6 Great Novels that Were Hated in Their Time
#3.
The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Story You Know:
It's the magnum opus of the Baby Boomer Generation. The book about every kid who ever bitched and moaned his way through adolescence just so he could get drunk, molested and have his ass handed to him by a pimp.
It was a rite of passage.
How Poorly it Was Received:
About as warmly as that bottle of vodka in your grandmother's freezer box. The book was so controversial that even critics who liked it were afraid to show their names. The Catcher In The Rye was written in the "vulgar" tongue, which was common vernacular for the time. However, since the vulgar tongue does tend to involve lots of curse words and pussy jokes, the book kind of took a wrecking-ball to the social norms of Greatest Generation, and thus cemented the book's reputation as one of the most infamous works of the 20th century.
Alongside Porky's
Critics panned the book as "disappointing," a "near miss," "too long," "wholly repellent," "amateur," "monotonous and phony" and "predictable and boring." Since we assume most people probably know what it's like to get in a fight with an underage prostitute for charging extra for non-sex, we're going to have to agree with the critics on this one.
Oh, and then there's the whole controversy over the book inspiring high-profile murders because of the whole "catcher in the rye" analogy its main character Holden uses. However, since that argument makes about as much sense as the ending of Children of the Corn, it's probably safe to say that the dude who shot John Lennon was, in fact, a nutcase.
Not sane, and possibly an Elvis impersonator.
The public, as it is often wont to do, eventually ignored the critics and embraced the book to the tune of now 65 million copies sold since its first publication. That's more than any of the Twilight novels, kids.
#2.
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
The Story You Know:
It's like Jaws, only with an enormous, albino sperm whale and lots of metaphors instead of a shark and bad hats. Also, Richard Dreyfus is slightly more badass in this version: Instead of the single most annoying ichthyologist on the planet, he's a South Pacific cannibal named Queequeg.
How Poorly it Was Received:
Contemporary reviews for Moby-Dick were harsh. Very, very harsh. Think Son of the Mask meets Battlefield Earth.
If you liked this movie, then you probably don't exist.
Despite introducing the world to some of the most original characters in literary history, not the least of which were Captain Ahab, Queequeg or the God-like Moby-Dick, Melville's poetic prose completely went over everyone's head. Part of this was due to one publisher accidentally omitting the book's crucial epilogue, which kind of tied the book together not unlike a fine Persian carpet in a lazy man's apartment. The other reason for its bad press was that most critics just flat-out didn't like it.
"Harumph."
One of the most esteemed literary magazines in England dismissed the book as a "catastrophe." One Methodist publication slammed the book as "unfit for general circulation." Some of the more dickish critics went so far as to attack Melville himself, along with what they took as "his rhetorical contortions, all his declamatory abuse of society, all his inflated sentiment and all his insinuating licentiousness."
All his unkempt facial hair.
In other words, the book was hated by the type of people who think "insinuating licentiousness" is a good way to insult something. Granted, readers will find it tough to read Moby-Dick these days without reaching for an online dictionary now and then, but you can't fault Melville for being smarter than most modern readers. After all, the book was dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorn; it's not like you can expect to find the word "pimpmobile" in every chapter.
Fortunately, Melville won the long, long, long war for literary appreciation, and is now considered one of the finest writers in American history. After all, the dude wrote Moby-Dick.
#1.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Story You Know:
In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the many races of the weed-smoking lands of Middle-Earth put aside their mutually-shared racism to sit down and have a very serious discussion about jewelry. What follows is Tolkien's epic tale about the One Ring, the 19 Rings of Power, the Necklace of the Evanstar, the Ring of Barahir, the sweater-vest of Mithril, the Crown of Gondor, and other luxury items that Saruman "the Many Coloured" probably has stashed away in his closet.
The trilogy has gone on to sell over 200 million copies, spawn an entire generation of grown men who cry over "Grey Havens," get adapted to film a few times and usher an entire sub-culture of nerds the likes of which we may never see again.
Zeppelin never sang a song about Spock. Take that, lesser nerds!
How Poorly it Was Received:
According to the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, "No 'mainstream critic' appreciated The Lord of the Rings."
Apparently "mainstream critics" of the time were all Armond White.
The reasons for Tolkien's negative feedback were numerous, not the least of them being that he was a career linguist, not a professional writer. The New York Times described Tolkien's writing as "high-minded" and "death to literature itself."
The New Republic described the book and its characters as "anemic, and lacking in fiber" which was apparently a real burn back then in the pre-Cheerios days. Even heavyweights like Isaac Asimov weren't sold by the book's whole industry versud the environment message, retorting that modernity "or perhaps the modern world... wasn't all bad."
