Have you ever hate-read anything? Maybe, like this Paris Review contributor, you even do it regularly? When I came upon that post today I was initially taken aback. Why, I’d never! *Gasp of shock and horror*
Sure, I’ve hate-watched something before. I readily admit that after the second or third episode of the first season of the Under the Dome TV series I found it so terribly bad and realized it wasn’t going to get any better. But I kept watching it each week because there was something about hating it that was fun. And when the second season runs I will hate-watch that too.
But hate-reading? Why I’d never! Except then I remembered that once I did. It didn’t start off as hate-reading but the book quickly turned bad. I kept reading, however, because it was bad. It was a nonfiction book and its badness became not only fascinating but fun. Let’s see how many holes I can poke in the argument! And there were a few flaws of logic that were breathtaking. So I read to the end, hating it the whole time and always wondering why I didn’t just return the book to the library.
I am sure that was the only time I have ever hate-read something. But now I recall hate-reading a couple Harold Bloom books. Those books weren’t bad and Bloom is a very good writer, it’s the man himself that rubs me the wrong way. All his sly insulting comments about feminists, his pomposity and ego drive me nuts. I know this but I read those couple of books anyway just for the pleasure of whipping myself into a hate-reading frenzy.
I generally feel contrite afterwards; a little dirty and ashamed. So it is probably good I don’t hate-read very often. It’s been years but I doubt that means I have seen the error of my ways. No, I suspect I am just waiting for the right book to come along.
I did it once. Twice, if you figure in the fact that I read the first two books of the trilogy. I went in under the guise of wanting to see what all the fuss was about. Why did so many people love it and so many hate it? Something obviously kept me reading considering I went on to read the second book, but the entire time I was reading both, I couldn’t help but notice every flaw and find fault with the characters and story.
Hate is probably too strong a word to use. I don’t actually hate the books, but I did take pleasure in not liking them–and even, at least to my husband and friends in private, making fun of them.
It isn’t something I do often nor would I want to. I much prefer to read books I enjoy. Still, I am glad I at least tried the books–because now I can say I did. I never did read the third book. Probably for the best.
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Literary Feline, yes hate if probably too strong a word but it has become a sort of cultural shorthand for better or worse. I much prefer to read books I like but there is that wicked glee in reading something bad and making fun of it. Still, not something I want to indulge in very often.
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I hate-read most of Twilight, just to make sure I knew a little of what I was talking about when I criticized it (note that there is an entire section of my blog dedicated to Twilight Commentary).
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Jeanne, oh you brave soul! You should get a medal!
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I don’t think I’ve ever willingly done this. I’ve read books I haven’t liked because there’s been some reason (part of a university course, nominated for a literary prize I take an interest in) but I can’t imagine reading a book I hate for the perverse pleasure of hating it. I’ve got too many books I’d love to read!
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Lisa, you are a better person than I am! Though I have only done it a few times, maybe I’m only marginally bad? š
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LOL, I don’t think you’re bad!
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Yeah, why is it always hate? Why not dismay-reading, or despair-reading, or contempt-reading?
I always read for the purest reasons, for moral improvement, but other people should be allowed a full range of options.
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Tom, it could be all those things but you know how cultural shorthand goes and simplifies everything. As for your reading intentions, you are much too good for most of us! š
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Such an interesting posting. I thought about it — I honestly can’t think of something I have read — and kept reading it, or whatever, just because of how bad I thought it was. But [he salivates] there is a Canadian TV-show that I will not even name, that is SO BAD — that I honestly, even HORRIBLY GLEEFULLY find myself watching it just because of how absolutely horrid the main guy on it is. I’m dying to name him, even — but I won’t. Oh my God, I can almost not breathe while watching it, and yet I watch it almost with some kind of a crazy reverse-passion for how freakingly un-talented the guy is.
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I don’t recall hate-reading, at least not in the past few years…too much to read to waste any time on dreck š Oh, and Cipriano, I think I may have a pretty good guess which show you are referring to…
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Cipriano, perhaps one day your will come upon the right book and find yourself hate-reading, but I doubt it because you tend to be so very careful in your books choices. Still, you understand the feelings of perverse pleasure with that TV show!
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I can’t recall reading anything purely because i hated it and wanted to see just how bad it got. I did absolutely loathe Dracula to the point I almost threw it in the swimming pool (I was reading it on holiday) but had to finish it because it was part of the syllabus for the university course. Had i been left to my own devices there is no way I would have finished it.
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BookerTalk, maybe it’s best you haven;t put yourself through that masochistic wringer. Now I’m curious why you loathed Dracula so much. It is not a book I loved but I didn’t hate it either. There was something weirdly fascinating about all the repressed sexuality in it. Though I was pretty angry after reading the scene where they kill Lucy in the crypt which to me amounted to a gang rape.
