quote:

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Originally posted by Vyrus:
1984-The characters are hardly believable-the lead female, Julia, is a horrible character with few redeeming traits, and I couldn't possibly see why I should have sympathy for this sort of woman. It was hardly enough to keep me interested. From what people I knew said about it, it was supposed to be a mind-altering, life-changing piece of dystopian fiction. It was nothing of the sort, and there were many flaws that I couldn't get over.

For instance, I couldn't understand how the Oceania could get away with their slogans-"War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength", etc. You think people would be intelligent enough to know that this flagrant showcasing of the hypocrisy was not acceptable. I refuse to believe people could be that stupid, even in the world he created. The rest of the propoganda was handled brilliantly, just these few points.

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Aww, man. Nineteen Eighty-Four is on the short list of books that changed my life. I don't think "War Is Peace" is any harder to swallow than "The best defense is a good offense" (indeed, I'd say one is a direct restatement of the other); similarly, "Freedom Is Slavery" and "Ignorance Is Strength" are far from unusual outlooks in our own world. I don't think they'd be taken as hypocritical, but more like pithy truisms.

What I liked about the book was partly the exploration of how language shapes thought, and how restricting vocabulary might similarly restrict what one can concieve of, but mostly the exploration of reality and history as being entirely subjective matters of societal consensus.

I do agree that Julia is as flat a character as they come. Winston isn't much better; this is a novel of ideas, rather than characters.

Still, no book works for everybody. And if you like books with strong characterization and plot, then I can certainly see how this one would leave you cold.

I don't know that I have anything to nominate for this list myself. There are certainly great books that I don't care for (Walden leaps to mind; Thoreau comes across to me as a pretentious prat, unlike the far superior yet humbler Emerson), but I'd stop short of calling them overrated; in pretty much every case, I know of people I respect who love them. They just don't work for me, is all.

...but on second thought, I'm tempted to make an exception for A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf. I will grant its historical importance in raising important questions. But for contemporary purposes, one can do much better. The gender-binary essentialism and the logical inconsistency of some of its arguments drove me bonkers. (Charlotte Brontë, for instance, is said to have written poorer novels because she lacked three hundred a year and a room of her own... unlike Emily Brontë, who in Woolf's view got it right. That the two lived under the exact same circumstances is somehow never addressed.)

But even there, if it gets people thinking, even a flawed argument can be useful. And clearly Woolf's voice resonates with a lot of people who aren't me.
 

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Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
 
So long as we're remembering that there's no good and bad here, only our own subjective tastes....

I really disliked The Scarlet Letter. I thought it was as obvious and clumsy as a John Grisham novel. Studying it, in high school, was absolute tedium. When they make you read this kind of stuff, and then ask you a bunch of dummy questions.... God. They really know how to kill the joy of reading.

Another book they kill is Catcher In The Rye. I thank the good lord I never had to read that in school, but instead read it on my own, for pleasure, and got to experience the joy of discovering the story without having to do study questions at the end of every chapter. To read Salinger is to enter a labyrinth of madness. You can't do it properly with the school or some other authority over your shoulder. English teachers trying to teach Salinger is like high school chemistry teachers calmly instructing the students in how to most effectively make bombs for the purpose of blowing up government buildings. It should never happen. There's some kind of innate contradiction at work, there.
 

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Posted by Tara (Member # 10030) on :
 
Anna Karenina -- Tolstoy is pretty bad at characterization. The book might have other redeeming qualities, but the best novel of all time? Hardly.
 

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Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Tante Shvester:
Moby Dick is on just about every list of "great literature", I suspect because the people who make those lists haven't actually read that book, but instead cribbed off of someone else's list.

Moby Dick cries out for some very heavy editing. It would make a decent short story, though. I think Herman Melville just kind of got caught up in the writing, and couldn't get himself to stop.

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quote:

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Originally posted by lobo:
I liked Twilight...

