Overrated Books

[deguonis]

A superb Irish essayist and a British fiction-writer deliver their opinion about overrated books:

9285

Another extremely overrated book is The Catcher in the Rye.
I don't want to mention more overrated books because I'm afraid I would annoy some people.

[Jackson Richardson]

It seems a bit unfair to condemn John Dryden as overrated, when nowadays I don't suppose many literate people know who he was. He is undoubtedly the most significant and influential poet of his age, but all his works were occasional. As the very opposite of Romantic, I can't help but admire him, although nothing he wrote quite lives up to his reputation.

[Iain Sparrow]

Moby Dick... yes, definitely overrated.

And every word Jane Austen ever committed to paper, overrated.

[Jackson Richardson]

Jane Austen? You mean underrated, surely?

It is sad that on message boards, threads inviting negative comments always get more response than those inviting positive comments - not that I'd want a thread of unrelieved gush.

Well late at night, after half a bot of Quincy, with purely personal prejudices, here we go.

D H Lawrence, Shelley, Wordsworth, Charlotte Bronte, Thomas Pynchon, poor sweet William Cowper (who has probably sunk without a trace in the last fifty years but was considered a significant if minor poetic voice a few generations back), smug Lord Byron (public school arrogance at its sexiest worst) and Longfellow's Hiawatha (again a serious contender fifty years ago and now just a laugh).

[AuntShecky]

When I was in school I liked Dryden's poems and his play All for Love much better than anything I've ever read by William Blake, though Blake continues to be widely admired, especially by young people. Jane Austen can never be over-rated in my opinion. The Lord of the Flies and The French Lieutenant's Woman are two modern novels that are over-rated in the ever-increasingly humble opinion of yours fooly.

On American shores, Gone With the Wind, both the novel and the film, are greatly overrated. Yours fooly isn't really fully-qualified to speak about Faulkner or Hemingway, but I find the former's works tough to plow through. I have to admit that my youthful enthusiasm for Hemingway has waned in the long, long decades since high school. I tend to agree with Dwight MacDonald that The Old Man and the Sea is "mid-cult." (Middle brow.) Donna Tartt received all kinds of accolades, not to mention a ton of dough-re-mi for The Secret History. I read it when it first came out, and didn't think it was all that and a bag of chips, as the saying goes.

You didn't ask about movies, but while we're on the subject, I'm mentioning a couple of over-rated (IMHO) film makers. Hitchcock's appeal mystifies me. (Then again, I'll be the first to admit I'm an oddball.) Speilberg can get heavy-handed sometimes, but I really liked some of his films, like Empire of the Sun (starring a very young Christian Bale and based on a work by the under-rated novelist J. G. Ballard*) and A.I., most of it until the tacked-on ending.

*I'm glad you didn't ask who is under-rated, or I'd be here the rest of the afternoon.

Auntie

[PeterL]

I would agree that The Lord of the Flies is overrated, but things like this are purely a matter of personal taste. On the other hand, I can't see why anyone would think Dryden to be over-rated' I hadn't thought he was all that highly rated to start with.

One that I think is over-rated is Dickens; Although some of his writing was very good, but some of it was not.

[Jackson Richardson]

When I was in school I liked Dryden's poems and his play All for Love much better than anything I've ever read by William Blake, though Blake continues to be widely admired, especially by young people.

That's a bit like comparing Coca Cola and Veuve Cliquot. They have almost nothing in common apart from being liquid/poets. I can remember reading Dryden's rhyming tragedy Aureng Zebe and thinking this had great comic potential.



Jane Austen can never be over-rated in my opinion.

Totally agree, but I can quite understand readers not responding.

There's a difference in writers being over-rated in my mind because I'm just not on their wave length (I'd love to think I responded to Henry James but despite reading The Wings of a Dove twice, I just don't) and writers who I judge to be over-rated full stop (D H Lawrence would be my example - I can see how when he wrote readers would be awe-struck by A he being working class and B actually writing about sex and sex that women could be other than passive about. Maybe I'm just a repressed middle class gay graduate, but he does not light my fire.)

I suspect that it is not so much the writer themselves we find off-putting, but the enthusiasm of others. I can imagine someone being put off Jane Austen for that very reason (and the loss would be theirs.)

[stlukesguild]

"Overrated" seems to me to be a critical judgment that is itself... overrated. I have read a book that many others have found to be a great merit... yet I disliked it. As it is not possible that what I like and what is "good" are not one and the same, all those others must be wrong. Jane Austen and Herman Melville must be overrated.

Ultimately all judgments concerning art are but opinions...

But some opinion are better than others.:biggrinjester:





By the way, Auntie... you wound me when it comes to Blake... although I shall gladly take the role of one of Blake's YOUNG admirers.

[Lykren]

Overrated:

Orwell schmorwell
Huxley schmuxley
Robert Frost
Charlotte Bronte
D. H. Lawrence
Dostoevsky
Milton
and many others, I'm sure.

The last five on that list are worth reading, but it boggles the mind that anyone still reads Orwell and Huxley, let alone praises them. I think Shakespeare is overrated too, but since he really is a great, great writer I've left him off the list. The thing that bothers me about what people say about Shakespeare is 'greatest writer in the English language,' when, obviously, the competition for that award is between Jane Austen and James Joyce.

Like stluke said: my opinion is better than yours.

Oh, did I misquote? Apologies! :D

[MorpheusSandman]

Of all the canonical authors I've read, even though there were plenty whom I wasn't crazy about, the only one I thought was genuinely overrated was Dostoevsky. I suspect that were it not for his being a forerunner of existentialism he'd lose a great deal of his appeal. I never could shake the feeling that most of his plots/characters were just there as mouthpieces for whatever he wanted to say.


smug Lord Byron (public school arrogance at its sexiest worst)I suspect we have here yet another reader who has confused Byron's own persona with Byron's writings; his writings are probably the LEAST arrogant and sexist thing to come out of romantic poetry.


