The problem with protagonists who are tremendously, brilliantly clever...

[Mushroomwithaview]

... is that the author is essentially saying "step back everyone, I am clever enough to write a character who is mind-warpingly clever!" and I find it makes me cringe a bit.

I've come across it twice recently.

First was in Bella Mackie's How to Kill your Family - and that was mortifying because the main character's 'thing' was that she was cleverer than everyone else to the point that people bored her... but she used big words slightly incorrectly and actually wasn't that impressive. I was left with the idea that the author wasn't actually capable of writing an astoundingly intelligent character.

And I've just finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. I'm giving it a pass because I found the main character endearing by the end, but I still found it a bit awkward to have the author repeatedly emphasise that this character she had written was extremely clever and cultured.

Anyone else feel the same?

It's one of the reasons that the much-lauded Lessons in Chemistry irritated me. The daughter was of course a genius who spoke and acted like an adult, which is handy for the authour - so much easier to write. Even the dog was clever. But the main protagonist was naturally, brilliant

I think you missed the point of How to Kill your family, the whole idea was that (spoilers if you haven’t read it anyone else!) she’s not half as clever as she thinks she is, hence why it all unravels at the end. As readers we pick up the clues of this all along (the number of times she mentions the bloke for eg, along with the inaccurate vocab & her attitude to her cell mate).

It's a really interesting point. I haven't read the books in the OP and I'm trying to think of other books with a super-clever protagonist to see what problems they present.
The Hannibal Lector books spring to mind, and Sherlock Holmes. I don't find the problems you speak of in those books. In the case of Holmes I guess it is because his 'cleverness' is just a narrative device. I don't mind him being good at the puzzles that his author-flipside has set out for him, but I guess it is a bit annoying that he is meant to be so good at the violin, given that he is so emotionally dead.
Hannibal Lector is lovely (apart from the murdering and eating) and I do find his super-cleverness quite compellingly done. I don't think it involves any claim or attempt on the part of the author to actually have that level of cleverness

Your analysis of How To Kill Your Family, @Familiaritybreedscontemptso , makes me think of Jane Austen's Emma, since she sees herself, not as highly intelligent, but as highly knowing, and she gets it wrong. It is true that she is rather annoying at first, since she does have a bit of a superiority complex and it takes a while for Austen to establish her vulnerability. For years it was the only Austen book that I hadn't read, because I found it a little hard to get past that early image of her in the first pages.

How to kill your family was shit.

I agree op, I was surprised to learn that the author of The Love Hypothesis, was actually a PhD grad because throughout the book, her super smart, PhD student main character was laughably bad.

Ooh, interesting! Yes, maybe. She was supposed to be far more idiotic than she thought she was? It's ages since I read it and I can't remember if it was first person narration or a disembodied narrator telling me she was brilliant. I still loathed the book because she was so utterly unpleasant to spend an entire book with. Least favourite book for years.

@Abracadabra12345 Funnily enough I didn't get the same feeling from Lessons in Chemistry. I quite liked it - but now I've noticed the clever thing it would probably grate if I read it again.

@GoodOldEmmaNess Some great examples there! I haven't read the Hannibal books. Does Sherlock get a pass because Arthur C.D. was clever enough to write them maybe? And Emma - yes! Same thing. But I will forgive Jane Austen anything.

You’ll probably have to stay away from A.S Byatt’s books OP 😁. Her characters (including Frederica Potter) are notoriously and fiercely intelligent. She didn’t wear her learning lightly.