Books you think are overated.

There certainly is. I don't agree with Mr. Paas. But I do believe that these great fathers should be de-emphasized.

 

No, not really. Definitely not a lot.
My mentality is toward the future, because, after all, that is all that matters. There are some things that you get from the past and that provide something for the future, but this is not one of them.

I guess I do equate them like that, although there are some exceptions. I can't come up with "old" with "good" right now, but "new" with "bad" is not so difficult.
I saw how people worked with all that in school, they were made to look at them one way and another, eventually their minds were dulled and they simply said "yes, it is good and important".
The reason they are still around comes from injections from school and parents. It's an endless circle where one learns, grows up, and teaches exactly the same things to new ones. Not once asking "what is the point?". Most people do without thinking. Unable to see outside the box they are in.
Unacknowledged insinuation from birth till death pops to mind... Like a process without an end started long ago with no good outcome. But then again we learn from mistakes.

Very few do...


I will leave this thread alone now, to ensure it won't go too far off-topic.

 

Are you one of those writers who doesn't read other people's stuff and thinks that makes his own work more fresh and innovative?

You accuse us of being basically brainwashed into liking old stuff. I accuse you of being brainwashed by the culture meme of newness and change.

With all due respect, I have the impression that you have only a very vague idea of what philosophy is about. Philosophy is not social commentary.

 

I do read other people's stuff, in fact I ordered five new books a few days ago.
The brainwashing part. If you truly think about it then...
I'd rather be brainwashed with newness and change than be stuck with old.
I'm not accusing anyone, just saying how I see things.

 

^ You are missing out on some really great books and ideas; the great Literary Canon, and the evolution of philosophy through the years, and more than that. Your life and all, and I don't really care, but still: it's your loss.

 

Nope, it's not. All the time I would spend reading those works and later thinking about them I instead use thinking for myself and by myself, unbiased.

 

I don't understand. Reading the classics is ... biased? Huh?

Would you honestly believe strongly in the Theory of Forms just because you read about it? I've just started reading The Virtue of Selfishness for the second time, that doesn't mean I'm an Objectivist anymore than it means I'm a Christian because I've read The Bible.

And what you wrote is no argument against reading the classic fiction and poetry.

 

OK, I'm going to wade in up to my knees here. That doesn't make sense.

You don't think you'd be missing out? Doesn't the fact some of these books have been round hundreds of years give you an idea of the quality of them? Books don't survive centuries without having something about them. How many modern bestsellers will survive into the twenty-second century? Certainly the likes of Twilight, The Da Vinci Code, The Millennium Trilogy, any number of cheap popcorn fantasies, etc, won't. They have no merit to them, no ideas worthy of note, no linguistic tricks that make the reader's mind sing with the euphonic quality of the writing. No, not all will be to your taste. That's the way of things. I know that I disliked The Three Musketeers, for example.

What do you write? I say this as it is good to know your field well. Don't just know what has been written in recent years (though it's certainly useful to know, if you plan on being published), know your genre history. It may be that the history of your genre may be found in the works of someone like Edgar Allan Poe, or Jules Verne who, for the purposes of genre history, are not all that far back in time. Or it may be that where you're working finds its roots in Chaucer.

Knowing the tricks of writers from days gone by is a useful tool to have in your armoury. It gives you a breadth of skills beyond that of a writer who has just looked through recent works. And it's not just in the linguistics: an idea might spark your imagination, or you may be able to say beyond all reasonable doubt that another idea is somewhat tired and unsuited to modern audiences.

One final thing: you say you look to the future. I look to the future as well. But being aware of and respecting the past will help to inform you about the future. There are lessons to be learned there, which may be hundreds of years old but which still bear relevance to the world today. If you've ever studied history to a fairly high level you should know what the past can tell us about today and the future.

On topic: I've always felt The Lord of the Rings to be overrated. To be fair, I've not read it for some years, and I am prejudiced against it by the dirge of copycat fantasy novels which seem to fill the bookshelves at Waterstone's, but I've really never seen what all the fuss is about.

 

Did I say reading them is biased? No, I did not... It was about the thinking part... I must have missed some commas.
You're bringing "believing" into this? Seriously?

Dante. The history part... I'm not gonna go there...
Book surviving part. Not going to go there either...
My imagination and idea generator works very well. So does the recognition of boring. Unsuited? Modern audiences? It sounds like you are referring that I am from six/seventeenth century.
What I write is/will be mostly science fiction, but not all, there will also be drama, general fiction, horror, and fantasy, and maybe a few others.

What I get from answering one question...

This has actually given me an idea. To write down everything I see as "wrong and right" and, in detail, why?

 

Erm ... no. You said: 'thinking for myself and by myself, unbiased'. What I meant was, as maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been, 'Why would you find a bias toward an idea, or against one, by just learning other opinions and ideas?'

And faith? I was just trying to make a point about influences, that also why I mentioned Ayn Rand.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I honestly thought I was.

 

Point taken.

 

You are not smart enough to be consistently right without other people's contributions.

Also, cool. You are reading books that follow essentially the same narrative structure as the books you disdain because western narrative structure hasn't really changed that much. The real innovative people, i.e. the modernists and futurists (well, futurists weren't really innovative but they worshiped the now the same way you do), also qualify as old in your myopic frame of reference, since they really wrote from the 20s-40s.

 

Literature is not like science and technology. Science is cumulative; it builds on what was done in the past. Today's science is better than the science of 100 years ago. But the same cannot be said about literature, or any other art. Sure, past literature influences today's writers, but that doesn't mean that the work today's writers are doing is superior to the work of Shakespeare and Dante and Homer and all the rest.