On American shores, Gone With the Wind, both the novel and the film, are greatly overrated.The film can't be overrated; it's one of the monumental glories of what the Hollywood studio system was capable of. There isn't a better crafted film (from every aspect; photography, set/costume design, production, etc.) in existence. The book, I didn't think, was all that highly rated nowadays...


Hitchcock's appeal mystifies me. (Then again, I'll be the first to admit I'm an oddball.) If anything, Hitch is still underrated; only Kubrick came close to the same level of technical perfection, but while Kubrick's films were always obvious art-house films that by some weird stroke of luck happened to appeal to mass audiences, Hitch's artistry was much more deeply concealed behind the popular genres he worked in, and they only reveal their depths once one REALLY starts to study/analyze them, hence why he's probably the most written about filmmaker in existence. Yet, despite all this, people still tend to to completely overlook those depths and just view them as genre films, and even if they reluctantly admit Hitch's technical achievements, they ignore his depths. I genuinely think Hitch was one of the 4 or 5 greatest artists of the century in any medium.


The thing that bothers me about what people say about Shakespeare is 'greatest writer in the English language,' when, obviously, the competition for that award is between Jane Austen and James Joyce.Both Austen and Joyce lacked Shakespeare's breadth. They carved out their own niches in which they dug quite deeply, but theirs are mere planets compared to Shakespeare's universe.

[stlukesguild]

I pretty much agree with all Morpheus has to say (above)... and so I must acknowledge his own superior critical acumen (and thus, my own). When once again he writes something that I disagree with, I shall brand him a fool as he no doubt shall richly deserve. :biggrinjester::prrr:

[Lykren]

Of all the canonical authors I've read, even though there were plenty whom I wasn't crazy about, the only one I thought was genuinely overrated was Dostoevsky. I suspect that were it not for his being a forerunner of existentialism he'd lose a great deal of his appeal. I never could shake the feeling that most of his plots/characters were just there as mouthpieces for whatever he wanted to say.

I never could shake the feeling that if there were no teenagers he'd lose a great deal of his appeal :)


If anything, Hitch is still underrated; only Kubrick came close to the same level of technical perfection, but while Kubrick's films were always obvious art-house films that by some weird stroke of luck happened to appeal to mass audiences, Hitch's artistry was much more deeply concealed behind the popular genres he worked in, and they only reveal their depths once one REALLY starts to study/analyze them, hence why he's probably the most written about filmmaker in existence. Yet, despite all this, people still tend to to completely overlook those depths and just view them as genre films, and even if they reluctantly admit Hitch's technical achievements, they ignore his depths. I genuinely think Hitch was one of the 4 or 5 greatest artists of the century in any medium.

My problem with Hitchcock, as well as Kubrick, is that I don't see much emotion behind the technical elegance (note that I find this more of a problem with Hitchcock than with Kubrick; Barry Lyndon seems to me a deeply humane movie). I could be missing something, but I've watched Vertigo about five times, Psycho about three, and about a dozen of his other films once or twice, and I still find myself looking for it. They're very good films, obviously, or I couldn't have stood watching them so often, but the more films I see the less impressed I am with Hitchcock's technique, let alone his depth. Vertigo might barely miss the cut for my top fifteen or so films, though. His subtlety, as impressive as it is, seems to me to come too neatly packaged, too without reference to human existence as it is genuinely experienced. But if you would be so kind as to detail what you feel and think when you watch his films, I'd be happy to read and think about what you say.


Both Austen and Joyce lacked Shakespeare's breadth. They carved out their own niches in which they dug quite deeply, but theirs are mere planets compared to Shakespeare's universe.

This seems untrue, especially so of Joyce. When I read Shakespeare, I thought to myself, "This is the pinnacle; language can go no higher; this must be the limit of what it can do, for it so perfectly renders my own existence." That's not surprising, since it's Shakespeare who basically defined the limits for what literature I had read before I got to Shakespeare; he had dominated the form to the extent that my expectations for literature were themselves invented by my indirect experience of Shakespeare's influence.

When I read Ulysses, however, my assumptions regarding what art could do, which Shakespeare had so entirely met, were cleaned away. To perpetually transform the known into the unknown seems to me the essence of Joycean art. To examine a day in the life of Leopold Bloom as it is rendered by Joyce seems to me to be more instructive and rewarding than to examine the entirety of my own life and mind; there is more to be found in the slightest jump and twitch of Joyce's language. It is, at one and the same moment, expressive (and how! the mere energy of it is transcendent) of hilarity and terror, the most profound infatuation and the bawdiest delight. Where Shakespeare moves from moment to moment, fluidly dramatizing a series of logically connected emotions, Joyce in Ulysses moves beyond time, fully realizing in words the simultaneous absurdity and meaningfulness of life, how it seems to stretch on infinitely before and behind us but also how each instant (neither discrete nor connected) contains its own miniature infinity, as well as how the mind seems to float among these two paradigms of vastness and of minuteness.

And Jane Austen. The greatness of Shakespeare is likely his ability to lay utterly bare the thoughts and feelings of his characters, and how those thoughts and feelings become, as we read them, our own. When I read Jane Austen, I am not only fully convinced that "...the greatest of these is Love", but I notice how, not only is that love as much mine, and as recognizable, as is Romeo's, the delicate constructions through which we all may attempt to communicate such love are there as well. In other words, her characters resound with a sound of mutual making; they truly exist in the same universe; the same Earth; the same England; and the same room, until the closeness of their being is so fully intimate and yet concealed that it obviates the need for suspension of belief. Love is transformed into life beyond life in those novels, and is thus monolithic; but then again, that monolith is expressed through the slightest of motions and phrases. There are storms beyond that politesse.

[Vota]

I would rate Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick as over-rated, but certainly worthwhile reads.

