Disappointment

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?

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

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

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...

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.

'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.

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Originally Posted by 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

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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.

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Originally Posted by Neely

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by Neely

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.

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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.

Always disappointed with War and Peace :(

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'.

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Originally Posted by sixsmith

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.

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:flare:

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Originally Posted by sixsmith

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'.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

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.

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Try Klingon next. :nod: