Hmm….so it was. Good catch.

My non-British-ness is showing, I take it.

EDIT: And Penguin, since you were the one who provided those links from last page, I feel I should give you credit. Thanks

Double edit to contribute to the topic: Da Vinci Code has got to be one of the most overrated books I’ve ever read. I didn’t get around to that until after the hype from both book and movie had died down, and the plot didn’t seem amazing (fun, though) nor did any of the “controversial” religious elements really seem like a big deal. Also, I remember there being prose problems that nearly killed any enjoyment I got from it.

Also, going to have to say I felt 1984 was overrated. It was good, yeah, but I never really felt it got better as it went on. It seemed like I had the same sense of dystopian creepiness on page 200 that I had back at page 1: things never seemed to escalate.

See, Deathly Hallows had Christian overtones that I didn’t really mind, even if they were obvious for the most part. On the other hand, I find the same ideas in Narnia to be extremely irritating, especially in the later books, because Lewis really anvil dropped it on your head. At least, that’s how I always felt about Narnia.

So I do find the Narnia books after book 3 to be overrated.

Wait, how do you count the Narnia books – by publication date or the order they take place in?

I count publication.

And I’m sorry, but book 4 ( The Silver Chair ) is pure awesomeness.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader is awesomest. :P

But the fanfiction for Narnia will destroy your brain forever >.<

What is this you speak of? I know not what you mean.

Would I be correct in assuming that a good amount of them are written by PeterxSusan or LucyxEdmund shippers?

I remember reading a JadisXAslan fic once. It’s just as wrong as it sounds. And what’s worse was that it wasn’t written by some awful writer with no clue what he was getting into. Instead, it was Neil Gaiman.

Well Marquis… I must thank you for giving me a concrete reason to hate him now.

He’s definitely off my reading list now.

To be fair, the fic wasn’t completely focused on that. The main plot actually involved what happened to Susan after The Last Battle.

Well Marquis, I was going to let Gaiman live…

My revenge is clear. I must train a panda to eat neil gaiman.

The movies released based on Alan Moore’s work are torture enough for him.

It’s in a collection of short stories called Fragile Things. And to compensate for the childhood-raping, it starts off with a Sherlock Holmes story set in the Cthulhu Mythos.

Should I attempt to read it?

Yes.

I don’t want to loose all respect for Gaiman.

Quite the contrary.

According to some reports, he was involved with Scientology. (there is some debate whether he still is)

It’s a wonder how Gaiman became a pariah on II just because I mentioned he did a Narnia fic. Maybe you guys should try and read the story before thinking “WHY GAIMAN?! WHY?!”

(there is some debate whether he still is)

Yeah, he hasn’t mentioned it at all in his blog.

WW said it. I don’t mind him writing a Narnia fic. I don’t even mind if he does make it Darker and Edgier, but Jadis/Aslan is too far for me. I mean, I like Gaiman. But that’s just weird. I’ll read it before I really judge it, but it sounds to me like it is very squicky…..

Hmm. The writing is good, obviously. I’m not quite sure what I think. I guess I’ll have to read it in context. I’ve just ordered it from the library.

Knowing the original work’s intended Christian allegory makes this a little unsettling, though, I must admit.

So….. I’ve read the Story in question…..

I’m not sure how to react. Part of me wants to go: “SHUT THE HELL UP, NEIL!”

But….it’s not quite like what it seems. It was rather complex, actually. I’m not sure how to take it. I mean, I’ve grown up with Narnia. It was the first real books that were read to me. And even when I’d lost faith in almost everything, I always believed in Narnia. Even though it’s just a children’s story.

I don’t know. I guess I’ll write a more collected post when I understand it better.

...

And I actually liked that story.

Indeed. I don’t get why everyone else likes them; they completely abandon the books’ tone and style.

Also, blue water.

Yeah, the Narnia movies kind of sucked.

Blue water.

Um, can’t water be blue sometimes, depending?

Why would anyone do that?

Maximum Ride.

Totally. The first few were okay, fun reads, then he went all “OH NOES I HAZ ACCLAIM. I MUST PUT IN OBVIOUS THEME AND CUT OUT ALL MINOR SWEARING FOR MY ‘YOUNG AUDIENCE’ AND BE A TOTAL SELL-OUT NOW I IZ MAKING MONEY.”

