Kate, Jackie and Donna all fun stuff. Perhaps the real thought is over rated authors. Perhaps he was great for his time, but in my opinion his time passed him quickly by.

Sort of stayed out of this thread up to now, because any list of "over rated" books tends to have two problems for me -- no definition of what the hell "over rated" means and a lot of emotion and little concrete reason going into the explanations for the books selected.

What makes a book "over rated"? That you were required to read it in school when you'd rather be hanging out or watching movies? That it made the best seller list? That you personally hated it? That you liked it but hung with elitist folks who made you feel stupid about it? That there was one factor in it that irritated you but folks you wanted to like you all loved it?

None of those have anything really to do with the book, do they? I think we could all come up with a list of books we personally find over rated, using our personal definitions of what that term means. The books would be different because our definitions would be different, as would our criteria for selecting them.

So what does "over rated" mean when talking about books? What are we saying when we use that term? Of course, built in is the idea of what makes a book "good" and what makes it "bad" -- and those are hard calls.


My take requires research and a historical perspective -- an over rated book would be a book that got glowing reviews and a spot on the best seller's list when it was published and maybe was made into a movie, but that 10, 15, or 25 years later no one remembers and few have read. That criteria makes it a little hard to make the list, since it would consist of books no one reads anymore but once everyone thought would be still popular.

In my view, an over rated book is NOT a book that people still pick up and read 20, 30, or however many years later -- pick up, read, re read, love, recommend, and talk about. Those are the good books, no matter what a individual personal opinion might be.

Nooooooo!

:D

Okay, go ahead.

Okay. At the risk of being frivolous, let's talk "The Bridges of Madison County" here...

Now that you say it Jackie, I see it too! Hahahaha!

I think you've really captured something there, Bunny.
Why is it that I can see Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson playing this scene very convincingly?

Take it as my gift to you. Hee hee.

Chapter Three

A car came along the road. A cloud of white dust blew around the man. It was still hot. The car stopped. It was the woman. She had a basket of sardine sandwiches. The man ate all of them. The woman smelled of lilacs. He punched her in the nose. They drove toward the coast.

There's a fun profile of hemingway in Life Stories Profiles from The New Yorker, where he spends his time pursuing a cocktail in Manhattan.

Also recommend The Crook Factory, by Dan Simmons. This is a 'fictionalized' chronicle of Hemingway's time in Cuba in 1942, when he supposedly worked for the OSS (predecessor to the CIA). He drinks a lot there, too, but it's also a good mystery novel.

Yay Kate!! The quintessential Hemingway story!!

Chapter two.

In the morning the sun rose. The people woke. It was hot. The man walked away from the cafe. He thought about the woman he had seen. He walked on. He thought about a sardine sandwich. He wondered where he was walking to. He walked on. It was still hot.

Hahahahahahahahaha!!! Charly, that was actually snarky!

as far as i'm concerned anything by Hemmingway is overrated. I'm not sure how many books he wrote but if its 10 he's got my list filled.

Thanks to both of you. It's good to know that people care. I'm definitely happy to keep you posted, though I'm hardly in the thick of things. I think a few of the fires were started by negligence rather than pure arson, for example when one man was using a power tool and sparks flew into some dry grass or something. But the deliberate lighting of fires completely defies comprehension.

If you want to make a donation (just in case, no obligation) you can donate to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal.

On the off-chance anyone from Melbourne is reading this, the Red Cross is also looking for volunteers to work at a temporary call centre in the city. Information can be found here. Blood donations are also useful.

This morning the light was a really strange orange colour that I've never seen before. It made everything look more vividly coloured, but at the same time more muted. It was actually very beautiful, but I assume the bushfires caused it. About an hour ago it went away, but now it's coming back again. Scary scary stuff.

Yeah, what Lori said.

I can't even to begin to comprehend why someone would do this. I try not to have much hate in my life, but this invites true rage for me.

Stay well, Choupette. I'd love for you to keep us posted. We may read about it in the news, but it's very different than hearing a first-hand account.

