Overrated Novels

[Jaxom 1974]

Let me throw out a call for Faber's (I think it's Faber) Crimson Petal and the White. Heard good things. Was trying to expand my horizons. Plunked down the money. Was really pissed off a couple hundred pages in when I set it aside. What the hell were people talking about with this one?

[Werthead]

Robin Hobb is consistently the most over-rated author I come across. Her ability to take a great story idea which would make a single, strong 600-700 page novel and stretch it out to a beyond-pointless 2,000-page potboiler which has been padded into mediocrity, is quite remarkable. She has reasonably interesting, if not very likable, characters and sometimes approaches stories from unusual angles, but she just overwrites. From the perspective of female epic fantasy authors, she is comprehensively beaten by Jones, Elliott and Parker and I wouldn't put it past Novik and maybe even McKenna to bypass her as well with a few more books under their belts.

Whilst I enjoyed Donaldson's Gap Series, I have found his other books (including the Thomas Covenant ones) largely without merit.

M. John Harrison's Viriconium collection was a bitter disappointment. Interesting but overwrought prose cannot make up for the lack of a substantial or satisfying story.

[Croccifixio]

Overrated? The way Rowling becomes the richest woman on earth (or 2nd, Oprah's pretty rich too) writing stuff about Harry Potter always makes me shudder.

[Forderz]

Absolutly anything assigned by your high school teacher. And no, shakespear did not write Romeo and Juliet as an metaphore for social constraints in the 21st century. He wrote it to make money. Moron educatio system spewing lies... (rant continues but I'll save you the pain)

[Starkess]

In this type of thread, Tolkien always comes up...and I just have to shudder and shut my eyes and resist the urge to try to debate it, because its undebatable. Both sides are too firm. But suffice it to say, I do NOT find Tolkien overrated.

Books that are overrated:

The Great Gatsby (I believe this has been sufficiently covered)

The Da Vinci Code (fairly decent plot, rather atrocious writing)

Oliver Twist (I like other Dickens, but couldn't stomach this one)

Of Mice and Men (I hated it!)

Can't think of any others right now but I know they exist.

I do enjoy The Scarlet Letter, Harry Potter, Shakespeare, most Steinbeck and Dickens, but perhaps they are not up to the level of accolades they receive.

[PhoenixFlame]

Agreed on Mice and Men. I didn't like it.

[The Whiteravyn]

I would add The Mists of Avalon, which I don't think would have bothered me as much as it did if it didn't have such an obvious agenda. Sure, the writing was fine and it was an interesting take on the Arthurian legend, but overall it was just sort of meh. Also, I think I have rarely loathed a character as much as I loathed Gwenhwyfar.

[Lyanna Stark]

I don't dislike classics because they are classics- I love everything Jane Austen, enjoyed Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' very much, Shakespeare is pure genius (I'm not a native English speaker, but I didn't find his English too difficult to follow), and Jules Verne wrote really exciting books- but some of these classics just suck from my (modern?) POV. The writers/books I like must have been pretty unusual back then (you mentioned Austen's snark- I guess it was very unusual for a woman to write about clever if not perfect female characters in her day)... but then again, it's said that 'The Scarlet Letter' was revolutionary as well because for the first time it broaches the cruelty and narrowmindedness of the puritans- and yet it bored me so much it brought tears to my eyes. But suit yourself and read it... but don't come whining that nobody warned you!

Another contribution to overrated books: Charles Dickens. Sorry, but IMO they're always the same (poor kid growing up without love in a cruel world) and always boring. Oh, and Günther Grass- he has won a nobel prize and all, but I can't stand him.

Oh, I love Jane Austen as well, and as a teenager I really appreciated "Jane Eyre" (even though I felt it was predictable and over-romantisised when I reread it at an older age, still a decent read tho).

I loved reading Alexandre Dumas's novels when growing up. "Candide" and some of Maupassant's short stories will forever be among my favourites. I also do love "David Copperfield" fiercly.

Classics are often a better bet than most other novels I feel, just because at the very least they have survived the centuries/decades. Some of them are very hard to like, since they are so heavily influenced by their time (Like "Werther" for instance), but some of them are still worthy of a read since the questions they ask are still valid (or you can understand why they were valid then). Example: "Lady Chatterley's lover": hardly upsetting today because of the sex, but you can understand the controversy about divorce easily.

I am still tempted by "The Scarlet Letter" tho. I commute every day and the train ride gives me a lot of time to read.