Hell, not even Tolkien's friends were all that big on it. Tolkien had to stop reading samples of the book to them on account of negative feedback/hurt feelings. One member of Tolkien's circle, Hugo Dyson (H.V.D. Dyson in geek) once famously moaned from a sofa during one reading: "Oh, fuck! Not another elf!"
H. V. D. Dyson.
Nevertheless, the book's popularity in the United States exploded in the 60s because of none other than the hippie movement. A healthy cocktail of the Vietnam War, environmentalism and an event horizon of substance abuse caused a renewed appreciation for what was described as "mellow freedom like that of the Shire."
Coupled with a totally unauthorized paperback printing of the book which beatniks purchased to "stick it to the man"--being Tolkien--"the man" had no choice but to re-release the book for America's drugged-out audiences.
Sure enough, the old man celebrated the only way he knew how.
So if you've read a fantasy novel or played a video game recently that has magical elves and dwarves in it, thank a hippie.
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Now check out some elves and hobbits that blew it, in 6 Lord of the Rings Characters Who Totally Dropped the Ball. Or learn about the naughty tales behind your favorite children's movies, in 7 Classic Disney Movies Based On R-Rated Stories.
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Nice timing with the Twilight book cover.
ReplyLord of the Rings was boring as hell. It's just a kid with big feet going on a journey of unnecessary length. Holden in Catcher reminds me way too much of Bella in Twilight just because they love to complain.
ReplyI loved The Lord of The Flies. I found it repulsive and terrible, and that's probably why it' so brilliant.
ReplyI think "Catcher In The Rye" is way too overrated and dull like "Ethan Fromme" and "A Separate Peace". I'm more of a "The Road", "East of Eden", "Speaker For The Dead" kind of guy...
ReplyHerman Melville was a good friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne's (one of my faves), but Hawthorne was a bit too self-centered as a human being to reciprocate friendliness back to Melville.
Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" was also very poorly recieved, and didn't get any notice until after she had passed away (from what I've imagined was a broken heart), and her sister wrote "Jane Eyre".
The best stories are the ones we don't want to hear or face the first time until we catch a small glimmer of beauty of the gem hiding inside the coal.
f**k wuthering heights! all that book is snotty rich people being rude and screwing each other over (and not in the fun way)! It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia comes to mind, except less boring.
IMHO, Catcher in the Rye gets more credit than it deserves. It's just a whiny kid complaining about how much other people suck. Holden is basically the first literary hipster.
ReplyAlso, Moby Dick has its awesome moments, but they're spaced between terribly boring chapters that describe whaling ships in detail and have almost nothing to to do with the actual story.
They even had one chapter about masturbation. I believe the chapter was titled "A slip of the hand."
take that lesser nerds! Led Zeppelin and the Lord of the Rings all the way!!!!
ReplyTo be fair, Lord of the Flies terrified me as a child, and Grapes of Wrath and Catcher in the Rye are boring as shit.
ReplyI didn't appreciate GoW until a few weeks after I'd finished it. It's one of those stories that just haunts you after you've made it through.
Grapes of Wrath was really good, but yea, Catcher in the Rye is just plain s****y and a sad excuse of literature. Wait, that s**t is literature?
"Evanstar"
ReplyOH GOD MY SIDES
I think J.D. Salinger has some awesome short stories and I really like his writing style in them, even though his short stories always have an odd,nihilistic punch line. I did not like Catcher in the Rye though. It probably would have been better had it been written from a 3rd person point of view.
ReplyCatcher in the Rye is interesting because it presents a different view of the world in the 1950s, when society really wanted to censor all of its problems. The thing is that people realize that the 50s weren't all that great anyway and people wishing for the good ol' days is just that: wishful thinking.
I have always hated Catcher in The Rye. I read it because it is considered a classic and i thought I should at least give it a try. (Plus I heard many infamous killers had the book in their collection so I thought there must be something to that)I thought it was boring and arrogant. I don't know why so many people think this is so good, or such a revalation of a generation. There are plenty of other works that can convey the same message without making you want to throw the book across the room. Sociopathic, narcissistic, self indulgent and completely f*****g boring.
ReplyThe thing with Lord of the Flies is that at the time, it was completely unbelievable. Who could imagine that their children, or any children for that matter, could become murdering saveges. Then society caught up with the book.
ReplyNow we live in a time where fifth graders deal crack during recess and 7 year olds rob each other at knifepoint. What the f**k happened?
Yeah, because violence in kids is new.
I just finished reading Lord of the Flies, and I couldn't stand it. In Canada they make you read it in grade 10, and it was horrible. I didn't find it disturbing, but boring and unrealistic. Golding writes very pretentiously, which makes reading it a chore. For the first 8 chapters, nothing very exciting happens, and I spent pages and pages waiting for the huge meltdown, that didn't happen. I also found it very confusing in the way the story progresses. Oh well, at least that's over and done with.
