Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Highly regarded but overrated in your opinion....

124

Comments

  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,827 ✭✭✭christmas2012


    cecelia ahern ps i love you,and some book by jackie collins totally overrated,i think the more hype the book has the more of a let down it can be its like deflating a baloon..


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,383 ✭✭✭emeraldstar


    cecelia ahern ps i love you,and some book by jackie collins

    Highly regarded? :confused:


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,024 ✭✭✭HalloweenJack


    I don't know how highly regarded it is but it's something of a cult book. Anyway, I read Naked Lunch before and was actually pissed off with it after.

    It was all disjointed (I know it's part of the style) and really confusing. I don't think I could tell you exactly what happened in it. It wasn't a book that impressed me whatsoever. I can't remember the name of the main characters, just that there was some people called mugwumps (or something like that) and there was lots of drugs in it.

    It really felt like a waste. I couldn't find any point to it (in an allegorical sense).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,656 ✭✭✭norrie rugger


    Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.
    I did enjoy it right up to the very end.
    King basically shíts all over every one of his previous books and chickens out of actually making an ending


  • Registered Users Posts: 274 ✭✭PurpleBee


    68508224 wrote: »
    Anyone here ever read William Burroughs? I tried to read Naked Lunch but couldn't get into it at all. Forced myself through about ninety pages before admitting defeat. Anyone else baffled by it?

    I read Naked Lunch as Burroughs making us feel what it's like to be a hopeless junkie, its not so much a story as a series of impressions that build up to one impression of horror and nausea.

    Queer and Junkie were really good I think.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 1,784 ✭✭✭Monkeybonkers


    PurpleBee wrote: »
    In my opinion I can tell you that you're wrong in my opinion. We're talking about highly regarded here anyway which necessitates a certain disregard for the sanctity of personal "opinion."

    Who decides what's 'highly regarded'? Highly regarded by some can be viewed as rubbish by others.


  • Registered Users Posts: 274 ✭✭PurpleBee


    Who decides what's 'highly regarded'? Highly regarded by some can be viewed as rubbish by others.

    Yeah that's a fair enough point.

    But from the responses alone its clear that there is some sort of consensus about what is highly regarded generally, whether it deserves to be or not is the point of the thread.

    I'd say more generally what makes something highly regarded or not can be partly attributed to whether Penguin considers it a classic or not and what awards the author has won.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7 robbie7171


    meganj wrote: »
    For me it was Catcher in the Rye.

    I really did not enjoy that book, thought Holden was a detestable little shit who needed a slap.

    For me it was a personal thing, I found the protagonist completely un-relatable.

    I do realise the importance of the book though from a literary sense and I think that's important for people who love literature to remember, just because you personally thought a book wasn't enjoyable, doesn't mean that that book doesn't deserve to be held in very high esteem.

    I agree, I thought it was a hugely disappointing book


  • Registered Users Posts: 7 robbie7171


    Also....On the road, got about half way through before asking myself "why on earth am I reading this drivel!!"


  • Registered Users Posts: 113 ✭✭amymak


    Lord of the Rings for me.

    I love fantasy, so I made a major effort to like them, but I found reading the series torturous. I forced myself to read at least two chapters a day and it was the longest few months in my literary life. At the end, I was so drained, I found it such a shock to actually enjoy books. I've also never been so delighted to finish a book.

    I'm not saying that they're bad books. Tolkein was an extremely important author in providing legitimacy to the fantasy genre and he's provided inspiration for so many contemporary authors. His skill at world-building is undeniable.

    However, I read books primarily for the characters. I found the characters in the book to be pretty two-dimensional with little development. There was no 'spark' in them that brought them to life. It's hard to read a book if you don't really care what happens to the characters.

    I also can't seem to get into Stephen King. I should be able to, but I can't. It's not a reflection on his books though, it's just me personally.

