# Most overrated books in history?



## Ever2222

The most obvious and slightly cliche answer for me would be the Twilight trilogy: the character, especially Bella and Edward are extremely Mary Sue/Gary Stue types, and they have no real goals or ambitions. I don't mean to be a hater, because it is a cute book, but just like I said, it's overrated.

There probably won't much agreement about this but, The Lovely Bones: this has an excellent and orginal plot idea, but the writing wasn't my cup of tea. The characters are realistic by their personalities, but some of the actions are unbelievable. And the ending,  was Alice Sebold kidding? Although it's not uncommon for a crime investigation to never be solved, however there should have been some type of resolution.  

What do you think is the most overrated novel of all time?


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## Bloggsworth

Candide - Voltaire

Seven Pillars of Wisdom - T E Lawrence


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## moderan

I find Candide to be excellent.
My vote would be for anything by James Joyce. I find his work to be unreadable and opaque.


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## Sam

I agree with Mod. Joyce's work is among the worst I've ever read. Pure doggerel.


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## Deleted member 49710

I have never picked up a novel by Rousseau that I didn't want to throw against the wall. Sade is deeply boring as well. The entire 18th century was terrible as far as I'm concerned... oh wait, except for Dangerous Liaisons. Now that is an awesome book.

I also can't stand Tolkien, but accept that he revolutionized his genre and all that.

basically: if it's long-winded and self-important, I hate it.


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## moderan

Wait, what? Are you saying that de Sade was a pain?

drumroll, please.

And we are talking about novels, yes? Not beginning a religious discussion? Otherwise the field opens up dramatically.

I like Rousseau, but Henri, not Jean-Jacques.


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## Deleted member 49710

Religious discussion? I suppose you're referring to my blasphemous hatred of Tolkien? No, just cross my name off the "decent human being" list and we'll be done with it.


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## moderan

Not at all. I'm referring to "the Good Book". Your Tolkien line wasn't in your post when I answered.


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## Sam

Anything by James Patterson. Whoever told this guy he could write fiction -- such blasphemy it is to even call his work 'thrillers' -- is an idiot. In my opinion, of course, lest my words be considered invidious. 

Harlen Coben isn't miles better by any stretch of the imagination, but at least his plots don't move along at the pace of a tortoise.


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## Deleted member 49710

moderan said:


> Not at all. I'm referring to "the Good Book". Your Tolkien line wasn't in your post when I answered.


Ah. Never got all the way through that one, either. But yes, probably safest to stick with books that are undisputedly works of fiction.


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## moderan

lasm said:


> Ah. Never got all the way through that one, either. But yes, probably safest to stick with books that are undisputedly works of fiction.


Indeed, and there are so many. I'm a genre snob but I read everything. I remember Allen Drury, Sidney Sheldon, and Danielle Steel. I have read Barbara Cartland. And I consider Cormac McCarthy to be on their level. His work is stupefying to me. It's Don DeLillo-heavy litfic trying to put on sf clothes. I also loathe Margaret Atwood's work, for that same reason. She's a pantywaist LeGuin. Gimme the real sf. Kate Wilhelm or Pamela Sargent or the late Joanna Russ could write rings around Atwood without getting up from their easy chairs.
The Hunger Games trilogy is another-ripped off from Shirley Jackson's "the Lottery", Kate Wilhelm's "The Funeral", and Stephen King's "the Long Walk" and repackaged for the Twilight crowd.
People these days read so little, and have so little grounding even in the classics, that they take the slightest bit of pretentious drivel and append superlatives to it, and the audiences eat the stuff up.


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## Sam

_Ulysses. _

Has there ever been a more pretentious novel? It's like trying to read a book upside-down. A pointless waste of 900-odd pages, with no discernible story aside from Leopold Bloom traipsing around Dublin and spewing forth every thought that enters his mind. Molly Bloom's soliloquy? What! The worst chapter ever in English literature, lauded by self-professed literature 'experts' who claim there will never be another one like it in history. Too bloody right. One of them is enough. 

I would happily read _Twilight _over _Ulysses _any day.


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## moderan

Mm. Some folks claim that Dhalgren is in that league. I love Delany's work though. Allen Drury's Come Ninevah, Come Tyre is another "candidate". Utterly pretentious-I cannot understand the appeal. I never got Agatha Christie either, though I like most of the filmed adaptations of her work.


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## Ariel

I completely agree about "Lord of the Rings."

So glad it's not just me.  Literally I skipped the second half of the first book of "The Two Towers," and didn't miss a thing.  That, to me, is a travesty in writing.


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## Rustgold

Ever2222 said:


> The most obvious and slightly cliche answer for me would be the Twilight trilo



It can't be overrated when most people agree it's substandard.  In fact, I'd almost suggest it's not so bad as everybody suggests (which doesn't mean it's good).

But really, right from Dracula, I don't believe I've read many vampire books which beat a newspaper's role as toilet paper.  Actually, there's one, but it's a pre-teen book, and not really vampire, and slightly childish.

Patterson & Suzanne Collins are already mentioned.  Collins would make a better author if she stuck to pure action/combat (the other stuff in her books makes Twilight look good).

Maybe I've been unlucky, but I found Stephen King extremely boring.  I really tried to read his books several times.

My final suggestion isn't the worst book in history, and was many positive aspects to it, but was massively overrated.  Rowling's books read like a 3rd draft, characters come out of a cereal packet and are one dimensional, and there's precious little differentiation between these.  She's a great storyteller, but her books should never have been published in their unfinished state, and this makes them overrated.


Now for books which inspires fear with their mastery, we need an underrated thread don't we?


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## Kyle R

Sam W said:


> _Ulysses. _
> 
> Has there ever been a more pretentious novel? It's like trying to read a book upside-down. A pointless waste of 900-odd pages, with no discernible story aside from Leopold Bloom traipsing around Dublin and spewing forth every thought that enters his mind. Molly Bloom's soliloquy? What! The worst chapter ever in English literature, lauded by self-professed literature 'experts' who claim there will never be another one like it in history. Too bloody right. One of them is enough.
> 
> I would happily read _Twilight _over _Ulysses _any day.



I haven't read it (fortunately, it seems), but if I were to wager a guess, I would say it sounds like it was written in the late 1800's or perhaps the very early 1900's. I guess that only because it seems that back then, being an author was, at least among men, as much an exercise in mental prowess and stature, if not more, than it was for reader enjoyment.

AKA, being an author back then was about showing off how smart and educated and brilliant you were. Or, so it seems to me, whenever I read male authors from that time period. All about status. It's a bunch of show-offy writing to say, "Look at me, I am a writer. Forsooth! Be dazzled by my vast intellect, whereupon I shall render sentences unreadable through a complexory of bizzarrations and hyperbole verisimilitudes, and grammarparistic vwalthyshimshams!" 