ReplyI hated almost every book they made me read in school, then, after re-reading them just for the sake of reading, i could appreciate them.
Kids simply don't like being forced to do stuff.
Does anyone actually understand what's so controversial about Catcher in the Rye? Honestly when I read the novel I couldn't see why.
ReplyMost of the "controversial" material was just shocking by 50's standards: Holden swearing like a sailor, acting all alienated, hypercritical of society and generally emo, the underaged drinking and whoring, the bit with the ambiguously gay teacher...
Little of that would raise an eyebrow in a post-millenial reader. It's called "values dissonance".
"Thirty-seven years later, he would be awarded the ultimate achievement for a work of literature: having an Iron Maiden album named after it."
ReplyThat makes it all worth it.
Most of these books were hated because they were controversial, not because they were bad. You should expect that great works are often controversial and avant-garde, so I think the title was sort of misleading.
ReplyPeople don't remember 100 year old books that were bad. Especially if people thought they were bad to begin with.
If this was a list about books that were hated in their time, had no literary value and are still considered poorly today, this would be a list of very obscure books that no one has read in a long, long time. What the f**k were you expecting?
I attempted to read The Lord Of The Rings. Sure the story was fine in itself, but as a lot of critics pointed out Tolkien was not a very good writer. His style just failed to draw me into the story itself. And if I had to put up with those f*****g Hobbits singing one more time I would have flipped my shit.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesI'm currently having the same experience with H.P Lovecraft's At The Mountains Of Madness. I do not see the necessity behind explaining the geological processes that formed said mountains and how various animals became fossilized.
His style actually has a lot in common w/ the writing style of classical epics, which is kind of the point, since it is an epic. Sure, it's not always the best writing style, but it was an intentional choice rather than simply not being a good writer.
Re: Lovecraft, though, I will agree on the bad writing, although I object more to his repeated description of essentially anything meant to be horrific as "cyclopean".....
Shad, "cyclopean" means "really enormous", in fact so big it would take a Cyclops ( a mythical race of one-eyed giants) to lift it. It has nothing to do with anything being horrific.
I feel like these writing styles are an acquired taste, like whiskey, death metal, or a fine cigar. I couldn't stand Tolkien's writing at first, but by the end of the series I just wanted more.
Yeah, LOTR reads like an Epic, for better or worse. If you don't like things like the Odyssey (Which has awesome monsters but can still be long and tedious) you probably won't like LOTR.
...except because it's Lovecraft, half the time the fact of it being cyclopean is *enough* in his mind to justify its supposed horrific status without any further explanation. Same goes for many other things (except most of those are "blasphemous" instead).
His characters also seem to have the incredible ability to continue being shocked by the same object or event for hundreds of pages on end.
Seriously, I love The Catcher in the Rye. Guess I'm just a sucker for a whiny b***h
ReplyThe problem with books that are hailed as literary masterpieces is that they place too much emphasis on the symbolism or criticism of humanity/politics without taking the time to make the story interesting. This is why I'd rather read a book that gives me insight into how the author views the world. H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Ray Bradbury, or even TV writers like Rod Serling and Gene Roddenberry will always be more appealing to me because they can write symbolically while maintaining a good story.
ReplyI'm sorry, but Moby Dick is one of the most boring, ridiculous pieces of allegorical crap ever shat out by a wonderful author. When you get to the actual substance of the book, i.e. the whale and the symbolism surrounding it, those parts are f*****g masterpieces. Unfortunately, all that stuff is hidden in between hundreds of pages of godawful crap about what ships look like, none of which is important to the ridiculously amazing actual story of the novel.
ReplySeriously, those parts are great, but the book suffers as a whole because of how long-winded Melville was at that point in his career. If he'd kept it to the length of Typee (one of his early works), it would have been a lot less stupid and migraine-inducing.
Ok, Catcher In the goddamn rye is the worst book ive ever read. Holden Colfield is a whiney bitch, the like to rival any charachter played by hayden christiensen
ReplyI understand that you don't like the book- but don't EVER compare ANYTHING to Anakin Skywalker, Episodes 2-3. You just... you just don't do that. It's like calling your mom Hitler because she grounded you. Catcher in the Rye does not make me cringe and feel umcomfortable while reading it. I could probably reread it and be fine.
The third movie acting is just PAINFUL.
I totally agree. It's downright painful to have a discussion about this book with anyone. They all have the same stupid sparknotes interpretation of Holden as this visionary and intellectual. It's infuriating. If you met someone like that in real life, you wouldn't praise them for their insights, you'd tell them to get a f*****g grip and stop complaining lol.