Human beings face the same problems they faced thousands of years ago. How to organize a society, how to deal with a family, how to deal with others who don't share your values, and so on and so forth. How do we deal with ourselves, and with each other? Each new generation of people deals with the same problems - these are problems that are never solved for everybody or for all time. What writers do is to recast ways of handling things (or not handling things) in terms relatable to audiences of their times. This means the work of older writers is still valid. It provides the same avenues towards, if not solutions to our problems, at least methods of dealing with them in our own lives. The language used may be different, but the fundamental material is always the same: how do we flourish as humans? This never goes out of date. The problems of the ancients are the problems of today. Today's solutions, presented by today's writers, aren't better because they're today's. It's just that they might be easier to understand because they're presented in modern settings with modern language.

We revere the old writers whose work has survived because it provides deep insight into the same problems we face today. That insight matters. Beauty of presentation matters. So the old writers still matter. Today's writers, if they bring comparable genius, will join the pantheon and still be in print (or whatever passes for print) a hundred years from now or more. Most of today's writers will be forgotten by then.

 

Anything by Raymond E Feist is over-rated. I couldn't even finish The Magician. A complete rip-off of Tolkien. Why people like his works is beyond me.

 

For me it's Dickens. I can't really judge alot of his writing as I only read Hard Times. But, as someone drenched in modern vernacular, I had to open Google every 10 minutes. I did enjoy it, though. I think the hype I heard about Jack London's Call of the Wild, was a bit overdone. Then again, it could have been the fact that my teacher was quite enthusiastic about such novels. I liked the novel when I read it, at age 16, and couldn't for the life of me understand why a lot of people told me the language was too hard to understand. I was in the remedial class for goodness sakes, (God, now that was BORING) and I understood it quite well. Though, a few Google checks were in order. Of course I have to add the obligatory Twilight mention. Sorry for that. I was the target audience when I read it, but meh. Did anyone else feel insulted when reading that? Because I sure as hell did. Moved on quickly to the Mortal Instruments series.
Of course, the Harry Potter series, in terms of hype. I grew up with them, so I liked them, though, I wouldn't tout it as fantastic literature. It's a kids' book.
Jane Austen gets a mention, though, why people compare Meyer to her, I don't know. I liked the Bronte sisters, though, their writing is a bit stuffy. Stephen King, cool writer, but way too much hype. Especially my friends. They constantly refer to him as "the God of writers."
For me, at least, the Fallen novels. Heard great things, then fell flat. Maybe it's because I don't normally like mushy, sappy, lovey- dovey stuff. *shrugs*

Then again, my tastes are still developing and maybe I need to read more.

 

Sorry to say this but...

William Faulkner. I had to read his As I Lay Dying for class last semester and it was a struggle to read. Everyone in the book was dysfunctional and depressed.

Oh, and Dickens' Oliver Twist. I did attempt to read it, and did get half-way through, but I stopped. Why? Because it felt like the whole thing was just "Look at how horrible Oliver's life is!" and the characters were just borderline crazy-evil. Kicking the kid out onto the streets because he wants more soup? Threatening to send him to the mines because of some small theft? Only two characters seemed to give a damn about the kid (Sally and the old woman). When Oliver gets shot in the back during a robbery he's forced to assist, I had to shut the book. Yes, I know he survives, but seriously?

Every page, I found myself thinking, "Yes, Dickens, I get it. Oliver's life sucks. Now show me how he deals with it. Oh, by doing absolutely nothing while all of London beats him senseless? He doesn't run away? He just sits there and takes it? Okay, cool."

Others include:

#1- Harry Potter: I actually didn't mind it for the first three books. However, when it slowly turned into a 'must save world' plot, I gave up. The seventh book was just...UGH! I mean, the wizarding world pretty much turns into the magical equivalent of Nazi Germany. I found myself thinking, 'Jesus, why didn't you just set the series during World War II, then? At least the Nazi angle would make a whole lot more sense.'

#2- The Inheritance Trilogy: I actually enjoyed the first book, Eragon. Why? Because it felt like a magical story that didn't give a flying toss how cliched it was. It just...did whatever the hell it wanted. What really killed it for me was the second book when it tried to follow the Star Wars plotline.

 

I don't know how others feel about it but I did not like the Bourne Series. They were very dull and I never felt like the series was going to pull me in.

 

My main criticism of those books was too much author insertion and wishful thinking with regards to Mikael Bloomkvist's sex life. In all three books, a myriad of women come onto him, I mean, he is that irresistible
Also, what bugged me is a completely inconsistent personality in Lisbeth Salander. On one hand she is autistic and has many issues with relating to people, speaking, eye contact etc, and on the other, she is sexually promiscuous and bisexual. Of course, she too "seduces" Bloomkvist :rolleyesrolleyes:

But apart from that, and I know it sounds strange, I really loved the books and the movies in Swedish.

 

"The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. Cliched and shallow.

 

I read To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf a few years back. Someone seriously needs to sit that woman down and tell her how to use a full stop (period). She has sentences that literally go on for pages. It was terrible.

 

Like many have said, it starts with 'T' and ends with 'wighlight'.

I also thought Anna Karenina was a bit of a flip-flopping, needy cow and, had she been able, should have thrown herself in front of a steam roller instead of train. #just saying.

 

I concur.

 

the entire harry potter series is overrated

 

I'm going to mention a few movies that I detest:

Elf
Lost in Translation

Now I'm going to mention a few actors I detest:

Meryl Streep (great actress, but annoys me perpetually)
John Travolta (as a woman only)
Hayden Christensen (He's not even "rated" enough to be "overrated," but he ruined something I love)

 

Praise the heavens! I have been searching everywhere for someone who also hated Lost in Translation! I don't have any feelings towards Elf, but I am so sick and tired of people telling me how brilliant Lost in Translation is and how I 'really should watch it again'. No, I wont. So there.