    In terms of Dan Brown. I'm not saying he's skilled as a writer, but I found most of his books to be reasonably enjoyable. (Angels and Demons is better than the Da Vinci Code in my opinion.)
    However, he seems to get worse, as I thought that The Lost Symbol was TERRIBLE. He recycled the plot from the other two in the series. (Why can Langdon never keep a girl?) As a result the plot was so formulaic and it seemed that there was no conviction in the story. Also, there's no reason for a writer to use the words "male sex organ" so many times unless they're writing a book on the reproductive system or writing bad erotic fiction.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 10,255 ✭✭✭✭The_Minister


    For me I can’t understand the high regard for 1984, I saw nothing novel or unique in it, just a typical political-dystopian story which many have done better.

    Name them, because I would love to read them.


  • Registered Users Posts: 475 ✭✭candlegrease


    Anything by Cormac Mccarthy. Horrible style with ridiculous descriptions.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,661 ✭✭✭Tin Foil Hat


    Anything by Cormac Mccarthy. Horrible style with ridiculous descriptions.

    I'm half way through 'The Road' at the moment. It's probably the best book I've ever read, although it's massively emotionally draining.

    I had read No Country For Old Men before. I could take it or leave it.
    It did get me used to his style though. I don't think I would enjoy The Road as much as I am enjoying it if it was the first book of his that I'd read.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,700 ✭✭✭ThirdMan


    Anything by Cormac Mccarthy. Horrible style with ridiculous descriptions.

    :eek:

    Blood Meridian is a stunning novel. His use of figurative language is, in my opinion, unsurpassed in modern literature.

    But to each their own. Who would rank amongst your favourite novelists? (I'm asking this in good faith)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,700 ✭✭✭ThirdMan


    Another vote for The Catcher In The Rye, and (dis)honourable mentions for Brave New World & The Shadow In The Wind.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,700 ✭✭✭ThirdMan


    jonsnow wrote: »
    Great Expectations

    It wasn,t what I had hoped for

    NEWS-clapping81.jpg


  • Registered Users Posts: 475 ✭✭candlegrease


    ThirdMan wrote: »
    :eek:

    Blood Meridian is a stunning novel. His use of figurative language is, in my opinion, unsurpassed in modern literature.

    But to each their own. Who would rank amongst your favourite novelists? (I'm asking this in good faith)

    F. Scott Fitzgerald
    Ernest Hemingway
    James Joyce
    Edgar Allan Poe
    Axelandar Dumas
    George RR Martin
    Fyodor Dostoevesky

    These are the writers who spring to mind right now.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,555 ✭✭✭Kinski


    F. Scott Fitzgerald
    Ernest Hemingway
    James Joyce
    Edgar Allan Poe
    Axelandar Dumas
    George RR Martin
    Fyodor Dostoevesky

    Spot the odd one out...;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,700 ✭✭✭ThirdMan


    F. Scott Fitzgerald
    Ernest Hemingway
    James Joyce
    Edgar Allan Poe
    Axelandar Dumas
    George RR Martin
    Fyodor Dostoevesky

    These are the writers who spring to mind right now.

    My intention was to contrast and compare, and then come to some sort of conclusion as to why we disagree. But guess what, I'm full of ****.

    But all is not lost, we agree on something. Dostoevsky is my favourite novelist (although I probably only understand a quarter of what he achieves in each of his works).


  • Registered Users Posts: 475 ✭✭candlegrease


    ThirdMan wrote: »
    F. Scott Fitzgerald
    Ernest Hemingway
    James Joyce
    Edgar Allan Poe
    Axelandar Dumas
    George RR Martin
    Fyodor Dostoevesky

    These are the writers who spring to mind right now.

    My intention was to contrast and compare, and then come to some sort of conclusion as to why we disagree. But guess what, I'm full of ****.

    But all is not lost, we agree on something. Dostoevsky is my favourite novelist (although I probably only understand a quarter of what he achieves in each of his works).

    Do you like any of the others I mentioned?


  • Advertisement
  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,081 ✭✭✭jcf


    Was just wondering what highly regarded books readers thought were vastly overrated? After seeing recommendations everywhere I decided to read Brave New World by Huxley and I have to say I was really really let down. I thought the writing was average, the character development almost non existent and worst of all it was sloooooooooww. I got past the midway point and had to stop, having realised that nothing of note had happened at all.

