The Catcher in the Rye
discussion
The Most Overrated Books
Michael wrote: "Making a list like this is like making a list of the most over rated ice cream flavors.Chocolate
Strawberry
Vanilla
What do you think constitutes something being 'over rated' to begin with? Is i..."
Excellent comment, Michael... lucid, creative and insightful metaphor usage with the ice cream flavors.
. This is currently number one on the NYT Bestsellers list. I'm reading it now and hereby nominate it as a possible contender for most overrated.
The GR description makes me want to hurt myself.Good luck!
Mochaspresso wrote: ". This is currently number one on the NYT Bestsellers list. I'm reading it now and hereby nominate it as a possible contender for most overrated."*gags*
*looks fondly at her copy of "The Night We Buried Road Dog.*
Sophie wrote: "I don't think anyone can label a book overrated. Some people may have enjoyed the said book and found it interesting, even while majority of the other readers disliked the book and found that it wa..."The following repeats thoughts I and others have expressed before in this thread. For readers who are--I don't know--non-professional reviewers and critics such as ourselves--what we like is what we like. Can we exaggerate our own preference? Maybe. But, if so, only we would know. And in most cases, I don't think anyone would have much motivation to do so.
The New Yorker's television critic Emily Nussbaum wrote a lovely sentence in her pan of the HBO series True Detectives finale. "Pleasure is an argument for itself, after all."
I think it's different for professional book reviewers and literary critics. I would add scholars who conspire--either consciously or organically--to give a book strong academic merit to that list. Asking if these folks have "overrated" a work becomes a fairer and more valid game.
And, to digress a bit, in the end the discourse the question foments in both professional and personal circles has no more weight or purpose than does any other game. I say that not to belittle these discussions in any way, but to put them in the perspective in which I think they belong. Still, we hold professional game players to a different standard than amateurs (i.e. those who are not paid to play the game). In most cases, we want to see them perform at a level demonstrably above that of the best amateur. And we don't want them to cheat.
So maybe you, Sophie, thought the The Goldfinch was a superb work of art and I found it to be quite lacking. That's one thing. But to ask whether it deserved to win the Pulitzer Prize is another. I give that only as an example realizing there's the argument that the Pulitzer often gets it wrong when it comes to novels, etc. And I don't know whether you've even read the book. I was just attempting an illustration. When Harold Bloom (I think) reviews Cormac McCarthy's work in the New York Times, is it fair to say that he's more than a little fawning? I know Petergiaquinta and others are giving their eyes a "there he goes again" roll at this point. But, again, this is only an example. I've not read Bloom's more in-depth writings about literary criticism, so maybe he's edited to a dumbed down point in the NYTs. It always seems as if he wants me to accept his praise of McCarthy (and Delilo) more on faith in the sanctity of his opinon rather than because of any presented evidence.
Maybe others have other examples? I've not read any reviews of the Harry Potter books (I know what Monty thinks about them, however). Were these books such a boon to an on-the-ropes book publishing industry that most reviewers took a contextual rather than harshly critical view of them? It wouldn't surprise me. At some level cheerleading for publishing industry cash cows must tempt some professional book reviewers. Successes for said industry is the same side of the bread on which they find their butter, after all. I don't think it's all that naive to assume that at some point something akin to payola comes into play for professional book reviewers.
And books that have perhaps undeservedly secured a place in lit courses in academia t0 the extent that they've crowded out others as deserving? I have no examples. But this and all the rest seems worthy discussion--or at least a fun game--under the rubric of the "overrated" question.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "The GR description makes me want to hurt myself.Good luck!"
I hope it is worlds better than that description.
Kallie wrote: "Petergiaquinta wrote: "The GR description makes me want to hurt myself.Good luck!"
I hope it is worlds better than that description."
But . . . butbutbut . . .
It's published by a BIG, famous publishing house with all sorts of editors and professional blurb writers . . .
Petergiaquinta wrote: "The GR description makes me want to hurt myself.Good luck!"
Don't hurt yourself, people would be sad.
@MarkI'm not touching Harold Bloom, Cormac McCarthy or The Goldfinch today.
But I went and looked up Emily Nussbaum's two articles on True Detective....boy, she just loves to ruin things for folks, doesn't she? The finale was awful, and I didn't need her to tell me so. But she builds a compelling argument, and I have to concede she's right about the entire series. She's pretty much right about everything she said. I sure am glad I enjoyed the show in its entirety before I read her articles.
What else would you like to destroy for me this afternoon?