[Red Sun]

Oh, and Günther Grass- he has won a nobel prize and all, but I can't stand him.

I sort of liked the "Blechtrommel", but only the first parts, and parts of the "Rättin", but I have no wish to re-read them anytime, because I find the prose somewhat overblown.

I am still tempted by "The Scarlet Letter" tho. I commute every day and the train ride gives me a lot of time to read.

I have read it on my own, and I didn't find it particularly bad or boring. The conflict today might seem a bit contrieved, because social control works very differently today.

[MoP]

At the risk of having my genitalia forcibly removed from my body, AFFC would be up there in my list of overrated books. I honestly could not see why it got all the loving it did from the critics, particularly as there was a large portion of the fanbase that displayed a level of dissatisfaction with the novel.

I have to add The Warrior Prophet by Bakker in there as well...everything that I found enjoyable with the first book was sorely missing in the first 200 pages of the second and I just couldn't force myself to read on.

[Brude]

I don't understand all of the Gatsby hate, I love that book. Now, don't bring up anything by Henry James, especially "The Portriat of a Lady" in my presence or else I might hit you (that novel is the only book I have ever willfully destroyed in my life, an act I normally consider tantamount to a sin).

Another really bad book is Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." He won the Nobel Prize for it but it's probalby his worst book. Unfortunately for me it was the first thing I ever read by him and I didn't read anything else until one of my college professors impressed upon me that it was a crap novel and that I should read his other work. (I read "A Farewell to Arms" for a paper in his class and it was brilliant, so now I know better.)

I agree with you on Shakespeare's plays. Anyone who says they can understand enough Old English to "get" Shakespeare is lying their ass off.

As someone else said, they aren't in ye olde English, they are Early Modern English and they are not at all hard to follow, you just need to read about three or four of them to get the rhythm down (and most versions include definitions of the more archaic words). I read nearly every Shakespeare play and a goodly amount of his sonnets and other poems for a college course, trust me, it isn't that hard to follow. Oh, and he is the greatest writer in the language, bar none. Sorry. (And even many non-English speakers would rank him as the greatest writer ever.)

How many people read modern screenplays for enjoyment (outside of actors/directors/hollywood-types, that is)?

As a former Hollywood type, I could tell you that even most of the best scripts probably would never be considered literature, even if their dialogue is highly literate. A screenplay is just a backbone for a movie, which is told mostly visually. A play, on the other hand, is much more than just a backbone for the performance. The words are far more sacred and usually the most important artistic element of the work. It's a very different thing and a screenplay doesn't read anything like a play (if it's done right, that is).

[Collaroy]

Robin Hobb is consistently the most over-rated author I come across. Her ability to take a great story idea which would make a single, strong 600-700 page novel and stretch it out to a beyond-pointless 2,000-page potboiler which has been padded into mediocrity, is quite remarkable. She has reasonably interesting, if not very likable, characters and sometimes approaches stories from unusual angles, but she just overwrites. From the perspective of female epic fantasy authors, she is comprehensively beaten by Jones, Elliott and Parker and I wouldn't put it past Novik and maybe even McKenna to bypass her as well with a few more books under their belts.

I disagree on Hobb- weell, at least I'll defend her Liveship series. I recently read the Farseer series and that one was indeed annoying IMO (book 1 was okay, book two mediocre and book 3 just plain bad), but the Liveship trilogy was a very very good read IMO- well-written, good characters, good plot.

I loved reading Alexandre Dumas's novels when growing up. "Candide" and some of Maupassant's short stories will forever be among my favourites. I also do love "David Copperfield" fiercly.

Classics are often a better bet than most other novels I feel, just because at the very least they have survived the centuries/decades. Some of them are very hard to like, since they are so heavily influenced by their time (Like "Werther" for instance), but some of them are still worthy of a read since the questions they ask are still valid (or you can understand why they were valid then). Example: "Lady Chatterley's lover": hardly upsetting today because of the sex, but you can understand the controversy about divorce easily.

I am still tempted by "The Scarlet Letter" tho. I commute every day and the train ride gives me a lot of time to read.

The reason why I wanted to read "The Scarlet Letter" was because it was without a doubt revolutionary and scandalous at the time it was written. Since I can't seem to be able to stop you anyway, you might as well check it out, might be you like it. As long as you're only wasting your own time... Who knows, maybe I just wasn't in the mood when I read it.

