Overrated Books?

[BelairPlayer]

The Stand

Couldn't wait to begin reading it
Couldn't wait to get over the giant chore of reading it, after slogging a good part of the way through and wanting something decent to develop but seeing it was hopeless.
I felt abused by SK after that. I think he ruined reading for me

Pretty sure the guy who wrote The Shining died in an auto accident and was replaced by some giant windbag of a wannabe writer

It would be impossible to agree more. I picture lots of half finished projects around Stephen King’s house. Unpainted pottery, sketches that are half painted, wires sticking out of walls with in unmounted light fixtures nearby, because the guy has great ideas, but no real vision for bringing them to a satisfying conclusion.

 

[Fiesta Red]

I see the forest, not the trees.

Sounds like something Holden Caufield would have said.

 

[Dostradamas]

Sounds like something Holden Caufield would have said.

Probably with a few expletives as well.

To me this novel is like impressionist paintings.

If you look to close at the detail you will miss the real beauty.


If you put your eye six inches from the painting all you see is smears and chunks of color.

Stand back fifteen feet or so and the detail is breathtaking.

 

[Fiesta Red]

Probably with a few expletives as well.

To me this novel is like impressionist paintings.

If you look to close at the detail you will miss the real beauty.
View attachment 1078919

If you put your eye six inches from the painting all you see is smears and chunks of color.

Stand back fifteen feet or so and the detail is breathtaking.

And thus the reason I love the impressionists…there’s beauty in the whole.

Just like isolated tracks of music often sound weird or bad, but beautiful as a whole, I can dig it.

But some artistic endeavors (art, music, literature) have no beauty in the smear, the chunk or the whole.

 

[Dostradamas]

 

[Fiesta Red]

I personally think that Jackson Pollack’s drip technique paintings are crap. They’re a drop cloth from my buddy’s old sign shop. It’s ok if someone else finds meaning or expression or whatever in it, I don’t…and my opinion, as a semi-literate art consumer, is just as important.

 

[Flat6Driver]

Pop for the upper classes perhaps, but not really. The leisured classes had time to devote to learning the arts, and patronizing the artists to let them work their magic was considered a worthwhile endeavor regardless of profit.
Pop was the bawdy tavern minstrels, competing for coins with the most titillating lyrics and foot stomping of reels.

Titillation has worked in every Era!

 

[trev333]

reading Johnathon Livingston Seagull never changed my perception of those chip stealing kamikaze white crows of the beach front...

 

[ravindave_3600]

How important is it to people that they admire a character, or that their lives are not pointless? The villains are always the characters I love best. It's a break from my boring life.

It has value. For the first 3500 years of literature, virtue was considered an important element. There's very little in Gatsby but that's part of the point: hedonistic lives are pointless and unattractive.

 

[aging_rocker]

...hedonistic lives are pointless and unattractive.

As a spectator sport, yes.

 

[Blackmore Fan]

Scarlet Letter. Even more so when you’re trying to teach it to a class of teenagers, some of whom are pregnant.

I read it as an assignment in 9th grade. It was a great book!

 

[SixStringSlinger]

I think Catcher makes sense as one's favorite book (perhaps specifically a young man's favorite book) when they're teenagers, perhaps into their early twenties. Later in their life than that, if it's still they're favorite book (other than sentimentally/nostalgically), they should probably read more books.

In other words, I get it if Holden Caulfield "speaks to you" at a certain age. But a few years later, not only will he likely no longer speak to you, you won't even know what he's saying.

It has value. For the first 3500 years of literature, virtue was considered an important element. There's very little in Gatsby but that's part of the point: hedonistic lives are pointless and unattractive.

I always say Gatsby is my favorite book in which I hate everyone in the book.

 

[dswo]

Pollack was an "energy" artist correct? No pre planning, he just let himself go and improvised. Let the paint fall where it may from his movement and form. Interesting concept. I like it, but must admit I did not like his work till I learned where he was coming from. I see his work totally different now. His paintings are like a free form jam. Good stuff.

Here's what Pollock himself said: "A method of painting is a natural growth out of a need....Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement. When I am painting I have a general notion as to what I am about. I can control the flow of the paint. There is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end. Sometimes I lose a painting. But I have no fear of changes, of destroying the image. Because a painting has a life of its own, I try to let it live.”

I don't know how to reconcile his claim about control with his admission about losing control. But I don't think he was just letting it rip. If you watch him work, he seems to have a clear idea of what he's doing, which he executes quickly.

 

[black_doug]

I really struggled to finish F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The Night, his last novel.

 

[Kandinskyesque]

I personally think that Jackson Pollack’s drip technique paintings are crap. They’re a drop cloth from my buddy’s old sign shop. It’s ok if someone else finds meaning or expression or whatever in it, I don’t…and my opinion, as a semi-literate art consumer, is just as important.

I like Jackson Pollock's paintings and like a lot of abstract painters, I had no idea why.

A certain event led me to picking up a book in the library at random about abstract art when I was a 12 year old and I found the pictures mesmerising. I had no idea why but I do now post ASD diagnosis (at 50) because I fall into the "pattern seeking" category.

A lot of abstract art looks like what certain types of music sound like to me.

Jackson Pollock's paintings look like what Steve Reich's music sounds like.

Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy on Jackson Pollock.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal


A good friend of mine playing Steve Reich's piano phase (whom I miss while he's sunning himself playing piano bars on Caribbean cruise ships) while studying for his PHD a few years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Phase

 

[Tricone]

I like Jackson Pollock's paintings and like a lot of abstract painters, I had no idea why.

A certain event led me to picking up a book in the library at random about abstract art when I was a 12 year old and I found the pictures mesmerising. I had no idea why but I do now post ASD diagnosis (at 50) because I fall into the "pattern seeking" category.

A lot of abstract art looks like what certain types of music sound like to me.

Jackson Pollock's paintings look like what Steve Reich's music sounds like.

Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy on Jackson Pollock.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal


A good friend of mine playing Steve Reich's piano phase (whom I miss while he's sunning himself playing piano bars on Caribbean cruise ships) while studying for his PHD a few years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Phase

I find this very interesting. Would you mind letting me know about a book(s) that talk about the relations between abstract art and ASD? or other like chronic anxiety? I would like to learn more.

 

[Guitarteach]

1984… we should have been learning from Brave New World instead.

Huxley vs Orwell: Competing Visions of the Future in “Brave New World” and “1984” – Principato Scuola

principatoscuola.it

 

[notmyusualuserid]

You forgot another big one.

Bigotry For Beginners?

 

[Kandinskyesque]

I find this very interesting. Would you mind letting me know about a book(s) that talk about the relations between abstract art and ASD? or other like chronic anxiety? I would like to learn more.

I've tried PM-ing you with a fuller explanation but it seems I'm not allowed.

 

[Kandinskyesque]

Bigotry For Beginners?

AKA the Daily Record football pages or the Radio Clyde football phone in.