I can clearly see the impact Huck Finn must have had with the eventual anti-racist musing of the young protagonist. It was an enjoyable romp, but it was a light snack. I felt it was good for one read because I feel like I "got" most of what the book was saying even if there were some themes I "might" be missing.

Moby Dick is an odd one. I literally just finished reading it last night after spending about 3 weeks gradually pouring over it. It is a book that I enjoyed, but did not love. I was comfortable returning to it's depths each night, but not with giddy glee as the best novels do for me. Overall I feel it is a solid story. I actually quite enjoyed all the Cetological digressions. I rate Moby Dick as over-rated atm because I know I did not explore all it's vast roiling waves of thought completely. I believe it is worth another read many years from now when I have more great novels under my belt and a more experienced mind. I feel like I have read enough classic literature and have an adequate enough grasp of history to enjoy many things in Moby Dick, but that I require a continual strengthening of my ability to harpoon allegories as they appear in order to fully grasp the greatness of this book.

Therefore, Huck Finn is a one-time read, but warmly profitable. Moby Dick is at least a two-time read with several fathoms between each.

[Lokasenna]

I take St Luke's point about the discussion being subjective, so I suppose what we're engaged in is iconoclasm - taking something that is popular or occupies a place of significance, and trying to tear it down.

For what it's worth, I don't think Shakespeare, Austen, Dryden or Blake are over-rated - but I frequently voice my less-than-glorious opinion of Joyce, much to the chargrin of my modernist friends. If I really wanted to push the boat out, just to show how absurd subjectivity is, I could argue that pretty much anything written after about 1400 is over-rated in my opinion...

...it really is much easier to talk about things one thinks are under-rated...

[Iain Sparrow]

Jane Austen? You mean underrated, surely?



You read it correctly the first time, I certainly did mean overrated... and stop calling me Shirley.:)


A wickedly delightful review of Jane Austen, and one that I agree with, by one Charlotte Brontë...

"I have likewise read one of Miss Austen's works Emma—read it with interest and with just the right degree of admiration which Miss Austen herself would have thought sensible and suitable. Anything like warmth or enthusiasm; anything energetic, poignant, heartfelt, is utterly out of place in commending these works: all such demonstration the authoress would have met with a well-bred sneer, would have calmly scorned as outre and extravagant. She does her business of delineating the surface of the lives of genteel English people curiously well; there is a Chinese fidelity, a miniature delicacy in the painting: she ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound: the Passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy Sisterhood; even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition; too frequent converse with them would ruffle the smooth elegance of her progress. Jane Austen was a complete and most sensible lady, but a very incomplete, and rather insensible (not senseless) woman, if this is heresy—I cannot help it. If I said it to some people (Lewes for example) they would accuse me of advocating exaggerated heroics, but I am not afraid of your falling into any such vulgar error."

[MorpheusSandman]

I pretty much agree with all Morpheus has to say (above)... and so I must acknowledge his own superior critical acumen (and thus, my own). When once again he writes something that I disagree with, I shall brand him a fool as he no doubt shall richly deserve. :biggrinjester::prrr::biggrin5:

[MorpheusSandman]

I never could shake the feeling that if there were no teenagers he'd lose a great deal of his appeal :)This, too.


My problem with Hitchcock, as well as Kubrick, is that I don't see much emotion behind the technical eleganceThis is one fair criticism that one can make of Hitch, but I think one quality that he and Kubrick (Bunuel too) share is that they were both outsiders being critical of humanity rather than insiders indulging in what their characters felt. Their characters are usually far more "flawed" than your typical protagonists, and sometimes they're downright fools. So you might say that both are closer to satirical artists as opposed to romantic/emotional ones. This is especially true in films like The Birds or 2001 that seem to be more about humanity and its flaws that they are about any humans actually involved in the films themselves.


His subtlety, as impressive as it is, seems to me to come too neatly packaged, too without reference to human existence as it is genuinely experienced.There is definitely a kind of artificiality about Hitch's films; they're triumphs of precise writing and direction, not social realism; but the same is true of Kubrick. The world of his films are usually quite hermetic and "unreal" in a sense. They certainly don't have the same kind of gritty immediacy of life as it is lived that is omnipresent in Italian neoralism or even the films of Cassavetes. Yet, I think this artificiality feeds into both of their tendencies to be critics of humanity as opposed to documentarians sharing in their emotional plight. This is especially true of their late films in which there often aren't any characters that we're meant to emotionally identify with.


But if you would be so kind as to detail what you feel and think when you watch his films, I'd be happy to read and think about what you say.Well, it's no one thing I feel. If I had to sum it up I guess I'd say it's that each subsequent viewing provokes me to notice something or think about something I hadn't considered before. It took me probably 3 or 4 viewings until I finally "got" Vertigo, eg. I always had trouble with that mid-film "reveal" of the mystery, it always seemed like a flaw. What happened in the intervening years as I got interested in the theme of disillusionment in art, mainly through works like Evangelion and Hamlet that are very much about this. When I came back to Vertigo I suddenly realized the the tonal change I felt during that reveal was precisely the product of disillusionment, that the film sets us up to identify with Stewart's mystical-like perception of the mystery that is Madeleine. When the disillusionment happens, suddenly we go from empathetic viewers entranced by mystery to objective critics of Stewart's delusions; and one can consider all the implications of this that go far beyond the film, of how people DO get obsessed with their own illusions and delusions, attempting to make over and control reality to conform to their imaginations, even if this means hurting others. What is the significance of the vertigo itself? It's the thing that prevents us from coming into the truth, hence Stewart's own realization come hand-in-hand with him climbing the tower, and I very much think that the emotion felt during that climax is similar to that of Hamlet's own existential crisis of disillusionment.

Now, that's only one aspect of that film just touching on how its structure feeds into its themes; this isn't even touching on how the camera, eg, manipulates this as well; and I could just as easily say similar things about a great many of Hitch's films. I don't think most filmmakers have films that hold up to this kind of scrutiny or reward so many repeat viewings or careful analysis. Yet I do think this itself is a product of Hitch's precise writing/direction and artificiality, because reality lacks such precise structuring and viewpoints. So even if they have a certain unreality to them, I very much think they have a great deal to say about humanity through their artificiality and frequent lack of emotion and empathy.


