Call it the William Hung factor if you like, but it sometimes happens that something can be so downright awfully bad ... that it's actually pretty damn good, and we take it with laughter and sympathy to our hearts.Sharanya was much tickled by Tom Peterkin's story in the Telegraph about romantic novelist Amanda McKittrick Ros whose contribution to literature is to be commemorated on 26th September at the Celebrate Literary Belfast festival.
Apparently, Aldous Huxley and Mark Twain were among her fans. Inklings C.S. Lewis and Tolkein and their circle of Oxford dons :
competed to see who could read her work aloud for longest before starting to laugh ...What was so hilarious about her writing? Says the entry in Wikipedia:
Nick Page, author of In Search of the World's Worst Writers, rated Ros the worst of the worst. He says that "For Amanda, eyes are 'piercing orbs', legs are 'bony supports', people do not blush, they are 'touched by the hot hand of bewilderment.'"Besides melodramatic fiction written in an overblown and aliterative style, McKittrick Ros also dabbled in poetry. A trip to Westminster Abbey prompted this gem:
Holy Moses! Have a look!Other candidates for the crown of awfulness include Scotland's great bard of bad verse: William McGonagall and Bulwer- ("It was a dark and stormy night") Lytton.
Flesh decayed in every nook!
Some rare bits of brain lie here,
Mortal loads of beef and beer,
Some of whom are turned to dust,
Every one bids lost to lust;
Royal flesh so tinged with 'blue'
Undergoes the same as you.
But is there anyone else you think might fit on the list?