19th century reader: "By George, this author is completely impossible to read! His genius must be off the charts!"

19th century reader braggart: "Indeed. I've read all his books you know!"


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## Olly Buckle

Bronte, Jane Eyre, I can see how it got its reputation in the first place, the exposure of social wrongs in schools and all that, I fail to see how it kept it, a ludicrous plot and factually inaccurate, nobody ever wandered off randomly onto distant a moor, discovered the only house there and found it was inhabited by relatives crucial to the plot, and children don't die of typhoid because the cook burnt their porridge.


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## Sam

Rustgold said:


> It can't be overrated when most people agree it's substandard.  In fact, I'd almost suggest it's not so bad as everybody suggests (which doesn't mean it's good).
> 
> But really, right from Dracula, I don't believe I've read many vampire books which beat a newspaper's role as toilet paper.  Actually, there's one, but it's a pre-teen book, and not really vampire, and slightly childish.
> 
> Patterson & Suzanne Collins are already mentioned.  Collins would make a better author if she stuck to pure action/combat (the other stuff in her books makes Twilight look good).
> 
> Maybe I've been unlucky, but I found Stephen King extremely boring.  I really tried to read his books several times.
> 
> My final suggestion isn't the worst book in history, and was many positive aspects to it, but was massively overrated.  Rowling's books read like a 3rd draft, characters come out of a cereal packet and are one dimensional, and there's precious little differentiation between these.  She's a great storyteller, but her books should never have been published in their unfinished state, and this makes them overrated.
> 
> 
> Now for books which inspires fear with their mastery, we need an underrated thread don't we?



While I won't deny that Stoker's _Dracula _is miles better than any vampire novel since its release, Le Fanu's _Carmilla _is for me the quintessential work on vampirism. It depicted empowered females long before they became the rage in 20th-century literature. There's nothing affected about the language, either, as Kyle made a point about above. It's just a straightforward story about vampires which was also the biggest influence for Stoker -- some say he stole the idea from Le Fanu. 

King is much an acquired taste. Some of his stories are entertaining, but many are bogged down in needless prose. If you have the patience to read it, _The Stand _is a marvellous piece of literature, but he could have cut half of it and still had one of the horror greats. Still wouldn't put a patch on Lovecraft -- or even Poe. 

Patterson is downright mediocre. _Along Came a Spider _is about the only one of his Alex Cross series which is readable. The rest are horrid.


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## Pluralized

I have to go with Dubliners by James Joyce. I've owned a small copy of that little anthology for years, and every time I pick it up, I'm dumbfounded. That's supposed to be one of the quintessential masters of literature, but I find it some of the most arduous reading. Same goes for Don Quixote, I have started and re-started reading that monster several times, only to cast it aside in disgust. I have read complicated prose, and been able to follow along with Umberto Eco as he rattles on about Rosicrucian Espionage, but there's a limit to how many useless words I can suck in before I implode.

Ulysses was a rough one too, as Sam said. I recall being forced to read it in school, and a recent attempt at reading it again left me frustrated. I should say, trying to read stuff like that, or The Nicomachean Ethics, or Thus Spake Zarathustra, it's all so arcane and dense, perhaps my modern brain cannot unfold the words with sufficient patience to really grasp and appreciate the overarching concepts and aesthetic at hand, which I'm told are important and profound. I'll just chalk it up to my own shortcomings, but I will also still maintain that a lot of early literature is needlessly self-important and long-winded. Makes me feel better, anyway.  

Life's too short to stare at pages reading the same sentences over, like Joyce makes one do, and conversely too short to waste valuable reading time on Patterson.


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## moderan

King often makes me do that too. He spends way too much time on inconsequentialities. I find that most "modern" writers do, especially after they become successful. Diana Gabaldon is a good example. Her books sell like hotcakes but she reuses the same descriptions over and over ("gimlet eyes" occurs at least seven or eight times per book) and doesn't seem to have done any original research since before the first book of her interminable series. My wife liked her stuff and recommended it to me. Bad idea. My inner editor perked up about midway through the first paragraph, and I read six books worth of "historical romance".
Awful stuff.
I think KyleColorado is absolutely correct about the "man of letters" mystique. And I think it continues to this day, in the "litfic" crowd. I can deal with Pynchon but the bulk of the critics' darlings leave me utterly flabbergasted. Cormac McCarthy, this means you. Don DeLillo, step right up.
The Stand is imo superceded by Robert McCammon's Swan Song, which is more or less about the same subject matter, without the direct deity-intervention and Judeo-Christian overtones that so spoil the reading for me. The Stand might as well have been written by neocon right-wingnuts Dennis Lehane and Tim LaHaye as far as I'm concerned, though I have to admit there is something indelible about Trashcan Man towing his bomb.
King himself may be the most over-rated and mislabeled writer in history. I like his shorter work and a couple of his novels-he's nonpareil at short stories, novelettes, even novellas. The longer forms kindle some form of verbal diarrhea (which he himself admits to, in those terms) and suffer from that surfeit. The lion's share of his things aren't horror, they're fantasy, and a goodly portion of those are romantic fantasy. His horror novels are ugly bad. "It" is possibly the most over-rated work in his canon. The clown, the spider, oh my. May they be sent into the shrieking gulfs of interstellar space by Tsathoggua or something.
Second the notion of Carmilla as the ultimate vampire yarn. Before it, there was only Polidori and Romania. But King's 'salem's Lot has a place too...written when he was younger and hungrier and less prone to lording it over his editor. As does McCammon's They Thirst, which has some unique twists on the theme (vampires go viral).


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## Deleted member 49710

A couple months ago I looked at some early King novels that I liked when I was younger, _Carrie_ and _Firestarter_, and was really surprised at how much headhopping he does. Like three different POVs in one scene. Made me wonder if this is something that only bothers people who know it's "wrong".

I would like to defend Charlotte Brontë--I don't think she actually argues that burnt porridge was the cause of the typhoid outbreak, but rather both are evidence of the unhealthy state of things at the school--but it's true, she relies on a heck of a coincidence when Jane stumbles upon her cousins. _Villette_ is a far better book than _Jane Eyre _in general, IMO.

I'd like to throw _The Hunger Games_ on the fire. I've only read the first couple chapters but Katniss really did nothing for me--just a two-dimensional stoic good girl--and the people in the capital city seemed like cartoon villains. Boring.


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## moderan

I don't mind head-hopping. I like it. Hunger Games was in post #11. It's a complete rip of three famous stories, interspersed with nonsense.


