"Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
Troy Senik's post on David Brooks's latest column got me thinking about The Great Gatsby. Okay, let me explain that.
Troy said Brooks had written a thoughtful and provocative piece, which of course he hadn't because he's David Brooks and is incapable of doing so. But this insistence by so many smart people that David Brooks is worth reading reminded me how everyone says The Great Gatsby is this fantastic novel. I read it in high school and thought it was dull and unenlightening. Then, in my late twenties, I thought, "Hey, everyone says it's great, and I was just an idiot high school kid, so maybe I was missing something." So I read it again, and it was still dull and unenlightening. My wife, who's a much more astute literary critic than I, had the exact same experience, which is one of the many reasons I love her. I mean, almost nothing happens (he hits someone with a car, right?) to people it's very hard to care about, and then . . . there's not even an "and then." That's it -- almost nothing happens to unsympathetic people. Oh, and there are fancy parties.
Anyway, any other nominations for supposedly great books that actually [edited]? (Can we say "[edited]" on Ricochet? I hope so.)
Editor's note: Ricochet seeks to return our standards of gentility to the year 1957. We therefore discourage the use of the edited word. When it doubt, ask "Would June Cleaver feel ill at ease were I to say this?" You may also ask whether you would use the phrase before the Queen Mother. No other member of the Royal Family may be used as a reliable guide, alas.
- Comment (206)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (16)
Comments:
Oct '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
Kenneth: "Sadly, they do. Pynchon and Angelou were both nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (Angelou was also nominated for the Nobel Prize)." I agree that it's sad, but I suppose that the subtext to my comment was that the test of time should be taken more seriously than prizes. Andrew Motion was England's poet laureate. Joyce never received a Nobel.
Jun '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
Misthiocracy: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The author paints for the reader a picture of a utopian society, by any objective standard. He then tells the reader that it's really a dystopian society, without ever explaining why.
"There's no war, no crime, no famine, no unhappiness, etc. But trust me, it's a really bad place and you wouldn't want to live there. No, really!" · Jun 29 at 12:49pm
So does that mean you would want to live there? I wouldn't.
That's precisely what I liked about the book: it presented a vision of a world that seemed as you say objectively perfect, and yet intuitively I realized it was repulsive. But it's difficult to explain why, and that it the challenge of the book. It also shows how even with the best of intentions utopian projects can go wrong.
I do agree about the cardboard characters and stilted dialogue, but it's still well worth reading and pondering.
Nov '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
Consider the possibility that there's more to literary greatness than simply plot.
Otherwise, Dan Brown is a genius and Hemingway was a dunce.
Aug '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
Anything by Updike other than short stories, DeLillo, Pynchon (special mention), Toni Morrison (extra-special mention), Vonnegut, Elmore Leonard, Joyce. I'm generally not a quitter but I have cast aside at least one book by each of the foregoing. I finished Catcher but it left me cold.
Jun '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
My nomination: The Old Man and the Sea.
Apr '11
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
I beg to differ! I finished "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". I never picked up the sequels and have no plans to pick them up. The subject matter was too over the top for me.
Nov '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
Jan-Michael Rives
Consider the possibility that there's more to literary greatness than simply plot.
Otherwise, Dan Brown is a genius and Hemingway was a dunce. · Jun 29 at 4:24pm
I guess it's "Otherwise," then...
Aug '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
(Can we say "suck" on Ricochet? I hope so.)
I hope, or hoped, not. But you should be able to say "suck cheese through a straw." I came across that on a music website where folks were reviewing oboes. I believe they were overly hard on the Linton. But the phrase was a keeper.
Back to the original question: come on, all "great books" are overrated, by a priesthood whose vocation is overrating them. Every year - and I think it's every lunar year, because it seems to happen earlier and earlier - I get a ballot for the Cornell University alumni trustee election, and every such year I think I myself should run, on a platform of "'Humanities Creep' No More." Paul Rahe, help me out!
Feb '11
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
Anything by Thomas Hardy.
In high school I was force fed Tess, Mayor and Jude. Apparently someone on the faculty thought Hardy was the pinnacle of western literature. Thirty-five years later I tried Jude again in the hope that life experience would make it more palatable. It didn't.
