Most overhyped classic masterpiece?

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

... I just can't stomach Jane Austen on the whole and Pride and Prejudice more specifically...

I loved Pride and Prejudice. I loved the interplay between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Didn't care too much for the recent re-work, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, however. The addition of the undead to the mix wasn't an improvement; although the confrontation scene -- where Mr. Darcy first proposes marriage -- was a hoot. In the original, Elizabeth pretty much tells him where to get off. In the Zombies version, she Kung-Fu kicks him into the fireplace, and then they engage in a martial arts battle.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

although the confrontation scene -- where Mr. Darcy first proposes marriage -- was a hoot. In the original, Elizabeth pretty much tells him where to get off. In the Zombies version, she Kung-Fu kicks him into the fireplace, and then they engage in a martial arts battle.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

In the original, Elizabeth pretty much tells him where to get off. In the Zombies version, she Kung-Fu kicks him into the fireplace, and then they engage in a martial arts battle.

Hmmm... does this tell us something about how our society has evolved since the 19th century?

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

... War and Peace ... I managed to do it by skipping all the boring parts about politics and war in general and Napoleon in particular ...

Dagnabbit! Them there parts was some of my favorites! Grumble, grumble! Old man cursing!

[ahi]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

There were many other playwrites in the same era as Shakespeare, none of them are nearly as well remembered.

Are you suggesting that Shakespeare was incomparably better than John Fletcher? If not, his being remembered even today may have less to do with the quality of his works than with other factors.

Originally Posted by BenG

Clearly.

Indubitably!

- Ahi

Originally Posted by Slite

War and Peace ... tried to read the dang thing eleventy times I think, and after awhile I just throw my hands up in disgust and start to read something else.

With a long book the translation is very important. I had also tried a few times before finally succeeding with the Garnett translation. Highly recommended.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, I think it's good to be thoughtful of other peoples' feelings. However, personally I think that it's even more important not to "gloss over" history, and pretend that, for example, the slave era in America never happened. "Tom Sawyer" is an important literary work from that era, and for that reason, I'd like to see it continue to be read as a record of that time...

Originally Posted by Andybaby

as I know many young black people today, let me tell you that over 90% don't care, the word Nigga has evolved from a derogatory term into a salutatory term... Stop walking on Egg Shells, Black Men and Women are strong people and can handle a word.

The folks in Queer Nation deliberately use the term "queer" often in order to rob it of its ability to shock, hurt, and dismay. Perhaps there are some who feel this strategy will work for the N-word as well. For my part, however, having been raised in the 1950s segregated (and anti-gay) South, I find both terms offensive, no matter who uses them. I think it's best to let such words die on the vine. That being said, I do realize that it's wrong to hold people who lived in different eras to today's standards. There's no way I could enjoy old radio shows, silent movies, and old books if I were to automatically banish them from my life's experience because they did not meet my 21st century ethical standards.

Here are a couple of quotes to help explain the shaping of my feelings on the subject. The first comes from the late John Howard Griffin, a white reporter who, during the 1950’s, chemically and physically altered his appearance to appear black, then went “underground” in an effort to discover what life was like in the African American community:

I learned a strange thing—that in a jumble of unintelligible talk, the word “nigger” leaps out with electric clarity. You always hear it and always it stings. And always it casts the person using it into a category of brute ignorance.
— John H. Griffin. Black Like Me.

And here's Muhammad Ali, explaining why he chose jail rather than military service during the Vietnam war:

No Viet Cong ever called me “nigger.”
— Muhammad Ali. Quoted in Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

To read? To a certain extent I agree with you. Shakespeare really only comes to life in a good performance.

Agreed. There's a world of difference, for example, between reading The Tempest and watching it as a movie or play.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I learned a strange thing—that in a jumble of unintelligible talk, the word “nigger” leaps out with electric clarity. You always hear it and always it stings. And always it casts the person using it into a category of brute ignorance.
— John H. Griffin. Black Like Me.

And here's Muhammad Ali, explaining why he chose jail rather than military service during the Vietnam war:

No Viet Cong ever called me “nigger.”
— Muhammad Ali. Quoted in Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen.

Thanks for these, WT!

I find now and then discussions around this subject tend to become dominated by over-intellectualized lack of insight... often painting the X hundred million black people (coming from a bewildering range of ethnocultural backgrounds) with a single very broad brush.

Discussions like that, I always felt, would be best concluded with a statement like, "White people like to eat cheese."