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## Olly Buckle

> she relies on a heck of a coincidence when Jane stumbles upon her cousins.


It made me laugh out loud when I read it, which I don't think was its aim, to be fair I am a bit of a pragmatist, and several of my female acquaintances remarked that it was their favourite book. I had also been reading Jane Austen just before, and she is so witty and funny and wonderful I think anything that followed would be a bit of a let down.


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## Deleted member 49710

KyleColorado said:


> I haven't read it (fortunately, it seems), but if I were to wager a guess, I would say it sounds like it was written in the late 1800's or perhaps the very early 1900's. I guess that only because it seems that back then, being an author was, at least among men, as much an exercise in mental prowess and stature, if not more, than it was for reader enjoyment.
> 
> AKA, being an author back then was about showing off how smart and educated and brilliant you were. Or, so it seems to me, whenever I read male authors from that time period. All about status. It's a bunch of show-offy writing to say, "Look at me, I am a writer. Forsooth! Be dazzled by my vast intellect, whereupon I shall render sentences unreadable through a complexory of bizzarrations and hyperbole verisimilitudes, and grammarparistic vwalthyshimshams!"
> 
> 
> 19th century reader: "By George, this author is completely impossible to read! His genius must be off the charts!"
> 
> 19th century reader braggart: "Indeed. I've read all his books you know!"


hate to be a jerk but I gotta say, let's at least make a rudimentary effort to find out what Joyce was up to before we call him a blowhard who's just showing off? The book was published in 1922. It's considered an example of the modernist movement in English language literature. Modernism, like all literary movements, reacts to its time in a number of ways-- I'm no expert on this, you can do the reading if you want-- it's not just a big burst of arrogance. You don't have to like it, but it is worth looking at the context and the goals of the book before you dismiss it as BS.


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## Sam

lasm said:


> hate to be a jerk but I gotta say, let's at least make a rudimentary effort to find out what Joyce was up to before we call him a blowhard who's just showing off? The book was published in 1922. It's considered an example of the modernist movement in English language literature. Modernism, like all literary movements, reacts to its time in a number of ways-- I'm no expert on this, you can do the reading if you want-- it's not just a big burst of arrogance. You don't have to like it, but it is worth looking at the context and the goals of the book before you dismiss it as BS.



When you take into account _Finnegan's Wake_, yes, Joyce is a pretentious git. He might have writing in a period of Modernism, but even he himself said he wrote many of his pieces to keep professors in work for 100 years. There's nothing, in my opinion, redeemable about any of his writings.


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## Kyle R

lasm said:


> hate to be a jerk but I gotta say, let's at least make a rudimentary effort to find out what Joyce was up to before we call him a blowhard who's just showing off? The book was published in 1922. It's considered an example of the modernist movement in English language literature. Modernism, like all literary movements, reacts to its time in a number of ways-- I'm no expert on this, you can do the reading if you want-- it's not just a big burst of arrogance. You don't have to like it, but it is worth looking at the context and the goals of the book before you dismiss it as BS.



I was simply commenting on the trend of male writers I've seen from that period. Like I said in the post, I haven't read Joyce (except for trying a few times at the bookstore and not being hooked), but I have read a few authors from the late 1800's early 1900's, and, aside from H.G. Wells (who I enjoy), I've found many of their writings to be on the self-congratulatory, show-offy end.

Maybe Joyce wasn't, but many of his contemporaries certainly were. It seems, to me, to have been part of the necessity of being a male writer back then. Prestige, respect, reputation, et cetera, I get a heavy vibe that all these things were on the mind of those authors when they put their words onto paper. It's hard not to notice.


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## Kyle R

moderan said:


> I don't mind head-hopping. I like it. Hunger Games was in post #11. It's a complete rip of three famous stories, interspersed with nonsense.



With _The Hunger Games_, in my opinion, its success had nothing to do with its plot.

When you talk to fans and read fan message boards, there's one prevaling theme among most all the conversations: the love story between Katniss and Peeta. It's all "Katniss and Peeta" this and "Katniss and Peeta" that.

The conversation on the rooftop, "I just wish I could think of a way to show them that they don't own me--that I'm more than just a piece in their games."; the parts where she has to fake love for the audience, though it starts to become real. These are what made Suzanne Collins a huge success.

The games part were just an excuse to raise the stakes on the Katniss-Peeta love story, IMO.

At least with a female market, if you get those sappy-romantic love moments in and do them well, everything else is just icing on the cake.


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## Dave Watson

The one that comes to mind for me is _Catcher in the Rye_. Granted, I read it while lying in bed suffering from a concussion following a snowboarding accident, but still, to me it just came across as pretentious waffling. Call me old fashioned, but I'm the kind of guy that likes a story where something actually happens!


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## Bloggsworth

While one may hate an author, it doesn't make them bad - I have no interest in any of the dungeons, dragons, dwarfs, vampires or werewolf sagas, but can agree that Tolkein and CS Lewis were very good _writers_ indeed, so my lack of interest in the stories they told doesn't make them over-rated. One needs to be able to seperate personal taste and critical faculties. I found Candide to read like a story written by a teenager and its, supposedly, philisophical points, simplistic; in fact nothing that your grandmother couldn't have told you...


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## Deleted member 49710

I guess I just think books should be judged, at least partially, on their own terms, with attention to their time and place. And to say that a book has no value because those terms are not the same as one's own strikes me as narrow-minded.


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## Olly Buckle

Waverly by Sir Walter Scott. I found a copy in a second hand shop, when I got to page eighty something, and that was a struggle. I found the rest of the pages had not been cut, over 100 years old and nobody had ever read the last three quarters at least, need I say more.


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## moderan

KyleColorado said:


> With _The Hunger Games_, in my opinion, its success had nothing to do with its plot.
> 
> When you talk to fans and read fan message boards, there's one prevaling theme among most all the conversations: the love story between Katniss and Peeta. It's all "Katniss and Peeta" this and "Katniss and Peeta" that.
> 
> The conversation on the rooftop, "I just wish I could think of a way to show them that they don't own me--that I'm more than just a piece in their games."; the parts where she has to fake love for the audience, though it starts to become real. These are what made Suzanne Collins a huge success.
> 
> The games part were just an excuse to raise the stakes on the Katniss-Peeta love story, IMO.
> 
> At least with a female market, if you get those sappy-romantic love moments in and do them well, everything else is just icing on the cake.


Why would I do that? That's self-abuse on an epic scale, going to Hunger Games fanboards and stuff. I hadn't even read the things yet and I understood what the source material was. Teen romantic junk is just that-junk. Younger folks are more in love with the idea of "luv" than the actuality. That's what these authors trade on.
I'm certain that audience would reject such as The Complete Alyx or Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang in favor of lurv stories. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how they work...but I dunno if I could dumb down enough to write em, so perhaps that's a form of subgenius in its own right.



