Disappointment

[Adagio]

Having just finished Madame Bovary I cannot help but feel disappointed. I came to the book with such great expectations and I was left not caring at all for the novel. Now, the previous book I had read was Anna Karenina. Both novels deal with similar themes. I absolutely loved Tolstoy's novel. Perhaps then, that's why I was disappointed with Madame Bovary, because it, for me, doesn't compare to Tolstoy's work. Flaubert's novel just seemed a little overrated.

Whether they have been overshadowed by another novel with similar themes, the acclaim they've received has put them upon a pedestal, or for whatever reason, what novels have disappointed you guys?

[My name is red]

The Unbearable lightness of being.
Great title,great comments,maybe a great movie and accordingly great expectations but as a conclusion it's a bad novel,weak literature,full of commonplaces

[kelby_lake]

Hemingway, a bit. I want to like him but...

[Barbarous]

ah man, I loved Madame Bovary, the language of Flaubert is titanic.

I was rally disappointed with Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. It could have been the amount of time I put into the novel or the novel itself, we'll see on a later reread...

[LitNetIsGreat]

Madam Bovary is an outstanding work, I'm surprised that anyone could be disappointed with it, maybe it could have been a poor translation?

As for a novel that met with disappointment I would have to say Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I just felt that it was riddled with an amateurish style of expression, though that is just probably a personal dislike to the prose style, as opposed to anything else. Either way I couldn't finish it.

[Desolation]

'Death on the Installment Plan' by Celine. For one, because it didn't hold a candle to 'Journey to the End of the Night'. And also, I really wasn't expecting 600 pages of straight adolescent angst(this is because the back cover and wikipedia lied to me about the plot). I still liked it, though.

'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In retrospect, I have no idea why I thought I'd like this one so much.

For a little while, everything I read after 'Crime and Punishment' seemed bland, but all of the books grew on me when thinking about them afterward.

[Emil Miller]

The Unbearable lightness of being.
Great title,great comments,maybe a great movie and accordingly great expectations but as a conclusion it's a bad novel,weak literature,full of commonplaces

I have to second this choice. The book had received excessive praise in France so I decided to read it in French and discovered that it didn't have much to say about anything. I thought it might be that I was missing something, so I read it in German and discovered that I wasn't. Obviously, I didn't bother with the film.

[Adagio]

Madam Bovary is an outstanding work, I'm surprised that anyone could be disappointed with it, maybe it could have been a poor translation?
I did consider questioning the translation. It's not that the book wasn't good, I just did not find it 'outstanding'. Perhaps I'll give it a reread in the future and see if my opinion changes.

[meh!]

Madam Bovary is an outstanding work, I'm surprised that anyone could be disappointed with it, maybe it could have been a poor translation?

As for a novel that met with disappointment I would have to say Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I just felt that it was riddled with an amateurish style of expression, though that is just probably a personal dislike to the prose style, as opposed to anything else. Either way I couldn't finish it.

Though I dont think the style was amateurish (I did enjoy the book and specifically his style all the way through) but I was also disappointed by it. It was the ending (****SPOILER DON@T READ***when the father dies****SPOILER DON@T READ*** and I just didn't care.

I think he sacrificed a sense of empathy between me and them for the universality of the characters and themes.

[Dr. Hill]

Always disappointed with War and Peace :(

[sixsmith]

I'm with you here Adagio. Madame Bovary is one of the bigger disappointments of my reading life. I could barely summon enough interest in the eponymous heroine to make it through. Much the same can be said for Crime and Punishment. Where others see a deep and layered psychological exploration, i see an intellectually shallow, one - note flop.


Neely, i'm reading 'The Road' at the moment and loving it. I was thinking that the more direct and compact prose potentially makes it more easily digested by those who may have a problem with the florid, Bible-speak of a 'Suttree' or 'Blood Meridian'.

[Dr. Hill]

Much the same can be said for Crime and Punishment. Where others see a deep and layered psychological exploration, i see an intellectually shallow, one - note flop.


:flare:

[LitNetIsGreat]

Neely, i'm reading 'The Road' at the moment and loving it. I was thinking that the more direct and compact prose potentially makes it more easily digested by those who may have a problem with the florid, Bible-speak of a 'Suttree' or 'Blood Meridian'.

I've not read those. I was personally deeply irritated by the smuttering of ridiculous similes peppered throughout the early stages of the book. It just didn't work for me at all. I no longer have the book to point out what I mean, but I have given examples in the past.

With that said I know a lot of people who greatly enjoyed the novel it's just that I was just not one of them.

[Dark Lady]

Oh man, I was going to buy Madame Bovary and read it before the end of the summer! Ah well, if it was the fact that Adagio loved Anna Karenina so much that spoilt it I might be okay. I thought AK was alright but nothing too special.

I'd have to say the three novels that have disappointed me most are Wuthering Heights, The Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby.

For WH (if you haven't read my thoughts on it in another thread) I think I was hoping for something akin to Jane Eyre, which I loved. I found a copy in a second hand bookstore and couldn't wait to read it, thinking 'I loved Emily's sister's novel so if this is anything like it I'll no doubt love this too'. Instead, I found a number of horrible characters with no redeemable qualities, a melodramatic plot and writing style, and general disappointment.

To be honest I don't remember much about Catcher. I think that was the problem; it was just so nothingy. Not worth the hype.

