Readers at the New York Times have already spoken about the most overrated books of all time and the winners (or rather, the losers) are J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" and God's "The Bible." I read all about it in the Times' Paper Cuts blog (March 10 - "Plaster Saints?") and arrived at the conclusion that the least favorable works were usually those that failed to adhere to political correctness. (New York Times readers LOVED Obama's "Audacity of Hope.")
Hence, Books That Could Never Get Published Today
The Hebrew Bible: Too Jewish.
Confessions of St. Augustine: Too Christian.
Moby Dick -- Dear Mr. Melville: A quite similar book has already been done by Jonah and it is still in print. We'd reconsider if you could produce a more sensitive Capt. Ahab. You do go on about whaling. Also, your opening line does not work for us. Can you come up with something better than "Call me Ishmael?" (Our first readers, by the way, were rooting for the whale.)
The Old Man and the Sea -- Dear Mr. Hemingway: We no longer use the term "old man." (Our first readers, by the way, were rooting for the fish.)
Leaves of Grass -- Dear Mr. Whitman. Good for you. We are glad that you celebrate America. We don't. Also, we are larger than you and contain more multitudes.
Ivanhoe -- Dear Sir Walter Scott: Glorifies chivalry. Women can take care of themselves and don't need men except to take out the garbage. Or haven't you heard?
Exodus -- Dear Mr. Uris: We could give this further thought if you would delete all references to Israel. Can you find some other country?
Diary -- Dear Miss Frank: We might consider this work if you would delete all references to the genocide known today as the Holocaust, also to your reminding people that you are Jewish. Can't you make yourself more "universal" for a broader readership? We enjoyed your tone of voice and some of our editors suggest that you place your predicament somewhere in Los Angeles, you know, growing up as a mixed-race foster child on the mean streets of south-central LA. We have already had great success with such a memoir, though later proven to be fraudulent. In your hands, however, this could work.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn -- Thank you for both submissions, Mr. Clemens. You have captured the times we live in so perfectly. You have presented our culture admirably. Your dialogue is pitch-perfect. You have not shied from using language that is offensive, insulting and derogatory. This is the mark of a great novelist - the boldness to tell life as it really is. Future generations have a right to know how it really was in America, warts and all. These two works - entirely authentic! What courage! For all those reasons, we pass. Good luck elsewhere.
Women -- Dear Mr. Bukowski: You must be kidding. Are you aware how insulting this is to women? Give it up and stick to your job at the Post Office.
Dear Mr. Whitman: We understand that, since you could find no traditional publisher, including ourselves, you went ahead and SELF-PUBLISHED Leaves of Grass. As we told you, our editors are the finest in the land and if we passed on it, it means that your book is unworthy. Going the self-publishing route is a guarantee that Leaves of Grass will never succeed. We regret that you had to take that step. Good luck finding another line of work.
The Metamorphosis -- Dear Mr. Kafka: We fail to get the symbolism. The man wakes up to find himself turned into a monster insect? We've been tossing this around from editor to editor and can't see the metaphor. Perhaps, however, you intend this to be a political novel, your political statement, in which a Democrat wakes up to find himself a Republican (in other words, monster insect) and thus raises havoc and horror among family, neighbors and friends. If that is the case, be more specific and we'll have another look.
Dear Moses: All right already! Thunder, lightning, hail, fire and brimstone were over the top and quite unnecessary. How do we get rid of all these frogs?
The Bathsheba Deadline: An Original Novel Jack Engelhard's latest novel, "The Bathsheba Deadline," now available in paperback, places journalism at the center of our war on terror and has been hailed (by author Letha Hadady) as "a towering literary achievement." Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel "Indecent Proposal" that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore.
Indecent Proposal He can be reached at www.jackengelhard.com.
recommend
Facebook
Twitter
bookmark 
email
print
Comments: 17 ( 2 removed by Jack E. )
There are a lot of politically correct people on gather.com, so it will be interesting to see the reaction to this.
Anne Frank is still being read, along with "Maus" by Art Spiegelman and "Night" by Elie Wiesel.
I gotta tell you, Catcher in the Rye is overrated. And I suspect that parts of the Bible are overrated too. Book of Revelation? You need to be on Hash to read that. Melville? well, wonderful in a way, but nearly unreadable. My wife read Moby Dick, and she said yeah, wonderful and unreadable at the same time.
Ivanhoe is dull. Sorry, but it is. if the guy had any taste he would have married the "Fair Jewess" instead of that dreadfully boring Rowena.