Dave Watson said:


> The one that comes to mind for me is _Catcher in the Rye_. Granted, I read it while lying in bed suffering from a concussion following a snowboarding accident, but still, to me it just came across as pretentious waffling. Call me old fashioned, but I'm the kind of guy that likes a story where something actually happens!


I'm not a Salinger fan either. In 8th grade we had to read that and several by Paul Gallico. I preferred the Gallico.



lasm said:


> I guess I just think books should be judged, at least partially, on their own terms, with attention to their time and place. And to say that a book has no value because those terms are not the same as one's own strikes me as narrow-minded.


Likewise. But things must still stand the test of time, and it is that which lends perspective.


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## FleshEater

moderan said:


> The Hunger Games trilogy is another-ripped off from Shirley Jackson's "the Lottery", Kate Wilhelm's "The Funeral", and Stephen King's "the Long Walk" and repackaged for the Twilight crowd.



I have to bring this up...how can you not say that Hunger Games is a direct rip-off of Battle Royale??


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## moderan

Because I've never read it. I don't know what Battle Royale is, or care.


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## FleshEater

Well...for those that do, the Hunger Games author was taken to court over a plagarism suit. And, for the record, Battle Royale is amazing...well...at least the film adaptation. I haven't made it to the novel yet.


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## Lewdog

How about OJ Simpson's, "If I did It," or Jose Canseco's "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big."


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## moderan

Canseco's book was actually pretty good.


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## Ever2222

I have yet to read Battle Royale, however I do know the plot and it is actually jarringly similar.


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## Sam

_The Sound and the Fury _by Faulkner. Several expletives are called to mind when I think about it, none of them savoury. I commend you if you make it past the first page without desiring to gouge out your eyes.


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## Kyle R

FleshEater said:


> Well...for those that do, the Hunger Games author was taken to court over a plagarism suit. And, for the record, Battle Royale is amazing...well...at least the film adaptation. I haven't made it to the novel yet.



I haven't heard of Collins being taken to court. Are you sure it wasn't a hoax?

I did find that there is a lawsuit involving The Hunger Games, but that's the film franchise, and they are the ones doing the suing: someone has been making counterfeit film memorabilia and trying to sell it as genuine "THG" material.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/lionsgate-sues-protect-hunger-games-405093


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## Daevid

A lot of hate for Joyce in this thread. I think the criticism levied at him demonstrates readers approaching his works with a bad attitude. Books have varying degrees of accessibility, which is a wholly independent aspect than "quality." This means that on the far end of the spectrum there will be books that require a very daunting amount of initiation in order to read, or read with understanding. Joyce occupies this place. His books require not just a broad and specific vocabulary, but also (specifically Ulysses) an intimate knowledge of the literary canon. They're not for everyone, and I don't mean that in a condescending way. But the fact that they are exceptionally difficult says nothing of their quality, and criticizing a work for being challenging is a very empty criticism.

If you're unconvinced, consider this: People who live and die by Twilight, Fifty Shades, Hunger Games etc don't want to move on to books of greater 'depth' because they perceive them as bad in exactly the way many of you have found Joyce to be bad. Variants of Sam's comment on _The Sound and the Fury_, "I commend you if you make it past the first page without desiring to gouge out your eyes" has been said of probably every book ever written, because people of varying initiation perceive different books as difficult or boring.

Not to be overly negative or condescending, but I do think this thread comes too close to indulging the self-affirming desire to criticize that which one doesn't understand.

I'll contribute to the thread so as not to be a spoilsport: I think the most overrated book is Don Quixote, because many critics have cited it as a singular triumph of literature, while really I think it's just an intricate and epic comedy. I don't think its satire is challenging or profoundly insightful, and so while it has its place in history, I would not rank it near the top.


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## Rustgold

Thanks to the (white paper is racist) PC police, (many) rightwingers declare everything of Enid Blyton to be pure gold.  Saying that her writings were vocabulary limited 3rd rate garbage with hyper plot-holes, bad grammar, and poor quality patronizingly stupefying material is Communist talk apparently.  How on earth did her books get to be seen as 1950's quality children's literature?


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## Sam

Daevid said:


> A lot of hate for Joyce in this thread. I think the criticism levied at him demonstrates readers approaching his works with a bad attitude. Books have varying degrees of accessibility, which is a wholly independent aspect than "quality." This means that on the far end of the spectrum there will be books that require a very daunting amount of initiation in order to read, or read with understanding. Joyce occupies this place. His books require not just a broad and specific vocabulary, but also (specifically Ulysses) an intimate knowledge of the literary canon. They're not for everyone, and I don't mean that in a condescending way. But the fact that they are exceptionally difficult says nothing of their quality, and criticizing a work for being challenging is a very empty criticism.
> 
> If you're unconvinced, consider this: People who live and die by Twilight, Fifty Shades, Hunger Games etc don't want to move on to books of greater 'depth' because they perceive them as bad in exactly the way many of you have found Joyce to be bad. Variants of Sam's comment on _The Sound and the Fury_, "I commend you if you make it past the first page without desiring to gouge out your eyes" has been said of probably every book ever written, because people of varying initiation perceive different books as difficult or boring.



I've read almost every book under the sun in my lifetime, from Fitzgerald's _The Great Gatsby _to Sun Tzu's _The Art of War. _I don't mind reading a so-called 'boring' novel when the writing is good. Joyce's work, on the other hand, is the kind of avant-garde form-over-substance literary vomit that began circulating at the start of the 20th Century. _Ulysses _is 265,000 words of pure tripe, masquerading as an 'epic novel'. If there were any story in it whatsoever, it might be redeemable, but at best it's an ersatz _Odyssey;_ a 900-page collection of erudite gibberish.

To suggest I don't understand it, when you are very unaware what I do or don't understand, is an untenable position.


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## FleshEater

KyleColorado said:


> I haven't heard of Collins being taken to court. Are you sure it wasn't a hoax?
> 
> I did find that there is a lawsuit involving The Hunger Games, but that's the film franchise, and they are the ones doing the suing: someone has been making counterfeit film memorabilia and trying to sell it as genuine "THG" material.
> 
> Lionsgate Sues to Protect 'Hunger Games' Emblem - Hollywood Reporter




I thought I had seen it on Yahoo News, but can't find anything about it now.

Either way, the two are drastically similar.