This seems untrue, especially so of Joyce... To examine a day in the life of Leopold Bloom as it is rendered by Joyce seems to me to be more instructive and rewarding than to examine the entirety of my own life and mind; I can definitely appreciate this viewpoint, and I'm certainly not trying to impugn Joyce (or Austen) in any way (whom I do truly enjoy and admire in equal measure), but this still strikes me as, to quote Blake, "seeing a world in a grain of sand." I just think ultimately there's more, at least in terms to the breadth of humanity and its aspects that are addressed, in Shakespeare as opposed to Joyce or Austen. FWIW, I don't really disagree with any of your descriptions of Joyce, even finding the part about the infinite stretching of life before and behind us to be quite apt, nor Austen; I just can't get from there to declaring either better than Shakespeare. I suspect that there's not a whole lot of point in continuing this thread of the discussion since we don't seem to disagree much on the high quality of these authors, just on their value relative to each other; and I don't see that being solved by pointing to any objective qualities.

[Lykren]

I suspect that there's not a whole lot of point in continuing this thread of the discussion since we don't seem to disagree much on the high quality of these authors, just on their value relative to each other; and I don't see that being solved by pointing to any objective qualities.

Fair enough.


When I came back to Vertigo I suddenly realized the the tonal change I felt during that reveal was precisely the product of disillusionment, that the film sets us up to identify with Stewart's mystical-like perception of the mystery that is Madeleine. When the disillusionment happens, suddenly we go from empathetic viewers entranced by mystery to objective critics of Stewart's delusions; and one can consider all the implications of this that go far beyond the film, of how people DO get obsessed with their own illusions and delusions, attempting to make over and control reality to conform to their imaginations, even if this means hurting others. What is the significance of the vertigo itself? It's the thing that prevents us from coming into the truth, hence Stewart's own realization come hand-in-hand with him climbing the tower, and I very much think that the emotion felt during that climax is similar to that of Hamlet's own existential crisis of disillusionment.

Unfortunately I seem to have deleted an essay I wrote touching upon some of these same ideas. It was a comparison of Vertigo and Goodfellas, if you can believe such a thing!

My problem with the vertigo-as-metaphor, and Stewart's realization, is that to me at least the metaphor and its consequences feel rather blunt by the time they take effect, that is, they feel like cliches wrapped carefully in a lovely aesthetic and storyline. The combination of murder-mystery with the detailed examination of human folly, each quite interesting and beautifully done in their own regard, makes the whole a rather awkward artifice.

You might argue quite the opposite, that it's Hitchcock's ability to combine the two seamlessly that is most impressive. But I think some of the suspense is unnecessary to the introspection (or "exo-spection" if you feel Hitchcock is more commenting form the sidelines), and vice versa. Each element appears to me a little out of balance, a little inappropriate at times. Not that I think he shouldn't have tried for such an effect; it's a very admirable and intriguing way to do things; but in the end I simply feel that he was less successful at executing such subtleties than say, Kurosawa or Bergman. And here I suspect we will have to reach the same conclusion we did regarding Shakespeare-Austen-Joyce. But feel free to add fresh thoughts if you wish!

[mal4mac]

One that I think is over-rated is Dickens; Although some of his writing was very good, but some of it was not.

He's under-rated ever since George Orwell and F.R.Leavis did a hatchet job on him. Those two have been far too much over-rated themselves, and too many people took their second rate views as biblical truth. Fortunately, their views have waned, and Dickens seems, these days, to, mostly, be getting the praise he deserves. In my personal opinion, there is no more consistently great novelist, and many leading critics agree (e.g., check Harold Bloom's list...) Of course *some* of his writing was not great, some his early political journalism perhaps, but his novels are all wonderful.

[Jackson Richardson]

I thought once that Dickens' plots are so corny and his descriptions so compelling his travel writing would be better. So I read the Italian and American books. His novels are heaps better. He needed the corny melodrama, the grotesque characters, the wilting heroines, the sadistic father figures, the mysterious strangers, the lost inheritances and improbable coincidences to create an extraordinary range of imaginative worlds. He's best approached without much expectation of realism.

The other hatchet job on him was Oscar Wilde's jibe that you must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.

I've read The Old Curiosity Shop and the death of Little Nell is chilling - you don't see the death bed, only her grandfather's reaction after her death refusing to admit that it has happened.

[PeterL]

He's under-rated ever since George Orwell and F.R.Leavis did a hatchet job on him. Those two have been far too much over-rated themselves, and too many people took their second rate views as biblical truth. Fortunately, their views have waned, and Dickens seems, these days, to, mostly, be getting the praise he deserves. In my personal opinion, there is no more consistently great novelist, and many leading critics agree (e.g., check Harold Bloom's list...) Of course *some* of his writing was not great, some his early political journalism perhaps, but his novels are all wonderful.

Think what you like, but it won't improve his writing.

[Jackson Richardson]

[QUOTE=Iain Sparrow;1257272A] wickedly delightful review of Jane Austen, and one that I agree with, by one Charlotte Brontë...[QUOTE]

I don’t find that delightful at all. Smug, self-righteous, unimaginative and priggish, maybe.

It reminds me of the common evangelical response to ritual and symbolic religion – it can’t be authentic because it isn’t “sincere”, ie intense individual emotional response is the only authentic touchstone of truth.

