Which "classic" book do you find to be completely overrated?

Question

I'll throw in my vote for "Finnegan's Wake".

Yes, Mel T, Dickens is quite punishing! =0)

You know, I had a hard time with John Steinbeck until I actually went to Salinas. It all fit then.

Answer 1

Lady Chatterly's Lover. Yawn!

Answer 2

Wuthering Heights. Absolute sh*te. I just got really annoyed at the failure of characters to actually take control of their lives. I was fourteen when I tried to plough my way through it for school & I have never forgotten how much I detested it.
In fact, most Victorian literature leaves me cold now as a direct result (except maybe Dickens).

As for Steinbeck - fantastic. East of Eden is easily one of the best books I've ever read.

A Farewell To Arms (Hemingway) not so much overrated as utterly depressing. I felt like adding my own self to the body count at the end.

Oh & finally - Lfe of Pi. A monument to mediocrity & a prime example of the emperor's new clothes. Tripe. Ditto the crap one about a dog a midnight. So awful, I have erased the title from my memory. I know they're not classics, but bestsellers for some unknown reasons.

Answer 3

There are several that I've come across:

The Grapes of Wrath (and everything else I've read by Steinback)

Pride and Prejudice. I'm sorry, but I don't see the talent that everyone says Jane Austen has.

Great Expectations. I loathe the book.


As well as most classics written during the Gilded Age. The authors during that time just didn't seem to know how to end a book (well, except for Sinclair Lewis. He ended Babbitt nicely).

Answer 4

Nah, Finnegans wake is interesting, just not everyone's cup of tea, I'll admit. I'd have to
give it to the hystrionic Fahrenheit 451 and almost anything by the soppy Bronte sisters.

Answer 5

Personally, I think many classics are overrated, but the one that stands out is Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist? Torturously boring.

Answer 6

Personally I love Shakespeare and Dickens! Albert Camus on the other hand writes complete shite.

For those who detest "Great Expectations" I would recommend that you read "Jack Maggs" by Peter Carey.

Answer 7

Moby Dick

I had to read it in American Lit class in college, and in my sleep-deprived state it threatened to put me to sleep more than once.

The basic adventure story is okay, somewhere along the lines of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking tales. But then Melville sticks in whole chapters about hooks and harpoons etc. that have nothing to do with the story.

AND THEN my professor tried to tell us that the whale was actually a symbol for God...

Uh, sure it is...

Answer 8

Kafka's Metamorphosis. Just didnt like the story, the way the metamorphosis was shown, didnt like the ideas of the writer. I dont like any existentialistic book, juts dont like the existentialistic ideas, and avoid them, but Kafka and Camus were compulsory in literature, so now i say they are overrated. Every other classic book ive read was even better than ive expected.

Answer 9

Catcher In the Rye. I didn't care for it nor did I understand what was so great about it. I didn't like The Great Gatsby either , but I understood how brilliant it was. I just didn't see what was great about this book. I wonder if it was a book that for some reason was more poignant when it came out and just doesn't stand the test of time.

Answer 10

Portrait of the Artist as Young Man by James Joyce
ugh.

Answer 11

I'll add to the Dickens haters of the world. Also didn't like Joyce's The Dead (short story). But just so you know, some classics truly are--to wit, Moby Dick, The Idiot, The Trial, Slaughterhouse-five, and on and on....