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quote:

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James and the Giant Peach. It's treated like one of the greatest children's books ever, but its extremely not very good.

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quote:

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Originally posted by lobo:
Man, I like most of the books that people hate! I love Grisham, James and the Giant Peach, the da Vinci code, and while it is not great literature, I liked Twilight...

I think that Shakespeare is overated.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lisa:
The Grapes of Wrath. I was so utterly bored after the first chapter that I went and got the Cliff's Notes. I'd never done that before. But the Cliff's Notes were even boring. One big yawnfest.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Elmer's Glue:
*pelts synesthesia with eggs*

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quote:

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Originally posted by Tara:
Anna Karenina -- Tolstoy is pretty bad at characterization. The book might have other redeeming qualities, but the best novel of all time? Hardly.

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quote:

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Not really, The Bean Series isn't that broadly accepted as a great book, so I have a hard time taking it as a grossly overrated one.

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quote:

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Then clearly you don't know enough about him. Even if you don't like Shakespeare (which I do), a good teacher will help you understand why he's considered a genius. Kind of like Bach, I guess.

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Being written by a genius does not make a work into something people should want to read. On that scale, I'd have to think the works of Shakespeare are overrated.

Actually the same is true for some others of the overrated books on this list. People mistakenly tend to equate "could only be written by a literary genius" with "great book" sometimes.
 

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Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
Mystic River. I hated it - complete trash.
 

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Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
 
I remember reading Great Expectations. I try not to though, it hurts.

Bleh.

Though for those rabid Dickens fans out there I did like Tale of Two Cities....

Hobbes
 

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Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
 
First my protests:

I love "The Scarlet Letter" and have read it on my own twice and for school at least the same. The story is about rebellion, sin, repentance, hypocrisy, community, popularity, rule of law vs. mercy, self respect, and I could go on and on. The ending I disagree with and think was a cop-out for the writer and the character, but still realistic.

The novel "Catcher in the Rye" isn't bad enough to consider it over-rated. I don't know of many schools that teach it, although that is probably because of where I am from. There is lots of foul language that is an instant turn off for some community standards (hence one of the leading banned books). I do think that it would have been a better book if the character was more complicated and the story actually went somewhere. His rebel without a cause gets very irritating and too easily predictable. On the other hand, I read it mostly to see why it is popular with the "lone gunmen" types. It ended up a good case study of a psychopath.

Those who say Shakespeare is overrated are simply uneducated.

My own list includes just about any contemporary novel that gets praised. There are only two things books are about these days: sex and murder. "Wicked" and "The Davinci Code" are examples.

I agree completely with "Moby Dick," although the story is valuable as iconographic. Anything written by written by John Steinbeck is also beyond readability. I think he wrote as a way to put himself to sleep, like other people do counting sheep.

My own entry would have to be Issac Azimov's "Foundation," although I won't say the whole series. It is a wordy, unfocused, pretentious book that just left me cold.

Then there is James Joyce "Ulysses" that always gets mentioned, but never actually read. There is no story, no plot, no consistency, hardly a character, and too long for the effort. I feel that those who like it are only saying that to show off.
 

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Posted by Achilles (Member # 7741) on :
 
Not that I think much of that novel, but wasn't the main character introduced in the first sentence?
 

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Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
 

quote:

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I feel that those who like it are only saying that to show off.

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I didn't know you could show off by just saying you liked a book! And I've wasted all this time learning to juggle!

Hobbes
 

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Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
I've mentioned it before but "The Time Traveler's Wife" just didn't do it for me. The relationship didn't make any sense. (Like many fictional relationships I think the real life flavor would be "creepy" - just like the Edhard/Renesbellamay thing in the sparkly vampire books.) And as far as I can tell the relationship was crucial to the book. It had nothing interesting to say about time travel.

