post your unpopular literature opinions?

@JaneyGee even Charlotte Sometimes which is quite a strange little book has something about it that I don’t think I’ve saw captured in modern fiction . A sort of eeriness .

@StrangePaintName , I'm not denigrating her. I've not read any of her books or seen the film or tv series. I think I opened Normal People and read a few paragraphs and it didn't look like my sort of book.

I got the impression that it was one of those books where nothing really happens.

I read the Narnia books recently. God, the prose is sublime! But I don’t know many young people today who’d be capable of reading them, frankly. Maybe the standard was higher when Lewis wrote them. Same goes for Wind in the Willows.

I was put off by seeing an interview with her - a dreary, humourless Marxist. She actually said “I don’t believe in the individual; only the collective good matters.” Tells me all I need to know about her.

Certain writers get way too much praise. The literary establishment loves Sally Rooney and Zadie Smith, and they over-promote them.

It was a lovely-looking adaptation, wasn’t it? There was a scene where Connell was driving along a rural road that I loved! (On the other hand, I was disappointed by the Italian villa, which I’d expected to be far more beautiful!)

It’s very fashionable to denigrate her, so you’re in good company! (Colleagues who teach her work on a contemporary writing module say their undergraduates also think she’s a bit fuddy-duddy.)

I think I’m probably being more unpopular when I say I rather like Conversations With Friends, though less keen on Normal People, and the email correspondence in Beautiful World!

I tried to read Normal People but I didn't care about the normal people...I watched it during lockdown to admire the scenery 😉 I liked early Kate Atkinson but nothing recently.

Not read anything by Sally Rooney and have no intention of doing so.
They sound awful.

Agree. I couldn’t work out whether I was the wrong generation to be reading them or they were just really awful

Sally Rooney's books are eye rollingly immature with very little substance and depth.

In fairness, though, Elizabeth bases her initial ‘prejudice’ against him partly on the valid enough grounds that he behaves rudely to everyone at the first Meryton assembly where they meet the Netherfield party and disparages her looks as ‘tolerable’, breaks up Jane and Bingley, and proposes to her in a shockingly arrogant manner, telling her he has fallen for her despite her low birth and badly-behaved family etc. It’s not just that she believes Wickham over him. He did behave like a complete wanker in her vicinity, which he acknowledges.

Indeed. The whole point is that both of them were initially incapable of appreciating each other’s virtues due to - spoiler alert - pride (Darcy) and prejudice (Elizabeth).

I'd say R&J is tragedy. About idealistic innocent young people being killed by their parents' & families mistakes, pride & stupid feuds.

Similarly, Romeo and Juliet only makes sense as a satire. It is definitely not a tragedy.

Only difference between tragedy and comedy is one ends in death, the other marriage. R&J is definitely a send up of the lofty neo-Petrarchan tradition of the likes of Dante and Petrarch. Romeo is a buffoon, and as for the Queen Mab bit ...

Same with Count Orsino. What an eejit!

Totally agree, for its time it’s unique, nobody was writing like that, least of all a woman.

I’m surprised up thread by anyone thinking that saying Wuthering Heights isn’t a romance is an unusual stance, it’s not at all, it’s not a romance at all it’s about jealousy, revenge and status.

What do you mean by ‘clichéd’ characters?

I'd also be interested in hearing how the characters are clichéd.

What do you mean by ‘clichéd’ characters?

'Wuthering Heights' is ludicrous it is so over the top- full of cliched, exaggerated characters and storylines.

WH set the cliche, there was no cliche before WH. Is my impression, anyway. You need to read it like someone would have written in then. There was nothing like it before then. This is the original, the rest are cliche imitation.

The Brontes were dreadful writers- mostly of dull, miserable stuff. However, 'Wuthering Heights' is ludicrous it is so over the top- full of cliched, exaggerated characters and storylines. I really can not bear the Brontes.

Like The Old Curiosity Shop and Little Nell's death.

Ah, I see, yes I was getting mixed up with another post upthread. I think only Pride and Prejudice would cover that description if we are talking of JA. But even then I wouldn't say she tames or rescues him, more that she realises he isn't a total arsehole.

I don’t think so. Becky Sharp is most definitely not the rescuing kind.

@monpetitchou so good isn’t it. I think I only know two people who’ve read it.

Completely agree, ridiculous that they’d all succeeded so far and yet still seemed fixated on wallow in the fact they’d struggled plus they didn’t really seem to even like each other!

Similarly, Romeo and Juliet only makes sense as a satire. It is definitely not a tragedy.