Page 3 | post your unpopular literature opinions?

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

Curly was the best character in mice an men

DuesToTheDirt · 30/10/2023 22:02

Changingplace · 30/10/2023 21:54

A little life drones on too much, most of the characters are interchangeable with no characterisation at all, no sense of place and full of unnecessary waffle about extravagant trips that have nothing whatsoever to do with the story.

I have no idea what all the fuss is about.

I just found it completely unbelievable that 4 completely different personalities gelled enough to be best friends for life, after a year sharing a room in college.

Also, that these 4 people, working in different areas, all got to the top of their game and earned vast amounts so they could buy swanky flats in New York.

Charliescat · 30/10/2023 21:57

Children’s fiction from the 1920s to 60s is often much better quality of writing and stories than almost adult fiction published nowadays

MrsRetriever · 30/10/2023 21:56

This is very therapeutic. Agree about The Alchemist (shite) Dickens (dull) and Wuthering Heights (not a romance novel)

I do have a soft spot for Catcher in the Rye and The Handmaid’s Tale, but I read them when I was a teenager & any subsequent discussed flaws are just cancelled out by nostalgia for me.

post your unpopular literature opinions?

Changingplace · 30/10/2023 21:54

A little life drones on too much, most of the characters are interchangeable with no characterisation at all, no sense of place and full of unnecessary waffle about extravagant trips that have nothing whatsoever to do with the story.

I have no idea what all the fuss is about.

Changingplace · 30/10/2023 21:51

IHateWasps · 26/10/2023 08:17

Wuthering Heights is better than Jane Eyre.

Totally agree!

greengreengrass25 · 30/10/2023 21:49

ManAboutTown · 30/10/2023 20:23

Ages since I read Therese Raquin but seem to remember her marriage was forced on her she ended up killing her husband with the help of her lover

I remember that on tv in the early 80s and saw a bit with a woman in wheelchair

It was very disturbing

SunlightOverBamburgh · 30/10/2023 21:24

MissLucyEyelesbarrow · 30/10/2023 21:01

Which Austen novel has the plucky heroine taming a troubled but wealthy man?

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I think the plucky heroine being discussed was from a Thackeray novel, Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair IIRC.

MissLucyEyelesbarrow · 30/10/2023 21:01

OhMargaret · 30/10/2023 10:02

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow and yet in every single book the plucky heroine tames the troubled but wealthy man using nothing but her good character. You don't need to have read much history to realise what a fantasy this is - it's basically Cinderella with a few moral lessons thrown in for the middle classes

Which Austen novel has the plucky heroine taming a troubled but wealthy man?

Deadringer · 30/10/2023 20:47

TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross · 26/10/2023 11:42

Remains of the Day is wonderful and heartbreaking.

Richard Osman’s novels are entertaining with great characters.

Lord of the Flies is one of the most beautifully written novels there is and understands humanity perfectly.

The Handmaid’s Tale is extraordinary.

My thoughts exactly

GoodOldEmmaNess · 30/10/2023 20:32

Well yes, and then she and her dreary lover/second-husband kill themselves like AK and La Bovary.

ManAboutTown · 30/10/2023 20:23

Ages since I read Therese Raquin but seem to remember her marriage was forced on her she ended up killing her husband with the help of her lover

GoodOldEmmaNess · 30/10/2023 20:20

I read Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary and Thérèse Raquin in that order and each seemed like a drearier punishment of adulterous women than the last. AK is grand and has some nobility and joy of her affair. The mediocre Madame Bovary has less fun and a more horrible death. Then poor old Thérèse whose life and love is pinched and trivial and ends in utter misery. Tolstoy is the most judgemental, but Flaubert and Zola are crueler.

MerryChristmasToYou · 30/10/2023 20:13

MintJulia · 30/10/2023 20:12

Thomas Hardy is just depressing. No wonder we have so many miserable teens if they're forced to read such dreary stuff.

Again, beautifully written if a bit depressing.

MintJulia · 30/10/2023 20:12

Thomas Hardy is just depressing. No wonder we have so many miserable teens if they're forced to read such dreary stuff.

MerryChristmasToYou · 30/10/2023 20:10

@Alltheyearround , but those books were beautifully written and drew me in.
AK especially and it was about a lot more than AK's love affair.

ManAboutTown · 30/10/2023 20:09

Anna Karenina is a much more sympathetic character than Emma Bovary and Vronsky does actually run off with her. The issues she has come from society after they return to Russia

Alltheyearround · 30/10/2023 20:00

Anna Karenina
Madame Bovary

Any 'classic' book written by a man who dooms his heroine for having the audacity to fall in love with something other than her dreary life.

Poison, train tracks, whatever.

I cannae be doin' with that.

ManAboutTown · 30/10/2023 19:47

@murasaki - Amis was good until London Fields. I enjoyed Money, Other People and the Rachel Papers

Time's Arrow did it for me. After that I didn't bother and the reviews seemed to get worse.

ManAboutTown · 30/10/2023 19:43

Nana Coupeau in Emile Zola's "Nana"

The golden blowfly

StuckintheUSA · 30/10/2023 19:41

murasaki · 26/10/2023 11:02

The Goldfinch was Donna Tartt's worst book by a country mile. I had to force myself through it and I love the others.

Martin Amis is basically unreadable.

I listened to the audio book of The Goldfinch and thought it was great. Not a fan of the Secret History though.

JaninaDuszejko · 30/10/2023 19:38

I love Becky Sharp. One of my favourite characters ever. In a modern novel she would absolutely be the plucky heroine.

JaninaDuszejko · 30/10/2023 19:36

@CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau That's interesting, there was some controversy over the nursing section of Atonement for the same reason. Accusations of him copying parts of a memoir published in 1977 by Lucilla Andrews.

ManAboutTown · 30/10/2023 19:27

@TheHorneSection - I quite liked Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair as well

TheHorneSection · 30/10/2023 19:25

ManAboutTown · 30/10/2023 19:20

Wickham sounded like more of a laugh than Darcy or Bingley in Pride and Prejudice

I remember an old Sebastian Faulks essay where he says he sees Darcy as a depressive personality type who always needs someone bouyant around and, seeing his existing anti-depressant Bingley is about to leave him, flails around for the first person who looks cheerful enough to replace him. Slightly ruined the romance of it all for me.

ManAboutTown · 30/10/2023 19:20

Wickham sounded like more of a laugh than Darcy or Bingley in Pride and Prejudice