I also thought "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" by Susanna Clarke was a bit overrated. I enjoyed it but I thought Clarke should have cut down the time span of the book by at least half and treated some of the episodes in more depth. In other words I think too much of her world building (which was excellent, in itself) made it into the actual book. I think it was on purpose, but the book felt like a historical volume, not like a story. I guess some people like that sort of thing; I'd have preferred a tight novel.

(I was tempted to try to find books that were overrated grossly. Made up example: "I loved this book so much I want to eat, sleep, and poop with it.")
 

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Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
What Shmuel wrote about 1984.

I would heartily second Catcher in the Rye as overrated and add Proust to the list.
 

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Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
 
"I didn't know you could show off by just saying you liked a book!"

In literary and educational circles, this isn't as hilarious as it sounds.
 

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Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
 
Which just makes it that much funnier to me.

Hobbes
 

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Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 

quote:

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Anything written by written by John Steinbeck is also beyond readability

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quote:

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On the other hand, I thought "Frankenstein" was awful and that basically every remake of it was better than the original.

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Strongly disagree. The original book is fantastic, and every single movie, comic, or adaptation that I have seen has totally butchered the book. It was so fundamentally new and unique in it's ideas I think it needs to be called the first science fiction novel. I think Frankenstein is a paradox in that it's butchered concept is overrated, but the actual book is very much underrated.

I couldn't make it through Great Expectations, but then again I was in High School at the time so perhaps it's time to try again.

The Scarlett Letter is a bit overrated, but for it's time it certainly presented an important lesson that I think everyone should learn. That lesson has been obsessively redone in millions of other stories so now it's kind of lost in the shuffle.

I read an abridged version of Moby Dick, and while I am usually abhorrent of abridgments, I think Moby Dick is improved by it.

I think most of these overrated books are simply suffering from age. They become less relevant in more and more ways to the current set of human beings the older they get. I mean it's not like we read as much Greek and Roman philosophy/literature as they did 100-200 years ago.
 

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Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
A book I hated as a teenager that I loved as an adult was Silas Marner. I simply had never been aquainted with grief, so I didn't understand the entire thrust of the book.
 

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Posted by Epictetus (Member # 6235) on :
 
And speaking of Nineteen-Eighty Four, I was in Washington last week and was a little horrified that muting the TV in the hotel room didn't actually turn off the sound completely.

I don't know, maybe all televisions are like this and I just never noticed, but it gave me the chills just the same: that I can mute the TV during the commercials but never fully silence them. *shudder*
[/derail]

[ March 05, 2009, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: Epictetus ]
 

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Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
 
"I don't know, maybe all televisions are like this and I just never noticed, but it gave me the chills just the same: that I can mute the TV during the commercials but never fully silence them. *shudder*"

Brings back thoughts of that under-rated TV show Max Hedrum. It is technically dated, but the concept is more contemporary than when it was made.

"I think most of these overrated books are simply suffering from age. They become less relevant in more and more ways to the current set of human beings the older they get. I mean it's not like we read as much Greek and Roman philosophy/literature as they did 100-200 years ago."

What a sad commentary on the modern world. We are all living in "the moment" and rejecting all that went before. Who needs philosophy, morality, religion, civilization, et el.? Well, we still have science and technology right?
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by katharina:
A book I hated as a teenager that I loved as an adult was Silas Marner. I simply had never been aquainted with grief, so I didn't understand the entire thrust of the book.

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quote:

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What a sad commentary on the modern world. We are all living in "the moment" and rejecting all that went before. Who needs philosophy, morality, religion, civilization, et el.? Well, we still have science and technology right?

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quote:

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Originally posted by katharina:
Someone already made that joke.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jhai:

Also irritating: the fact that Aleksandr Pushkin isn't better known in the English-speaking world. He's absolutely amazing, but I'd never even heard of him until I took 19th Century Russian Lit.

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quote:

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Originally posted by katharina:
Speaking of, David Tennant's Hamlet is being filmed this summer. It will be available on DVD.

*beams with happiness*

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Ditto that.