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When I had more “required” reading for book clubs and classes, I did more hate-reading than I do now. Mocking The Da Vinci Code was the only way to get through it. (I also annotated my edition with all the factual errors I found–I figure it was useful to someone who got it after I donated it to a library sale.)
There’s a popular theology writer whose work I both love and hate. He’s a great researcher and explains complex stuff well, but he then draws conclusions from it that really bug me. So I go back to his books again and again for the good parts and find myself enjoying arguing against the bad parts.
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Teresa, heh, I wold love to see your annotated Da Vinci Code, I wonder what the next owner thought of it? I haven’t read it because I know I would hate it, so I guess I am picky about what I am willing to hate-read. I think how I read Bloom is kind of like how you read the theology writer. There are good bits amidst all the stuff that bugs you.
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I only hate-read if I have committed to reviewing something. But I hate hate-reading! LOL
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rhapsody, LOL! Yes, I one is more likely to hate-read because of certain circumstances. While I get a certain perverse pleasure from the rare hate-read, it stays rare because it also make me feel bad. If I ever start doing it more often you will know I have gone to the dark side š
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I haven’t done this in a very long time, but I have done it. I confess. I’m not going to count books I had to read for Grad. School, but there were more than a few that I finished in spite of hating them. Actually, most of them were Mrs. Dalloway. Don’t get me started.
However, I read Donna Tart’s Secret History all the way to the end because I hated it so much and I hated the characters so much that I wanted to see them all die and it looked like some of them would be the books closing pages. Some of them did, which was satisfying, but not all of them, which was something of a let down.
I’m not going to be reading The Goldfinch, by the way.
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James, yeah, I don’t we can count books read in grad school, there are always an unavoidable few! Oh, poor Mrs. Dalloway, it’s one of my favorite books but I understand it is not everyone’s cup of tea! That’s pretty funny about Secret History though. Probably a good idea to not read The Goldfinch!
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Yes! I’ve done this. Vampire Diary series. But then it stopped even being fun to hate it and I never did finish the series.
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Anakalian Whims, yeah, that’s one of the problems, the fun only lasts for a little while š
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I have hate-read. But I didn’t deliberately set out to hate-read — it just kind of happens. And as Tom above pointed out, maybe “contempt-read” would be more on the mark. Am I allowed to say? I remember hate-reading Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth. And there was one other book whose title/author escapes me (finally, it’s dropped from my memory banks!). The thing about the hate-book — if it were jus ordinarily bad, I would stop reading, or skim through and shrug about it, but the hate-book is WEIRDLY COMPELLING.
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Isabella, yeah, contempt-read is closer to the mark. You’ve got it exactly, if the book is ordinary bad I wouldn’t keep reading either but there is something definitely weirdly compelling about the hate-book.
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I had to do it sometimes when I was lecturing because I needed to know what was current in the Children’s Literature world and some of the things that have been current in the last few years have been pretty dire. I really miss the teaching but that is one aspect that I am happy to do without.
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Alex, when you have to read a book you aren’t enjoying that really stinks and there can be no redeeming fun about it must of the time. I wouldn’t miss that either!
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STEPHANIE, HAVE YOU READ “ANGELAS’ ASHES”? DID YOU LIKE IT?
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waddlesblu, yes, I have read it, a very long time ago for a book group. I thought it was good, didn’t love it though.
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I really don’t like it as a feeling, so I tend to give up quite quickly on books that make me do it. You have my every sympathy about Harold Bloom, though. Not an academic whose style appeals to me…
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Litlove, you are too good. For the most part I don’t read Bloom because I know I don’t like him but now and then he puts out a book that makes me think I might like it. Of course I never do!
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I think I hate read a book only once. Tom’s contempt phrase may be a more accurate term. I ended up respecting the author highly at the end of the book, when I came upon the resources page.
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Vanessa, sometimes the resources page can rescue a book, can’t it?
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Hello Stefanie! I confess to hate-reading, but not a book – like you I feel dirty after hate-reading so I don’t think I could manage it that long. But I have hate-read bits of a newspaper, and some newspaper columns. I suppose I do it because I enjoy the feeling at the time, and it makes me feel superior, but in the end I just feel depressed and not in the least bit superior.
But books, on a regular basis? Aren’t there already too many good books in the world to be hate-reading? š
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Helen, I didn’t think about hate-reading newspapers! It does make one feel a bit superior at least for a little while. I agree, there are too many good books waiting to be read to spend one’s time hate-reading, but when it happens, usually by accident for me, it is so oddly compelling that I can’t help myself š
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Hmmm, maybe I’ll have to try it!
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