As for Gatsby, I don't dislike it. My problem with it was that it had been hyped so much that I was expecting something more. My friend gave me the novel for Christmas just before I was going to start studying it at university. She told me that it was her favourite novel and I absolutely had to read it. I was really excited by the thought of reading such a highly recommended book but it didn't live up to my expectations. I kept waiting for a moment...some sort of epiphany or something...and it just didn't come.

[Madame X]

I have to second this choice. The book had received excessive praise in France so I decided to read it in French and discovered that it didn't have much to say about anything. I thought it might be that I was missing something, so I read it in German and discovered that I wasn't. Obviously, I didn't bother with the film.

Try Klingon next. :nod:

[My name is red]

I have to second this choice. The book had received excessive praise in France so I decided to read it in French and discovered that it didn't have much to say about anything. I thought it might be that I was missing something, so I read it in German and discovered that I wasn't. Obviously, I didn't bother with the film.

Yes,it just doesn't say anything original,not even a word.Further more it's easy to see that the writer intends strike the reader but everytime he fails.Its not about liking or not,it's just cheap.

[wessexgirl]

Oh man, I was going to buy Madame Bovary and read it before the end of the summer! Ah well, if it was the fact that Adagio loved Anna Karenina so much that spoilt it I might be okay. I thought AK was alright but nothing too special.

I'd have to say the three novels that have disappointed me most are Wuthering Heights, The Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby.

For WH (if you haven't read my thoughts on it in another thread) I think I was hoping for something akin to Jane Eyre, which I loved. I found a copy in a second hand bookstore and couldn't wait to read it, thinking 'I loved Emily's sister's novel so if this is anything like it I'll no doubt love this too'. Instead, I found a number of horrible characters with no redeemable qualities, a melodramatic plot and writing style, and general disappointment.

To be honest I don't remember much about Catcher. I think that was the problem; it was just so nothingy. Not worth the hype.

As for Gatsby, I don't dislike it. My problem with it was that it had been hyped so much that I was expecting something more. My friend gave me the novel for Christmas just before I was going to start studying it at university. She told me that it was her favourite novel and I absolutely had to read it. I was really excited by the thought of reading such a highly recommended book but it didn't live up to my expectations. I kept waiting for a moment...some sort of epiphany or something...and it just didn't come.

Don't give up on MB Dark Lady, (or shall I call you Dark :D?). It's excellent, but she (MB) is not a sympathethic character. Perhaps that was the problem for Adagio reading it so soon after AK. Whatever you think of the respective books, AK is a more sympathetic character to my mind, and perhaps it was reading them so close together which made MB come off worse.

I agree with you about Gatsby. I found it very disappointing, and I've only read some of Catcher, but it didn't appeal to me at all. However, I will defend WH to the death......brilliant book :D.

[kelby_lake]

Poor Gatsby :( The main reason people don't like it because they try to guess what it will be and then they are disappointed when they aren't right. I love the mysticism of the Eggs and the stark reality of the Valley of Ashes.

Catcher in the Rye was disappointing. Was okay in places but he was a whiny little thing, wasn't he? And the word phoney, grr...

[LitNetIsGreat]

Oh man, I was going to buy Madame Bovary and read it before the end of the summer! Ah well, if it was the fact that Adagio loved Anna Karenina so much that spoilt it I might be okay. I thought AK was alright but nothing too special.

I'd have to say the three novels that have disappointed me most are Wuthering Heights, The Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby.

For WH (if you haven't read my thoughts on it in another thread) I think I was hoping for something akin to Jane Eyre, which I loved. I found a copy in a second hand bookstore and couldn't wait to read it, thinking 'I loved Emily's sister's novel so if this is anything like it I'll no doubt love this too'. Instead, I found a number of horrible characters with no redeemable qualities, a melodramatic plot and writing style, and general disappointment.

To be honest I don't remember much about Catcher. I think that was the problem; it was just so nothingy. Not worth the hype.

As for Gatsby, I don't dislike it. My problem with it was that it had been hyped so much that I was expecting something more. My friend gave me the novel for Christmas just before I was going to start studying it at university. She told me that it was her favourite novel and I absolutely had to read it. I was really excited by the thought of reading such a highly recommended book but it didn't live up to my expectations. I kept waiting for a moment...some sort of epiphany or something...and it just didn't come.

I know we have had the Wuthering Heights conversation, but I'll just copy what I have posted on another thread recently for those who don't know my thoughts on the matter:


I'd probably rate this as one of the greatest English novels of all time, if not the greatest.

Just one point for all those who hate the characters, this novel repeatedly narrators through double narration, i.e. we come at this story through a narrator, who in turn is having events narrated to him. What's more this narration is so flimsy and based upon threads of long remembered, biased, events that we can't really be sure who is who or what they are really like. It's probably the set text of unreliable narration. So how can you dislike someone who you only have loose fragments of?

Its real success however lies not in the characterisation but in the wild fabric of the novel itself. The eerie moors and the strange and so "un-Victorian" feel to the book. It has been compared critically to the wildness of nature in King Lear and after reading it you can see why.

This is not a novel you can pick up over coffee and read and say "yeah, I've read that". It is a novel that demands so much more attention, maybe like Henry James in that sense, you can hardly do James justice by skim-reading him and in the same way a cursory reading of this novel means little.

