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troglodyte22
Male,
13-17
Midwest US
Joined: 4 yrs, 8 mos ago
10,381 Posts
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Sunday 7/16/06 - 8:19:32 PM
This has probably been done before, but oh well. List some of the books which you think are incredibly overrated. State why you think they're overrated. I'll start. To Kill A Mockingbird- I hate how everybody heaps praise onto this book, and I can't believe it was chosen to be read by practically every student in the nation. Is it well-written? Yeah, I guess, but so many other writers (Carson McCullers comes to mind) have covered the same themes that Harper Lee did, and did a much better job at it. Scout is an incredibly boring character. This is definitely NOT the best book written by an American author, in fact, it shouldn't even be in the top fifty. |
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mudgopher
Male,
18-29
Eastern US
Joined: 6 yrs, 8 mos ago
5,673 Posts
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Sunday 7/16/06 - 9:51:05 PM
Anything by Ernest Hemingway, Agatha Christie, or Mitch Albom. |
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Sunday 7/16/06 - 9:52:44 PM
Yeah, you're a tool. |
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Sunday 7/16/06 - 10:09:43 PM
How can 13-17 year olds have the temerity to blast the classics??
*sighs* Today's youth...the next generation ......of critics |
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mudgopher
Male,
18-29
Eastern US
Joined: 6 yrs, 8 mos ago
5,673 Posts
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Sunday 7/16/06 - 10:55:41 PM
On 7/16/2006 10:09:43 PM falconwing wrote:
How can 13-17 year olds have the temerity to blast the classics?? *sighs* Today's youth...the next generation ......of critics |
I'm almost 18, and you could EXPLAIN to me why they don't suck, and then I'd think about it. |
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Sunday 7/16/06 - 10:56:50 PM
How much Hemingway have you actually read anyway? |
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starfire1469
Female,
18-29
Eastern US
Joined: 6 yrs, 2 mos ago
4,668 Posts
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Sunday 7/16/06 - 11:34:09 PM
I will say that "Farewell to Arms" didn't do much for me.
I used to think that "The Great Gatsby" was an over-rated book even after the second time I read it. When I read it this last year, though, I absolutely loved it! It's become one of my favorites. I think you just need to give it a chance. |
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mudgopher
Male,
18-29
Eastern US
Joined: 6 yrs, 8 mos ago
5,673 Posts
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Sunday 7/16/06 - 11:37:58 PM
I read the sun also rises and the old man and the sea and started for whom the bell tolls, but I couldn't stand it. And one short story. There's just nothing special about it. |
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Monday 7/17/06 - 12:46:23 AM
Some books take a reader of maturity to appreciate. I am not criticizing the younger members who have posted and I certainly would not criticize their choices in literature. Some tastes take time to develop and some never happen. I am not a fan of EH either. I think that Christie's works are best read as period pieces. Informative and mildly interesting, but of another time and another place. |
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Monday 7/17/06 - 1:13:29 AM
As far as widely agreed upon classics go, pretty much anything by Dickens or Steinbeck. Great Expectations was mildly decent, but A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities, ick. The Grapes of Wrath is an great movie, but the dialect in the book was just painful to read. The Pearl was one of the top three worst books I've ever forced myself to finish. Ug. |
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Monday 7/17/06 - 1:21:51 AM
I also agree about To Kill a Mockingbird, but again the movie was excellent. In all honesty, I think the fact that I saw the movie first was part of the reason I didn't care much for the book. |
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bushrat
Female,
18-29
Australia / NZ
Joined: 5 yrs, 7 mos ago
525 Posts
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Monday 7/17/06 - 3:20:39 AM
I have to agree with To Kill a Mockingbird- i had heard so much about the book, and when i finally began to read it, i was expecting something really special. The book was okay, and it took courage for harper lee to publish a book about such a controversial issue when she did, but scout was very one-dimensional. i didn't begin to enjoy the book until the last few chapters. Jane Austen's Persuasion. Again, i had heard alot about Austen, and expected something great. This book was far from it. Elizabeth was more likeable than Anne, and at least she had some personality. the story was predictable, i knew what was going to happen the first time Captain Wentworth was introduced. I've never been a fan of romance as a genre, but from as so-called "classic", i expected more. yes, i am young, perhaps too young to understand the maturity of these texts, as some of you have inferred, but this is merely my opinion. I fail to see why people heap praise upon these books. |
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Monday 7/17/06 - 6:50:26 AM
The Awakening by Kate Chopin.