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## Daevid

Sam said:


> I've read almost every book under the sun in my lifetime, from Fitzgerald's _The Great Gatsby _to Sun Tzu's _The Art of War. _I don't mind reading a so-called 'boring' novel when the writing is good. Joyce's work, on the other hand, is the kind of avant-garde form-over-substance literary vomit that began circulating at the start of the 20th Century. _Ulysses _is 265,000 words of pure tripe, masquerading as an 'epic novel'. If there were any story in it whatsoever, it might be redeemable, but at best it's an ersatz _Odyssey;_ a 900-page collection of erudite gibberish.
> 
> To suggest I don't understand it, when you are very unaware what I do or don't understand, is an untenable position.



My comment was not directed at any particular person and I'm sorry if you felt it was a direct challenge to your reading comprehension. I was making a generalized observation, which don't extrapolate to every individual. But your claim to have "read almost every book under the sun" is bizarre and more than a little silly. 

Do you think claiming the book is 900 pages of gibberish helps your claim to have understood it? Do you think there's a conspiracy in academia to value intellectually-void nonsense? I don't think everyone is obligated to like books just because they are famous, or "intellectual," or critically acclaimed, but you'll forgive me if I hold you to a higher standard of criticism than calling one of the pillars of twentieth century literature "literary vomit" and "gibberish."


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## Deleted member 49710

Sam said:
			
		

> I've read almost every book under the sun in my lifetime


I've gotta agree with Daevid on this statement, Sam. IIRC I'm about ten years older than you, I have an MA in a lit field plus three more years of grad school, and I wouldn't make this claim or anything near to it.

Here's another one: Zola's _Germinal _(maybe everything by Zola). I don't like novels where you know all the characters are all predestined to act like vice-ridden jerks and die stupid. And the writing's not that great, either.


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## Sam

lasm said:


> I've gotta agree with Daevid on this statement, Sam. IIRC I'm about ten years older than you, I have an MA in a lit field plus three more years of grad school, and I wouldn't make this claim or anything near to it.
> 
> Here's another one: Zola's _Germinal _(maybe everything by Zola). I don't like novels where you know all the characters are all predestined to act like vice-ridden jerks and die stupid. And the writing's not that great, either.



Obviously I wasn't being literal. Nobody has ever read every book under the sun. I have read enough to know that Joyce's work is among the worst I've ever encountered. And given the amount of excrement that exists in literature, that's saying something.


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## moderan

Seriously...so it's hyperbole. Whatever. I'll bet I've read more books than almost anybody, and anyway Sam has every right to express his opinion in any terms he so wishes. So does anyone else. At least according to whatever the Australian Constitution says, since the site's in Aus hands currently.
I do agree about Zola. And submit sentiments of the same nature about Umberto Eco. Strangely I adore Italo Calvino, though. He makes me want to learn Italian. I'm working on re-learning French and then I'll tackle Spanish. Why not do all of the romance languages? I had two years of Latin...four years of French, which enabled me to read Sartre and Camus and Victor Hugo in their original language. Those authors can be excruciating as well, depending on one's perspective.


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## Deleted member 49710

Sure he does. I think I have the corresponding right to point out that he's not the only well-read person in the room and that such statements give off a rather arrogant vibe. I'm not particularly interested in a pissing contest; I'm sure you have read more than me.

Ugh, Sartre.


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## moderan

I like me some Sartre. I'm particularly partial to No Exit and other plays, especially when I've had a couple. Goes good with a sauterne or cabernet.


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## Deleted member 49710

You're right, the plays aren't bad. I remember liking _The Flies_._ Nausea_ is the one I couldn't stand. Never got all the way through it despite having it as assigned reading twice.


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## moderan

Indeed. *tips cap* m'lady, it fair makes me "nauseous", and not in an existential way. And it's odd, because I cannot tolerate philosophy or theosophy as a general rule.


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## Daevid

moderan said:


> Sam has every right to express his opinion in any terms he so wishes. So does anyone else.


I will never understand why people respond this way to opinions being criticized. Criticizing an opinion does not mean you don't believe the person should be allowed to express opinions. And people being allowed to express opinions does not mean they're exempt from criticism.

Another book that I often think overrated is Animal Farm. As an allegory it has none of the nuance of the real world analogs the characters represent. I honestly consider this book a propaganda piece.


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## moderan

I agree with your assessment of Animal Farm. I wouldn't have agreed at age twelve when i first encountered it. It was everything awesome and anti-authoritarian rolled into one swell foop. 
Nothing, and nobody, ever, is/are exempt from criticism. I'm all for developing rational critical skills. I more-than-politely applaud that you have them.
On the other hand, Pink Floyd's Animals, a direct descendant of Animal Farm, is transcendent.


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## FleshEater

Overrated...William Faulkner Absalom! Absalom!

I still haven't made it through that waste of money.


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## Rustgold

Daevid said:


> I will never understand why people respond this way to opinions being criticized. Criticizing an opinion does not mean you don't believe the person should be allowed to express opinions. And people being allowed to express opinions does not mean they're exempt from criticism.


I wonder whether this may have contributed to the perception others may have had that you were stating people had no right to criticize.



> Not to be overly negative or condescending, but I do think this thread comes too close to indulging the self-affirming desire to criticize that which one doesn't understand.


It sounded like a statement that anybody who criticizes anything are only ignorant people with limited understanding.  It's just how it read to me.


That being said, yes it's important to understand the difference between personal tastes, and book quality.  For instance, I couldn't get past about page 5 of a Martina Cole book, or Artemis Fowl, and chapter 1 of A Game of Thrones stopped me from reading chapter 2.  Are these books over rated?  I don't know.  But having read other books, I can indeed establish an opinion as to their quality.

As for people 'not understanding a book'.  Surely part of a book's quality is whether its target readers can understand it?  If the average engineer can't understand a particular 'everyday' engineer's book, then maybe it's the book's fault.  And if 98.5% of intelligent adults (and particularly book savvy adults) can't understand a fiction story, then maybe it's the book which misses.


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## moderan

Some folks ride in on their high horses, others have to borrow one. I imagine it depends on how expertly one styles oneself.
For my part, I enjoy Faulkner, but not so Joyce. Some folks find poetry pretentious and unreadable. Other simply find poets pretentious and unreadable. Others like both. Who is right?
I am transported atop a sawhorse in the bed of a garbage scow, and occasionally I need to dump. It is good to see that others have similar needs.


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## FleshEater

From what I read from As I Lay Dying I enjoyed. However, Absalom! Absalom! is far different from that...long winded and is hard for me to follow. Mainly because I lose interest in his whole page sentences talking about, whatever.


