I’ll go with the low-hanging fruit: Mein Kampf. I’ve read it, cover to cover. As a piece of propaganda, it’s good. As an example of good writing? Absolutely not (though I will admit I have only read it in translation). Oh, and the whole fascist, racist, and generally shitty worldview of the author that he infuses into the text. And the fact that the author is literally Hitler. You 5-star that book? You’re a Nazi. Period. And as a Jewish person, I don’t look too kindly on them.
I read this out of morbid curiosity, and it’s so bad. It tries to appear logical, but asserts conclusions that you can’t reach unless you already believed them. Basically trying to convince racists that they’re right.
Even the author preferred his second book to it and recognized how juvenile that attempt was, but the other never really got the same notoriety. The whole mini genre of self-insert neo-Nazi revenge fantasy that was published in the '90s by Resistance Books was pretty cringe. (Several other books that tried to be similar to this but managed to be even worse including at least one god-awful sci-fi version).
The first rule of writing is to know your audience so if you’re courting a bunch of bigots by writing a bunch of racist nonsense I’m not the least bit surprised that “juvenile” is what they felt drawn to…
I was surprised at how readable it was. Honestly I’d expected a turgid Mein Kampf experience. (I feel I need to add quickly that I’m a historian. Read part of MK for a college class.)
I was interested at how early it was for the “group of plucky resistance fighters up against occupying force” storyline. It was only a few years later that V was a huge miniseries hit. I also expected it to be 100% racist and antisemitic and was interested that while it was those things, it was focused on hating the federal government. I think even now a lot of liberals miss how much resentment of the federal government underlies a lot of the bigotry that draws more attention.
I have never discussed it on a date! I don’t even admit to my friends that I read it.
There’s a documented phenomenon nicknamed the “Crunchy to alt-right pipeline” and I think one of the things that connects those two groups is distrust of the government.
Well, the book was written post-civil rights, meaning that those kind of people were (and are) full of resentment against the US federal government for having ruined their dream of state-based apartheid.
likewise. it was at least as readable as tom clancy.
I remember reading this years ago, and boy could I feel the author’s hatred for minorities.
And educated people.
I just read the Wikipedia synopsis and it radiated from the screen. God, I can’t imagine dedicating so much energy to hatred. Isn’t it exhausting?
That was my take as well. Morbid curiosity got the best of me and holy shit terrible writing indeed and just so fucking racist