- Ahi

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by ahi

I suspect even very poorly written and/or fairly dull stories could be made quite wonderful on stage with sufficiently good actors and inspired directorial interpretation...

Speaking of inspired directorial interpretation, I think it's wonderful how Ed Wood Jr. brought a mediocre script to life with his Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Of course, he also wrote that masterpiece.

[Sparrow]

Deleted original post - wandering off topic. Apologies to OP. .

[bookfanmd]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

I love Classics. Moby Dick's one of my all time favorites.

I will probably load a lot of enmity on my humble self, but I just can't stomach Jane Austen on the whole and Pride and Prejudice more specifically. It's just so hard to get into and so dry ...

Maybe you should try Austen again.
I tried reading Emma and just couldn't get into it at all. Several years later I came across Pride and Prejudice and absolutely loved it. I thought it was funny and witty. It didn't feel like I was reading a nearly 200 year old book, some words were unfamiliar but human behavior is unchanged. I cringed at the embarrasment Mrs. Bennet caused her daughters, dispaired when Lydia ran off with the the disreputable Mr. Wickham and rejoiced when Elizabeth and Darcy finally got together. I went back and tried Emma again and this time really enjoyed it and have ended up rereading most of Austen's work every few years.

If it doesn't grab your attention within the first chapter it doesn't, but it's worth a second look.

[Daithi]

I don't care for a lot of classic literature -- old or modern. Much of the older classic literature is written in a style of English I don't care to read. I really have no desire to struggle with Elizabethan English in order to decipher a story by Shakespreare. The same applies older classic authors such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. I just like my sentences short, and older authors had a tendency to ramble on with sentences of a hundred words or more. I find this style of writing to be a constant struggle that gets in the way of the story. I really enjoy these author's stories, but I'd rather see them in film than read them in a book. For example, I loved watching Kiera Knightly in Pride and Prejudice but I had to force myself to finish the book.

I don't care for a lot of the more modern classics either. Stream of consciousness, long windy and flowery sentences full of metaphors and similes, experimental techniques where time doesn't flow from the past to present -- just give me a good story in which I can lose myself. Therefore, I'm not a big fan of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner.

I enjoy Hemingway and Steinbeck. Simple sentences that don't get in the way of the story. Then again, when it comes to other forms of art, such as painting, I prefer illustrators like Norman Rockwell and Jack Rackham over modern artists such as Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol. I'm just simple minded I guess.

Originally Posted by Daithi

I don't care for a lot of classic literature -- old or modern. Much of the older classic literature is written in a style of English I don't care to read. I really have no desire to struggle with Elizabethan English in order to decipher a story by Shakespreare. The same applies older classic authors such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. I just like my sentences short, and older authors had a tendency to ramble on with sentences of a hundred words or more. I find this style of writing to be a constant struggle that gets in the way of the story. I really enjoy these author's stories, but I'd rather see them in film than read them in a book. For example, I loved watching Kiera Knightly in Pride and Prejudice but I had to force myself to finish the book.

I don't care for a lot of the more modern classics either. Stream of consciousness, long windy and flowery sentences full of metaphors and similes, experimental techniques where time doesn't flow from the past to present -- just give me a good story in which I can lose myself. Therefore, I'm not a big fan of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner.

I enjoy Hemingway and Steinbeck. Simple sentences that don't get in the way of the story. Then again, when it comes to other forms of art, such as painting, I prefer illustrators like Norman Rockwell and Jack Rackham over modern artists such as Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol. I'm just simple minded I guess.

Then I suppose Proust is out of the question?

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by bookfanmd

If it doesn't grab your attention within the first chapter it doesn't, but it's worth a second look.

Wise words, I think. As I see it, our attention span and way of reading has changed in the last hundred years.
Previously, people enjoyed (or tolerated) a slow beginning in which the characters and their situation were established in a leisurely way, with a lot of telling detail.
Now, many readers have a shorter attention span, perhaps due to the influence of television or other media, and demand a structure which is faster-paced from the opening, and where chaprers are short and end with either cliff-hangers or hooks to pull you into the next section.

Also, we read in shorter periods: to while away a quarter of an hour while commuting, or to fill in a gap at the dentist's waiting room. Our ancestors would read as their main leisure activity, so a long winter evening's read was a more leisurely activity to be savoured more slowly than our reading.

I think that the moral is that we need to give classic texts more time than the latest Dan Brown.