Bit of both, I reckon. It's impossible to understand why people would do it, though. Yesterday someone lit a fire in a park in a suburb quite close to the city. I live next to a park and today you can smell and see smoke everywhere... it's terrifying.

Oh Choupette you're in Australia? I've been trying to keep track of this, terrible. Say I don't know how it all started. Nature? Or human.

Excellent point by you David.

I think I might not have been clear... I hated The Kite Runner and definitely think it's overrated.

Jim, thanks for your concern about the bushfires. None have come near me (yet), but it's been pretty devastating. It's actually kind of cold in Melbourne at the moment(!)

I do think that I know more people who worship Mitch Albom than Dan Brown, which frankly disturbs me because I think Dan Brown is slightly better.

But yes, this list is pretty awful. Shane Dayton must be one of those people who doesn't understand a lot of literature so feels like the only way to defend his manhood/intelligence is to say it's all crap. And that the smart people are just making it all up to fuel their superiority complexes.

* the often occurrence of “dues ex machine” to keep the plot moving.
* the writing itself won’t measure up to that lofty praise
* Forster’s characters sound like wooden caricatures
* dulling it of the impact that the writers of the Harlem Renaissance had
* the narrator mixes with the main character’s point of view
* a good marketing gig to hit the best seller list
* one of the cardinal rules of literature: if you’re following one character as the ‘hero,’ he has to be someone the reader likes

I'd have to say that anyone capable of such atrocious writing is hardly in a position to pass judgement on the quality of anybody else's prose.

I loved The Kite Runner. It was highly disturbing though. And I gave it only 4 stars because I had a problem with something about the end, which might be unfair of me, but even so...

Choupette,

I hope that the fires are not near you, and that the temperatures have cooled a little so that your walk to the mailbox is a little more tolerable.

I don't think that anything that Mitch Albom writes will ever be confused with a classic. It looks like The Kite Runner is going to have to move higher on my list of books to read.

Heh. much porridge is spilled over the table and baby bear's fur coat when it's not jusst right...

I agree about solitude. I addition to being long it also has a hint of things magical about it. Some folks just can't stand that.

Seems like some things on that list are there because they are too difficult and challenging, and some because they aren't challenging enough. The baby bear of literature, he wants his porridge to be juusst right.

Welcome to True North, Choupette. And I agree, 100 Years of Solitude is in a different category than The da Vinci Code.

I've never understood why more people don't love 100 Years of Solitude. It's amazing. Sure, the plot's impossible to follow and the characters all look the same, but go with the flow people! Just enjoy the ridiculously amazing writing, wonderfully bizarre characters and events and the amazing sense of depression.

I haven't read all the others on the list, but they all seem like they could go both ways (except Atlas Shrugged and The Da Vinci Code - who ever said they were good, anyway? They're not.) I loved The Great Gatsby, though.

I second The Kite Runner and would like to nominate anything by Paolo Coelho and Mitch Albom.

Koe frigging hates `Tree of Smoke'. I knew when Kirk wrote that we'd get an `amen, brother'. I haven't finished it yet and haven't given up on it. I loved Jesus' Son so much I can't believe `tree' is complete crap.

Lori wrote: "Oh, I read Invisible Man, and remember liking it.

You know, I think I used to get him confused with that scientology dude, and even tho I know they are different people (completely) I formed this ..."

Lori are you talking about L.Ron Hubbard? He founded Scientology, and (small world but hey this thread has the narrow scope of defining the top 10 over-rated novels....) was friends with Harlan Ellison (I'm not sure about Ralph). Harlan claims to have been at SF authors gatherings in the early 1950s when Hubbard, a pulp writer at the time, started to frame out Scientology. It's a great story.

Kirk, don't talk shit on R. Ellison are you and I are going to throw down...

Ralph Ellison rewriting the screenplay of Jurassic Park...that would be a bit like Clive Barker rewriting Beloved with splatter....that would just be odd.

Oh, I read Invisible Man, and remember liking it.