Petergiaquinta wrote: "But I went and looked up Emily Nussbaum's two articles on True Detective...."I just looked her up too, and I think she's wrong on every major point. She didn't just fail to "get it" (as in relate to the emotional context) she failed to comprehend it, and in doing so she committed the fatal error of the reviewer: she was duped by the actual artistic portrayal of the theme, or (I suspect) she duped herself by putting her own preconceptions well before the thing she was reviewing.
In effect, in her review Nussbaum is unable to understand the story any further than the gatekeeper: Marty. Marty is the first audience member, and his skepticism is the first level of objection that the audience has to overcome in order to comprehend the themes of the series. Like Marty, her ideas convey judgement without insight, because Marty never fully grasps anything in the series. She fails to realize that Rust's monologues and morbidity is not, in fact, the point of the show, but what the show is satirizing. Rust's monologues are filled with malapropist language, badly cribbed scholarly concepts and cliches that he passes off as profundity; he's a dark clown, he's the cop version of the gravediggers in Hamlet or what would happen if Archie Bunker had a badge and a drug habit (and a physical trainer.)
The cardboard cutout female characters she is so bothered by aren't contrasted with male characters who are any more developed--they just have more screentime. Marty and Rusty (whose names should evoke a lot of satirical hilarity) are tropes on top of tropes, and the female characters she finds so little value in are cardboard only in the sense that they keep standing up and walking out on the lead characters when their lack of dimension becomes apparent. Her take on them as sex kittens ignores that every one of them takes charge of her sexuality and cast aside the lead characters when they are done with them. Nussbaum sees that, apparently, as a continuation of the male fantasy model, but it is specifically not portrayed that way in the series. The female characters (with the exception of the murderer's sister) are the ones with agency.
However, I think on some level, she realizes how badly she's misapprehended the series. In both articles she makes an effort (a somewhat shallow one) to complain about how hard it is to let people down by pointing out how bad the thing they enjoy really is. Nonetheless, given how fully she appears to have missed the thread, those denials ring more than a little hallow.
Gary wrote: "In both articles she makes an effort (a somewhat shallow one) to complain about how hard it is to let people down by pointing out how bad the thing they enjoy really is. Nonetheless, given how fully she appears to have missed the thread, those denials ring more than a little hallow."Well, she's right about how much I enjoyed it. But the final episode was such a let down it forced me to go back and re-evaluate. And in that frame of mind, I see what she's saying. It's all a lot of ear and eye candy built around two fascinating characters. A lot of sound and fury...and you know how that line ends, don't you?
There's a lot of build up, a lot of tease in the show, but, when all is said and done and you go back to reconsider, the loose ends are really left dangling. What about that enormous conspiracy? What about the black stars? The Yellow King? It's all just one demented psychopath with a lawn mower and a penchant for classic film? I dunno...the final episode really didn't follow up on the promise of the rest of the show. All that characterization, all that excellent dialogue and then a lot of running around and shooting and stabbing. Pretty conventional stupid stuff at the end, I thought. Up till then the writing was brilliant and then? Poof!
And she's right about the rack and ass and all that. I don't buy your "agency" argument; they're just window dressing. Cersei Lannister gets naked but has agency...Or Daenerys Targaryen...or Anne Boleyn, just to list a few of my favorite premium television unclothed female characters with agency. But it would be refreshing to find a sophisticated, well-written pay-TV series that didn't resort to gratuitous nudity and unorthodox sex scenes built in every thirteen and a half minutes. I like that stuff as much as any red-blooded American male, but it does diminish the seriousness of anything I'm watching when it pops up right on schedule.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "gratuitous nudity and unorthodox sex scenes ..."Ken Tucker, a TV critic I enjoy reading, makes the same point about ultra violence on cable channel series. Because it is an option (expectation?) it becomes an easy device to go to instead of thoughtful storytelling.
Jonathon Livingston Seagull was one of the words books I've ever read. Throw together some vague metaphors about life, and boom! You've got a classic.
J.D. wrote: "...it is the way that the novel [CiTR] speaks to the youth of its generation – as well as that of future generations – that refutes the ‘overrated’ accusation."Agreed. But I would add that it isn't just young people the novel speaks to. What the novel says about the human condition is universal, especially what it says about innocence and the challenges and choices we make in embracing the world as adults.
This isn't a book for most kids. It's a book for adults to understand themselves. This is why it gets classified by so many kids as overrated. Most kids can't get it because they're living the transition that Salinger is writing about. Only a mature adult of above average intelligence, or an extremely bright kid, can fully appreciate CiTR.
