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/lit/ - Literature

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2944370 No.2944370[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Do you have any books you think of that are widely critically-acclaimed and revered all over, that you feel are actually utter crap and a complete waste of time?

>> No.2944374

>>2944370
anything and everything by Ayn Rand and Carmack McCarthy

>> No.2944378
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2944378

>>2944374

>> No.2944380

>>2944374
>ayn rand
>widely critically acclaimed

>> No.2944381

>>2944374
>Ayn Rand
Just because teenagers and Republicans like something doesn't mean it's critically-acclaimed.

>> No.2944383

Star Wars books

>> No.2944396

inb4 someone mentions Great Gatsby and rustles my jimmies.

>> No.2944436

The Great Gatsby

>> No.2944439

>>2944396
They had better not, fucking masterpiece.

>> No.2944440

Gatsby

>> No.2944442

Definitely The Great Gatsby

>> No.2944444

Probably Gatsby

>> No.2944445

great gatsby

>> No.2944449

fucking fitzgerald talentless hack wow alcohol is bad i should write a book about it fucking nigger

>> No.2944450

All joking aside, Crime and Punishment.

>> No.2944457
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2944457

>>2944444

>> No.2944460

>>2944450
Ok, now you're REALLY rustling some jim-jims

>> No.2944461

Sadly not joking when I say Gatsby. Also all of Jane Austen; if I have to study any more of her for my degree, I will cry.

>> No.2944477

Charles Dickens.

>> No.2944479

>>2944477
Amen, tale of two cities confirmed for shit except for last 4 pages.

>> No.2944484

I wish we could have the opposite of this thread as often as we have this thread - which under-acclaimed books have you read that are excellent and deserve more people's time.

>> No.2944506

>>2944381
Also high school English teachers and law school students. Oh, wait.

>> No.2944533

cathcer in the rye holpen iss such a winer lmao

>> No.2944563

>>2944484
Go be a hipster somewhere else.

>> No.2944577

1984
Charles Dickens
George Eliot
W.B Yeats

>> No.2944596

Infinite Jest

>> No.2944600

Lolita. I mention it because I'm currently attempting to force myself through it.

Its not that the writing is bad, its just that the main conflict in the story revolves around a subject that I don't really care about one way or the other. I guess the sheer shock of a novel about pedophilia is supposed to suffice in place of a plot, but for a kid like me raised in the age of the internet and 4chan, I'd prefer a little more substance than just a guy who obsesses about a loli for 300 pages.

Also, Humbert Humbert confirmed for world's first /b/tard.

>> No.2944610

The Handmaid's Tale

Personally, I can't stand it when a writer is heavy-handed with themes.

>> No.2944614

Thus spoke Zaratustra - Nietzche
The Trial - Kafka

>> No.2944655

The stranger- Camus

>> No.2944672

>>2944600
You are a terrible fucking reader if you think there's no plot besides shock.

>> No.2945437

Anything by Dave Eggers.

>> No.2945646

>>2944370

>reading a book
>waste of time

>> No.2945650

>>2944614
I agree totally on Nietzche
It was full of contradictions and stupid conclusions, don't see why everyone praise it so much.

>> No.2945648

Naked Lunch

>> No.2945658

Madame Bovary and Ulysses.

>> No.2945666

>>2944374
>hating Ayn Rand

Guys, I've spotted someone who isn't part of /lit/'s groupthink!

>> No.2945667

>>2945650
Probably because you read it on it's own without the proper context and haven't bothered to read the rest of his work.

>> No.2945668

>>2945650
>>2944614
2deep4u

>> No.2945669

The Outsider

>> No.2945673

>>2944600
The murder scene is one of the funniest things I've ever read, and what are you doing trying to talk plot here?

>> No.2945676

100 Years of Solitude

>> No.2945704

Breakfast at Tiffany's

>> No.2945732

Brave New World
Nearly anything by Dickens or Hardy (strung their stories out due to their being published episodically).

>> No.2945749

ASOIAF
GRRM tries to have a complex, multilayered plot.
Instead it ends up being 473 separate plots jumbled together with no central overarching story whatsoever .
0/10

>> No.2945767

>>2945676
I enjoyed One Hundred Years of Solitude, but you're right, it was hyped up a LOT.

>> No.2945899

>>2945749
Second
I vouch Harry Potter.

>> No.2946865
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2946865

>ctrl+f "jane austen"
>only one result
>mfw bullshit

>> No.2946873

>>2946865

But she can't be bland! Look at all that social satire!

>> No.2946874

>>2945732

if you're ruling out episodic publishing then discount Dostoevsky

>> No.2946875

>>2944477
Hell fuck yes. Piss on his grave.

>> No.2946912

Most of the works by Stephen King
Anything by Karl Marx

>> No.2946916

Portrait of the Artist.
Seriously. I'm sorry nerds but it's nothing but prose masturbation.

>> No.2946917

>>2945704
Wut.

>dat bittersweet ending

>> No.2947312
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2947312

>>2946873

My brother.

>> No.2947335

>>2944610
Clearly, you don't get the author's attitude toward his subject. It's okay, most literary critics didn't get it at first either. They thought they Stephen was (painted as) an exceptional mind and sensitive soul, until Ulysses came out. Some people don't get Joyce.

Stephen is an ass. James Joyce isn't.

>>2946916
I second The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood really disappointed with that one. Though it wasn't as bad as her Oryx and Crake.

>> No.2947340

>>2945767
Sorry, but, if you actually think you understood a third of what was going on in 100 Years of Solitude, you're sorely mistaken. It's comparable to Ulysses in that it's almost impenetrable, yet full of heavy meaning. There are SO many things going on there, it's impossible to get in one read. I don't claim that I "get" it because of this.

>> No.2947343

>>2947335
Is anything Atwood wrote worth reading? Original poster of Handmaid's Tale here. She gets a lot of praise from critics, but I was so put off by HT that I don't want to bother with her again.

>> No.2947366

I'd have to go with Heart of Darkness. I read it, and was completely unimpressed with the writing let alone the story. The Great Gatsby was also a waste of time. But not as much as The Catcher in the Rye. That was two days I'll never get back. How someone who's not an angsty teenager can like it is completely beyond me.

>> No.2947369

>>2947343
Cat's Eye was the first book of hers I read and every novel since then has been disappointing. That one is brilliant on so many levels, though. Her poetry can be great at times. Plath-esque, in some ways, sometimes. Here's a short but powerful one that shows she has something going on.

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye.

>> No.2947380

>>2947369
I'll have to look into her poetry some, that was an interesting bit.

>> No.2947383

a la recherche du temps perdu vol. 1-7

>> No.2947455

>Naked Lunch.
Not the worst book I've ever read, but the worst classic. Laughably, ridiculously bad. Perfect example of art critics ability to consider trash genius. I need the picture where a man gobbles down shit while rapturously praising it.

>Anything by Ayn Rand.

>> No.2947473

>>2947455
Agreed on both accounts.

>> No.2947582

ITT: names of critically acclaimed books listed with no explanation as to why they disappointed and almost no discussion

>> No.2947602

>>2947455
>Rand
>acclaimed by critics
pick one

>> No.2947605

>>2947602
pickayune

>> No.2947610

>>2947455
>>2947602
but yeah Naked Lunch I didn't get Naked Lunch at all. Or The Metamorphosis.