I can't think of any additions but do agree with The Scarlet Letter's inclusion.
 

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Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
 
Anything at all written by Edmund Wells.
 

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Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
HOW DID I MISS THAT. A link, Katharina, a link!
 

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Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
As you wish.

http://deadlinescotland.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/david-tennants-hamlet-on-screen-686/
 

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Posted by lynda (Member # 11730) on :
 
Wicked the book was ok, it had good parts. I realy like Elphie. But the musical is GREAT!!!
 

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Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
 
The reason Pushkin isn't better known among non-Russian speakers is that he was a poet and his brilliant use of language doesn't translate well. I haven't read any translations of Pushkin that are nearly as good as the original.
 

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Posted by DaisyMae (Member # 9722) on :
 
I had no idea what to expect when I read Waterhip Down, but it certainly wasn't bunnies. So many people had told me to read it that I kept turning page after page until I finished. I think my exact words were, "Huh."
 

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Posted by Vyrus (Member # 10525) on :
 
Epicfetus, I agree about Shakespeare. I was originally so-so about his work, which we studied extensively in 9th and 10th grade, but once I saw it performed it was brilliant.

I saw a modern interpretation of Much Ado About Nothing, and found it to be utterly amazing.. I also saw a contemporary version of Othello on Masterpiece Theater and consider it still to be one of my favorite movies.

I saw Midsummer Night's Dream for the first time, and thought it beautiful (and keep in mind it was performed by a..."poorly rehearsed" high school cast). It's hard to catch a lot of the undertones, especially the humor, from reading it.

I found Scarlet Letter to be dreadfully boring.

Catcher in the Rye was not bad, but I found it also to be a tad boring-I finished it, but it took me such a long, arduous time I could barely remember half of the book.

I didn't like the main character. He struck me as a serial killer for some reason. I don't know why.

I haven't read much Steinbeck so I can't comment on all of his works. I only know that i was madly in love with East of Eden. I found the ending to be a tad ambiguous, as I felt there were certain things I didn't get about it. [But then again, I did read it a little after 9th grade.]

A lot of the books I've read I read at a younger age and couldn't quite understand them. I read Scarlet Letter first in 8th grade, and couldn't' understand half of the words or make it through the first chapter. I read it again in tenth, and it was a lot more tolerable, though still boring. Maybe if I read it again 12th grade it will be awesome? Who knows. ^^
 

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Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
 
I'll add my vote to Moby Dick.

I suspect that Melville wanted the reading of this book to be similar to whaling (or to how some have described submarine warfare); 3 hours of boredom followed by 30 seconds of stark terror. The book contains extremely fatiguing passages that are just plain boring. It took me a month to get through that book, and I had to force myself; I didn't enjoy it.
 

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Posted by amira tharani (Member # 182) on :
 
I really liked both Frankenstein (which I studied for A-level) and The Great Gatsby. I think that Gatsby might be slightly overrated, I've heard it mentioned as the greatest prose work of the 20th century, and I certainly wouldn't go that far.

As for Shakespeare, I agree that really you have to see it performed to "get" it. But oh, when you get it... I was lucky enough to study Hamlet for A-level and see it performed at the Globe. It got under my skin like nothing else I've ever seen, and then trying to analyse the language and see what he did with it just opened up the whole play and made it even more amazing. I can go back to Shakespeare time and again and see things I didn't see before.

I think that both James Joyce and Salman Rushdie are overrated for exactly the same reason. Both very clever writers, but the complexity of their work strikes me as just showing off how clever they are, rather than being about something meaningful. I can see why they are very clever, but I don't think that necessarily makes them great literature.
 

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Posted by Dante (Member # 1106) on :
 
I think it should be pointed out that "I don't like X" does not necessarily make it "overrated." For example, Joyce isn't really my cup of literary tea, but Ulysses is an immensely creative and influential work; I find Austen uninspired and dull to the point of tears, but there's no question that she knew what she was doing and has managed (somehow) to keep a large following.