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## moderan

Indeed. I enjoy his inventiveness. I do find that it smacks of pretense, but he's very good at what he does, and, as a consequence, I slog on. Strangely, that sentiment doesn't govern my appreciation of, say, Finnegan's Wake, despite the wonder of the central incident. I would much rather peruse Philip Jose Farmer's take on the matter (Riders of the Purple Wage), or have Cliff explain it to me, without the verbal procrastinations.


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## Pluralized

moderan said:


> I enjoy his inventiveness. I do find that it smacks of pretense, but he's very good at what he does, and, as a consequence, I slog on.



Precisely how I feel about Umberto Eco. In Foucault's Pendulum, particularly, the over-the-top descriptions of all things related to past secret societies wears thin, but I can't help but admire just how convoluted the story gets and how he can still keep from getting totally off topic. The Island of the Day After was a great read as well, but The Name of the Rose was totally overrated, IMO.

Curious moderan - what was it about Eco that put you off?


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## moderan

I really couldn't say. I did read at least the lion's share of all three named books, but retain little of the content in my poor fevered brain. Pacing issues, perhaps. The long-winded tend not to move the story along very rapidly. I did enjoy all of the scenesetting-especially the "secret societies" bit, though it  is dry. Foucault's Pendulum is undoubtedly a tour-de-force. It may just be that the boat wasn't working well at that time. I never re-embarked.
The Name of the Rose is possibly the driest piece of non-technical matter I've encountered. The Island of the Day After I read a very long time ago. I remember reading it, but it was returned to the bookstore for credit, an act which I rarely perform.


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## Daevid

Rustgold said:


> It sounded like a statement that anybody who criticizes anything are only ignorant people with limited understanding.  It's just how it read to me.



Sorry if it seems that way, but I did specify in my post exactly the kind of criticism I thought was empty and ignorant: criticizing a work for being incomprehensible.




Rustgold said:


> Surely part of a book's quality is whether its target readers can understand it? ... And if 98.5% of intelligent adults (and particularly book savvy adults) can't understand a fiction story, then maybe it's the book which misses.



I think the burden is always on the reader. I talked about the importance of initiation. Even the most intelligent individuals cannot simply sit down and solve multivariable calculus until they patiently study lower maths. It's the same with some of the most difficult authors. Sometimes a work requires you to have read many other works to understand the allusions, sometimes a work requires you to learn words you don't recognize, sometimes a work requires you to understand a culture. Being intelligent doesn't mean things should come easily to you. If a person doesn't enjoy struggling through a text slowly and doesn't want to read a book like Finnegan's Wake, more power to them. There's no "correct" motive for reading. But when that same person turns around and says its the book's fault for requiring more of them than they were willing to give, I think the criticism sounds exactly as shallow as it is.


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## Sam

Daevid said:


> Sorry if it seems that way, but I did specify in my post exactly the kind of criticism I thought was empty and ignorant: criticizing a work for being incomprehensible.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think the burden is always on the reader. I talked about the importance of initiation. Even the most intelligent individuals cannot simply sit down and solve multivariable calculus until they patiently study lower maths. It's the same with some of the most difficult authors. Sometimes a work requires you to have read many other works to understand the allusions, sometimes a work requires you to learn words you don't recognize, sometimes a work requires you to understand a culture. Being intelligent doesn't mean things should come easily to you. If a person doesn't enjoy struggling through a text slowly and doesn't want to read a book like Finnegan's Wake, more power to them. There's no "correct" motive for reading. But when that same person turns around and says its the book's fault for requiring more of them than they were willing to give, I think the criticism sounds exactly as shallow as it is.



Please go ahead and tell me what _Finnegans Wake _is about, because scholars of greater intelligence than most have been unable to answer that question. It was created for no other reason than to keep professors at Trinity College in work for a century, as Joyce himself alludes to in _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. _It was written in a lexicon alien to 99.9% of English readers, and ipso facto serves little purpose whatsoever. So, no, it is not shallow for someone to criticise such an endeavour. The purpose of writing is to create a piece of work that people can read, not to create one that will take years of research before it even begins to make sense. Therefore, in my opinion (and let's remember that I'm entitled to an opinion, whether you regard it as shallow or not) it is the most counter-intuitive and overrated piece of work I've thus encountered.


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## dolphinlee

Does anyone actually enjoy reading Thomas Hardy?

I find I want to slit my wrists afterwards. Does that make the books good or bad?


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## moderan

Somebody must. Not me. But then I might or might not consider putting forth a Dickens tome or two, or to dog Jean valJean.


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## Deleted member 49710

dolphinlee said:


> Does anyone actually enjoy reading Thomas Hardy?
> 
> I find I want to slit my wrists afterwards. Does that make the books good or bad?


I cried my eyes out over _Jude the Obscure, _so I definitely think it's an effective book. Not the greatest ever, but effective.

_WE ARE TOO MENNY. _ :upset: gah!


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## dolphinlee

Jude the Obscure certainly triggers an emotional response. 

How can someone who teaches himself the classics let himself be manipulated at every turn in his life? How could someone so intelligent make so many wrong decisions?

I think I prefer books where the hero is a more able to control their destiny.


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## Daevid

Sam,

This will be my last reply in this vein because I've said most everything I think I need to and I'm just going to try to make myself clearer.

But first, 


> (and let's remember that I'm entitled to an opinion, whether you regard it as shallow or not)



Again this insinuation that I am in some way an intellectual fascist, that I am trying to thought police, that I am trying to stifle opposition. This is a straightforward attempt to antagonize me. I'm critical of a particular way you value literature, and that's it. 

Our key difference of perspective is that I hold literature (and I would guess art in general) to a much looser standard of communication than (I think) you do, but more importantly to a much more subjective standard. Your claim that if a book  is indecipherable to a vast majority of the population it serves by definition little purpose is something I wholeheartedly contest. 

Consider the logical extremes of that claim: A book's value is inextricably linked with the size of the population that speaks the language it was written in. Ergo, a book written in Esperanto can never, ipso facto, "serve much purpose," unless it is translated. To the very few who speak Esperanto, they may discover their favorite work of all time, or a perfectly average book, or a mediocre one.




> The purpose of writing is to create a piece of work that people can read, not to create one that will take years of research before it even begins to make sense.




I don't think this is objectively the case. If I wrote a book that was an elaborate puzzle, and I designed the book to be solved rather than "read" in the conventional sense of the word, then the work would certainly be unconventional, but you could hardly criticize it for being confusing. The confusion is by design, the solution earned rather than imparted.

I do not understand Finnegans Wake. But I will never be comfortable categorically rejecting works of that nature. It is a bizarre book, but it is bizarre by design. I hope I've finally been clear in my defense of confusing literature.


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## dolphinlee

> SAM writing about _Finnegans Wake - _The purpose of writing is to create a piece of work that people can read, not to create one that will take years of research before it even begins to make sense.





