed thick and steaming; It was an autumn day…” they advance the plot towards the suicidal, nothingness in form and substance. No emotional recreation or call to empathy. Flat characters inhabiting the same flat space as a stage without any stagecraft. And I don't bait myself anymore. But if you see her out there she runs away like there is no tomorrow...
Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden
When someone with a cultured face and the air of a well-traveled person tells you "you can't miss it", don't hesitate and miss it. Because then you will also want to force yourself to read the recommended book to be able to give your opinion to that interesting person who made the recommendation. And you will look like a fool, because you will have read it with that indigestion that makes you lose the author's flavors and intentions.
Yes, the point is to put ourselves in the shoes of those women subordinated to the masculine in the classical Japanese world. But surely there were much better ways to do it. I'm not going to tell good old Arthur Golden how he should have approached what was undoubtedly a juicy opportunity for success. Because this book was a hit at the time given the originality of his proposal on something so sinisterly exotic.
But the voice of Sayuri, the geisha in question, is barely heard among the artifice. The necessary minimalism that expressed submission and self-sacrifice in a classical world as closed and deaf as that of the rising sun, could have led to a humanization, an absolute focus on the inner core of the young woman assuming the atrocious destiny of absolute service in body and soul. soul. But the thing was more about a goldsmith's attention to detail in front of the vase that would have the best effect on a reader willing to pay for the jewel without paying attention to the nature of the vase.
Ubik, by Philip K. dick
I usually read a lot of science fiction. I love moving in transformative assumptions. But this novel by Philip K. Dick surpassed me, he overtook me on the right and finally stopped in front of me so that I could slam my nose into him. I tried to get hold of him in two moments. First in my most tender youth. Maybe I made a complete mistake by taking him to the pool, only to lose sight of some bather who ignored this humble reader with each paragraph.
Years later I returned to it because, despite everything, I had some idea that I had not known how to enjoy it, especially after discussing it with a staunch Dick fan. And if you want rice, Catalina. The same thing happened to me again. On this second attempt I advanced quite a few pages until I finally whispered to Dick that I liked his more obvious dystopias better.
And Dick really is a brilliant writer with an overflowing imagination. Only in this book he went through three galaxies and he ended up making me dizzy on his journey. If in two attempts I couldn't beat Ubik due to its messianic drifts between sprays surely loaded with acid, there must be a reason.
Metamorphosis, by Kafka
Imagine that you wake up and are able to transcribe one of those spectacular dreams that surprise us in bed. What happens is that as time passes, while you have breakfast with your eyes lost, you discover that deep down the dream is more of a joke lacking plot and grace. And you end up putting it aside... because it turns out that Kafka wrote it. And since then, with evocations between surrealism and others, the work began to gain more dimension, greater symbolism that surely escapes even the author's intention.
But we already know about the emperor's new clothes... Everyone knew that the guy was naked and that the suit had no value or merit. The point is to find that discordant voice. Not that of this blog, of course, but that of some culturalite who one day dares to say that metamorphosis is a delirious trick, a short story without more, written after a night of sweat between strange transformations.
Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco
After “The Name of the Rose,” friend Umberto Eco went up, to the top of the trapeze. And in inventing the quadruple twist with triple somersault and double corkscrew he ended up sending us all to the ground.
It is one thing to be magnetic, surprising, fascinating with a great novel taken to the cinema as a blockbuster for greater glory. But it is another thing to try to stretch the formula for success beyond what is possible with another novel as thick as the brilliant but ultimately empty work. In the case of this dizzying pendulum from a lateral thinking that, rather than presenting new focuses for the plot, ends up taking us into an unfathomable erudition. Thus making chance a black swan at every moment, thanks to a formal sophistication in search of readers made useful fools who adored the supposed mastery.
And if it is already difficult to understand the writer's interest as I just explained above, imagine the ordeal of reading it...
Other books that you should never read if you do not want to lose the love of reading
Here I will add new incredible books that I find. There will surely be some and it is likely that the ranking will have its movements among this top five.
It is sad that someone who claims to love literature says that Kafka's Metamorphosis is among the 5 books you should never read.
I understand favorites lists, but I will never understand a list of books to avoid.
It is an act of arrogance that does nothing to help spread reading. It hurts me but I cannot cover someone who has such miserable and sectarian behavior with something as beautiful as literature.
By the way, attacking the Planeta award so openly does nothing to benefit Spanish-speaking authors.
See you never boy.