Mind you, I'm not saying your own particular preferences are unrelated to whether or not you find a book overrated; I'm just pointing out that they're not necessarily the same thing.

Also, Moby-Dick is one of the best novels of all time, and possibly the only "classic" novel I've ever gone back and read again for fun. If you think it's overrated, you're doing it wrong.
 

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Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Yozhik:
The reason Pushkin isn't better known among non-Russian speakers is that he was a poet and his brilliant use of language doesn't translate well. I haven't read any translations of Pushkin that are nearly as good as the original.

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quote:

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Originally posted by amira tharani:
I really liked ...The Great Gatsby. I think that Gatsby might be slightly overrated, I've heard it mentioned as the greatest prose work of the 20th century, and I certainly wouldn't go that far.

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I agree. It probably gets more acclaim than is truly warranted, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also, I find the short stories of Fitzgerald that I have read just as enjoyable. Something about getting him in small doses helps.
 

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Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
There are many authors that are better in short stories. Ray Bradbury, for one. His short stories are magic, but I found Farenheith 451 to be tedious and dreadful. Dandelion Wine was okay, but it was essentially a series of short stories anyway.
 

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Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
 
Dante's Inferno. A bitter, exiled man sticking everybody he hated in his story-hell. The book is little more than a list of the people Dante disliked, complete with what he would like happen to them. He doesn't get creativity points for thinking up good punishments either- any angry teenager can think of brilliantly horrible things that should happen to their enemies. It's a thinly-veiled grudge-fest to slam the nasty politicians from the 14th century along with a few historical figures to make it "legit".

[ March 06, 2009, 11:21 AM: Message edited by: theamazeeaz ]
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
Kat, what did you think of Something Wicked This Way Comes?

I generally love Bradbury's stuff, both his novels and his short stories, but Fahrenheit 451 did less for me than a lot of his work.
 

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Posted by Traceria (Member # 11820) on :
 
I thought Something Wicked was thrilling, but it's not one of my favorites. More often, I get drawn to reading story collections, with the favs being The Martian Chronicles (talk about chills) and The Illustrated Man (still a really awesome connecting concept to me). I have been through 451 numerous times, and while it certainly isn't the best of the best, it strikes home (and it doesn't drag things out like similar 'this is where society is heading' books sometimes do). Also, a friend just acquired an autographed copy for me, so I'm having a hard time saying anything bad about it at the moment.
 

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Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
I haven't read it. Did you like it? I was so discouraged by the first two full length novels of his that I resolved to stick short stories and novels-filled-with-short-stories, like The Martian Chronicles.

I also enjoyed The Illustrated Man.
 

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Posted by Traceria (Member # 11820) on :
 
I listened to Something Wicked, which probably helped with the thrill factor.
 

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Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
 

quote:

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Then there is James Joyce "Ulysses" that always gets mentioned, but never actually read. There is no story, no plot, no consistency, hardly a character, and too long for the effort. I feel that those who like it are only saying that to show off.

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*always mentions it*

*has actually read it*

There is a story, a plot, consistency, a great deal of character, and it's exactly as long as it needs to be, and given the scope of what he was atempting, probably could've been longer.

I do think, however, that a lot of the time it's lauded without the lauders actually having read the whole thing.

I think most of the novels by Stephen King are grossly overrated -- I could barely get through The Shining, and though I'm pretty sure I read Salem's Lot, I don't actually remember anything about it except, maybe, a graveyard? His short stories, however, are largely overlooked and vastly superior.
 

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Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
 
The problem with having Shakespeare on this list is that he didn't write books.

His works weren't written to be "read" in the sense of absorbing the text off a page. And if you only ever read them, you don't really get a real sense of them.

A contemporary comparison would be reading the screenplay of a great movie without every watching the movie.


As for overrated books, though, I have to put DaVinci Code on that list. Eragon would be up there, too.