"Candide" was a great book IMO- we read it in French classes and much to my surprise I loved it.

[Gigei]

I think that's just the high school trauma talking.

Last time I read one of these type of threads 1/4 said Shakespeare. High school english class trauma is a terrible thing.

I doubt anyone on this board will agree with me, but I think Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay is overrated.

I have also reviewed her books on these forums (years ago) and come to the same conclusion. Terribly pretty but not really sustantial or groundbreaking. the books don't suck, of course, but disappointing for me. I guess I probably just read too much history. After I finished Sailing to Sarantium I just though "what was all the fuss about, this book isn't even good!"

[Starkess]

Oh, another of mine:

A Farewell to Arms. YAWN!

[L'Sana]

I would add The Mists of Avalon, which I don't think would have bothered me as much as it did if it didn't have such an obvious agenda. Sure, the writing was fine and it was an interesting take on the Arthurian legend, but overall it was just sort of meh.

Amen. I'd almost forgotten this one. This was an absolutely wonderful 200 page take on the Arthurian Legend trapped in a 900 page volume.

Also, I think I have rarely loathed a character as much as I loathed Gwenhwyfar.

I'd agree, and add that I wasn't all that fond of Morgaine either.

[Multaniette]

I also find D. H. Lawrence to be over-rated. Thackery is sort of borderline for me. I can't really decide whether Dostoevsky is over-rated or not - he wrote one of the worst and one of the best classic novel I have read.

Tim Winton is also pretty over-rated, IMO.

[The Whiteravyn]

I'd agree, and add that I wasn't all that fond of Morgaine either.

How true. Talk about a cast of unsympathetic characters, my god. Plus, I know it wasn't the focus of the book, but some more of those legendary deeds of arms would have been nice. How hard would it have been to slip a bit about the Green Knight in there, or something, anything.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

The damn thing was voted the second greatest English language novel of the twentieth century (second only to James Joyce's Ulysses) by a committee of Oxford University academics.

True--would you say Ulysses is overrated too? Just curious. I am torn on it--I want to say it sucks but that little voice in my head (not the crazy one, the conscious) says I hate it because I'm not smart enough to get it.

I'm going to nominate a couple:

Fantasy Category

1. The Briar King: I heard great things about this while searching for more great fantasy. I hadn't read fantasy in years until ASOIAF, and suddenly I wanted more. This was the wrong way to go. I finished it at least.

2. The Prince of Nothing: I barely finished this one. By the end it was excruciating. I still have it because it looks cool, and I guess I could try it again some day but the characters were dull, the story was slow and I haven't even considered picking up the next book in the series.

3. Gardens of the Moon: Didn't come close to finishing it. Threw the mother trucker in the trash.

4. Eragon.

Other Category:

1. Davinci Code: I think most people here agree with me, but so much of American society loves this book and they seem to think its good writing.

I'll throw an Underrated here just for the hell of it:

The Things They Carried, by Tim O'brien.

[add-on]

Risking the lynch mob, I tried reading Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen last summer and couldn't get past the first few pages. I'll probably give it another go when the stack gets a bit smaller - it might be really good further in - but that's not a good sign.

I hated the whole first section (Dradin, In Love) and probably wouldn't have kept reading if I wasn't stuck in an airport at the time. The over the top, flowery prose just seemed like self-indulgent wankery to me and the crawling pace wasn't helping either. Then I decided he was trying to be clever by making his prose a reflection of the main character, which I was ok with and helped me keep slogging on through. Once I made it out of that section, I absolutely fell in love with the book as a whole. Vandermeer makes this place so real that it's hard not to become completely absorbed. Plus, if you pay close enough attention, you find out that there are even more reasons for the purple prose in the beginning.

Most overrated for me are all books from the Medieval time period and, ironically enough, a book that was mocking that kind of literature.

Thomas Mallory, Works. Yeah, ok, greatest stories of all time, influenced much of the epic fantasy genre...bored me stiff.

Beowulf. I just found the story to be really simplistic and about ideals and values that I don't really find any value in.

Don Quixote. I get it, I do. I just don't think you're funny. On this one, it may have just been the translation I read, because I like the premise, I just didn't enjoy the way it was written.

[Astra]

The book of the new sun by Gene Wolfe.

Anything about Tomas Covenant by S. Donaldson.

Forgotten realms series, including Drizzt books by Salvatore.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Any Russian classics.