Jane Austen did not dismiss human emotional response, but she was aware to an extent no other writer I know was of the extent to which we can deceive ourselves as to what our feelings and motivations are. I re-read Emma a few years ago and in every dialogue I was aware that what the characters said was at variance with what they felt or their situation. There's a whole chapter in which Mrs Elton and Mr Weston are making social chat at a party and not listening to each other - only going on about their own interests which in turn express their view of their status. (The very funny garrulousness of Miss Bates expresses her fear of poverty, loneliness and social ostracism which Jane, like Miss Bates the unmarried daughter of a deceased clergyman knew only too well. Jane knew about passion. She also knew that going on about it only disguises the complexity of our situation.)

[Jackson Richardson]

There are hardly two novelists of the C19 more different than Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. I love 'em both.

[Vota]

I have read one short story of Jane Austen's, and based off that I am willing to guess that she isn't over-rated at all. You basically get the story through letters to different people throughout, and even with very little in the way of any real kind of action or suspense, she sucked me in. I'm guessing Pride and Prejudice is going to be a joy.

[desiresjab]

Of all the canonical authors I've read, even though there were plenty whom I wasn't crazy about, the only one I thought was genuinely overrated was Dostoevsky.

There is no better empatic understanding of addictive gambling from inside the victim than that found in his The Gambler, and that is a minor work written hurriedly. If you are looking for the literary planning of Flaubert, it is not present in the Ruskie. He does not care about the butterfly he mentioned a hundred pages earlier.

[Lykren]

Did Dostoevsky mention butterflies?

[SilvanDitties]

Did Dostoevsky mention butterflies?

I think he was talking about Flaubert's attention to detail, compared to Dostoyevsky.

[Lykren]

Yeah, I was kidding.

[HSPS]

Of all the canonical authors I've read, even though there were plenty whom I wasn't crazy about, the only one I thought was genuinely overrated was Dostoevsky. I suspect that were it not for his being a forerunner of existentialism he'd lose a great deal of his appeal. I never could shake the feeling that most of his plots/characters were just there as mouthpieces for whatever he wanted to say.

I've only read The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, and Notes from Underground, but based on what I remember about Dostoevsky the person from my jag when I was younger, the only character that can really be called a mouthpiece for his personal views is Father Zossima. Nevertheless, whatever his intentions were in writing his novels, there is quite a bit to be admired. Even if he is praised more than he should be, one shouldn't let that deter one; he was a great writer.

Regarding Moby-Dick, I always get the feeling that those who say it's overrated merely dissent from what they see as received wisdom for the sake of dissent, and not because of an honest judgement of its literary merit. (Perhaps there's some lingering frustration due to its length and density mixed in there. ;)) I'm not exactly dispassionate, though, as Moby-Dick is extremely important to me.

To reply to AuntShecky's comment on Faulkner: his more difficult novels (e.g. The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying) need to be read slowly. I remember being so annoyed about three quarters of the way through the first section of The Sound and the Fury that I put the book down for a while. I came back when I was prepared to be more patient, and I adore it now. I would recommend Light in August and Sanctuary if you want faster reads, though.

[Jackson Richardson]

As a teenager in provincial, respectable England I was amazed to find Dostoevsky dealt with and took seriously the two unmentionables, sex and religion.

[MorpheusSandman]

Unfortunately I seem to have deleted an essay I wrote touching upon some of these same ideas. It was a comparison of Vertigo and Goodfellas, if you can believe such a thing!Just a thought: would you like me to start a thread on this Hitchcock tangent in the film/music forum? It seems wrong to continue it in an "overrated books" thread. Just let me know, as I'm more than willing to continue it. :)

[Lykren]

If you like, sure. I'm don't know how much more I have to say about Hitchcock, but if you post something I'll definitely respond.

[R.F. Schiller]

I've always found Toni Morrison's Beloved and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird quite overrated.

[PeterL]

In addition to threads of this ilk being pure personal opinion, there is the matter of false perception of other people's opinions.

[Iain Sparrow]

I've always found Toni Morrison's Beloved and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird quite overrated.



AHHHHHH!.. my head is going to explode.

To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite book of all time. Flawed though it may be, it's American Gothic at its very best! Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, that would be my second favorite novel... and it's not overrated either.:)

[R.F. Schiller]

AHHHHHH!.. my head is going to explode.

To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite book of all time. Flawed though it may be, it's American Gothic at its very best! Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, that would be my second favorite novel... and it's not overrated either.:)

Haha, sorry. "Overrated books" to me is essentially a listing of well-acclaimed classics that I personally don't like. I just feel like Harper Lee just tries to write with excessive sentimentality which annoys me. To me, American Gothic at its best is Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood and short stories ("A Good Man is Hard to Find", "The Life You Save May Be Your Own"). O'Connor actually shared my opinion of Lee as she called To Kill A Mockingbird "a children's book".

[qimissung]

I absolutely agree that "overrated books" is "essentially a listing of well-acclaimed classics" that one doesn't like. I happen to love To Kill a Mockingbird. Obviously it's not as hardhitting as Flannery O'Connor, but I think there's room in the pantheon of great books for many styles and genre's and levels of depth. If nothing else, TKAM has one of the most charming evocations of childhood that I have ever read.

My overrated classic? Certainly not Dostoevsky or Salinger or James or Melville. Maybe The Scarlet Letter. I'll let you know if I can ever bring myself to read it (all).

[JHG]

Attempting to distance my own personal tastes from the matter:

Hemingway, in general. Though I love his works, he is not the unchallenged paragon of all things American Literature, as some might preach.

Shakespeare, also in general. Count me as a fan. But his overwhelming popularity makes it hard for general education to address any other dramatists within 100 years of his lifespan.

Robert Frost, his common poems. Some of his lesser known works are refreshing.

[MorpheusSandman]

(Shakespeare's) overwhelming popularity makes it hard for general education to address any other dramatists within 100 years of his lifespan.General education often doesn't even address Shakespeare beyond maybe a single play (usually Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, or Julius Ceasar); most of the real addressing happens in college where there are courses on the dramatists of that era. Marlowe is pretty darn popular, and even Middleton is gaining in popularity.