As for Jane Eyre yes it is certainly a nicer read, and has more admirers, but Wuthering Heights is certainly the better text and Emily the better writer.

As for The Catcher in the Rye and Gatsby I rate them both highly as well. :thumbs_up

[meh!]

Catcher in the rye was alright for me. Great Gatsby I do think is excellent.

That last paragraph always stuns me when I read it.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning -

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Just sums up the whole book. Everything about those last lines is amazing.

[Frankie Anne]

I'm a big Gatsby fan myself. Those last lines of the book, meh!, were my signature here for a while.

For me - "The Grapes of Wrath."

[Dark Lady]

Don't give up on MB Dark Lady, (or shall I call you Dark :D?).

I was going to say 'you can call me anything you like' but then realised that, written down, the tone is left very ambiguous!! ;)


It's excellent, but she (MB) is not a sympathethic character. Perhaps that was the problem for Adagio reading it so soon after AK. Whatever you think of the respective books, AK is a more sympathetic character to my mind, and perhaps it was reading them so close together which made MB come off worse.

That's okay, despite how I might've come across talking about WH I can enjoy and appreciate books with unsympathetic characters. I'll definately still give it a try. I just have to finish Tristram Shandy. (And maybe buying MB would help.)


However, I will defend WH to the death......brilliant book :D.

I think WH is like marmite; you either love it or hate it! Although it just occurred to me that I don't know if that ad campaign was used outside the UK so a lot of people might not know what I'm on about...


Poor Gatsby :( The main reason people don't like it because they try to guess what it will be and then they are disappointed when they aren't right.

Yes I do think that was part of the problem for me. I had an idea of what I thought the novel would do for me and kept expecting that to happen. When it didn't I was disappointed.


As for The Catcher in the Rye and Gatsby I rate them both highly as well. :thumbs_up

Of course you do. I'm yet to find a text that I dislike and you agree with me on! :D

[mono]

Having just finished Madame Bovary I cannot help but feel disappointed. I came to the book with such great expectations and I was left not caring at all for the novel. Now, the previous book I had read was Anna Karenina. Both novels deal with similar themes. I absolutely loved Tolstoy's novel. Perhaps then, that's why I was disappointed with Madame Bovary, because it, for me, doesn't compare to Tolstoy's work. Flaubert's novel just seemed a little overrated.
I have always connected Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary in my brain as well. In terms of plot development, I preferred Anna Karenina - a fantastic story; in respect to character development, psychology, and writing styles, I strongly prefer Madame Bovary, and call it one of the most epic novels in Realism. Flaubert wrote about topics nobody dared speak of, let alone publish, explaining why he had to bypass French laws in order to even distribute it - who can deny the pretentious, neglecting, self-loathe of Emma Bovary, the passive, push-over nature of Charles, the passionate (yet eventually heartless) ways of Léon, the manipulative, frivolous Rodolphe? On the surface it can seem a dull novel, but the profound quantities of psychology, especially behavioral, overwhelmed me with fascination - only in few novels have I felt so soaked into the pages, saturated with its characters.
Oh well, different tastes for different readers. As Neely mentioned, perhaps you read a poorer translation, as in its original French form, Flaubert renowned himself in finding and writing "le mot juste."

Madame Bovary is one of the bigger disappointments of my reading life. I could barely summon enough interest in the eponymous heroine to make it through. Much the same can be said for Crime and Punishment. Where others see a deep and layered psychological exploration, i see an intellectually shallow, one - note flop.
Ouch! :eek:

I'd have to say the three novels that have disappointed me most are Wuthering Heights, The Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby.

For WH (if you haven't read my thoughts on it in another thread) I think I was hoping for something akin to Jane Eyre, which I loved. I found a copy in a second hand bookstore and couldn't wait to read it, thinking 'I loved Emily's sister's novel so if this is anything like it I'll no doubt love this too'. Instead, I found a number of horrible characters with no redeemable qualities, a melodramatic plot and writing style, and general disappointment.

To be honest I don't remember much about Catcher. I think that was the problem; it was just so nothingy. Not worth the hype.

As for Gatsby, I don't dislike it. My problem with it was that it had been hyped so much that I was expecting something more. My friend gave me the novel for Christmas just before I was going to start studying it at university. She told me that it was her favourite novel and I absolutely had to read it. I was really excited by the thought of reading such a highly recommended book but it didn't live up to my expectations. I kept waiting for a moment...some sort of epiphany or something...and it just didn't come.
Ouch again!
Wuthering Heights seemed a very unique novel in its time, and continues to prove its sharp genius even in contemporary times. With my favoritism for Emily Brontë over her sisters, Charlotte and Anne, I always called her the "Brontë with a brain," feeling relieved when reading her novel over her sisters, all of which I have read, too. In order for publication, female authors got stuck in this genre of higher-end romance, something along the lines of a worker-class-woman-usually-a-governess-or-servant-or-heiress-of-the-family-estate-is-lonely-may-not-realize-it-falls-in-love-with-mysterious-man-finds-happiness-in-societal-conformation-marriage-and-children template, copied and pasted by writers like Jane Austen and Charlotte and Anne Brontë; Virginia Woolf would later poke fun at this fact, too, in her lifetime. Authors like Emily Brontë, George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), George Sand (Amandine Dupin), and Kate Chopin, some of whom took up masculine pen-names to avoid the stereotype that "women ought to write this-or-that way," dared to step out of that impeded creativity. Indeed, while having to read Wuthering Heights, I expected something similar to Jane Eyre, too, which I also enjoyed most parts of, but thought it a beautiful work of genius.