Edited on June 30, 2011 at 1:55amOct '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
Francis Scott Fitzgerald was a man of his times. The story was in that time. Today a Gatsby would not cause a whimper or a whisper. The book also touches on the fixed World Series gambling, organized crime and prohibition.
Joyce is tough for most Americans and Europeans, he is a Irish slice that never aimed to please.
As to supposed great Books that fail to be great there are too many to list, but a good start are books by Walter Isaacson.
Oct '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
thelonious
he 16 year old in me still loves Catcher in the Rye and Led Zeppelin. My dad gave it to me to read when I was 16 so it has sentimental value. It was the first book I read that had profanity. If I read it today it would probably dissapoint me greatly. Led Zeppelin still rocks! · Jun 29 at 4:21pm
Led Zeppelin yes, Catcher no. Almost everyone I meet who loves that book read it when they were between 12-18. It's like my Grandpa telling me how great Glenn Miller was, or my kids telling me how great Lady GaGa is. Sorry, I just don't get it.
Sep '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
I'm waiting for the hate mail after I make my nomination: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. I know it's supposed to be one of the first great works in English, etc. I don't care. I've never thought it was worth more than 5 minutes of anyone's time, either in the original or in modern English. Go ahead, hate me.
Apr '11
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
Ken Sweeney: Faulkner is terrible. Ditto Joyce. I like a page (let alone a paragraph) to have at least one period. Call me shallow.
I love F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story collections. “Diamond as big as the Ritz” is a fun, lyrical story with a great twist. I agree that Great Gatsby is a horrendous read.
Thomas Hardy seems to have great critical acclaim, but I just can’t get past 20 pages in any of his novels.
After reading Jonah Goldberg’s column praising Dune, and seeing this post, I feel that I can go into the realm of science fiction. Asimov’s Foundation series or anything written by Robert A. Heinlein, are just ponderous tripe.
I am convinced that nobody outside of Sweden has actually finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or any of Stieg Larsson’s sequels. The daily life minutiae and pedantic diatribes are excruciating. I lasted 50 pages. · Jun 29 at 4:23p
Rarely does this happen, but the Swedish adaptation of the Millennium trilogy are actually better than the books.
I'm going to have to say works from Steinbeck, Hemingway, and War and Peace.
May '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
I don't think you can make yourself hated here for disliking Atlas Shrugged. Let me commend to you this gem of a review from National Review's Whittaker Chambers:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/222482/big-sister-watching-you/flashback?page=1
Never read any Rand myself. But still I think you are not alone.
May '11
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
jhimmi
thelonious
he 16 year old in me still loves Catcher in the Rye and Led Zeppelin. My dad gave it to me to read when I was 16 so it has sentimental value. It was the first book I read that had profanity. If I read it today it would probably dissapoint me greatly. Led Zeppelin still rocks! · Jun 29 at 4:21pm
Led Zeppelin yes, Catcher no. Almost everyone I meet who loves that book read it when they were between 12-18. It's like my Grandpa telling me how great Glenn Miller was, or my kids telling me how great Lady GaGa is. Sorry, I just don't get it. · Jun 29 at 4:39pm
Precious teenage memories I don't want to sully. I want to remember the book for the way I loved it when I was 16.
Jul '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
Hmm. I must be a bad person. I enjoyed Gatsby and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Moby Dick appealed to my mad obsession with finding out everything about everything, though those "story" paragraphs were a distraction.
I thought someone would mention Hawthorne.
And, I have to say, that Arthur Miller wrote unwatchable dreck for the theater. Gable and Monroe save the Mistfits on the big screen.
And then there is John Irving. Gack.
Nov '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
Kenneth: Anything by James Joyce.
Anything by Thomas Pynchon.
Anything by Alice Walker
Anything by Maya Angelou
Moby Dick
As a Modern British Novel major, don't I know it!!
At least, I didn't major in Modern Women's Literature...
I would like to add anything by Norman Mailer to this list.
Jul '10
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
I've always found Falkner to be unreadable, too. But I'm given pause by the number of admirable people I know who love his stuff.
Apr '11
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
I hated Atlas Shrugged, for all of its 1000+ pages. But I couldn't put it down. It's like watching a train wreck where everybody on the train looks like someone you know.
Jan '11
Re: "Great" Books that in Truth Are Tedious
Me too. Nevertheless I truly enjoy Richard Epstein.