I am not going to mourn books that were once thought wonderful and now are seen as less so. It is also true that there are books that NOBODY read when they are written, like "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Hurston- and now there are many people who read them. Sad that it is too late for Hurston, but it often goes that way.
I am more worried about the books published now that are much better than their sales figures would make you think. Sara Gruen deserved hitting it big with "Water for Elephants", but there are other books, like Donald McCaig's "Canaan" and "Jacob's Ladder", that few people have read. And what is on the bestseller list? Dull formula crap by recognizable names, Grisham, Cornwell, Baldacci, Patterson. None of them have anything to say. That disturbs me even more- what we DO read, even more than what we fail to read.
As for someone named Carey, don't know what your problem is, but get help immediately!
I think way way too many people R not reeding enuf gd bks! They R txt msgng!
U think?
I can't see anything particularly offensive about it though. Are pomposity and fatuity offensive or just annoying? Heaven knows they're politically correct.
I will try to read Moby Dick some day. As I say, my wife had a love/hate thing with it.
How about james joyce's "Ulysses"- critics love to praise that one, but has anyone actually finished reading it? But I did enjoy his novelette "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"
Funny thing about Classics. If You ask a dozen people for their list of classics, no two will be alike. Everybody doesn't like something.
(PS- if the fireworks were over the top, you wouldn't have nearly so many frogs to play with ; )
Virtually all of them consistently got a form rejection notices.
In studying this further, the thesis concluded that in these days (well, this was +25 years ago), even a worthy book likely is not going to be bought. Generally, the first person to look at an unsolicited manuscript might be a very busy office worker or receptionist with barely any education, and who might just have had an argument on the phone with a boyfriend or something, and the opening sentence of the book just didn't help her/him get out of a bad mood.
It's almost like playing the lottery, they concluded. So the only thing to do unless one gets constructive and personal criticism - highly unlikely - is to keep sending it out. And of course, joining a peer group, whose members ought to include reasonably successful authors.
As someone who got skewered by literary agents when trying to get my book published, I recognize the truth (and humor) in your words. I came to abhor the term "this is too...." regarding anything.
Bravo! As for me, if I had one of the list to toss, it would most certainly be Ivanhoe. Just not a big fan of "Deus ex machina."
Thank God for POD publishers. read BATHSHEBA DEADLINE for an example of the kind of books that could never see the light of day in a traditional publishing house.
You with the milkweed seeds..is that what your icon portrays? Give 'em hell, Jack.
Carey, huh?
Dan, she is?? Well, I thought she wrote her comment using a trusty thesaurus, you know, the usual way. Open to a page, stab a word, type it in, repeat.
Also, the fact that Ivanhoe sticks with Rowena in the end instead of going for the infinitely more qualified Rebecca was good. It really shows how he bowed to conformity and prejudice and certainly took the shine off his heroic-ness. Although fitting the mold of the "perfect" son and husband, he wasn't so perfect was he? Not on a personal level. He didn't have guts.
Like Shakespeare, Walter Scott definitely raised the issue of prejudice and racist attitudes long before it became PC to do so. Everyone is a grey character in this book. By making a strong female character Rebecca, he also drew attention to her ability to get through life without a guy. She in fact rejects the help of the knight (whatever his name is again).
Personally, I liked the "evil" knight the best. If I had been Rebecca, I think my attitude would have been "Sure, take me now." But I suppose that would have been seen as purely evil and confirmation of her inherent evil Jewish nature by readers of that time, so it was essential that she not do anything slutty.
Still, he was a very interesting character. Although he was a harsh and pushy person, he was deep enough to have a conscious inner conflict.
I definitely agree that most of what is published by big houses today is mindless drivel. A good book should polarize people and get them out of their daily rut, not lull them into complacency. After all, if you disagree with what is being said, you're free to write your own opposing work. Not only is the content more or less missing from "bestsellers", the authors usually can't even write well.
I call these "cocktail books", because I suspect the authors of basically just cutting up sentences shaking them up in a cocktail shaker and writing them down in the order they draw them out. It's recycling.
For example, in my humble opinion, Catcher In the Rye is a laborious and bland tome that captures very little that the 20th Century coming-of-age tale has to offer -- being the first of its kind was what helped it garner so much praise, not its intrinsic quality. And now that it has been done and re-done so often (and often so well), the original text itself is finally exposed for its literary weaknesses. Or maybe I'm a revisionist. So it goes.