[Emil Miller]

Try Klingon next. :nod:

Excuse my ignorance, but what does Klingon mean?

[Drkshadow03]

Excuse my ignorance, but what does Klingon mean?

Klingon is a language and alien race from Star Trek (wikipedia link here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon)).

[Emil Miller]

Klingon is a language and alien race from Star Trek (wikipedia link here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon)).

Thank you, that it explains it. I never watch trash TV.

[Drkshadow03]

Thank you, that it explains it. I never watch trash TV.

Heh. If you think Star Trek is trash TV you don't ever want to watch Jerry Springer. ;)

[LitNetIsGreat]

Cool posting Mono. :thumbs_up

Certainly nobody can call WH run-of-the-mill romance, quite the opposite it is a highly unique work. I think it is often a misunderstood text. Also Madam Bovary becomes a great novel due to the writing style alone.

Another writer I am disappointed in is Dickens - and Great Expectations is highly overrated (go on Dark Lady, that is one you love yeah?;)) Nobody can dispute the fact that he is a master of constructing good sentences, but pphhfff, there is no real substance to the greater picture; the result is simply tedious.

[Drkshadow03]

Another writer I am disappointed in is Dickens - and Great Expectations is highly overrated (go on Dark Lady, that is one you love yeah?;)) Nobody can dispute the fact that he is a master of constructing good sentences, but pphhfff, there is no real substance to the greater picture; the result is simply tedious.

What didn't you like about Great Expectations? You don't think he had anything to say in that novel?

[Emil Miller]

Heh. If you think Star Trek is trash TV you don't ever want to watch Jerry Springer. ;)

Who's Jerry Springer?

[promtbr]

Again I so love this forum. It never dissapoints everytime I come back to it! One can always find here, future dustmotes dissing titans of literature, either from not being properly entertained, or having a bad hair day when reading.

Before you walk away dissapointed from Madame Bovary, give A Sentimental Education a try...who knows, you can have another overated novel to ad to your lists.:D


---

[Dark Lady]

Ouch again!
Wuthering Heights seemed a very unique novel in its time, and continues to prove its sharp genius even in contemporary times. With my favoritism for Emily Brontë over her sisters, Charlotte and Anne, I always called her the "Brontë with a brain," feeling relieved when reading her novel over her sisters, all of which I have read, too. In order for publication, female authors got stuck in this genre of higher-end romance, something along the lines of a worker-class-woman-usually-a-governess-or-servant-or-heiress-of-the-family-estate-is-lonely-may-not-realize-it-falls-in-love-with-mysterious-man-finds-happiness-in-societal-conformation-marriage-and-children template, copied and pasted by writers like Jane Austen and Charlotte and Anne Brontë; Virginia Woolf would later poke fun at this fact, too, in her lifetime. Authors like Emily Brontë, George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), George Sand (Amandine Dupin), and Kate Chopin, some of whom took up masculine pen-names to avoid the stereotype that "women ought to write this-or-that way," dared to step out of that impeded creativity. Indeed, while having to read Wuthering Heights, I expected something similar to Jane Eyre, too, which I also enjoyed most parts of, but thought it a beautiful work of genius.

Whilst I hate to disagree with Virginia Woolf I think it is too dismissive to say Charlotte and Anne's novels are formulaic romances. I do see what you're saying but I still think that the other two sisters were very radical in their ways. Critics of the time were not altogether chuffed with their heroines!


Another writer I am disappointed in is Dickens - and Great Expectations is highly overrated (go on Dark Lady, that is one you love yeah?;)) Nobody can dispute the fact that he is a master of constructing good sentences, but pphhfff, there is no real substance to the greater picture; the result is simply tedious.

Neely you know me so well! As it happens I am rather fond of Great Expectations. I think I have been shockingly remiss with my Dickens as I have only read three of the great man's works. Out of the three I have read I would probably put Great Expectations at the bottom. However, I half suspect this is only because I read it longer ago and so can't remember it as well.

I think with Dickens it is important to remember he was writing in serial form. So, unlike many novels where the writer had the chance to go back over what they had written to fine tune it once they fully knew where the rest was going Mr Dickens did not have that opportunity. Once the installment was written it was away out of the door and he had to carry on from there. I think this, along with his style in general, can lead to some tedium but I wouldn't say he is lacking in substance.


I feel like I have given both you and Mono much shorter replies than I could but I promised myself I would avoid posting on here this morning and get some writing done. The pull of this forum was just too much for me!

[Madame X]

Thank you, that it explains it. I never watch trash TV.

Hehe, but if you're gonna read trash literature you might as well read it in its proper element, not so? :brow:

[LitNetIsGreat]

What didn't you like about Great Expectations? You don't think he had anything to say in that novel?

I don't think he had much to say in any of his novels, though he could say it well. It's not that I dislike him, and I have championed extracts of his writing in particular cases, it's just that I feel the overall picture is pretty tedious. It is like reading a well constructed soap opera, at the end of the day no matter how well it is written it is still a soap opera. And as for little Pip-squeak I could kick him in the youknowwhere.