    Now maybe it picks up in the 2nd half, but I just couldn't push on, and I find it hard to believe what comes in the latter half could make up for the abysmal first half!

    Yeah brave new world was a letdown , so was 1984 .... Animal Farm far superior to either...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,700 ✭✭✭ThirdMan


    Do you like any of the others I mentioned?

    The only other person there that I've read is Joyce. I quiet enjoyed Dubliners, but I struggled with Ulysses. It felt good voicing his words, but I wasn't quiet sure what was going on.

    I'm always threatening to tackle Hemingway. I quiet like Steinbeck, and I've been told more than once that he's a poor man's Hemingway (probably opening a can of worms here), so hopefully I'll find him enjoyable.

    I'm actually relatively new to fiction, and only became familiar with Dostoevsky because of how often he is referred to in the non-fiction that I read.

    I probably sounded like a proper literary buff earlier when I asked for your favourite authors. I'm not. I was just working off a hunch, that you prefferred something more literal over something highly figurative, like McCarthy. But that doesn't seem to be the case, especially with George RR Martin in there.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,775 ✭✭✭✭Slattsy


    Highly regarded....maybe, or maybe not...but I'll go for it anyhoo.

    Flann O'Briens The Third Policeman.
    I simply found it weird, I didn't get it at all. It's raved about by boardsies, but it was lost on me.

    Also, Catch 22 is amazing, how people didn't like that is beyong me. Each to their own :)


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I'm half way through 'The Road' at the moment. It's probably the best book I've ever read, although it's massively emotionally draining.

    I have to say, I was horribly disappointed in The Road. It was recommended to me by a few people, and it sounds in summary like exactly the type of thing I'd like, but I just found it boring. I barely rooted for the characters at all, there were only two points in the whole book where I felt anything (they were
    the bit in the basement and the bit with the pregnant woman
    ), and by the time it finished, I thought the ending was terrible but wasn't even involved in the book enough to feel let down by the lack of a good ending.

    The most overrated books in my opinion? I don't know if they'd be classed as highly regarded, but they're certainly the most widely loved books I've come across - the Harry Potter books. I read the first four when I was younger, grew out of it, and to be honest I now regard them as mildly entertaining children's books. While I do think they're imaginative, they're so hugely overrated that I have very little time to appreciate their actual value because I'm so annoyed by all the hype surrounding them.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,700 ✭✭✭ThirdMan


    I have to say, I was horribly disappointed in The Road. It was recommended to me by a few people, and it sounds in summary like exactly the type of thing I'd like, but I just found it boring. I barely rooted for the characters at all, there were only two points in the whole book where I felt anything (they were
    the bit in the basement and the bit with the pregnant woman
    ), and by the time it finished, I thought the ending was terrible but wasn't even involved in the book enough to feel let down by the lack of a good ending.

    Have you seen the movie adaptation. The 'spoiler' scene you referred to is captured brilliantly.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,213 ✭✭✭Sea Filly


    'On the Road'.

    Dull, and awful character names.


  • Registered Users Posts: 218 ✭✭Grievous


    The Road is overrated. I'm not even sure how well rated the novel is, but it seems to me the least literary of all McCarthy's novels.

    Blood Meridian is his best work. Even at that, I wouldn't put him in my top 50 writers.


  • Registered Users Posts: 218 ✭✭Grievous


    Who decides what's 'highly regarded'? Highly regarded by some can be viewed as rubbish by others.

    Celia Ahern's books are rubbish chick lit without any literary value.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    ThirdMan wrote: »
    Have you seen the movie adaptation. The 'spoiler' scene you referred to is captured brilliantly.

    To be honest I thought the movie was even worse unfortunately.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 7,462 ✭✭✭Queen-Mise


    Couldn't stand The Catcher in the Rye - god-damn awful book. Some of the others mentioned I read in my impressionable teens & loved them but never re-read since like Catch-22, Brave New World, Animal Farm.

    The appeal of Wuthering Heights - I just don't understand, whiny, moany, miserable tripe. Probably loads more I think are over-rated but can't think of any more.


Advertisement