I'd toss on almost anything by Jane Austen, too... but that is likely just personal taste. They're not bad books, by any means, just overrated.

I'd say most of the Sherlock Holmes I've read is overrated, too. Holmes' "genius" often relies on Doyle not giving the reader the details they'd need to figure things out.

A Spell for Chameleon, the first Xanth book, almost made me claw my eyes out. I have not read anything else by Piers Anthony, but it would take a lot to get over my initial impression of him as a hack.

As for Ulysees, I have not read it yet... but I read a great newspaper article once saying that it improves greatly if you read it while in a state of partial inebriation.

The writer of the article mentioned while he was in Ireland that he didn't like the book, and one of the gentlemen in the pub with him said he hadn't read it the right way. So they sat him down, bought him a pint, and got a copy from a local bookshop. Each day he came in, and read while they bought him pints of beer.

He said he really had an entirely new appreciation for the book - so I'm tempted to give that a whirl.
 

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Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
 

quote:

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As for Ulysees, I have not read it yet... but I read a great newspaper article once saying that it improves greatly if you read it while in a state of partial inebriation.

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quote:

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The problem with having Shakespeare on this list is that he didn't write books.

His works weren't written to be "read" in the sense of absorbing the text off a page. And if you only ever read them, you don't really get a real sense of them.

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quote:

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The problem with having Shakespeare on this list is that he didn't write books.

His works weren't written to be "read" in the sense of absorbing the text off a page. And if you only ever read them, you don't really get a real sense of them.

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quote:

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Moby Dick is on just about every list of "great literature", I suspect because the people who make those lists haven't actually read that book, but instead cribbed off of someone else's list.

Moby Dick cries out for some very heavy editing. It would make a decent short story, though. I think Herman Melville just kind of got caught up in the writing, and couldn't get himself to stop. [quote]Moby Dick is on just about every list of "great literature", I suspect because the people who make those lists haven't actually read that book, but instead cribbed off of someone else's list.

Moby Dick cries out for some very heavy editing. It would make a decent short story, though. I think Herman Melville just kind of got caught up in the writing, and couldn't get himself to stop.

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quote:

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I'll add my vote to Moby Dick.

I suspect that Melville wanted the reading of this book to be similar to whaling (or to how some have described submarine warfare); 3 hours of boredom followed by 30 seconds of stark terror. The book contains extremely fatiguing passages that are just plain boring. It took me a month to get through that book, and I had to force myself; I didn't enjoy it.

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quote:

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I love Moby Dick. But I guess that's obvious.

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quote:

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Dante's Inferno. A bitter, exiled man sticking everybody he hated in his story-hell. The book is little more than a list of the people Dante disliked, complete with what he would like happen to them. He doesn't get creativity points for thinking up good punishments either- any angry teenager can think of brilliantly horrible things that should happen to their enemies. It's a thinly-veiled grudge-fest to slam the nasty politicians from the 14th century along with a few historical figures to make it "legit".

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I submit you have misunderstood nearly everything about the Commedia. And I'm not just saying that based on a Hatrack user name I took on a whim eight years ago.

And while I agree that Shakespeare has to be seen to be fully appreciated, it's completely possible to recognize and enjoy the poetry of his language from reading it. I've read Titus Andronicus and seen Romeo and Juliet and immensely preferred the former to the latter.
 

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Posted by Vyrus (Member # 10525) on :
 
My problem with reading many of these books is reading them in school. While I enjoy discussing themes, characters, meanings, inferences, etc. [thus the point of this thread ^.^] I really hate, as I have said before, the complete and utter dissection and analysis books in the average high school curriculum, from the thematic elements of characters down to the oh-so-dreadfully-clever use of asyndenton and chiasmus, etc.

Works have to be taken on their own merit before discussion can begin.

