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Thursday, July 19, 2007

AUTHOR! AUTHOR! 

I seem to have been tagged by Mangonel to complete the TEN AUTHORS I MUST SMASH WITH A BAT UNTIL THEY ARE MOTIONLESS meme.

Well, I was asking for it because I left a comment on the aforementioned post.

As you've probably gathered, I'm approximately the third most stupid person to use the internet (I'm so stupid I don't know who the other two are). At least I can blame it on society, maan, and having to grow up surrounded by the sort of people who would garrote you if you read any sort of book.

So I can't come up with any sort of INFORMED list drawn from the millions of books I've read. Still, as, er, Max Erhmann said, even the dull and ignorant have their story ...

... and it gives me a chance to hurl gratuitous insults around.


THE FIVE AUTHORS I MUST SMASH WITH A BAT UNTIL THEY ARE MOTIONLESS

1. Jeffrey Archer. Not read anything by him. Never will. All I will say is this: never trust anyone with a cum face who gets involved in politics. The same applies to Paddy Ashdown.

2. Virginia Woolf. Look, I tried. I've read To The Lighthouse twice and a compilation of works. They bored the arse off me. From the "I've got a pair of ovaries and I'm too sensitive for this world" school of writing. Also, apparently, a complete snob who was revolted by the *lower orders*, therefore influencing the likes of Ch*vscum.com (well, probably). Face it, you'd rather be reading Sherlock Holmes, wouldn't you?

3. Helen Fielding. "no glasses of wine: v. good. Twenty seven cigarettes: v. bad". Modern women can identify with Bridget Jones, apparently, because she wants to marry a Jane Austen character. Right you are.

4. Any chicklit writer who rattles on about "serious retail therapy". All those books with curly gurrlly writing on the front and pink covers and little cartoons of 1950's women carrying masses of fashion store bags on the cover that have taken over the space in book shops normally occupied by proper books designed to be read by people with an IQ above ten.

5. The writers of any of those books about war that you find in budget bookshops. The ones called stuff like Great Scottish Battles Of The Late Seventeenth Century written by Major James Andrew George Edward Fitzhenry Fitzgibbon Fitzwilliam. Great Doorstop, more like.

... well, nobody said anything about having to read the authors, did they?

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Comments:
I haven't read Jilly Cooper, but I like the bat idea. Does this count?
 
I quite like Virginia Woolf, although I agree she was a complete and utter snob. Everything else, you are spot on.
 
Ian Banks.

Everyone rave about him, but I think he writes adolescent tosh for spotty Herberts.

Will Self, who appears to be incapable of writing a sentence without including at least one obscure word from the Oxford Eng dictionary.
 
PG Wodehouse. Not funny, and his name should be spelt Woodhouse. In fact I hate all novels categorised under "humour". Novels should be serious.
 
re Chiclit - yes you can usually spot it (pink) and avoid it.
I bought 'Getting rid of Matthew' for holiday reading (OK I got it from Help the Aged).
In spite of the cool red and green cover it was chiclit and went in the (not) recycling bin.
Written by: Ricky Gervais's girlfriend - nepotism?
Of course not.
 
Vicus - I reckon that Jilly looks like the sort of gel who would love being thrashed with a cricket bat.

Billy - ah, I'm dreading a tirade of abuse from the Virginia Woolf fans, possibly from the Virginia Woolf Extreme forum. Still, you have to whip up a bit of controversy every so often.

Garfer - isn't it Iaiaiain Banks? Geoff has just told me that your opinion of him is right. I think Will Self works better as a TV personality than as a writer. Isn't that often the way these days though?

Geoff - novels should be serious! Hey, Virginia Woolf seems like the sort of writer you might like. She doesn't appear to have a sense of humour.

Kaz - everybody has probably got a chicklit book in them. Well, if they've got a spare fifteen minutes to write them in at any rate.
 
I read a book once - blue, it was.
 