I'm stopping in a hotel where he wrote David Copperfield shortly which almost inspired me to read it, but no.


Neely you know me so well! As it happens I am rather fond of Great Expectations.
:lol:


Out of the three I have read I would probably put Great Expectations at the bottom. However, I half suspect this is only because I read it longer ago and so can't remember it as well.

That's probably two more than necessary.


I think with Dickens it is important to remember he was writing in serial form. So, unlike many novels where the writer had the chance to go back over what they had written to fine tune it once they fully knew where the rest was going Mr Dickens did not have that opportunity. Once the installment was written it was away out of the door and he had to carry on from there. I think this, along with his style in general, can lead to some tedium but I wouldn't say he is lacking in substance.

Yes, yes, the serial form thing is understandable but at the end of the day you can only judge the novel by the novel. As the for substance I think it is pointless looking, better to take them for what they are, (extremely sometimes) well written soaps. Yawn.

[Drkshadow03]

I don't think he had much to say in any of his novels, though he could say it well. It's not that I dislike him, and I have championed extracts of his writing in particular cases, it's just that I feel the overall picture is pretty tedious. It is like reading a well constructed soap opera, at the end of the day no matter how well it is written it is still a soap opera. And as for little Pip-squeak I could kick him in the youknowwhere.

Yes, yes, the serial form thing is understandable but at the end of the day you can only judge the novel by the novel. As the for substance I think it is pointless looking, better to take them for what they are, (extremely sometimes) well written soaps. Yawn.

Interestingly when you described Dicken's plots as well-written soap operas I knew exactly what you meant. There is definitely an soap opera quality to his work. Nevertheless, I also think there is a more substantial moral point and societal analysis happening in his work.

Great Expectations for example in a broad abstract sense deals with themes of unrequited love, class divisions, how money and status change people, wrongful assumptions about people versus society's expectations about them, etc. Dickens continually deals with class issues in his fiction and genuinely emotionally understanding something vs. superficial knowledge of it.

All the themes tie back together at the end of Great Expectations.

Estella says towards the end of the novel: "There was a long hard time when I kept far from the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth" (450-1).

I think this quote sums up the entire novel and ties all the themes together. Pip and Estella underestimate the worth of individuals because of the values Mrs. Havisham and society instills in them (to never love, to value money and status rather than individual worth, to see individuals as their status rather than as full-fledged human beings). When Pip becomes rich he is embarrassed by Joe who until then was such a great friend. He is embarrassed and scared of his criminal benefactor, but eventually sees a deeper dimension in him. He doesn't recognize their true worth because his values are all warped by money. Jaggers and Wemmick also fit into this theme, especially Wemmick. At work he puts on his capitalist professionalism, cold, hard, cynical, but at home he tenderly cares for his Aged parent. There is a deeper human dimension to the character that shocks Pip when he first discovers it.

The point being money and society blinds people to others' humanity.

I personally think that is a pretty substantial theme that plays out in a lot of unique and interesting ways throughout Dicken's work(s), but as they say on the internet your milage may vary.

[Barbarous]

Interestingly when you described Dicken's plots as well-written soap operas I knew exactly what you meant. There is definitely an soap opera quality to his work. Nevertheless, I also think there is a more substantial moral point and societal analysis happening in his work.


Criticizing Dickens for a 'soap opera'-like plot, etc is virtually doing the same for all of the 19th century literature. Dostoevsky, Flaubert, etc....

[mono]

Whilst I hate to disagree with Virginia Woolf I think it is too dismissive to say Charlotte and Anne's novels are formulaic romances. I do see what you're saying but I still think that the other two sisters were very radical in their ways. Critics of the time were not altogether chuffed with their heroines!
Quite dismissive, yes, but difficult to deny, and nearly impossible to ignore all of the millions of similarities of characters, plots, and themes; that this seemed the only route to publication, for a female author to "sell out," just as many authors have always done and continue to do today, other than novels like Wuthering Heights, The Awakening, Middlemarch, Silas Marner, and such classics, one can practically pick a book off the shelf, read 10 pages into it, and know roughly what will occur. Charlotte Brontë perfected the art of rhetoric; out of all of her novels, especiallyVillette, I thought her language use entrancing, her descriptions remarkable, her individual character-depth astounding, but I feel she still lacked the original plot that her younger sister, Emily, could only connive (I just remembered Dr. Alfred Adler, a psychologist famed for his developmental theory, always considered creativity a quality more of middle-children than eldest or youngest :lol:). I thought all of the Brontës amazingly talented writers, and I enjoyed all of their novels (yet snoozed a bit through Agnes Grey), but feel that Charlotte and Anne sold out into that Jane-Austen mentality that in order to get successfully published, women writers must follow this-and-that template; it all seemed way too easy to understand, and reading something in-depth into it, which many have attempted with Austen, seemed a lot like leading one's self on, rather than finding a pearl in the oyster shell.
Trends like these exist, and always will. During the Romantic era, a poet practically had to have a graduate degree in Greco-Roman mythology in order to write well (sarcasm, of course); the English and Irish flight-of-consciousness writers of the early 20th century gained high acclaim in their time; no one can deny the Dickensian verbosity popular in 19th century English and American literature, which would leave no irrelevant crack in the wall undescribed; post-Renaissance literature obsessed about heroics and chivalry. The trends undoubtedly persist even today, and will come clearer once the early 21st century drifts into the past, but some writers prefer squeezing themselves into these common areas of thought and rhetoric, and a few others step outside the boundaries of acceptance, think beyond the common societal values, and write the forever unwritten by any other hand. Perhaps Anne and Charlotte had that ability, too, yet, unlike Emily, they refused to utilize an obviously familial talent.