I’m getting Fang though, wen it comes out because I desperately want him to die. Like, no one here nows how often I’ve dreamed about brutally murdering him in all his Emo!Tall!Dark self and put poor Iggy on a pedestal for once in the goddamn books..

[/end stupid rant]

(sorry for jumping on the bandwagon late)

Sorry, I forgot about the hundreds of old-lady fanclubs for his mystery novels. smacks self on head

shudders

What’s the bird coming down with?! That’s just… shivers Yuck.

You know, like city transportation. You won’t get them in the suburbs, but in urban places they’re quite common to the extent that some people don’t need cars at all.

I don’t care what you say; you just can’t race these:

Heheheheheh yeah it’ll be fun, but I’d rather not die in a fiery explosion. I don’t wanna die this young, OK?

Go out with a bang and whatnot.

I hope you meant that you’d rather not die in a fiery explosion yet, because let’s face it, fiery explosions are the best way in which to die.

Sansa, you ever seen the movie Secondhand Lions?

Admit it, that’s how you want to die. (in fact, I’ll save the 2nd seat in my plane for ya)

For some reason ‘fatal head trauma caused by high-speed collision with cow butt’ doesn’t sound all that romantic.

Can I add “Oedipus Rex” to the list? Sure, it was good, but The Bacchae was so much better. Or, hell, even Agamemnon. But Swell-foot? Probably the only widely-studied Greek text at a high school level, and practically required reading for a lot of schools.

Antigone is definitely better, but still not as good as, say, Iphegenia in Aulis.

(Yes, I’m a biased Euripidean, but justifiably so)

You definitely need to find The Bacchae (by Euripides), then. In my opinion it’s one of the best Greek trag—-

YO TAKU, I’MMA LET YOU FINISH, BUT AGAMEMNON WAS THE BEST GREEK TRAGEDY OF ALL TIME. OF ALL TIME.

o.O

^{I’d also recommend finding “The Three Frogs” by Aristophanes; a satirical imagined argument between Sophocles and Euripides as to who is the better playright. Really funny, when you know what’s going on (i.e. are familiar with each writers’ works and style)}

Yeah. I don’t think I’ll ever catch up on my to-read list.

Personally I think Jane Austen is overrated.

Awww, whyyyyy? Just kidding! But if I may say so, I think Jane Austen’s genius is her social satire and the way she’s able to reproduce the lives of 18th century women so faithfully. Plus, a lot of her characters are strong and independent without being anachronisms for their time, which I always appreciate, and some of the dialogue is just plain old funny…I personally think that she would have made a wonderful playwright. Watch the BBC “Pride and Prejudice” if you want—the dialogue is reproduced pretty faithfully, and I think it’s still humorous now :)

Pride and Prejudice is truly a well-written novel, though, that’s pretty well undeniable. Done to the death and not her best novel? OK, I’ll concede that. :)

Emma‘s my favorite, actually, just because Emma’s such an idiot at the beginning (which is likely why a lot of people disliked it!)

I don’t find Austen that flowery. Of course, that’s in relation to writers like Dickens and Wilde.

Which is totally understandable, everyone has different tastes in books!

^^Wow

@ peppercake: I couldn’t finish Perfume either. Blechh.

It was not pleasant to watch, but at the same time, I did end up watching the whole thing.

I hate when movies are like that.

EDIT:
It has Alan Rickman. That makes it seem like it should be good. How deceptive.

You’re back! Yay!

On the reading front, I revisited Reading Like a Writer today. I am now more fully aware of my own incompetence and other authors’ brilliance. However, I am also inspired to be a better writer.

You should. :)

I liked the book better just because there were elements that I liked that weren’t in the movie. I really preferred the book ending too, even though it’s basically the same, but the book was more extreme with it.

Or have Clare and Henry do something other than have sex all the time?

I definitely agree with this. I did not need fairly detailed descriptions of them having sex every five minutes. Did not. Did not.

IIRC, he just has sex with Clare, not with himself. But I understand your objection to reading it.

Oh! I remember that part now! He was a teenager. It wasn’t detailed, I don’t think. Actually, it was two of his teenage selves. His dad walked in, and then he didn’t do it anymore. I didn’t think it was actual sex though, but I could be wrong.

That was one of the pointless things that got deleted from the movie. And for good reason.