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/lit/ - Literature

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3341773 No.3341773 [Reply] [Original]

Hey, /lit/, what is, to you, an extremely overrated novel?

Pic related, only good thing about it is its length. At least I could finish it in just a few hours.

>> No.3341779

Like in the OP's case, if you think something is "extremely overrated", you're probably just not ready for it simply too stupid.

>> No.3341780
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3341780

>>3341779
I must not be ready for "Harry Potter" then.

>> No.3341782

>>3341780
Why are you comparing Harry Potter to The Catcher in the Rye?
Rowling can never function on the same level as Salinger.

>> No.3341783

>>3341780
Harry Potter can't be overrated, since only teenagers and people who read it as a teenager like it. It's not critically acclaimed in the literary circles.

>> No.3341786

>>3341773

finnegans wake

/thread

>> No.3341788

>>3341773
Maybe you were expecting to much about it, the anticipation for it made that, in the end, it wasn't as great as you thought.
I read it some years ago, I hadn't heard about it before, and I loved it.

>> No.3341795

Da vinci code

>> No.3341813

OP, you probably just didn't fully understand Catcher in the Rye.

>> No.3341829

>>3341813
> implying it's not an extremely accessible book.

>> No.3341837

>>3341829
If you're not reading in between the lines as you read Catcher in the Rye, you are reading it wrong. Yeah, reading it literally, its an easy read. But you have to uhh, you know, THINK, to read between the lines and really understand what the book is about.

>> No.3341868

>>3341829
> implying it's not an extremely accessible book.
Salinger thought it would be easy. He thought America was 'good,' and he would just go and defeat the bad guys. Nothing prepared him for the limbs that would rip from his platoon, the thick red blood of his friends that would stick to his eyeballs and blind him, the nights spent shaking and crying after sticking his finger into someone's bullet hole to prevent the bleeding only to have the guy die while his fingers were still inside his chest.

Salinger didn't just get PTSD when he returned, he had depression and a misanthropic outlook. He was traumatised by how such seemingly innocent children could turn into such adult monsters that were capable of burning women and children alive. He said 'the sound of a burning child's screams will never leave my ears.' He had to integrate back into society, but couldn't do it. He couldn't sit back and worry about celebrity culture, the charade of politics, or other distractions that seemed forever trivial to him. So he started writing.

His first piece was about a suicide. This, he said, was expressing his own desire to kill himself, but writing it down was a way of coping. He never managed to tackle his disenfranchisement and growing resentment towards society, so create the ultimate character to express himself; Holden Caulfield.

Holden was the child of innocence, free from the burden of seeing war atrocities, yet possessed the adult view that Salinger had. To the average, popular media-consuming, modern child, Holden's going to appear 'edgy' at a surface glance. But he really shouldn't to someone who understands that he's not supposed to be a normal child; he's one who carries the emotional baggage of someone who has seen too much horror and pain, yet has the child-like innocence to not understand where his outlook comes from. He's supposed to encapsulate two extremes, and does so perfectly.

>> No.3341871
File: 125 KB, 200x300, Eragon_book_cover.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3341871

>>3341773
/Thread

>> No.3341874

>>3341871
Someone mentioned it already concerning Hally Porter, but Eragon isn't highly critically acclaimed, so can't be overrated.

>> No.3341887

After reading Everything is Illuminated, I don't get what all the fuss was about. I mean, it was a good book, but I don't think it was nearly as good as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I love that book.

>> No.3341889
File: 38 KB, 275x404, to-kill-a-mockingbird-first-edition1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3341889

>>3341813

> implying there was some sort of depth in "Catcher in the Rye"
> lel

My pick: "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee (#1 on goodreads)
> extremely boring characters, completely lack depth; characters like Jay Gatsby are where it's at
> Atticus: his good qualities are exaggerated to the point I feel like vomiting during one of his 956 tedious speeches; a much smarter point to get a point across is to present a character that the reader can relate to, one possessing both flaws and strengths (Shakespearean characters, for instance)
>etc. (to summarize: 1. boring characters; 2. way too long for a novel with half the significant content of "The Stranger";)

>> No.3341947

The Old Man and the Sea. I don't know what people here think of it, but I read part of it a couple years ago and couldn't get through it. I hesitate to use the word boring, but I dunno, I just didn't get it. I didn't even get to the fishing, it just felt so full of random uninteresting details that I put it down, like when they had some conversation about a sports team(there was no actual dialogue, just Hemingway paraphrasing it, from what I can remember) that didn't seem to add anything to the story.