[Drkshadow03]

Criticizing Dickens for a 'soap opera'-like plot, etc is virtually doing the same for all of the 19th century literature. Dostoevsky, Flaubert, etc....

Good think I wasn't the one doing the criticizing. ;)

[meh!]

Quite dismissive, yes, but difficult to deny, and nearly impossible to ignore all of the millions of similarities of characters, plots, and themes; that this seemed the only route to publication, for a female author to "sell out," just as many authors have always done and continue to do today, other than novels like Wuthering Heights, The Awakening, Middlemarch, Silas Marner, and such classics, one can practically pick a book off the shelf, read 10 pages into it, and know roughly what will occur.

You can, and that's part of the beauty of them. Everyone always know the ending, that makes the game how it comes about. It's just a different emphasis.

[Emil Miller]

Again I so love this forum. It never dissapoints everytime I come back to it! One can always find here, future dustmotes dissing titans of literature, either from not being properly entertained, or having a bad hair day when reading.

Before you walk away dissapointed from Madame Bovary, give A Sentimental Education a try...who knows, you can have another overated novel to ad to your lists.:D


---

I'm one of the future dustmotes who likes to be entertained as well as informed. Oh, and incidentally, I have read both Madame Bovary and L'Education Sentimentale in French and in this dustmote's opinion the second book was better than Madame Bovary and I have since read it again. I am also of the opinion that Zola's Therese Raquin is better than Bovary.

[kiki1982]

Criticizing Dickens for a 'soap opera'-like plot, etc is virtually doing the same for all of the 19th century literature. Dostoevsky, Flaubert, etc....

I don't agree with that. A lot of that literature has more to it than the story. I also have the same problem with Dickens. I just... there is nothing to read for me, certainly not something that should be that long anyway.

[Emil Miller]

Hehe, but if you're gonna read trash literature you might as well read it in its proper element, not so? :brow:

Possibly, but I can honestly say that I never read trash literature.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Originally Posted by Barbarous
Criticizing Dickens for a 'soap opera'-like plot, etc is virtually doing the same for all of the 19th century literature. Dostoevsky, Flaubert, etc....



I don't agree with that. A lot of that literature has more to it than the story. I also have the same problem with Dickens. I just... there is nothing to read for me, certainly not something that should be that long anyway.

Me neither. Dostoevsky is a world away from Dickens for one.

[Barbarous]

I don't agree with that. A lot of that literature has more to it than the story.
One cannot find more than the plot in Dickens? Why is he still widely read?


Me neither. Dostoevsky is a world away from Dickens for one.

Obviously, Dickens and Dostoevsky have different aims in writing, but I've heard (and famous writers, such as Nabokov for one, agree) both of them compared to soap operas. It's not a wild claim, seeing how both writers revolve around plot (now go, bite my head off Men of the Underground for saying Dostoevsky revolves around plot). Novels like The Idiot and Demons are closer to Dickens, than the titanic depth of The Brothers Karamazov or Crime and Punishment, but even then I suppose one can make the case. Now I'm not in love with Dickens' work or anything, the novels I read by him were appreciable yet so-so, but I don't think he should be either ruled out due to simple plot based novels, he's is not the one penning Twilight now. But if he's a disappointment to you, well that's you and that's wholly understandable.

[kiki1982]

@Barbarous:

Because most people just read the plot? I don't know, ask them. For me he repeats himself too often so you get bored. Hugo does not repeat himself, although he fills 1000s of pages. Austen one also reads for the plot, but there is always a slightly philosophical question at the end of that plot, be it a woman-question... How do I see life? how should we see it?

Dickens was a brilliant writer in periodical form. If one publishes his stories monthly or weekly one needs to repeat oneself in order to avoid people who have forgotten what the story was about. But if you put that into a book and read it in one go, it becomes annoying (at least that is what I find).

On the other hand, Dumas also wrote for periodicals and he does not repeat. On the contrary, missed a detail? Shame for you because it is important for later.

But hey, this is a personal opinion-thread. We cannot say that 'you must like, because it is a classic'.

[Dark Lady]

Yes, yes, the serial form thing is understandable but at the end of the day you can only judge the novel by the novel. As the for substance I think it is pointless looking, better to take them for what they are, (extremely sometimes) well written soaps. Yawn.

I think there is a lot of substance to Dickens, though. He addresses such a range of social and political issues. I would say one of the reasons I perhaps rate Great Expectations lower than Bleak House and Oliver Twist (the other two Dickens novels I've read) is because I don't remember him doing this in it as much. I do know what you mean about the soap opera feel, his characters are often caricatures and his plots always end up with some convenient coincidence or dea ex machina, however, I think it is doing him a diservice to write him off for that. There is still a lot going on there. The way he shows the interelatedness of his many many many characters in terms of their relationships and also their place in society is extremely intricate and complex. And the way he addresses issues of poverty juxtaposed with extreme wealth, or corruption alongside morality, is also very skilled.

