Page 11 | post your unpopular literature opinions?

MrShannon385 · 2023-10-25T23:28:17+00:00

Curly was the best character in mice an men

Barbadossunset · 26/10/2023 15:14

I thought she basically did. She was too knackered from the whole Willoughby thing and then ill and then clearly went "fuck it" and married Brandon.

Yes that’s true. If I was any good at computers I’d hack the publishers and insert ‘Marianne said ‘fuck it’’into the text of the next print run.

minipie · 26/10/2023 15:13

Oh glad to see someone else couldn’t get on with the Cazalet Chronicles.

The main character (can’t remember name) is basically Lord Flashhard.

WitcheryDivine · 26/10/2023 15:11

James Joyce isn't really that good a writer.

Poetry is amazing and magical.

WitcheryDivine · 26/10/2023 15:09

Barbadossunset · 26/10/2023 14:52

All that drama with Marianne and Willoughby and then it was like ‘oh yeah she married Brandon and learned to love him’.

It would have been more realistic if JA had written that Marianne married Brandon on the rebound.

I thought she basically did. She was too knackered from the whole Willoughby thing and then ill and then clearly went "fuck it" and married Brandon.

Read this first when I was a teenager (a couple of years younger than Marianne in the book) and was SO ANGRY when Jane married her off to the (IMO at the time) elderly perv Brandon. I think Brandon is late thirties? Well I'm late thirties now and it is still gross, but I can understand better now why Marianne in her situation might have just been too exhausted to do anything other than the easy, secure option.

CloudPop · 26/10/2023 15:01

Don't don't like Dickens either. Find him unbearable to read. I also hate poetry.

Love reading in general though.

Barbadossunset · 26/10/2023 14:52

All that drama with Marianne and Willoughby and then it was like ‘oh yeah she married Brandon and learned to love him’.

It would have been more realistic if JA had written that Marianne married Brandon on the rebound.

LisaVanderpump1 · 26/10/2023 14:48

LOVE The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Bronte's>Austen.

tobee · 26/10/2023 14:46

toffee1000 · 26/10/2023 13:38

I also don’t like Catcher in the Rye. Holden is so irritating and whiny. I don’t identify with him at all.

Try again in a few years @toffee1000 ?

tobee · 26/10/2023 14:43

Totally agree about Not So Quiet - amazing read @SerafinasGoose

tobee · 26/10/2023 14:36

Can't stand Kate Atkinson
Can't stand Sebastian Faulks especially Birdsong
Can't bear Hardy

But love Dickens and Shakespeare.

Insertdeadcatsnamehere · 26/10/2023 14:21

Lord of the Rings is crap

MissyB1 · 26/10/2023 14:06

Maireas · 26/10/2023 11:27

Too true, see Richard Osman.
Really lovely man, terrible books, imo.

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I just watched a piece on the news where a charity shop worker was saying they keep getting donated too many copies of Richard Osman books! 😂

Katiemag · 26/10/2023 13:56

I don’t know if these are unpopular opinions but 2 literary genres which I feel are neglected and deserving of a revival:

Church/academic spinster heroine literature - specifically Barbara Pym and
The sensation novel - a la Wilkie Collins, Mrs Henry Wood, Mary Elizabeth Braddon.

The first maybe appeals to me based on relatability; and the second just because they were just rip-roaringly good yarns

Sammilouwho · 26/10/2023 13:49

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the best Bronte sisters book.
Shakespeare is dull (although I enjoy watching Midsummer night's dream!)
Dickens is just unreadable.

viques · 26/10/2023 13:43

RedRadishes · 26/10/2023 11:18

The often praised (but only on MN!) Cazalet Chronicle books are absolutely crap!

If you diss the Chalet School books you will be hunted down and ripped limb from limb. Just a warning. Never read them myself, too busy reading Black Beauty and crying.

MariaVT65 · 26/10/2023 13:40

I felt like Jane Austen couldn’t be arsed to finish writing S&S properly. All that drama with Marianne and Willoughby and then it was like ‘oh yeah she married Brandon and learned to love him’.

toffee1000 · 26/10/2023 13:38

I also don’t like Catcher in the Rye. Holden is so irritating and whiny. I don’t identify with him at all.

ClaudiaWankleman · 26/10/2023 13:28

Exasperatednow · 26/10/2023 07:32

Jane Eyre is chick lit for the victorisn era.

I don't think that's particularly controversial or unpopular. In many ways it's almost fact. What is Jane Eyre if not literature aimed at young women?

DapperDame · 26/10/2023 13:26

Shakespeare is meant to be seen rather than read, and most of it is outside the range of teenagers' experience imho

DapperDame · 26/10/2023 13:21

NoraLuka · 26/10/2023 07:05

Wuthering Heights is horrible and claustrophobic, all those people with the same names who never go anywhere and just moon about at home. Ugh.

Agreed. Where the crowd ads sing is another no-no for me. Completely unhinged from reality.

littlehouselessmatch · 26/10/2023 13:18

Brideshead Revisited is an odious novel - smug, elitist, hypocritical, judgemental yet morally suspect and vile on every level. I don't often loathe a book so strongly but that one deserves a place on the "justly forgotten" shelf.

And horribly self indulgent on top of all that.

TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross · 26/10/2023 13:11

Most American literature is derivative rubbish.

I’m interested to know how much you’ve read and in which genres to come to that conclusion?

Derivative in what way?

Squiblet · 26/10/2023 13:07

Brideshead Revisited is an odious novel - smug, elitist, hypocritical, judgemental yet morally suspect and vile on every level. I don't often loathe a book so strongly but that one deserves a place on the "justly forgotten" shelf.

Also agree with others that the Robert Galbraith books are very poor. Rowling hasn't really grasped the conventions of the successful mystery novel.

In fact I've never yet read a modern crime novel that was as good as the best of the golden age crop.

littlehouselessmatch · 26/10/2023 13:06

LisaVanderpump1 · 26/10/2023 12:04

The end of The Miniaturist had my so confused and I felt like I'd wasted my time reading it. But others thought it good enough to turn into a TV series...

Yes. Though such lovely descriptions of marzipan that I started to buy it again.

SerafinasGoose · 26/10/2023 13:05

Brefugee · 26/10/2023 11:30

IMO if you want to read Birdsong, don't bother. Read All Quiet On The Western Front and Madame Bovary both at the same time. (turn and turn about)

Same story, much better books.

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Have you come across Not So Quiet by Helen Zanna Smith? I've taught this as a pairing with All Quiet before.

Fantastic novel.