Monty J wrote: "This isn't a book for most kids. It's a book for adults to understand themselves. This is why it gets classified by so many kids as overrated. Most kids can't get it because they're living the transition that Salinger is writing about. Only a mature adult of above average intelligence, or an extremely bright kid, can fully appreciate CiTR."I'm not quite sure what you mean by "above average intelligence" Monty. I consider my self of average intelligence, if you are talking about IQ- although I've never had mine taken. I think (and you most likely will agree) that I fully appreciate TCITR, and I have certainly read and appreciated more difficult books. What kind of intelligence do you mean?
The Catcher in the Rye certainly deserves its place on the list. I didn't realize that The Da Vinci Code was rated by anybody.
Waiting for Godot is a play. You don't read it unless you're staging a production of it, or having a part in that production. Unless you're the kind of person who enjoys reading plays as literature, in which case you're probably the kind of person who can appreciate what Beckett was doing.
The Great Gatsby certainly isn't overrated. Although I don't care for it much myself, it has given a great deal of pleasure to generations of readers.
As for putting Moby Dick on the list, that's a bloody scandal. It is one of the greatest novels ever written. Likewise Ulysses. These are not books that give up their treasures lightly. If you don't like them, it means you have been found unworthy of them by the Spirit of Literature.
Other hugely overrated books:
The Prophet by Kalil Gibran
Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert W Pirsig
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I'm a Gene Wolfe fan)
The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
My Autobiography by Sharon Osborne
Any bestseller touting astrology and other forms of prophecy and predicting the future, alternative remedies for common diseases, ways to achieve spiritual equilibrium, cosmic consciousness, etc.
Palmyrah wrote: "The Catcher in the Rye certainly deserves its place on the list. I didn't realize that The Da Vinci Code was rated by anybody.
Waiting for Godot is a play. You don't read it unless you're stagin..."
I'm glad to see you're so certain of your rankings, Palmyrah. Perhaps if you read through some of this thread you might not be quite so certain. Many of us might consider it "scandalous" that you ranked Catcher as deserving merely one star, especially since you fail to offer anything in support of such an opinion.
Palmyrah wrote: "The Alchemist by Paul Coelho.."
Would not be surprised if this turned out to be true. One of the many books I find myself still pushing and struggling to get through this year is
. Hate to say it, but Coelho should never ever write from a female pov.
Karen wrote: "Monty J wrote: "This isn't a book for most kids. It's a book for adults to understand themselves. This is why it gets classified by so many kids as overrated. Most kids can't get it because they're..."It's merely a vague reference not meant to exclude anyone, but to acknowledge that the book has levels of depth not readily accessible to some. I know people who could never grasp the complexity of CiTR. Maybe it's emotional intelligence I'm getting at. Some just don't seem geared toward thinking beyond the obvious and superficial, or want to be bothered with it.
I think you've defined it better, there, Monty. Emotional intelligence (or awareness) and depth.
Michael wrote: I'm glad to see you're so certain of your rankings, Palmyrah.Aha! You don't agree with me, and you're taking it personally. Great stuff. Read on for more things to take personally, if you want to. I hope you find them thoroughly offensive.
Perhaps if you read through some of this thread you might not be quite so certain.
I wouldn't be seen dead reading any of this thread. Why should a hill of sententious tripe amassed largely by people who don't know anything about literature (but know what they like, haw-haw) interest me at all? I only commented on this thread because it kept turning up at the top of my Discussions page. I hope it will stop now.
Many of us might consider it "scandalous" that you ranked Catcher as deserving merely one star, especially since you fail to offer anything in support of such an opinion.
I couldn't care less what many of you might consider. The Catcher in the Rye is an overrated book by an overrated amateur (whose other works, such as they were, lacked even the derisory merit of this literary fewmet). It is popular because it is a book about a whining little snotbag, and all the other whining little snotbags in the world identify with it and think it's great. Most of them grow out of their snotbaggery (aka adolescence) but some never do — hence the popularity of this unmitigatedly awful book.
Is that support enough for my opinion, do you think? If not, I could post a picture of a smelly old jockstrap.
Hah! Palmyrah! Thinks he's funny and knows a thing or two about literature...well here's something I know: zombies can't read, buddy. So if you're dead then lurch away and stop favoring us with your presence.Thanks for dropping by, you insufferable twit.
Palmyrah wrote: I couldn't care less what many of you might consider. "That kind of defeats the purpose of even entering the thread, much less actually writing something.
I like the books, but yeah, more successeful marketing than in the book, for me:The Great Gatsby
The Da Vinci Code
Twilight
Monty J wrote: "Karen wrote: "Monty J wrote: "This isn't a book for most kids. It's a book for adults to understand themselves. This is why it gets classified by so many kids as overrated. Most kids can't get it b..."Okay, that makes it pretty clear, thanks! IQ's are funny- and a limiting way of measuring intelligence. I like to think that perceptive reasoning and intuitive thinking is helpful in reading books like this.