>> No.3341954

>>3341773
Just because you didn't like it or understand it doesn't make it overrated.

>> No.3342204

>>3341868
I am stealing a lot of this for an assignment. Thanks.

>> No.3342240

>>3341947

Oh my God go finish the fucking book right now. It's like 100 pages what the hell are you doing? FINISH THE GOD DAMN BOOK!!

>> No.3342247

>>3341889
The fuck. Poor troll.

>> No.3342255

>>3341871
is the 4th book worth it? i've the first 3 but i don't really care to read it

>> No.3342279

Catch 22.

>> No.3342290
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3342290

I didn't dislike it and could draw comparisons between the fictional world and modern society, but I wouldn't call it gripping. There's probably a lot to it I've overlooked but it didn't interest me enough to go back and analyze it.

>> No.3342292

>>3342279
I'm mixed on this one. I don't think it's as thought provoking or life changing as some would have you believe, but I will say it was one of the funniest books I've ever read.

>> No.3342330

Why is it that every other high-schooler who reads this book feels the need to post a thread about how he didn't get it?

>> No.3342341

I "got" Catcher, I just personally didn't care for Holden as a character, and since he is the book, I didn't enjoy the book.

>> No.3342347

>>3342341

Hard-to-like Characters != Poorly Written Characters

>> No.3342348

>>3342330
we live in an imperfect, sin-haunted world

where everything is shit

>> No.3342357
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3342357

>>3342341

Why didn't you care for him? Didn't you see that much of his attitude was the result of an inability to face death? Holden's worldview has its origin in an enormous tragedy, a loss that he can't help but feel the need to save the world from.

Such a damn good book.

>> No.3342368

>>3341773
Stop being edgy OP, you're not impressing us.
We sincerity now

>> No.3342812

Pride and Prejudice. I bailed on that piece of shit after twenty pages. Had the shakes for a week. Goddamn pearl-clutching tripe. No wonder women like it, though.

>> No.3342821

>>3342812

Why are so few people on /lit/ only able to read things at face-value?

It's embarrassing.

>> No.3342842

>>3342821

*many

Never edit mid-sentence.

>> No.3342853

Slaughterhouse 5 (with explanation)
I started Vonnegut with Timequake and read through Cat's Cradle and Breakfast of Champions etc, coming to Player Piano and Slaughterhouse 5 last, and eh, I don't see it. It was fine, it just wasn't his best, and I get frustrated cause people want to talk Vonnegut but then they haven't read Mother Night, or Cat's Cradle, or Sirens of Titan, or Bluebeard, just Slaughterhouse and Breakfast of Champions, cause those were on some "Best novels" list.

>> No.3342934

1984. Wasn't Orwell's best book, nor his most thought-provoking. It's pale in comparison to Homage to Catalonia, or his superb essays. I feel much the same about Animal Farm.

And the way that idiots reference it constantly ('politically correct double think', yeah? '911 was a ruse for a 1984-style society', yeah?) is annoying as fuck.

>> No.3342943

The Great Gastby

>> No.3342945

Wuthering Heights or anything by any of the Bronte sisters.

Gothic literature is just awful.

>> No.3342951

>>3342934
>And the way that idiots reference...
You can't really blame Orwell for how modern kids use the word 'Orwellian'

>> No.3342958

>>3342945
I despised Wuthering Heights
It blows my mind when women say they want men to be like Heathcliff, a fucking obssesive murderer.

>> No.3342962

>>3342853

> Just because it's on some best-of list

Those are my only book-recommendation source.

>> No.3342967

>>3342958
Oh jesus I know

>Healthcliff literally beats his wife, then his sickly kid, steals two estates from nice families and tries to have an affair

And women want a man like him?

I remember my high school AP English Language teacher tried to make a case for him and I just could not stop laughing at her pathetic attempts to justify his behavior in the novel.

>> No.3342989

>>3342945
Even Poe?

>> No.3342995

>>3342958
Indeed. It's by far the most misunderstood classic ever, if you ask me. It's so often cited as a romantic novel yet it so isn't one. It's a revenge novel, if anything. It's even too bleak to be anything related to romance, disregarding a few moments of frivolous passion.

>>3342945
Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights is hardly the only Gothic novels in existance.

>> No.3343005

>>3342989
>>3342995
Okay Gothic literature written by women.

>> No.3343042

>>3343005
Even "Frankenstein"?