When he wrote about the poor districts in Bleak House it was because he had seen these things and was outraged by them. When he wrote about the child corruption in Oliver Twist it was because it appalled him. And these books are saturated with these social commentaries and satires. Yet he manages to include these observations in a way that doesn't make his novels didactic or preachy. I just think there is a lot more there than soap operas dressed up in exquisite writing.

Okay. I'll take a deep breath and remember this feeling the next time I criticise Henry James or Emily Bronte! ;)


Quite dismissive, yes, but difficult to deny, and nearly impossible to ignore all of the millions of similarities of characters, plots, and themes; that this seemed the only route to publication, for a female author to "sell out," just as many authors have always done and continue to do today, other than novels like Wuthering Heights, The Awakening, Middlemarch, Silas Marner, and such classics, one can practically pick a book off the shelf, read 10 pages into it, and know roughly what will occur. Charlotte Brontë perfected the art of rhetoric; out of all of her novels, especiallyVillette, I thought her language use entrancing, her descriptions remarkable, her individual character-depth astounding, but I feel she still lacked the original plot that her younger sister, Emily, could only connive (I just remembered Dr. Alfred Adler, a psychologist famed for his developmental theory, always considered creativity a quality more of middle-children than eldest or youngest :lol:). I thought all of the Brontës amazingly talented writers, and I enjoyed all of their novels (yet snoozed a bit through Agnes Grey), but feel that Charlotte and Anne sold out into that Jane-Austen mentality that in order to get successfully published, women writers must follow this-and-that template; it all seemed way too easy to understand, and reading something in-depth into it, which many have attempted with Austen, seemed a lot like leading one's self on, rather than finding a pearl in the oyster shell.
Trends like these exist, and always will. During the Romantic era, a poet practically had to have a graduate degree in Greco-Roman mythology in order to write well (sarcasm, of course); the English and Irish flight-of-consciousness writers of the early 20th century gained high acclaim in their time; no one can deny the Dickensian verbosity popular in 19th century English and American literature, which would leave no irrelevant crack in the wall undescribed; post-Renaissance literature obsessed about heroics and chivalry. The trends undoubtedly persist even today, and will come clearer once the early 21st century drifts into the past, but some writers prefer squeezing themselves into these common areas of thought and rhetoric, and a few others step outside the boundaries of acceptance, think beyond the common societal values, and write the forever unwritten by any other hand. Perhaps Anne and Charlotte had that ability, too, yet, unlike Emily, they refused to utilize an obviously familial talent.

Okay. I do agree with you to an extent. However, I do think that both Charlotte and Anne rocked the boat more than you're perhaps giving them credit for. I know Emily and other female writers like George Elliott flouted the female narrative and plot traditions more but I still think that there are some surprises in Charlotte and Anne's works. They did hide behind predictable plots but they used them to make their points. In Jane Eyre Charlotte openly critisises the so called 'charitable' orphans' institutions with her section at Lowood. And Anne goes even further to make points not really addressed about domestic abuse and women's limited marital and social power in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

I know you're not saying you dislike Anne and Charlotte's works. And I recognise that as much as I personally dislike Wuthering Heights, Emily was perhaps more brave in writing it than her sisters. I guess I just get very defensive over Charlotte and Anne!

[kiki1982]

Jane Eyre might have been a conventional plot (although it probably has become more so since the time that book was written than the contrary), but it certainly is not convenional like Austen is more so. There is much more of an intellectual base in Jane Eyre than in Austen (references, psychology and science).

[Barbarous]

But hey, this is a personal opinion-thread. We cannot say that 'you must like, because it is a classic'.

This I certainly agree with! When I read my first Dickens book, there was something that loosely reminded me of Dostoevsky...

[mono]

Okay. I'll take a deep breath and remember this feeling the next time I criticise Henry James or Emily Bronte!
:lol::lol:
No worries, Dark Lady, do not get yourself caught in a corner - we like a strong, raw, yet heartfelt discussion from time to time - all for good fun, and for the love of literature. If it makes you feel any better, I would not consider myself an immense fan of Henry James either, perhaps other than The Turn of the Screw and many of his short stories; in another thread, I even strongly defended William Somerset Maugham over him.

[Emil Miller]

:lol::lol:
No worries, Dark Lady, do not get yourself caught in a corner - we like a strong, raw, yet heartfelt discussion from time to time - all for good fun, and for the love of literature. If it makes you feel any better, I would not consider myself an immense fan of Henry James either, perhaps other than The Turn of the Screw and many of his short stories; in another thread, I even strongly defended William Somerset Maugham over him.

Mono,
It's no use quoting Maugham to a membership who, for the most part, don't know who he is because the majority of latter-day Americans are incestuously concerned with the likes of Salinger and Kerouac and fail to understand that their psyche is, and has been for quite some time, fully understood by Maugham as well as James.

[Drkshadow03]

Mono,
It's no use quoting Maugham to a membership who, for the most part, don't know who he is because the majority of latter-day Americans are incestuously concerned with the likes of Salinger and Kerouac and fail to understand that their psyche is, and has been for quite some time, fully understood by Maugham as well as James.

