Unpopular Literary Opinions

[biondetta]

I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, but as a light read, not as a serious work to be delved into in detail. Of course, I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail about a decade before, so Brown's book wasn't anything original.

I can't tell you how happy I am to find others who don't like Catcher in the Rye. I originally tried to read it when I was 14 or so, and even then I thought it was a whiney, annoying book. Holden Caufield was not the least bit interesting to me. I tried rereading it a few years ago to see if I could appreciate it as an adult with more literary awareness, but no. I still couldn't get further than a few pages.

[Alexis Machine]

*raises hand* I hated Catcher in the Rye, too. My 11th grade English teacher told us it was important for teenagers to read. I don't think he took into consideration that a group of 27 black teenagers would be bored by that incessant rambling. By the time I got to the end of the book, I wondered why, if Holden was so disenfrachised, didn't he try to help someone else, rather than complain? He goes on and on about his brother being in the outfield hiding a book in his baseball glove, yet he couldn't take the boy to a library, bookstore, poetry reading, or something.

[Deleted]

I sort of put The Bell Jar and Catcher in the Rye in the same boat. Both can be extremely moving if you read them at the right time and in the right frame of mind but if you aren't in the right situation, the characters come off as whiny or unlikable or simply unmoving. I enjoyed both books but didn't identify with the main characters very much. I can understand why people would, though.

Word on the underwhelming The Secred Life of Bees. A woman I was talking to about it started crying (!) and I read the thing and was completely unmoved. Same with The Shipping News. Blah.

[pegleg]

Well, here goes...I think Pride and Prejudice is terrible, Frost is "eh," and that Ezra Pound's bad rap is somewhat undeserved.

Yeah, I'll show myself out.

[maxell1313]

From High School: I hated Steven Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, and anything by Ernest Hemingway. (Trying to get through The Old Man and the Sea made me want to spork my eyes out.)

[Deleted]

I've always hated Jane Eyre. Jane was such a whiney moron and Mr. Rochester was a massive dick of massively dickish proportions.

I also hated hated hated Mrs. Dalloway. I really can't grasp why people love it. I had to read it in college and hated it but then I read that book "The Hours" and figured "Hmmm, if it affected these women so much, maybe there's something I'm missing" so I read it again a year ago in book club. I don't get it. Clarissa is snobby, stupid, self-centered and boring. I don't get why that many people showed up to her stupid party. "Come to my party!" Bah. Shut up.

[mrpancake]

I, too, didn't enjoy Mrs. Dalloway. I actually read it because I liked The Hours. Unfortunately, I had to read it pretty quickly, so maybe my opinion isn't entirely fair, but I thought it was sort of annoyingly written and was way over-hyped. I had a comparative literature professor rave about it a little this year, and I bit my tounge. I just thought it was pretty boring, and yeah, I wasn't too sympathetic for Clarissa either.

[baseballgirl]

Maxell, if hating Hemingway is unpopular, show me to the Geek Table....

[Deleted]

Speaking of Hemingway... Well, let me qualify this, first: as a kid I was very precocious and would attempt to read books that were over my head. One of these books was The Sun Also Rises. Okay, one of the main plot points was the fact that the main character was impotent. I realized this years later. But at the time I was so young I didn't even realize what "impotent" meant, let alone how and why it was affecting the guy's relationship with the female in the story. I actually finished the book but with the idea, "Huh. I thought this Hemingway guy was supposed to be good. I didn't get that at all..."

There's a chance if I read it now, as an adult, I'd love it. But I'll probably never give it another shot.

[dwanollah]

I've always hated Jane Eyre. Jane was such a whiney moron and Mr. Rochester was a massive dick of massively dickish proportions.

Thank. YOU! I recently re-read this, and could not get why so many women claim crushes on Rochester. What an ASS!

Maxell, if hating Hemingway is unpopular, show me to the Geek Table....

Actually, it isn't right now, BaseballGirl. Quite the opposite, in fact. Which is why I'm chagrined about my deep and abiding LOVE for the chauvinistic
fucktard. *dreamy sigh*