Robert Frost, his common poems. Some of his lesser known works are refreshing.I, too, find his popular poems overrated (and often misunderstood, where the misunderstanding ironically triggers the popularity). Probably my favorite from him is the little known Maple (http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/robert_frost/poems/731).

[desiresjab]

The thing that bothers me about what people say about Shakespeare is 'greatest writer in the English language,' when, obviously, the competition for that award is between Jane Austen and James Joyce.

Why, you double eyed bloody ruffian!

Isn't Golding in general a bit of a middleweight for the Nobel prize?

[Lykren]

Who mentioned a Golding?

[Iain Sparrow]

Haha, sorry. "Overrated books" to me is essentially a listing of well-acclaimed classics that I personally don't like. I just feel like Harper Lee just tries to write with excessive sentimentality which annoys me. To me, American Gothic at its best is Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood and short stories ("A Good Man is Hard to Find", "The Life You Save May Be Your Own"). O'Connor actually shared my opinion of Lee as she called To Kill A Mockingbird "a children's book".


And perhaps both you and Ms.O'Connor are correct.
Compared to the masterworks that came before it, that dealt with racism and injustice; To Kill a Mockingbird is second rate. But where those great novels inspired admiration, To Kill a Mockingbird inspired action.

[Paulclem]

And perhaps both you and Ms.O'Connor are correct.
Compared to the masterworks that came before it, that dealt with racism and injustice; To Kill a Mockingbird is second rate. But where those great novels inspired admiration, To Kill a Mockingbird inspired action.

Creditable as that may be, as a work of literature it may still be overrated. As a catalyst for the times, then it is an important work if it did inspire action.

I agree with those who think The catcher in the Rye was overrated. I was very disappointed with it when I read it in my late teens.

As much as I like Kerouac, I also think he's overrated. Reading The Dharma Bums, for example, reveals that it is a good biographical account of youth and travel, but the Dharma part is hardly relevant despite the aspiration. A better title would be The Hedonism Bums. Perhaps his work addressed the pre-hippy aspiration for freedom and was very appropriate for its time. There is also an element of the mythic US individual, in there which strikes a chord and has great appeal. I do like the work, but does it stand up to the other greats in the same way? It may be that it becomes a relic of a time we remember, but which will become less and less so.

[Seasider]

Describing a work as overrated says more about the speaker than the work.

[R.F. Schiller]

And perhaps both you and Ms.O'Connor are correct.
Compared to the masterworks that came before it, that dealt with racism and injustice; To Kill a Mockingbird is second rate. But where those great novels inspired admiration, To Kill a Mockingbird inspired action.

I agree, To Kill a Mockingbird is far more important than most of its predecessors as it captivated a much larger audience. However, I don't rate novels by how many people they have influenced, but purely by its artistic value. In this sense Richard Wright's Native Son was a far better work in the mid-20th Century white-black racism genre for me, but is far less well known and taught in schools.

[Scout85]

I find it fascinating, yes it is very subjective but still interesting how opinions can differ so wildly. I'm interested in more recent books. For example, Gone Girl annoyed me, but most other people I know thought it was great.

[Paulclem]

Describing a work as overrated says more about the speaker than the work.

:lol:

Are we not allowed opinions? I thought it had been established that this thread was subjective and about opinions already.

[kev67]

I am a bit wary about calling recognised classics overrated, because, as Seasider says, it indicates more about your deficiencies as a reader than the author's as a writer. But on the other hand, maybe it is wrong to pose as a more perceptive reader than you really are. Therefore, no doubt great works of literature that did not do it for me:


Shakespeare's plays.
Don Quixote.
The Great Gatsby.
The Grapes of Wrath.
To Kill a Mockingbird.


My problem with Shakespeare is that is ever since school, it was drummed into us what a genius Shakespeare was; therefore I always examined his plays with super critical eyes. Whenever I watch one of his plays I think, 'Go ahead, amaze me.' It is like when I was a boy, my father told me what a fantastic actor Laurence Olivier was. After that, whenever he was on television, I could never just enjoy it; I always had to examine his acting to see how good it was (personally, the only role I thought he was good in was the Nazi dentist in the Marathon Man).

Don Quixote seemed like a joke flogged to death. I slogged through the first half. When I realised the second half was a joke of the first half, I decided to cut my losses.

The Great Gatsby was fine; it just did not seem to have the effect on me that it appears to have on others. Perhaps this was because I read it while scrutinizing it for evidence that Jay Gatsby was mixed race passing for white (I think he might have been).

The Grapes of Wrath - bleak and depressing. I am suspicious of authors who always give their books miserable endings. I can see that sometimes that is the way of it, but sometimes I suspect authors give their books unnecessarily bleak endings so that everyone can tell it's great literature.

To Kill a Mockingbird - a lot of this book is great. I loved the evocation of Southern life. However, what that book is most famous for is the trial of black man wrongfully charged with the rape of a white woman. I thought the circumstances of that trial were just not very credible, even for then.

[tonywalt]

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen - It's not just that he's a depressing writer (and that's coming from someone who loves JM COETZEE) it's just not a realistic portrayal of an American family. I also find his constant insertion of certain political views irritating. I've not read Corrections.

I also echo Scout85 on more recent books - sometimes I think we should be called the Classical Literature forum(save it for another thread though:)

[Poetaster]

The Great Gatsby was fine; it just did not seem to have the effect on me that it appears to have on others. Perhaps this was because I read it while scrutinizing it for evidence that Jay Gatsby was mixed race passing for white (I think he might have been).

What makes you think that?

[kev67]

What makes you think that?

Well there was one bit where Gatsby refers to his very short, curly hair, I think. The main reason is the scene in which the racist character, the husband of the woman Gatsby loves, challenges Gatsby about his Oxford University background. Gatsby explains that away quite nicely, but someone brings up race. The girl says something like, "We are all white here." Maybe not, maybe all the "Old Sport" talk was not to show everyone that he went to Oxford University, but to hide that he was black. He was definitely hiding something. There was an academic from an American university who pointed out numerous other clues. For example, I think the colour yellow was important, but I did not pick up on them.