I once wrote a letter of complaint to an airline for including a (resident guest author) Jeffrey Archer short story in their inflight magazine. I never got a reply. It was the most shit thing I've ever read.
 
Noooooo - not P G Wodehouse, Puhleese.

JK Rowling instead?

Agree with Betty's choices.
 
Reg - I never normally get past the first paragraph. Life is too short.

Rockmother - airline inflight magazines are best avoided. I dunno who writes for them - bloggers trying to earn extra cash? I think the plodding prose style is designed to send you to sleep so you end up thinking the journey was short and enjoyable. "I'll use this airline again!" you think to yourself.

Little Shagthorne - hiya, to be fair to Geoff he does an excellent Rosemary West impersonation and informed me that Alan Carr looks like Fleagle from The Banana Splits. I've not read Harry Potter. Is JK Rowling going to retire now?
 
Dive - oof, that's slightly harsh old chap. I suppose it's a step up from looking at the pretty pictures in London Lite.
 
I'm so impressed by RoMo's letter of complaint!
Chick Lit and Virginia Woolf? "Did you know"... Woolf was absolutely phobic about shopping for clothes? One of the few endearing things about her.
 
Oh Virginia Woolf & Will Self, yes please!

Also, anyone who writes one of those white cover/silver writing/ line drawing of child seen from back 'my life was shit and all sorts of stuff so bad you wouldn't be able to make it up happened to me as a kid' books....ah, but then, if they were smashed with a bat they'd go and get another book out of it wouldn't they? so maybe not.
 
dive, you may need to stay at home for the next few days then.
 
anyone who fancies Colin Firth can't be all bad surely?
 
Arabella - a pity that she didn't live in an age where she could've gone to Primark. I'm sure it would've been right up her street!

Beth - I read that WH Smith has got rid of its biography section to make way for all those My Terrible Childhood books! As for Dive, I suspect he may have to go on a killing spree.

Missus Darcy - hmm, he's not really my type, but then I tend to like quite strange blokes, so don't mind me. Can't understand those women who swoon over "cruel, haughty but dashing" heroes from 19th Century novels. Yech.
 
oooooo yes, chick lit!
*hones bat, practices hitting dirt clods over shed, goes looking for Jaqueline Susanne*


*realizes she's dead*

*decided not to let small hindrances intrude on larger necessities, buys container of gasoline and several lighters*
 
Good Gravy, Betty, where do I start! I've just posted mine and I want to take it all down now!

How could I have forgotted V. Woolf and that FUCKING lighthouse. Sorry.

And in No. 6, I didn't see the fullstop after Fitwilliam, and thought the name ended 'Fitzwilliam Great Doorstop'. Fantastic name, I thought.

And whoever thought IaIn Banks needs batting CLEARLY hasn't read him. Try 'The Wasp Factory'.

I'll stop now.
 
First Nations - a pyre made up of chicklit writers ... what a beautiful sight, all those flames reaching up to the sky!!

*laughs maniacally*
 
Mangonel - I'm always doing that these days, getting words mixed up when I read stuff. For some reason this afternoon I was convinced for a few minutes that I'd read "Sandy Toksvig now lives with her partner, her great friend Bonnie Langford". "Blimey" I thought, "that's news to me!"

... er, I'm still waiting for the Virginia Woolf obsessives to find me. Help!
 
I don't think the fact that Douglas Adams is already dead should stand in the way of him getting a good hiding.

People who are Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy obsessives should also be beaten to a pulp.
 
" don't think the fact that Douglas Adams is already dead should stand in the way of him getting a good hiding."

LOL!
 
ouch - that bloody hurt! couldn't you have used an inflatable bat?
 
... sorry. Tell you what though, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to use a cricket bat, a table tennis bat or a pipistrelle bat. I wish people would be more specific!
 
i probably could have coped with a pipistrelle (that's one of my favourite words in the whole world). i'll have to ask mangonel/le to clarify in the future
 
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