> DAEVID - Our key difference of perspective is that I hold literature (and I would guess art in general) to a much looser standard of communication than (I think) you do, but more importantly to a much more subjective standard. Your claim that if a book  is indecipherable to a vast majority of the population it serves by definition little purpose is something I wholeheartedly contest.






> DAEVID - Consider the logical extremes of that claim: A book's value is inextricably linked with the size of the population that speaks the language it was written in. Ergo, a book written in Esperanto can never, ipso facto, "serve much purpose," unless it is translated. To the very few who speak Esperanto, they may discover their favorite work of all time, or a perfectly average book, or a mediocre one.



I'm sorry but I do not think that your argument holds water. Sam was talking about a specific book - Finnegan's Wake. You have taken his point about one book and made it a general point about all books. 



> A book's value is inextricably linked with the size of the population that speaks the language it was written in.



This is something that you have written. No one else suggested this. Although you have suggested that this idea is a logical extension I do not think it logical to go from a very specific point to a very broad general idea  when, in doing so, you bring in other factors like size of population and language to try to make your case.



> DAEVID - I think the burden is always on the reader. I talked about the importance of initiation. Even the most intelligent individuals cannot simply sit down and solve multivariable calculus until they patiently study lower maths. It's the same with some of the most difficult authors. Sometimes a work requires you to have read many other works to understand the allusions, sometimes a work requires you to learn words you don't recognize, sometimes a work requires you to understand a culture. Being intelligent doesn't mean things should come easily to you. If a person doesn't enjoy struggling through a text slowly and doesn't want to read a book like Finnegan's Wake, more power to them. There's no "correct" motive for reading. But when that same person turns around and says its the book's fault for requiring more of them than they were willing to give, I think the criticism sounds exactly as shallow as it is.



If I pick up a novel I expect to be able to read it. I may not understand it all because I do not have the background. That is all right. If I want to I can then make the effort to do the background work.  However, I do expect to understand any novel in English, that I have access to, at some level. 

If I pick up a novel in English and am unable to understand it, or it is so badly written (in my opinion) that I cannot continue to read it, then I believe that the writer has failed, at least as far as I am concerned. 

I would not make the same judgement on Non-Fiction books.


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## Rustgold

Daevid said:


> I think the burden is always on the reader.


So I can write the most incomprehensible dribble out, and it'll be the reader's fault if he/she doesn't get it?

Sorry, but the first purpose of a writer is to write something which the target reader will understand.  Fail this, and you have a plain fail.


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## Daevid

Rustgold said:


> Sorry, but the first purpose of a writer is to write something which the _*target reader*_ will understand.


My emphasis.

Compare this to what dolphinlee said, an opinion that is very widely held:



> If I pick up a novel I expect to be able to read it.




It's very rare indeed that I hear someone say, "I guess I wasn't the target reader." Far more common is:




> If I pick up a novel in English and am unable to understand it... then I believe that the writer has failed, at least as far as I am concerned.


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## dolphinlee

Daevid

If you are going to quote then quote properly. Please do not 'cherry pick' parts of a statement just to try to prove your point. 



> If I pick up a novel I expect to be able to read it. I may not understand it all because I do not have the background. That is all right. If I want to I can then make the effort to do the background work.  However, I do expect to understand any novel in English, that I have access to, at some level.


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## Daevid

dolphinlee said:


> If you are going to quote then quote properly. Please do not 'cherry pick' parts of a statement just to try to prove your point.


Genuinely sorry if you think I mischaracterized your post. To me the sentiment in the longer quote seems exactly same with regards to language, just making an exception for cultural references etc.


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## Thx

For myself, it was "Crime And Punishment".

Such a tedious book.

First it is chock full of long, complicated Russian names, hard to keep track of that lot.

Then, the incessant internal turmoil and breast-beating... if this one was sooooo sensitive and so eaten-up by guilt, it seems implausable he would have committed the crime in the first place.

So tedious and boring was the book, such a "chore" to read... I intentionally skipped the last 50 pages as sort of a personal protest: "I simply don't_ care _how it comes out."

Someone also mentioned "The Lord Of The Rings"... 

I didn't care for it either, and I suppose I must add the works of J.K. Rowling since she owes so much to Tolkien, although her "gobbledy-goop" names of characters and places are not as creative as Tolkien's.

Thx


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## Hunter56

I suppose these aren't the most overrated books in _history_ but they are books that I was really hyped up for and ended up being disappointed.

The first was The Dark Tower Book 1: The Gunslinger. I'm not saying anything about Stephen King as a writer since this is the only book by him I actually read but I thought the story was b-o-r-i-n-g. I did not care about any of the characters and had a hard time keeping interest throughout. I heard the series is suppose to really pick up in the other books but if I didn't enjoy the first one then I'm not going to read the other ones.

The second one is World War Z by Max Brooks. I only got through the first fifty pages because how it was written it became very repetitive. There was like five or so 'interviews' that all pretty much said the same thing over and over again: "Everything was all normal in *some part of the world*... Until the zombies came!"


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## Angelwing

I must say, I'm afraid to think highly of any author or book after reading through most of the pages of this thread  just kidding

The first time I heard the names of the characters from The Hunger Games, I was repulsed-"Katniss." "KAT-NISS." Or "Peeta." "PEE-TAH." My God, an A for originality, but an F for any sort of allure. "Cat" or "Kat" would have been just fine, but the extra "-niss" makes it sound plain weird. Not sure if pocket bread or organization name, for Peeta. 

Gotta think the author has a thing for urination...after all, it sounds like "Cat piss" and "Pee-ta"


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## Rustgold

Hunter56 said:


> I'm not saying anything about Stephen King as a writer since this is the only book by him I actually read but I thought the story was b-o-r-i-n-g.


Having tried & failed to read several King books for the same reason, I'd rate him a Mills & Boon type factory writer.



Angelwing said:


> The first time I heard the names of the characters from The Hunger Games, I was repulsed-"Katniss." "KAT-NISS." Or "Peeta." "PEE-TAH." My God, an A for originality, but an F for any sort of allure. "
> Gotta think the author has a thing for urination...after all, it sounds like "Cat piss" and "Pee-ta"


I actually suspect the author hates her readers, or at least has contempt for them.