[Poetaster]

Well there was one bit where Gatsby refers to his very short, curly hair, I think. The main reason is the scene in which the racist character, the husband of the woman Gatsby loves, challenges Gatsby about his Oxford University background. Gatsby explains that away quite nicely, but someone brings up race. The girl says something like, "We are all white here." Maybe not, maybe all the "Old Sport" talk was not to show everyone that he went to Oxford University, but to hide that he was black. He was definitely hiding something. There was an academic from an American university who pointed out numerous other clues. For example, I think the colour yellow was important, but I did not pick up on them.

I don't think I can accept that to be honest. I remember that scene you mention, though not word-for-word, and all I took from it was that he was trying to hide a less 'legitimate' side; that Gatsby didn't have the background of the 'man of quality' that he was so desperately trying to portray himself to be, and that he might have at one time been involved in organized crime. I will admit though, that I didn't read it with the mind to working out Gatsby's ethnicity, so there might be something I've missed.

Colour in the novel is important, as it often shows longing, like the green light from Daisy's manor that Gatsby stares longingly at. The tragedy of Gatsby is that he wasn't proud of who he was, and tried so hard to be someone else. Ethnicity can come in to this, but I don't think it does in this case.

[Jackson Richardson]

My problem with Shakespeare is that is ever since school, it was drummed into us what a genius Shakespeare was; therefore I always examined his plays with super critical eyes. Whenever I watch one of his plays I think, 'Go ahead, amaze me.'

I know what you mean, kev67. And when faced with the entire work of an artist, I'm very wary about saying my favourite is the one everyone admires. So I'd plump for Emma rather than Pride and Prejudice or anything by Rossini rather than Il barbiere di Siviglia. At one point I was prepared to argue that Corinolanus was Shakespeare's greatest tragedy. (Having seen it on stage, it is rather repetitive apart from the stunning scenes with Coriolanus' formidable mum.)

[Emil Miller]

Well there was one bit where Gatsby refers to his very short, curly hair, I think. The main reason is the scene in which the racist character, the husband of the woman Gatsby loves, challenges Gatsby about his Oxford University background. Gatsby explains that away quite nicely, but someone brings up race. The girl says something like, "We are all white here." Maybe not, maybe all the "Old Sport" talk was not to show everyone that he went to Oxford University, but to hide that he was black. He was definitely hiding something. There was an academic from an American university who pointed out numerous other clues. For example, I think the colour yellow was important, but I did not pick up on them.

I've just checked and there is no reference to Gatsby's very short, curly hair. How on earth could Gatsby hide that he was black? :the whole suggestion is totally absurd. There seems to be a fixation with blacks and homsexuality among some readers of Gatsby that isn't in any way borne out by the author's text. I have read the book six times and never once found anything to suggest that Gatsby or Nick Carraway were anything other than heterosexual white males.

[qimissung]

I haven't read this article yet, but I googled "was Gatsby black" and it't the first thing that came up. This is the first that I ever heard that that might be a possibility. It would seem to me that Fitzgerald would make the idea a tad more overt; it would have been an important part of his persona, yet another thing to hide, and I just don't see it.


http://www.salon.com/2000/08/09/gatsby/

Gatsby was from a German American family and hailed from North Dakota. I suppose it's possible he was black, but it seems unlikely. And not very important.

[Iain Sparrow]

Actually, if Gatsby were a very light-skinned black with anglo-saxon features it'd mean he had pulled off the ultimate fraud.

This is an argument for Jay Gatsby being of mixed race... I have to admit, it's sort of intriguing...
http://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/1juix7/gatsby_is_black/

[desiresjab]

Who mentioned a Golding?

I don't think he has been mentioned yet. I wonder if anyone considers him a bit overrated. Personally, I don't know. I liked The Inheritors a lot.

[TheFifthElement]

I also echo Scout85 on more recent books - sometimes I think we should be called the Classical Literature forum(save it for another thread though:)

I echo your echo :D Very few people around here seem to read contemporary literature.

[tonywalt]

I echo your echo :D Very few people around here seem to read contemporary literature.

I just searched for Chimamanda Adichie on litnet and Nothing came up- pretty incredible. I'd honestly put her up against anyone past and current - and she's only in her late 30's.

[JBI]

Anything by Tolkien.

[mona amon]

Anything by Oscar Wilde, except for his dazzling aphoristic quips - "I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.”

[TheFifthElement]

I just searched for Chimamanda Adichie on litnet and Nothing came up- pretty incredible. I'd honestly put her up against anyone past and current - and she's only in her late 30's.
I'm reading Half of a Yellow Sun at the moment and so far so enthralled. I'd also put Evie Wyld up there with the greats - All the Birds, Singing is a work of art.

[Vota]

I would not list Shakespeare as overrated. Not for a second. I think the problem is that most people are introduced to him at too early of an age, which causes issues. I cannot pigeon-hole every high school kid as being incapable of truly appreciating Shakespeare, but the language used and the themes adressed, are quite frankly, outside the radar of a great many young students. It has nothing to do with being intelligent enough, and everything to do with lacking the patience and experience required to truly grasp the qualities of the plays.

If I had to sell someone on how amazing Shakespeare is in the fastest way possible, I would have this person peruse a large and comprehensive collection of Shakespeare quotes, and read Hamlet with some basic notes. I wrote an essay recently, and I needed some good quotes, so I was looking through my book of quotations and ended up reading half a dozen pages of Shakespearean quotes. All I can say, is that his genius, was opened to me, in a way that even my huge appreciation for the plays of his that I have read could not garner at the time. To me it is like reading the impressive aphorisms of Nietzsche. Seeing Shakespeare's most pithy sayings back to back was like that for me. It really shed light on how great he is for me.