It's like, you have to get your own meaning out of the book, and they're trying to force a meaning upon you. It's like saying "See, see what this stanza here represents?" "Yeah! I think it represents the futility of man when cut off from the beauty of life." "NO! You're WRONG! It's talking about DEATH! How do you ever expect to pass this class when you can't even get that!"

Or some other such preachy lesson. [This, gentle readers, was of course a very random dramatization.]
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 
75% of English teachers are carp.

quote:

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Being written by a genius does not make a work into something people should want to read. On that scale, I'd have to think the works of Shakespeare are overrated.

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quote:

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I'd say most of the Sherlock Holmes I've read is overrated, too. Holmes' "genius" often relies on Doyle not giving the reader the details they'd need to figure things out.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
White Whale,

How about we start a thread to discuss Moby Dick? I also love it, and have been looking for an opportunity to discuss it with someone.

As to the rest of you, Ha! Just because you didn't "get it" doesn't mean it isn't the greatest book ever written, which it is.

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quote:

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75% of English teachers are carp.

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quote:

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i really wanna see hamlet as performed by David Tennant.

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quote:

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Originally posted by JennaDean:

quote:

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i really wanna see hamlet as performed by David Tennant.

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Mmmmm....

I'll add the umpteenth vote for Catcher in the Rye. I read it in high school and still wish I hadn't. The huge amount of profanity was very distracting for me. I really could not relate with the main character at all; I had no feelings like his, so all I got out of it was a really foul mouth for weeks afterward.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Vyrus:
I enjoyed Brave New World-I was completely hooked all the way through. I do get where you're coming from, though.

That's my problem, is being able to get past the parts in books that tend to drag.

A lot of the time I give up and come back at a later date, which happened with both the fourth and the fifth book of the DT series; some of my favorites no doubt, they just had portions that were insufferable.

It also happened about 450 pages into the Brothers Karamazov, which I still have as of yet to finish.

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Just read the inquisition chapter and be done with it.
 

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Posted by Godric 2.0 (Member # 11443) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Teshi:
75% of English teachers are carp.

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Maybe. But I still had a crush on every one I ever had.


 

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Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
 
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Admittedly, I might have a higher opinion of it if I hadn't been forced to read it because the executor of his estate designed my college's "core" curriculum. As it was, it felt like "of all the works that could illuminate the American experience for this class, we're wasting our time on this rambling piece of...?"
 

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Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 
Add a vote for The Kite Runner. Way overrated. Terrible plot twists.

It's been years since I read Grapes of Wrath but I remember being really touched by the ending. I like how Steinbeck uses imagery.

I could never enjoy books I was assigned to read in school classes. Picking them apart always seemed to kill them for me.
 

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Posted by Maratanos (Member # 11918) on :
 
I'm not actually familiar with the thoughts of modern critics with regard to Victor Hugo, but I feel like some of his work is overrated. Les Miserables was a great story, but practically nobody ever reads the book because from a modern perspective, Victor Hugo was a terrible author.

Then we have the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the most hideously depressing and static book I ever did see in my whole life. Practically the only likeable character is Quasimodo, who has the misfortune of being stupid enough to fall in love with a shallow woman like Esmerelda, who in turn is stupid enough to fall in love with Phoebus, who is frankly borderline evil. And then practically everybody who's likeable dies and the people portrayed as villians live (even if not happily ever after).

Of course, I'll be the first to admit I haven't read the book in quite some time and it's possible my memory has been warped. If this is so, please, don't hesitate to correct me.
 

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Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
 
Phantom of the Opera was overrated to me, but I think the hype is more about the musical than the book (haven't seen the musical yet). The book had a somewhat interesting story, but the writer's conventions used drive me crazy.
 

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Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
 

quote:

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Add a vote for The Kite Runner. Way overrated. Terrible plot twists.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Hobbes:
I remember reading Great Expectations. I try not to though, it hurts.

Bleh.

Though for those rabid Dickens fans out there I did like Tale of Two Cities....

Hobbes

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quote:

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Did anyone say Ulysses by James Joyce?

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