Disappointment

[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.


---

[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?

[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.

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 ). 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.


---

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?

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'.