[Lykren]

Anything by Oscar Wilde, except for his dazzling aphoristic quips - "I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.”

I agree; my favorite aphorism of his is, "Nothing worth knowing can be taught."


I would not list Shakespeare as overrated. Not for a second. I think the problem is that most people are introduced to him at too early of an age, which causes issues. I cannot pigeon-hole every high school kid as being incapable of truly appreciating Shakespeare, but the language used and the themes adressed, are quite frankly, outside the radar of a great many young students. It has nothing to do with being intelligent enough, and everything to do with lacking the patience and experience required to truly grasp the qualities of the plays.

If I had to sell someone on how amazing Shakespeare is in the fastest way possible, I would have this person peruse a large and comprehensive collection of Shakespeare quotes, and read Hamlet with some basic notes. I wrote an essay recently, and I needed some good quotes, so I was looking through my book of quotations and ended up reading half a dozen pages of Shakespearean quotes. All I can say, is that his genius, was opened to me, in a way that even my huge appreciation for the plays of his that I have read could not garner at the time. To me it is like reading the impressive aphorisms of Nietzsche. Seeing Shakespeare's most pithy sayings back to back was like that for me. It really shed light on how great he is for me.

I don't think being introduced to Shakespeare at an early age helps or hurts one's ability to like him later on, but I do agree that he can be hard for high-schoolers to enjoy. I didn't much at first, but about a year and a half ago I zipped through the complete plays with utter delight.

I don't believe, though, that the way to appreciate Shakespeare is through reading a selection of quotations (though that can be a very impressive experience); one of the special things about Shakespeare is the way his characters are as distinct from each other as if different people had written them. The interactions between them are carried out with shocking realism.

[Nick Capozzoli]

Moby Dick over-rated...I don't think so. Of the authors mentioned as over-rated, I might agree that Poe is one, but then I like reading him. In any case, I like Thom Gunn's ditty about Poe enough to repeat it here:

Though Edgar Poe writes a lucid prose,
Just and rhetorical without exertion,
It loses all lucidity, God knows,
In the single, poorly rendered English version.

[Vota]

I remember reading a book of essays by Richard Burton, and one in particular about Oscar Wilde. He said that Oscar Wilde's most entertaining aspect, were his flashy aphorisms, but that on closer inspection they lack substance.

"Nothing worth knowing can be taught" is a good example of one of these aphorisms that he spoke of. This aphorism sounds good, but when you start to critically think about it, you realize that it is complete bunk.

I can't remember who said it, but there is a quote somewhere that more or less says that only intellectually underdeveloped people cannot learn by example. We can be taught things that have already been proven to be true or good, so that we don't have to waste the time coming to the same conclusion. This doesn't mean critical thinking should not be in play.

[Jackson Richardson]

Oscar Wilde is over-rated as a person - he was deeply self indulgent and then tried to justify his selfishness.

However it is impossible to over-rate The Importance of Being Earnest. The aphorisms are the expression of the individual characters, showing up both them and their culture - "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever", (Miss Prism of her three volume novel) "The good ended happily, the bad ended unhappily. That is the meaning of fiction" and "Was your unfortunate brother married? - No - (Miss Prism bitterly) People who live solely for pleasure very rarely are" and (Miss Prism again on why the rector takes so many christenings) "I have often spoken to the lower orders on the subject, but they don't seem to know what thrift is." (The last quote is the funniest line in a play I know.)

And of course:

Jack: That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.
Algernon: The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

Algernon: Cecily is the sweetest, dearest, prettiest girl in the whole world. And I don't care twopence about social possibilities.
Lady Bracknell: Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can't get into it do that.

[JCamilo]

The importance of Being Earnest is the best play ever written in english. Done, overated it for you.

[Lokasenna]

The importance of Being Earnest is the best play ever written in english. Done, overated it for you.

Well... there are some who would argue that. I'm not one of them, but still...

[AuntShecky]

The importance of Being Earnest is the best play ever written in english. Done, overated it for you.

It's not Hamlet, but it's pretty damn good.

[JCamilo]

But it is overating, as anything can be overated (or under), no matter how good or bad it is. Harold Bloom argument that Shakespeare is the center of Western Canon? Overating Shakespeare impact on non-english cultures. Shakespeare still great.

[Lykren]

But it is overating, as anything can be overated (or under), no matter how good or bad it is. Harold Bloom argument that Shakespeare is the center of Western Canon? Overating Shakespeare impact on non-english cultures. Shakespeare still great.

Right, anything can be overrated. Bloom is particularly guilty of overrating Shakespeare. In his interview with The Paris Review, he began a sentence by saying, "But increasingly it seems to me that literature, and particularly Shakespeare, who is literature..." which is ridiculous. Shakespeare's oeuvre does not contain all that literature has to offer.

[prendrelemick]

It's all opinion in the end.

I approached Catcher in the Rye with the right reverence and expectation, and was very disappointed. If I'd picked it up at random, to read on a train say, I don't think I'd've liked it much, but I wouldn't have felt such disappointment. It was the wide gulf between expectation and experience that means I found it the most overrated book ever. (so far)

[WICKES]

Anything by Oscar Wilde, except for his dazzling aphoristic quips - "I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.”

I once heard the professor of poetry at Oxford say on the BBC that Oscar Wilde's stuff was worthless except 'The Ballad of Reading Jail'.

[Whosis]

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, hands down.

[Whosis]

A lot of the new mainstream authors would make that list for me, particularly John Grisham (The Testament). I think we have to keep Stephen King though. Horror is more of a new thing, so we need him. I would put Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad high up on that list. I would be interested in what else you think is awful. I think I would only be offended insofar as to openly disagree if you said The Grapes of Wrath was bad, but who knows? Maybe you've said too much already with The Catcher in the Rye. Almost everyone who reads that book loves it. Was it that you were too old to relate? Because I read it in high school and could relate. I read A Wrinkle in Time too late, which is why I think I disliked it.:rolleyes: