6 Writers Who Accidentally Crapped Out Masterpieces

[pokerfan]

http://www.cracked.com/article_17221_6-writers-who-accidentally-crapped-out-masterpieces.html

#6. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
#5. Alice in Wonderland
#4. A Clockwork Orange
#3. Most of the Stuff Kafka Wrote
#2. Frankenstein
#1. The Complete Works of Shakespeare

Figuratively speaking, his works define the English language. And by "figuratively," we of course mean "literally." The motherfucker made up half of the dictionary off the top of his damn head. If you've ever said that something was a "sorry sight," or that "what's done is done," not only are you an unimaginative hack, but you owe Shakespeare $10.

:rofl:

[Initech]

1. We were somewhere around Barstow when the drugs began to take hold.

[Patiod]

4. Best first line in a book

Ever.

[crispini]

2. Hahahahahah that's a seriously funny article.

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

[fishwax]

3. they got the details wrong on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Thompson was not on assignment for Rolling Stone, as they said, but rather on assignment for Sports Illustrated. Which makes it that much funnier :rofl: The whole story of the novel's genesis is much more complicated and more interesting, though, involving racial tensions in Los Angeles following the assassination of Ruben Salazar and the riots that broke out at the Chicano Moratorium march against the war the year before. But I digress. :)

Cracked is good stuff :rofl:

[tigereye]

16. hey, you can talk about stuff other than sports!

:thumbsup: :hi:


How did your bracket turn out? Mine was just totally busted....

[fishwax]

19. :)

talking sports is a hobby, but literature/composition is how i pays the bills :) :hi:

My bracket was awful. First time I remember that I didn't even get a single final four team :blush:

But all in good fun, right? :rofl:

[tigereye]

22. I had a 68 out of 150 or something...

I was WAY off. I think I did better last year. After Pitt was out, I was too cranky to really root for anyone else, other than UNC. For some weird reason MSU really bugged me, not sure why.



I have a BA in English Lit, with grad work in the mental health field... :hi:

[nomorenomore08]

5. How about 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'? Didn't Stevenson write most of it during a cocaine binge?

:shrug:

[qb]

6. I am reading 'The Agony of Lewis Carroll' by Richard Wallace

Much of the nonsense in 'Alice' and his other works are actually pornographic anagrams! Wallace contends this was an outlet for Charles Dodgson's rage at his childhood abuse and the homophobic society he lived in (Lewis Carroll was Dodgson's pseudonym).

[Gabi Hayes]

7. thus.....

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


becomes, anagrammatically:

Bet I beat my glands til,
With hand-sword I slay the evil gender.
A slimey theme; borrow gloves,
And masturbate the hog more!

toss in a little Jack the Ripper, some numerological 'coincidences,' and you have quite the frothy stew!


http://dev.null.org/psychoceramics/archives/1996.11/msg00014.html

[Gabi Hayes]

8. one other thing: whenever I think of Fear and Loathing, I think of Ralph Steadman.....

find the hotspot on lower right, and it blows up good...real good

[lunatica]

9. Wow! I quote Shakespeare all the time then!

Or is it just a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing?

[Mike 03]

10. I disagree with some of these, but how about "Naked Lunch" by Burroughs? NT

[nomorenomore08]

15. Totally. And add to that the Nova Trilogy - 'The Soft Machine,' 'The Ticket that Exploded,'

and 'Nova Express.' All four books largely written, IIRC, in a dingy hotel room in Tangiers where Burroughs was either high on smack or in withdrawal.

[Mike 03]

11. The worst of all was "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. Unreadable. As Capote said,

"That's not writing, it's just typing."

[pokerfan]

12. That's a relief

I thought it was just me. Everyone raves about it and I feel like I'm supposed to love it. I don't. I couldn't get more than a quarter of the way through it.

[Mike 03]

13. I'm glad to hear from you. In college I was assigned to read that book by a well-known novelist

and I just couldn't do it. I had to pretend I'd read it.

Maybe it's great, but I think it's a total waste of time and a monument to narcissism.

[Mike 03]

14. Your thread is genius, by the way. I love this topic and enjoy reading what you and others think.

Great stuff. NT

[mitchum]

18. No one who is out of adolescence should consider "On The Road" to be a great book

and Capote was right

[fishwax]

20. meh. Capote was just jealous of any writer who got attention that should have gone to him

speaking of monuments to narcissism, that's Capote for ya :)

I love On the Road, personally, though it certainly has its flaws, and I can understand why some people don't like it. :hi:

[tigereye]

17. I'm glad I was spared that kind of analysis when I was working on my

English Literature degree. :D

[Xipe Totec]

21. Baldrick's epic navel and magnum octopus

B: Perhaps your book really isn't any good.

E: Oh, codswallop! It's taken me seven years, and it's perfect. "Edmund:
A Butler's Tale" -- a giant rollercoaster of a novel in four hundred
sizzling chapters. A searing indictment of domestic servitude in the
eighteenth century, with some hot gypsies thrown in. My magnum opus,
Baldrick. Everybody has one novel in them, and this is mine.

B: And this is mine (takes a small piece of paper from the front of his
trousers). My magnificent octopus.

E: (takes it) This is your novel, Baldrick? (unfolds it)

B: Yeah -- I can't stand long books.

E: (reads) "Once upon a time, there was a lovely little sausage
called `Baldrick', and it lived happily ever after."

B: It's semi-autobiographical.

E: And it's completely utterly awful. Dr. Johnson will probably love it.

[UTUSN]

23. The title usually goes to Sinclair LEWIS

His critics said he had good ideas for books and ruined them for other writers who could have done them up better. (Main Street. Babbitt. Elmer Gantry. It Can't Happen Here.)