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lurkingfear
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« Reply #45 on: July 09, 2011, 05:14:15 PM » |
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I'm probably out of my league here since I'm a scientist, but here are my nominations (for a single author, Herman Hesse).
Overrated: Siddhartha
Underrated: The Journey to the East
Seems like everyone has read the former, and few the latter. Maybe that is different in literary circles.
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« Last Edit: July 09, 2011, 05:14:45 PM by lurkingfear »
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frogfactory
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« Reply #46 on: July 09, 2011, 09:30:20 PM » |
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Underrated: The Journey to the East
I was going to say, hang on, wasn't that by Wu Cheng 'En? But that was Monkey: Journey to the West (I think). I don't know if it's underrated or overrated, since I don't know anyone else who's read it. But someone must have, since it got made into a Japanese TV serial popular in the (70s and?) 80s. |
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At the end of the day, sometimes you just have to masturbate in the bathroom.
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wilbrish
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« Reply #47 on: July 19, 2011, 01:05:28 AM » |
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But "Zen" is a great primer on how to be a horrible parent. Good for that.
I think Hardy is underrated.
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dr_alcott
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« Reply #48 on: July 20, 2011, 02:54:24 PM » |
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The Huffington Post has weighed in on "bad classics." |
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I am an insanely elegant, super classy poor white, for the record.
I love everyone here!
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whatsherknuckle
Junior member
Posts: 89
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« Reply #49 on: July 20, 2011, 07:35:39 PM » |
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I think Hardy is underrated.
Ooh, I love Hardy, especially The Mayor of Casterbridge. |
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parispundit
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« Reply #50 on: July 21, 2011, 04:56:51 AM » |
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I'm probably out of my league here since I'm a scientist, but here are my nominations (for a single author, Herman Hesse).
Overrated: Siddhartha
Underrated: The Journey to the East
Seems like everyone has read the former, and few the latter. Maybe that is different in literary circles.
All of Hesse is overrated, except for Magister Ludi/The Glass Bead Game, which won him the Nobel Prize and is nevertheless vastly underrated. |
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mickeymantle
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« Reply #51 on: July 21, 2011, 10:33:22 PM » |
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Overrated:
Catcher in the Rye (by a wide margin)
The Great Gatsby
Native Son
Don Quixote
Crime and Punishment
Moby Dick
The Golden Bowl
Any Saul Bellow novel after Herzog
Beloved
Any of Flannery O'Connor's novels
Of Human Bondage
Underrated
Studs Lonigan (I think Wright copied Farrell's style, crudely)
Seize The Day and any Bellow novel before Herzog
The Winds of War
From Here to Eternity
The Edge of Sadness
Cakes and Ale
Pale Fire
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southerntransplant
Overcaffeinated and punchy
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 7,346
The negotiated indirect cost of this post is 46.5%
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« Reply #52 on: July 22, 2011, 04:26:01 AM » |
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I'll also pick on a single author: Arthur C. Clarke...
Overrated: 2001
Underrated: Childhood's End
I'll also say that one of my favorite science fiction novels is A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
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"I tried to walk into a Target, but I missed. I think the entrance to Target should have people splattered all around" - Mitch Hedberg
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prytania3
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« Reply #53 on: July 22, 2011, 07:48:13 AM » |
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I'm probably out of my league here since I'm a scientist, but here are my nominations (for a single author, Herman Hesse).
Overrated: Siddhartha
Underrated: The Journey to the East
Seems like everyone has read the former, and few the latter. Maybe that is different in literary circles.
All of Hesse is overrated, except for Magister Ludi/The Glass Bead Game, which won him the Nobel Prize and is nevertheless vastly underrated. You don't win the Nobel Prize for a specific piece of work. You win it for a body of work. |
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Clowns, I tell you. Clowns.
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nezahualcoyotl
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« Reply #54 on: July 24, 2011, 06:11:53 PM » |
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I'm probably out of my league here since I'm a scientist, but here are my nominations (for a single author, Herman Hesse).
Overrated: Siddhartha
Underrated: The Journey to the East
Seems like everyone has read the former, and few the latter. Maybe that is different in literary circles.
All of Hesse is overrated, except for Magister Ludi/The Glass Bead Game, which won him the Nobel Prize and is nevertheless vastly underrated. I have to disagree, The Glass Bead Game, though not actually bad, is overrated IMO. Siddhartha is overrated. I agree with everyone else about Zen. I read it as a teenager and thought it was so-so. Never read Catcher in the Rye. |
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'Education is like a venereal disease; it makes you unsuitable for many jobs, and then you have the urge to pass it on.'
-Terry Pratchett
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
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quotiazelda
AFL-CIA
Senior member
Posts: 268
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« Reply #55 on: July 24, 2011, 07:20:25 PM » |
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I'm probably out of my league here since I'm a scientist, but here are my nominations (for a single author, Herman Hesse).
Overrated: Siddhartha
Underrated: The Journey to the East
Seems like everyone has read the former, and few the latter. Maybe that is different in literary circles.
All of Hesse is overrated, except for Magister Ludi/The Glass Bead Game, which won him the Nobel Prize and is nevertheless vastly underrated. Oh God, The Glass Bead Game was one that I would nominate for waaay overrated. My 16-year-old self was dreadfully impressed with Steppenwolf, which automatically means it's overrated. |
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"Dream on, Jump Street."
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bcohlan1
limericked his way to being a
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 1,050
EPIC BEER
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« Reply #56 on: July 25, 2011, 07:28:32 PM » |
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I would consider much of Steinbeck overrated, but Tortilla Flat is underrated. Or maybe I just have a soft spot for it.
Overrated as a genre: the long novel. Literature is not a penis. Length is not a virtue in itself. And of course the novel in general is vastly overrated in the modern west, since for many it has become almost synonymous with literature.
Underrated: anything Aristophanic besides Lysistrata, which is overproduced. Bacchylides. Heinrich Heine (in the US). Also in the US: Victor Hugo as anything other than a novelist.
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Basically the moral of the story is that bcohlan1 is talking out of his ass again.
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