post your unpopular literature opinions?

[MrShannon385]

Curly was the best character in mice an men

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!

Doesn't necessarily mean that people didn't enjoy reading them though - just that they don't keep old paperbacks once read .

Lucky Jim. I was so disappointed when it read it, given that it's supposed to be so funny. It wasn't. Kingsley Amis in general seems unbelievably overrated, even as a stylist.

VeryQuaintIrene · Today 18:02

Lucky Jim. I was so disappointed when it read it, given that it's supposed to be so funny. It wasn't. Kingsley Amis in general seems unbelievably overrated, even as a stylist

I agree about Lucky Jim - I didn’t find it remotely funny.
Apparently it was considered innovative (shocking even) when it first came out but it’s dated badly.

The only way the film could have worked for a modern audience was by tweaking the casting to make sensible, flannel-waistcoated Brandon vaguely smouldering and less of a consolation prize and to turn dull, unappealing Edmund Ferrars into a shy, sensitive, adorably self-deprecating Hugh Grant.

I agree, @TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross — I don’t care for Thackeray or Trollope, personally, but nor do I think anyone who likes them is fundamentally wrongheaded. I don’t find Wodehouse funny, but I recognise this is my personal taste. Many Booker-winning novels are wonderful. I adore Great Expectations, Bleak House and Little Dorrit, but find Dickens’ female characters insufferable and have always disliked the more cartoonish bits of his novels. I like some Shakespeare plays more than others, and a bad production of any makes me want to punch walls. I love Austen AND the Brontes. And Joyce. And Woolf.

The only way the film could have worked for a modern audience was by tweaking the casting to make sensible, flannel-waistcoated Brandon vaguely smouldering and less of a consolation prize

I’m sure you’re right but it’s a shame in a way as it removes the subtlety.
Was Greg Wise a convincing Willoughby?

Agree that Dickens is hugely overrated. Great stories but the writing does nothing for me.

Yes, I think modern readers fail to realise how shocking Marianne's behaviour was with Willoughby. She was very lucky that a man from her own class was prepared to marry her at all. Marianne could so easily have followed in the footsteps of poor Eliza.

Ooh could you please recommend some of the Norwegian authors?

I also didn’t finish “All The Light We Cannot See”. I didn’t hate it exactly, I just felt like nothing was really happening.

Agree. Plus, if you are marrying for pragmatic reasons in the 1800s,, there is a lot to be said for an older husband: stable, well-established, probably less likely to foist 20 children and syphilis on you than a younger man. And, as the only way a Regency woman could live independently was as a widow, you could always hope that he'd drop off the perch.

I loathed All The Light We Cannot See too. I had a strong feeling before I started reading it that I wasn't going to like it. I did finish it, but was so irritated by the characters by the end.

It's felt almost like sacrilege to admit I hated it, given how popular it's been. Pleased I'm not alone in this opinion.

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes deserved one another and should have been fired into darkest obscurity together along with all the pretentious contorted claptrap they wrote.

Ian Rankin should have killed Rebus off at least six books ago, and PD James should have quietly sidelined Dalgleish after Devices and Desires.

He was, actually. I think he was a good casting choice, because while he’s conventionally soulful looking, there’s also something slightly canny or calculating-looking about his upper lip?

I quite like that adaptation, though it really alters Austen’s ‘moral’, that sense trumps sensibility, and Marianne needed to learn to be more Elinor.

The Ang Lee version, while it does suggest that, also suggests Elinor is a little too buttoned up — she bursts into loud, hysterical sobs the moment she discovers Edward (sorry, I’ve kept calling him Edmund on this thread in error because I was talking about Mansfield Park on another thread) hasn’t married Lucy Steele.

Emma Thompson, while too old for the part (but I gather had to be cast for the funding), is good at conveying intense emotion under a stiff upper lip, but I think we’re meant to think the emotional cost is too high in this film, whereas I think Austen just thinks Elinor is right, and that people should be more like her…?

Dickens decryers, if you get a chance listen to Hugh Grant reading A Christmas Carol on audible. It's absolutely bloody brilliant.

Far from being literature but Marian Keyes books are the biggest load of boring inane waffly drivel ever.

I don't like Jodie Picout books either

I can never make my mind up. I don't enjoy them when I read them and some of them are borderline offensive in their potrayal of minorities and neurodivernt characters. But the ethical dilemmas and the way she inhabits characters to make the most outrageous chocies seem like things you might plausibly do given a set of circumsances, is quite impressive, especially given how prolific she is. I find myself thinking about her books years after reading them.

I agree with nearly everything mentioned so far. I quite like a bit of Shakespeare...although I prefer pantomime. HE Bates is better than Thomas Hardy.
And Mark Twain wasn't a great choice for English O level.

Emma and Mr Knightley have a similar age gap which is grosser in some ways (e.g. that he's known her since she was a baby!) but the power dynamic thing is much more even

This totally threw me when I read Emma for the first time as a teenager. Could not believe Austen would let Emma wind up with such an old man! (Mr Knightley is what, mid-30s? So basically, you know, a grandfather)

Recently I had the same feeling on rereading Northanger Abbey. The power dynamic is so bad - the male love interest, Henry, is constantly patronising Catherine in the most pompously superior way. I was dying for her to dump his ass.

The relationship in the Time Travellers Wife is creepy. It’s not a love story, it’s grooming.

Not keen on Jodie Piccoult either That one about the sisters kidney donation was dreadful. I didnt read it but saw the film. So depressing.

Ian Rankin should have killed Rebus off at least six books ago, and PD James should have quietly sidelined Dalgleish after Devices and Desires.

It's getting more and more ridiculous the way this bloke is supposed to have retired yet walks into major investigations and instead of being thrown out gets to pretty much run them.

Or watch the Alastair Sim film. Best film version ever of that book.

Personally I adore the muppets Christmas carol and think there should be muppet versions of all great literature.

I bet the muppet Macbeth would interest gcse students...

Julian Barnes books are unreadable

Martin Amis started disappearing up his own orifice after London Fields