"Easy" reading that is not really so "easy"

[Aiculík]

It often happens to me, that people say "that book is so difficult" - meaning, difficult to understand, to get "the meaning" or to understand "the author's intention" - while I don't think so.

On the other hand, the same people often consider some books to be "easy", "just cute little stories", "nothing deep and complicated", while I find them both deep and complicated (I'm not talking about language now, but about ideas, "the core" of the book, I can't express it in English), and they're often books that made me think for hours.

I noticed it's usually shorter books that get labelled to be just "cute stories", like, for example:
The Little Prince by A. de Saint-Exupéry
Of Mice and Men by J. Steinbeck
Silk by A. Barrico

Do you have similar experience? Do you know of other books that you think were unfairly labelled as "cute little stories"? And why do you think they are so "underrated"?

[ballb]

I don`t like this "difficult" label being stuck on certain books. It can become something of a self - perpetuating myth. I prefer to form my own judgement of a novel or short story. A well written piece can ofetn be enjoyed on a number of different levels. That does not automatically make it diffcult. I think that there is also a tendency for academics to over - intellectualise certain works. For instance, I bet Shakespeare is laughing his codpiece off in heaven at the thought of the mind boggling levels of analysis that his work has attracted. Like any other playmaker of his day, he was concerned with producing something sufficiently interesting to keep the groundlings happy if it rained during the performance. He was in the entertainment business. So, to cut it short, let`s use the "difficult" label sparingly.

[bibliophile190]

Of Mice and Men by J. Steinbeck


I definitely wouldn't consider this a "cutesy" novel.