Palmyrah wrote: ... The Catcher in the Rye is an overrated book by an overrated amateur..."As compared to . . . "Game of Thrones?" Or is there some opus you're working on yourself? Pray tell.
Petergiaquinta wrote: "Thanks for dropping by, you insufferable twit..."Alternately, we could feel a little sorry for him. In my experience, monkeys fling their poop at those passing by only when they've been put in a cage. I wonder what kind of cage Palmyrah is in or has put himself in.
I've always found it useful, or at least entertaining, to check the profiles of trolls . . . or, as someone on another thread described them, "torag." :DOur new pet's *literary* obsession seems to be, on quick glance, "Game of Thrones."
*wonders if PETA gives a rat's ass about trolls*
Renee wrote: "Our new pet's *literary* obsession seems to be, on quick glance, 'Game of Thrones.'But there's some heavy duty lit in his "favorites" list. Who knows? I used to have something along the lines of the kind of hostile and combative tendencies he's displaying (I cringe to think I might have been as bad). After being exposed to people's presence over time, it becomes harder to spew that kind of venom, I think.
I think his opinion of himself as a literary critic is, well, overrated.
Can anybody tell me what Game of Thrones is? Too lazy to google it
Paul Martin wrote: "Palmyrah wrote: I couldn't care less what many of you might consider. "That kind of defeats the purpose of even entering the thread, much less actually writing something."
Yes, good point, Paul: Why comment on the thread at all? Oh, of course: to dump on it. That's so original.
Lucie wrote: "Can anybody tell me what Game of Thrones is? Too lazy to google it"A Song of Ice and Fire is author George R. R. Martin's series of fantasy novels, the first of which is titled A Game of Thrones. Adapted into a very popular HBO series. Medieval feel to a fantasy world of warring nations, dragons, bodice ripping, dwarves ... that sort of thing. It might be a good read. Someone on here spoke eloquently about it .... Petergiaquinta mebbe
Mark wrote: "Renee wrote: "Our new pet's *literary* obsession seems to be, on quick glance, 'Game of Thrones.'But there's some heavy duty lit in his "favorites" list. Who knows? I used to have something along..."
I glanced at the book list — very easy to pad that, but looking at the comment history . . . ;-)
Mark wrote: "A Song of Ice and Fire is author George R. R. Martin's series of fantasy novels, the first of which is titled A Game of Thrones. Adapted into a very popular HBO series. Medieval feel to a fantasy world of warring nations, dragons, bodice ripping, dwarves... that sort of thing. It might be a good read. Someone on here spoke eloquently about it .... Petergiaquinta mebbe "Should be singular rather than plural ;)
Mark wrote: " Someone on here spoke eloquently about it .... Petergiaquinta mebbe"Dunno if it was me, but I do enjoy the series and I see some merit in it. Martin knows his stuff, and the evolution of culture and religion in Westeros is fascinating to me with its parallels to what historically happened in that other island with its seven kingdoms.
My reviews aren't all that good, but if we're being visited by trolls, can I play the review whore here for a minute?
Game of Thrones:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
A Clash of Kings:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
A Storm of Swords:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
A Feast for Crows:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I want to nominate the Bell Jar... I felt like I was reading the diary of the most melodramatic, self-absorbed 13 year old ever.
Renee wrote: ". . .looking at the comment history . . . ;-) ..."Please dress for haz mat. I know your sense of humor wields power, but just in case . . .
Grant500 wrote: "I want to nominate the Bell Jar... I felt like I was reading the diary of the most melodramatic, self-absorbed 13 year old ever."I didn't feel the exact same way but I know what you mean and, I think, know how you felt. My overriding emotional response to the book as a reader was to want to scream, "snap the FUCK out of it! Will you already?" But after I was done with the book and reflected upon the response it engendered from me, I felt differently.
That's the horror of mental illness (which Plath seems likely to have had, clinical depression at the least). It shuts those who suffer from it in a place that those of us without it simply cannot comprehend unless we muster a difficult to find empathy. It's mental illness. Most people wouldn't tell a person who is diabetic to "just snap out of it, here--eat this piece of fudge, you'll be fine!" Most people wouldn't tell a blind child, "everyone else is reading in class today, I don't see why you can't keep up!"
But when people have a bona fide mental illness (therein lies the rub), it's hard for us to imagine that they can't just shake it off and bring their brain in line with where most everyone else's brain is.