Actually us Americans are just too busy watching Jerry Springer and speaking Klingon.

I take it you don't like Salinger and Kerouac?

[mortalterror]

Actually us Americans are just too busy watching Jerry Springer and speaking Klingon.

I take it you don't like Salinger and Kerouac?

I'm actually more of a fan of The Howard Stern Show and French but the point is not entirely without merit. To me, Catcher in the Rye and On the Road are two of the best books ever written, and the independent streak in me is always a little flattered when foreigners talk disdainfully about the American character. My favorite is by D.H Lawrence.

"The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted."

I could only wish we were such a nation of badasses, but at least we're getting the message out.

[Drkshadow03]

I'm actually more of a fan of The Howard Stern Show and French but the point is not entirely without merit. To me, Catcher in the Rye and On the Road are two of the best books ever written, and the independent streak in me is always a little flattered when foreigners talk disdainfully about the American character. My favorite is by D.H Lawrence.

"The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted."

I could only wish we were such a nation of badasses, but at least we're getting the message out.

I was talking about us REAL Americans. French?! They're called freedom fries buddy!

You think Catcher in the Rye is one of the best books ever written? Why? Can you unpack that statement a bit? I find it interesting that someone loves Catcher.

[muazjalil]

Did not like Sartre 'nausea' ; it was below expectation. Same goes with orhan pamuk's my name is red, i thought it dragged on way too much. Love huxley's work, especially point counter point. Btw has anyone read h.g. wells non sci fi stuffs like ann veronica, meanwhile, aristocracy of mr parham etc, I loved them!!! Did you guys read poor folk by Dostoevsky, simply awesome.

N.B. i am among those people who watch trash stuffs like star trek and whats more abominable, i actually call myself trekkie LOL

[mortalterror]

I was talking about us REAL Americans. French?! They're called freedom fries buddy!

You think Catcher in the Rye is one of the best books ever written? Why? Can you unpack that statement a bit? I find it interesting that someone loves Catcher.

It's sort of an American Notes From Underground. You have your protagonist the anti-hero at war with himself and society, a textbook self-loather, existentialist intellectual, Hamlet type, frozen into inaction by his compulsion to overthink his situation and be better than the culture he despises. You have this ambiguous response to that world which he both longs to be a part of and scorns for the vices he alone seems able to distinguish. He interacts with people and has a habit of hyperbolizing and turning them into symbols of good and evil. The book deals with urban life, modern feelings of alienation, the transition from childhood to adulthood, sexual angst, a somewhat quixotic Grail questing hero searching for a meaning to his life. He's got to deal with his brother's death and his own burgeoning consciousness of mortality. In that way it's a little like Gilgamesh or in the way the character rambles around sort of bumping up against life Holden could be compared to the protagonist of Sartre's Nausea. It's a very deep book that captures the psychology of American adolescence exceptionally well.

[Drkshadow03]

It's sort of an American Notes From Underground. You have your protagonist the anti-hero at war with himself and society, a textbook self-loather, existentialist intellectual, Hamlet type, frozen into inaction by his compulsion to overthink his situation and be better than the culture he despises. You have this ambiguous response to that world which he both longs to be a part of and scorns for the vices he alone seems able to distinguish. He interacts with people and has a habit of hyperbolizing and turning them into symbols of good and evil. The book deals with urban life, modern feelings of alienation, the transition from childhood to adulthood, sexual angst, a somewhat quixotic Grail questing hero searching for a meaning to his life. He's got to deal with his brother's death and his own burgeoning consciousness of mortality. In that way it's a little like Gilgamesh or in the way the character rambles around sort of bumping up against life Holden could be compared to the protagonist of Sartre's Nausea. It's a very deep book that captures the psychology of American adolescence exceptionally well.

Hmmm, I never thought of the book as a modern day Hamlet. Not exactly what you said, of course, but I suppose Holden does have many of those qualities.

I think that it is a stunning example of first-person unreliable narrator done correctly. If anyone was trying to write a book with a first-person unreliable narrator I think this would be the book to check out. You have a very interesting analysis there.

[mortalterror]

Hmmm, I never thought of the book as a modern day Hamlet. Not exactly what you said, of course, but I suppose Holden does have many of those qualities.

I think that it is a stunning example of first-person unreliable narrator done correctly. If anyone was trying to write a book with a first-person unreliable narrator I think this would be the book to check out. You have a very interesting analysis there.

Oh, I think you could definitely go both routes with this character. Take Hamlet as your archetypal example. Is he sane? Is he crazy? Does he want people to think he's crazy? So many antiheroes are mixed up with themes of insanity and unreliable narratives. There's Yossarian, Humbert Humbert, Tyler Durden, Patrick Bateman. I wonder if we might even put Camus' character the stranger in this category, call it outsider fiction? When we recall that Holden is writing from some form of hospital either for his neurosis or because he caught something while sitting out in the cold at the end of the novel, there is a certain room for doubt.

The slant doesn't even have to be deliberate. The youth and innocence of Huckleberry Finn often skews the narrative to humorous effect. Should we rush to condemn and think the worst of Holden?

[Emil Miller]

Actually us Americans are just too busy watching Jerry Springer and speaking Klingon.

I take it you don't like Salinger and Kerouac?

Nope, teenage angst and beatniks are definitely not my cup of tea.