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## Kyle R

Angelwing said:


> I must say, I'm afraid to think highly of any author or book after reading through most of the pages of this thread  just kidding
> 
> The first time I heard the names of the characters from The Hunger Games, I was repulsed-"Katniss." "KAT-NISS." Or "Peeta." "PEE-TAH." My God, an A for originality, but an F for any sort of allure. "Cat" or "Kat" would have been just fine, but the extra "-niss" makes it sound plain weird. Not sure if pocket bread or organization name, for Peeta.
> 
> Gotta think the author has a thing for urination...after all, it sounds like "Cat piss" and "Pee-ta"




The *Katniss *plant is also called the "arrowhead" plant. Scientifically, the Katniss plant is of the genus _Sagittaria_, and the constellation _Sagittarius_ is known as "The Archer". Arrowhead, archer, and Katniss uses a bow and arrow.

*Peeta*--> Pita (type of bread). He's also a baker's (bread-maker's) son.

*Panem -*-> Latin for "Bread".

"Panem et circenses" --> "Bread and circuses", the Roman motto to appease the people: give them food and entertainment, in the form of gladiators killing each other in the arena!


:encouragement:


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## Angelwing

KyleColorado said:


> The *Katniss *plant is also called the "arrowhead" plant. Scientifically, the Katniss plant is of the genus _Sagittaria_, and the constellation _Sagittarius_ is known as "The Archer". Arrowhead, archer, and Katniss uses a bow and arrow.
> 
> *Peeta*--> Pita (type of bread). He's also a baker's (bread-maker's) son.
> 
> *Panem -*-> Latin for "Bread".
> 
> "Panem et circenses" --> "Bread and circuses", the Roman motto to appease the people: give them food and entertainment, in the form of gladiators killing each other in the arena!
> 
> 
> :encouragement:



I did know about the connection to flower names and stuff, though not the extent. I guess you can hand the author that, but STILL, just the sounds of the names...


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## Fats Velvet

_The Sound and the Fury_.  The incomprehensibility of a work is often mistaken as a sign of genius, as if a reader should defer to the grandiosity of an artist's purpose instead of criticizing his muddled clarity.


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## ppsage

Faulkner has at times been my favorite author and that _The Sound and the Fury_ should be his most recognizable title I find cruelly ironic. Much overrated, at least of his opus.

Perhaps the most highly rated novels of the twentieth century are those of Ernest Hemingway. I consider giving this distinction to his puerile mewling to be a grievous mistake. What works in his short fiction becomes, at length, simplistic self-advocacy.

I have no familiarity with the raters of genre fiction, nor come much in contact with it, so even if some exists somewhere, I would hardly give any of it much consideration for _most overrated in history. _That being said however, if there is some rating attached to Dan Brown's rip off stuff, then it's too high, imo.

I do not consider Tolkien to be overrated as a progenitor of type, although I find his fiction unreadable.

Much time has passed since the long fiction of Camus has had much popular touting, so probably that's an unlikely nomination. I am much enamored of his two extended philosophical essays, and enjoy his short fiction; I find he's somehow missed the point when it comes to composing a novel. 

For my money, it's a serious mistake to consider _Ulysses_ simply as a novel, or indeed as simply a work of fiction, and that it has come to be so viewed and advertised seems at best misleading. As much as anything else, it's an exceedingly detailed critique of literature and the purposes to which it's put. Down, at one point, to an excruciatingly hilarious parody of dialogue-tag usage. It's probably fair to say that my (large) enjoyment of it is mostly based on particulars and scenes and opinions, although I do not find it at all difficult (after four times through) to find ample and intricate story. His extreme sarcasm toward past and (most presciently!) future popular fiction makes the distaste genre writers have for his work perfectly understandable, notwithstanding their plainspoken adoption of technical innovation pioneered there. Joyce's rather convoluted approach to plot incident makes it pretty difficult to support _Ulysses _as the type of subsequent long prose fiction, especially by the time one comes to the latter third of the twentieth century. (However much the list of authors crediting it previous to that time must give one some pause.) Were it not for Hemingway, _Ulysses_ might very possibly be the _most_ highly rated _book_ of modern English writing, and from that point of view it would be a bit difficult not to consider _anything_ a bit overblown.


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## Olly Buckle

> Much time has passed since the long fiction of Camus has had much popular touting, so probably that's an unlikely nomination. I am much enamored of his two extended philosophical essays, and enjoy his short fiction; I find he's somehow missed the point when it comes to composing a novel.


It has been along time since I read him. I remember reading 'The plague' and being very taken with it, then being told 'The outsider' was wonderful and finding it trite and boring. A bit the same as Herman Hesse, 'The glass bead game' was wonderful, 'Steppenwolf', which friends raved over, I found unreadable.


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## Tiberius

The Bible.  It's long, boring and a very good sedative.

Plus the plot makes no sense.


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## Lewdog

Tiberius said:


> The Bible.  It's long, boring and a very good sedative.
> 
> Plus the plot makes no sense.



I was waiting for someone to say that, it wasn't going to be me though.


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## Deleted member 49710

ppsage said:
			
		

> Much time has passed since the long fiction of Camus has had much  popular touting, so probably that's an unlikely nomination. I am much  enamored of his two extended philosophical essays, and enjoy his short  fiction; I find he's somehow missed the point when it comes to composing  a novel.


Like Ollie, I really liked _The Plague._ Particularly the speech the priest gives after the death of the child. Last year I read his _Caligula_ play and I thought it was pretty amazing. But to each his own.

I'm with you on the Tolkien, though.


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## Rustgold

Tiberius said:


> The Bible.  It's long, boring and a very good sedative.
> Plus the plot makes no sense.


If you include religious books, the Holy Koran is even worse.  It doesn't even have a plot.


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## Lewdog

Rustgold said:


> If you include religious books, the Holy Koran is even worse.  It doesn't even have a plot.



Someone should write a book about a cemetery, it would be full of plots.

:thumbl:


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## Tiberius

Lewdog said:


> Someone should write a book about a cemetery, it would be full of plots.
> 
> :thumbl:



Could you please not make jokes about such a grave subject?


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## moderan

Tiberius said:


> The Bible.  It's long, boring and a very good sedative.
> 
> Plus the plot makes no sense.





Lewdog said:


> I was waiting for someone to say that, it wasn't going to be me though.


We decided against including it and other religious texts about a million posts ago.
Some people don't feel that those works are fiction.


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## Tiberius

moderan said:


> We decided against including it and other religious texts about a million posts ago.
> Some people don't feel that those works are fiction.



That's fine.

But I'm an atheist, and I do.


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## moderan

Tiberius said:


> That's fine.
> 
> But I'm an atheist, and I do.


Your choice. So am I, and so do I. But we do have our reasons.


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## Rmueller

I read Joyce's "The Portrait..." . It had some good sections until the chapters when he was in the higher levels of education. The dialog was insufferable. I started to read Ulysses. Same problem. I have to say authors such as Charlotte Bronte and Bram Stoker are far superior.


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