I can't see this as a feminist text. And I hate how it's being romanticized as being "the ultimate female sacrifice." It ends on a lovely image but it has no real substance to withhold the praise it recieves. |
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Avant-garde
Male,
18-29
Europe
Joined: 4 yrs, 10 mos ago
20,461 Posts
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Monday 7/17/06 - 6:53:03 AM
Middlemarch - George Eliot. The most difficult book I have had to read and it wasnt even rewarding. |
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Monday 7/17/06 - 9:30:01 AM
Regarding everything everyone has said about To Kill a Mockingbird, I agree completely. All points have been well-covered, and thus, that's all I shall say. |
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symphonic
Female,
18-29
Eastern US
Joined: 5 yrs, 5 mos ago
4,657 Posts
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Monday 7/17/06 - 12:53:20 PM
Dystopia novels? Perhaps I'm just oblivious to the perils of our society, but I get so sick of people going on about how 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 or anything Ayn Rand was simply fantastic, and how the themes parallel our current world. Parallels can be found in ANY work of literature. And yes, To Kill a Mockingbird. |
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Razzed
Female,
18-29
Canada
Joined: 4 yrs, 10 mos ago
2,807 Posts
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Monday 7/17/06 - 1:04:57 PM
I found "1984" to be extremely boring, inconclusive,dissapointing, and hopelessly depressing. It makes you think, but it was definitely not my type of book. |
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Monday 7/17/06 - 1:24:00 PM
I said it before, here I go again: Steppenwolf. Apparently the book was very influential for a whole generation but it just has nothing for me. I will never understand why anybody would want to read the repetitive selfcontemplation of that whiney loser. |
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Monday 7/17/06 - 3:40:52 PM
I generally lack the intellectual confidence necessary to condemn any great piece of literature, but I have to agree with those who don't understand the appeal of "To Kill a Mockingbird". It's a compelling story, yes, and made for a fantastic movie, but Harper Lee's writing style completely entirely lacks character. And I must confess that I am not a fan of Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar. Some of her other prose pieces are magnificent, and I'm finally starting to come around to understanding the appeal of her poetry, but The Bell Jar--as I remember it; it's been a couple of years since I've read it--seemed like a bleak and dull exercise in self-pity. |
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troglodyte22
Male,
13-17
Midwest US
Joined: 4 yrs, 8 mos ago
10,381 Posts
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Monday 7/17/06 - 4:10:46 PM
On 7/17/2006 12:53:20 PM symphonic wrote:
Dystopia novels? Perhaps I'm just oblivious to the perils of our society, but I get so sick of people going on about how 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 |
I actually loved both of those books, especially Farenheit 451, since it introduced me to Ray Bradbury.
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Monday 7/17/06 - 4:55:20 PM
On 7/17/2006 1:24:01 PM Matthias wrote:
I said it before, here I go again: Steppenwolf. Apparently the book was very influential for a whole generation but it just has nothing for me. I will never understand why anybody would want to read the repetitive selfcontemplation of that whiney loser. |
Maybe it got their motors running, and they headed out on the highway to look for adventure and whatever came their way. |
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Monday 7/17/06 - 6:38:57 PM
I know people are going to yell at me for this, but Perks of Being a Wallflower was overrated in my eyes.
I thought that the character was just an exaggerated Holden Caufield. THe writing style was smooth, yes but in it's simplicity I found it almost pandering and juveline. |
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symphonic
Female,
18-29
Eastern US
Joined: 5 yrs, 5 mos ago
4,657 Posts
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Monday 7/17/06 - 8:57:24 PM
Sometimes I wonder if I ruined the dystopia novel experience by reading too many in quick succession. I read Brave New World in eigth grade, and thought, "hmm.. this is quite interesting..." then 1984 and Animal Farm on my own in tenth grade, and Fahrenheit 451 was assigned in English. Just got sick of the genre... but Fahrenheit 451 definitely got the worst spot on my reading list; I'll try to fit in another Bradbury book sometime. I'm enjoying the recent wave of Holden Caulfield bashing.. What about the weekly/monthly bestsellers with praise pasted all over the covers? I barely read anything from those shelves at Border's.. there's too many and I can't choose. Are those books normally worthless? (If not, I might pick one up sometime.) |
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troglodyte22
Male,
13-17
Midwest US
Joined: 4 yrs, 8 mos ago
10,381 Posts
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Monday 7/17/06 - 9:56:10 PM
The Da Vinci Code- Do I really need to say anything? It's your standard beach-book, it just dealt with a controversial subject and played on people's skepticism to rake in the cash. I love how Dan Brown enjoys skewering small and unpopular religions to make money. What a great guy. |
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Monday 7/17/06 - 10:05:20 PM
The Catcher in the Rye...What a waste of my time... |