You know, I think I used to get him confused with that scientology dude, and even tho I know they are different people (completely) I formed this skip in my brain.

Hahah---I was thinking Ralph Ellison, not Harlan! Invisible Man is a great book, but Holy Allah, it's hard to teach. Those big blockbuster novels of the 40s and 50 move with all the speed of my kidney stones. Still, if you have the time.

I'm not sure what my beef with Kite, Lori. I think it's just been so universally praised I find myself suspecting it. Then again, I have a hard time just reading for pleasure---unfortunately.

Lori wrote: "I really loved The Kite Runner, Kirksie.

Say, I've never read Ellison, is he any good?"


Try this as an Ellison sampler:
The Essential Ellison A 50 Year Retrospective

Huh. I always dismissed him as a shlock pop writer. Based on, um, no information whatsoever! Funny how we get these preconceptions.

Yes. Ellison is kind of in love with his whirling son of a bitch persona, so he's not fun to be around and his essays can be irritating if the persona seeps in (it doesn't always) but his writing is very very good.

I really loved The Kite Runner, Kirksie.

Say, I've never read Ellison, is he any good?

Ha...I would have loved to be in that meeting, Kirk...

Some of the "beats" bores the crap out of me. Howl. F-You, Ginsberg!

(Although, to be fair, I may be projecting some of my hate of my undergrad poetry instructor who made us read Ginsberg on Ginsberg. The poetry instructor was a bitch.)

I think a lot of people hate Gatsby bc it's required high-school reading. As Dave says, you really have to sit down with the language to appreciate just what it's doing. A lot of reviewers in the 20s dismissed it as a soap opera---but really only bc it was cooler to be hardboiled.

I laughed at Atlas Shrugged. I'm on a committee right now at school to require all incoming freshmen to read the same book. And some fudpucker anonymously recommended Ayn Rand. I was like, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Ok, I didn't phrase it quite so eloquently. But I did say, "Which of you crackpot neo-cons is trying to upset us longhairs by recommending this bullshit paean to Darwinian/Nietzschean economics? Half of our students are out of work and one kited check from having to drop out and you still want to feed them this will-to-power crhapsody?"

I, of course, recommended The Lord of the Rings. Just so we could take our minds off trying times and espcape.

OK, here's a few recent ones that, at the risk of ridicule, I would add: The Kite Runner, The Last Lecture, Beautiful Children, Tree of Smoke.

A Boy and his Stegosaurus....

Randomanthony wrote: "Was it the farting, Jackie? It was the farting, wasn't it?"

NO comment.

Nick: Ellison spells it "Goyin"....page 80....it's a cool book. Michael Crichton wrote an introduction and literary 'roast' to Ellison, writes about moving to LA in 1970 and being asked to co-write a screenplay with Ellison.

Now, an Ellison/Crichton screenplay...Imagine an Ellison take on Jurassic Park...that would be amusing.

Oh, if only they would! Jurassic Park really needed some snarkiness to break up all the running away from dinosaurs. I got BORED with the running away, after awhile.

Was it the farting, Jackie? It was the farting, wasn't it?

Hee!

I personally can't believe 100 Years of Solitude is on that list!

Randomanthony wrote: "I loved Confederacy of Dunces...but I can see why some people wouldn't...it seems to be one of those "love it or hate it" books.

And I agree about LOTR. "

I was a "leave it" on Confederacy, although I did enjoy the New Orleans setting. Just not Ignatius.

Friendly, nice, laid back.

Ellison spells it "Goyin"....page 80....it's a cool book. Michael Crichton wrote an introduction and literary 'roast' to Ellison, writes about moving to LA in 1970 and being asked to co-write a screenplay with Ellison.

Now, an Ellison/Crichton screenplay...Imagine an Ellison take on Jurassic Park...that would be amusing.

BunWat wrote: "Dave is a haimisher mensch.

What's haimisher? :D

I loved Confederacy of Dunces...but I can see why some people wouldn't...it seems to be one of those "love it or hate it" books.

And I agree about LOTR.

Dave is a haimisher mensch.

A shame.