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Overly Pompous and Luvvie Books. (What Critically loved books do you despise?)

Corso

New Member
Here we go, has anyone else noticed the tendancy for books in shops today to be, self important, dull, lacking an actual plot, full of plaudits from reviewers who haven't read the whole text.
How often do we all go into bookshops and see row after row of books with no plot synopsis on the spine or front page... no, instead just kudos from Salmon Rushdie, remember you are not a Salmon.

My vote for luvvie-noplot book of all time? Hmmm. How about 'The Discovery Of Heaven? A terrible depressing non uplifiting mess.

We talk about books we love all the time.
Let's talk about some stinkers.
 
Corso,
I'm glad to see that I am not the only one to have that reaction to "modern" fiction. I read one of Oprah's picks (Where the Heart Is) and found it dreadful. I also read Martin Dressler (a Pulitzer Prize winner) and found it predictable and dull. I think that's why so many people (me included) are turning away from "Literature".
 
Yes, I've been fooled into buying a book one too many times I'm afraid. These days, if there isn't a synopsis, I don't buy it, unless I have the time to start reading the first chapters in the book store (they do love that ;))

Originally posted by Corso
My vote for luvvie-noplot book of all time? Hmmm. How about 'The Discovery Of Heaven? A terrible depressing non uplifiting mess.
But I don't agree with you on this one: I thought The Discovery of Heaven was a great book. Maybe the translator made a mess of it, or maybe we just disagree :)
 
Dunno about critically loved, but every review I read said that "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman was terrifying and excellent, so I went ahead and bought it and was totally disappointed. OK, it is supposed to be a children's book, so I don't know how scary I thought it would be, but... Very, very disappointing.

Oh yeah, just remembered my all-time over-rated book - Wuthering Heights! Sorry to those who love it, but I just couldn't get into it myself.
 
Well, I bought the Coraline-CDs: it is for children, but if you keep that in mind, it's quite nice, really.

I hated Wuthering Heights as well, you're not alone on this ;)
 
On the question of Wuthering Heights - I never understood people saying that this book is a beautiful love story. For me, Heathcliff (with all his cruelty and hatred for the humankind) was unable to love anybody.
 
The Discovery Of Heaven had good ideas but it was highly disappointing. I guess it just wasn't my kind of thing.
Lately I find Paul Theroux to be an author with some substance.
 
The Discovery of Heaven

Corso said:
My vote for luvvie-noplot book of all time? Hmmm. How about 'The Discovery Of Heaven? A terrible depressing non uplifiting mess
lies said:
I thought The Discovery of Heaven was a great book.
Corso said:
The Discovery Of Heaven had good ideas but it was highly disappointing.

I'm gonna have to go with lies here. I've read this novel of course, and being Dutch, I read it in its original language. I highly enjoyed it, and finished the entire 900 pages in under 4 days. Very good stuff! Heard the film stinks though.

Cheers, Martin :D
 
hope I'm not commiting some horrible literary faux pas here, but..

in terms of overrated classics, does anyone agree with me about Ulysses?

(I thought maybe Wuthering Heights was more about such an intense, passionate love between two fundamentally (but for opposite reasons) selfish people that it's one of those love/hate loves, if you see what i mean - like some extreme left-wing politics is bordering on the right-wing.)

p.s. Corso you look a bit like Bill Hicks! (not as he is now, obviously..)
 
Ulysses is more admirable than likeable, I think, though I know there are plenty of people who will disagree with me. But then you don't have to like something to know that it's good - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth - never really been able to get on with any of them, but I can see there are great qualities there. Just not to my taste.

At the same time you don't have to hate something to know that it's bad. Anything written to fit within a specific genre, in other words with a ring-fenced readership in mind, has questions to answer in my view. Who in their right mind, who's in it for the love of it and not for the money, would sit down and think I'm going to write a fantasy novel? Or I'm going to write an historical romance? What's wrong with just I'm going to write a book? Of course I don't have the insight into these writers' minds to know what they're thinking, but the results usually speak for themselves.

For what it's worth, I disagree with Corso that a book needs a good plot or a synopsis on the back to be worth reading. I'm more interested in the words and the language on a sentence-by-sentence level - though that's not to say the bigger picture doesn't get a look in. The plot, setting, characters and story are really secondary. To anyone who says (I'm extending here, I know Corso didn't say this) that you need to have likeable or sympathetic characters for a good book, I give you A Handful of Dust, or Something Happened, or Money.

For me, if you just want thrills and entertainment, then film or TV does that better than books. What's best about books is what they can do that other media can't: which always comes down to the quality of writing. If you haven't got that you haven't got anything. But nobody ever did tell Dan Brown.

As for critical acclaim, well along with word of mouth, I think this is the best way to discover something you might not otherwise have read. Also literary prizes: without the Orange and the Whitbread I would never have picked up Andrea Levy's Small Island, a storming masterpiece which is my favourite book of the year so far. And 'luvvie' and 'pompous' aren't really reactions to the books, I presume, but to the critics - and you can't blame the book for what the critics say about it.
 
The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time

BORING IRRITATING BORING IRRITATING BORING
 
hi martin

why? is it the actual tale, the way it's written, her character, or do you not like any Hardy in general.

Just curious!
 
tess

I couldn't force my way through Tess, but I think I was just too young to tackle it. I was in my early teens and just couldn't hack it. One of those books I see giving another try someday though. No time soon though.

I loved Jane Eyre! Though it did take me awhile to get through. I also liked Curious Incident of the Dog, I think mostly because it was unlike anything I'd read before.
 
One critically acclaimed book I did find horribly over-rated was The Five People You Meet in Heaven. That was boring. Ugh.
 
bethm said:
hi martin

why? is it the actual tale, the way it's written, her character, or do you not like any Hardy in general.

Just curious!
It bored me to tears. The style, the story, the characters, everything.

Classics are not my cup of tea; give me contemporary any day of the week.

Cheers
 
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