Sunday, July 31, 2011

Overrated Classic or Favorite?

by Jamie Freveletti
The Huffington Post recently posted a list of six classics that the author thought overrated. The link is here. But if you don't want to click it they are:
1. Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett
2. Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
3. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
4. Ulysses, James Joyce
5. The Stranger, Albert Camus

I never read Ulysses-dodged a bullet on that one, and I've only seen Waiting for Godot performed as a play at the Steppenwolf Theater. Well acted, but weird.
Barely recall The Stranger and really recall Moby Dick and Catcher in the Rye. I read Catcher in the Rye when I was a teenager myself and I recall thinking it was okay, but didn't knock me out.
So this list got me to thinking. What were the novels that are the best? Worth every minute? Got you thinking, or sent your imagination flying?
For me:
1. Edgar Allan Poe. Creepy, strange and really twisted.
2. Heinlein, The Red Planet. Loved the whole concept and read it at the appropriate age, so that helped.
3. Stephen King, The Stand. Great exploration of good and evil fighting it out.
4. Goblin Market, Christina Rossetti. Interesting hidden homosexual tones that I kept pressing my college professor to acknowledge. He said, in a bland kind of rolled eye way "yes, Ms. Freveletti, that's been commented on by many over the century," but never really delved into it and seemed to want to move past this revelation. I was fascinated that she had managed to write this poem and it taught me to look for hidden meanings in literature.
5. The Second Coming, WB Yeats. Again, creepy poem that really caught me. (In reading this list I just realized that everything I like is a bit creepy. Guess that's why I write thrillers).

What is your list?

4 comments:

John said...

Almost anything by Harlan Ellison; I would be hard-pressed to name a finer practitioner of the short story!

--John.

Jamie Freveletti said...

John--you're going to be shocked when I say that I haven't read Ellison. Will now, though!

John said...

Might I suggest his collection, "Deathbird Stories", to start?

--John.

Unknown said...

Some favorites - Anything by Ted Dekker (though he is a Christian Fic Author). Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King.

AND Running from the Devil by Jamie Freveletti, of course. :)