Besides, I think whether or not a book can be overrated is a somewhat valid discussion--or at least has happened in here recently. That doesn't mean the definition of "overrated" is "books that personally got on your nerves."
Petergiaquinta wrote: "What about that enormous conspiracy? (in True Detectives)"Petergiaquinta: Wasn't that dealt with a bit in the final episode? Rust expressed frustration (I'm straining to recall this correctly, help me out if you can) at not taking down the people at the top of what was clearly a big conspiracy. And Marty said something along the lines of, "but we got our man." He maintained that sometimes that's enough. For me, that sort of summed up his feelings about the "because you have a debt that has not yet been paid" that Rust became so emphatic about in the last couple of episodes.
In the bonus cuts at the end of the DVD of the movie "before the devil knows your dead," the director or the writer or someone says something I can only vaguely recall. It's along the lines of "in a melodrama character drives plot and in a drama plot drives character." Wish I could google that up somehow. Tried to no avail. And I might have it backwards.
Anyway (writing this fast and sloppily, apologies for that), I think True Detectives was at its core a character study of Rust and Marty and how they interacted more than it was about masterfully tying up every thread that had been unspooled. There was interesting contrast and comparison right up to the end.
Nussbaum's flaw, if you ask me, is that she's a prescriptivist. Sometimes real life is chauvinistic. Is it the author's duty to depict a more morally balanced world that isn't?
Mark wrote: "Wish I could google that up somehow. Tried to no avail. And I might have it backwards."Found it!
"Working from a script by Kelly Masterson, a first-time screenwriter, Mr. Lumet was careful to adhere to the rules of melodrama. 'In a well-written drama the story comes out of the characters, and in a well-written melodrama, the characters come out of the story,' he said. 'The first obligation is to the story. It’s something I warned the actors about. I said, ‘Listen, I may need to ask you for a climax here that you may not feel, because the nature of the plot demands it.''"
Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/mov...
So my take is that True Detectives was drama not melodrama because the story took a backseat to the characters ... which may be a way of describing what you now find so dissatisfactory about it. Me? I'm good.
Mark wrote: Nussbaum's flaw, if you ask me, is that she's a prescriptivist. Sometimes real life is chauvinistic. Is it the author's duty to depict a more morally balanced world that isn't? No, and I agree that the censorious approach to critique is often absurd. But the author can add some irony or artfully convey through characterization etc. how effed up chauvinism is. I haven't seen True Detective so I don't know whether the show fails to do this.
In GoT the nude frolicking seems silly unless Peter Dinklage is there to add some irony. And then it feels as though: Oh, we can allow the jester to be complex. That's a bit squirmy-making, when I think about it.
Palmyrah wrote: I wouldn't be seen dead reading any of this thread."You make me chuckle. You sound just like Holden.
twilight definitely !!
Just to be #5000. (Bows.) Hey, don't I get any applause?
Is there another thread on G-R with 5,000 posts?
Monty J wrote: "Just to be #5000. Hey, don't I get any applause?
Is there another thread on G-R with 5,000 posts?"
Hah, would have to be one of those Harry Potter word games...
..and:
*Applause*
Monty J wrote: "Palmyrah wrote: I wouldn't be seen dead reading any of this thread."You make me chuckle. You sound just like Holden."
I think you're right Monty! Maybe that's why this person hates the novel.
Monty J wrote: "Palmyrah wrote: I wouldn't be seen dead reading any of this thread."You make me chuckle. You sound just like Holden."
We've noticed that before. The people making the most noise are the most like Holden at his worse.
I wouldn't be seen dead reading any of this thread. Why should a hill of sententious tripe amassed largely by people who don't know anything about literature (but know what they like, haw-haw) interest me at all? I only commented on this thread because it kept turning up at the top of my Discussions page. I hope it will stop now.
It is odd that Palmyrah would make this comment at a time when the comments were especially insightful and interesting. This group has some of the best discussions on books I've seen on the web. Amongst the diehards, we also have tremendous respect for anyone's well considered ideas. I especially enjoyed the Peter Pan topic. I never would have thought of that comparison and I'm not sure if I even agree with it, but it was so intriguing. I think I fall on the side of the Peter Pan being Barrie's mother...such an unusual take on the novel. Right now my granddaughter is playing Tiger Lily at our community theater and I will be watching it with a different mindset because of our conversation.
But I don't remember Holden, though he is critical and precious, being nasty.
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All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow ..."
Wonderful post, Michael. I still haven't read the novel and most likely will never (it's just not a world I'm attracted to) but you're right... that's one beautiful introduction.