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Which are the underrated classics of Western literature?
We continue Underrated Week, noting that this entry is sure to inspire philosophic debate. Can it plausibly be argued that Michael Jordan is an underrated basketball player? That Wayne Gretzky is an underrated hockey player? Yes, I say.
When it comes to the Western classics, I hold a few works above all others, and by an order of magnitude: Homer, the Hebrew Bible, Cervantes's Don Quixote, Shakespeare, Proust, Moby Dick, Joyce's Ulysses (shriek if you wish), and the two major novels of Tolstoy.
Yes, those are the most underrated classics. There are simply too many people who lump them in with Rabelais, Stendhal, Twain, Mann and other totally splendid but slightly less than divine works. If I could read Italian, Dante might also make the list.
Next in line would be Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Goethe's Faust (German language version only), and of course Bleak House of Charles Dickens; read the latter carefully and you will see plot twists that very few if any critics catch. If you're simply listing the best novel whose wonders most educated people have no clue of (one extreme form of underrating), Bleak House is the clear winner (loser?) on the entire list.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 3, 2007 at 07:38 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
Bleak House was the centerpiece of senior English in my public-magnet high school education. I buy all the arguments about its greatness, but when you get to page 30 and Dickens is still describing the fog, well, a seventeen-year-old mind turns against the book rather quickly.
I still have my copy; one day I'll finish it.
Posted by: Dewb at Jul 3, 2007 8:28:36 AM
Are we talking import or artistic merit here. I think you could make the argument that the Hebrew bible is vastly overrated.
Posted by: josh at Jul 3, 2007 8:48:17 AM
Nostromo-Conrad?
Posted by: Jon at Jul 3, 2007 9:06:41 AM
The best part of Bleak House is that Dicken's gets himself into such an inextricable plot twist that he's forced to have Krook spontaneously combust in order to get him out of the way.
Posted by: Arthur Davidson Ficke at Jul 3, 2007 9:10:42 AM
It isn't strictly a novel - but I believe that Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is hugely under-rated.
Once you begin to recognize that Tolkien was one of the most intelligent people to have lived (I'm talking Einsteinian brain power) you gradually begin to see how much is in there.
Posted by: Bruce G Charlton at Jul 3, 2007 9:21:25 AM
Yevgeny Zemyatin's We might not be a classic to some of you. However, it seems the perfect fit for the underrated award given how great it is and how important it was to so many later writers (such as Orwell) - and yet it is relatively unknown compared to 1984 and Brave New World (or even Anthem). I highly recommend it - especially for those of you who like dystopian works.
Posted by: William Ruger at Jul 3, 2007 9:30:28 AM
Ulysses? Drivel. But something from Dickens is always good. I have gone through Bleak House but I would substitute something else - Bleak House, while the story is good, is a bit long. The pointless lawsuit could have been condensed. But give me Copperfield or a Christmas Carol and I would be happy. Both have great characters and a universal story. What does Ulysses have but insufferable prose and a convoluted story? Is the point of classics like castor oil or should there actually be value in the reading?
Posted by: drtaxsacto at Jul 3, 2007 9:30:42 AM
I would say most men inveterately underrate Jane Austen's main quartet.
In American literature, I think James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan needs resuscitating.
Compare the first sentence of Farrell's book to Joyce's Ulysses. In the voice of Lonigan, you can almost hear Farrell telling Joyce to take his Latin and shove it. (And yes, I have a degree in the Classics.)
Posted by: Rue Des Quatre Vents at Jul 3, 2007 9:32:25 AM
The Three Musketeers. Unfairly dumped in the bin of juvenile fiction, because it happens to be a swashbuckling adventure.
Posted by: Cyrus at Jul 3, 2007 9:39:18 AM
George Eliot "Middlemarch." It didn't used to be underrated but when you make your list above and don't include it, I have to bring it up.
Posted by: jult52 at Jul 3, 2007 9:48:17 AM
I agree on Austen--The plot in Emma is subtle perfection.
Posted by: Roland at Jul 3, 2007 9:49:23 AM
What is your standard for literature? Usually people say "survivability after time of its creation". That is,
if it endures, it must be good literature.
Unfortunately, this stacks the deck. Once something is good literature, its popularity is propped up by
forcing children to learn about it in school. For a fair comparison, you should adjust for the forced
exposure. Remember -- any work can be popular if people are forced to give it significant time.
So, I would suggest this: when counting something's endurance after creation, subtract off anyone
who was forced to view it before age 18 as part of education. That is, count them as a "negative" fan for
purposes of gauging current popularity. Judged by this standard, Shakespeare is heavily overrated. When
you think about how few people voluntarily devote their own time to Shakespeare (seeing plays performed or
reading the plays), despite the massive campaign of indoctrination in schools, he doesn't fare too well.
Here's an idea: require all American schoolchildren to play some edition of Super Mario Brothers. Then see how popular it
is among adults of that cohort compared to Shakespeare.
Posted by: Person at Jul 3, 2007 9:51:37 AM
Oh, and handwave explanations of Joshua Bell's experience in performing for a public not already biased to
think he's the greatest thing ever, are welcome.
Posted by: Person at Jul 3, 2007 9:55:15 AM
I don’t know the “ratings” at all well. But I will hazard to nominate Milton’s Paradise Lost. Read while listening to J.S. Bach organ music. The impact of this work on the American mind is inestimable and (to most of us) unperceived.
Posted by: Matthew Petersen at Jul 3, 2007 9:56:50 AM
Most under-rated novel - or novella- ever: 'Hadji Murat', by Tolstoy, which is the single most compressed, most vivid, most cinematic
most concise piece of prose fiction in existence. Actually better, in some ways, than 'War and Peace'.
Runner-up: ''Puddn'head Wilson' by Mark Twain, which is far darker than 'Huckleberry Finn'. No happy endings,
no consolatory B.S. with the slave getting released in the end, hence unread by Americans. Frankly, Twain was too good for you guys.
Posted by: Dan Hardie at Jul 3, 2007 9:59:20 AM
"Cat's Cradle" would get my vote.
What about "Infinite Jest"?
Posted by: steveintheknow at Jul 3, 2007 9:59:42 AM
I wince when people ask me about what I like to read. Should I try to impress them or just be honest? I like to read John Grisham and Michael Crichton. That said, I loved Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (a forced read in college). The three books that really have stayed with me are sleepers: The Cardinal by Henry Morton Robinson, The Spear by Louis DeWohl, and The Forgotten Soldier(which some history buffs regard as fiction and not a "true" account).
Posted by: Martin Kennedy at Jul 3, 2007 10:24:54 AM
I would say Robert Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften.
Posted by: Brammelaar at Jul 3, 2007 10:25:58 AM
Most of the suggestions are squarely in "Great Books of the Western World" territory.
Having said that, the most under-rated piece of fiction in the Western Canon: "Tartar Steppe" by Dino Buzatti.
Posted by: Chris E at Jul 3, 2007 10:28:18 AM
Lord of the Rings? Crikey, it's goodish story, but quite the most soporific, turgid prose imaginable. Rated far too highly, by too many people.
PG Wodehouse is under rated as a writer. Sure, the books are all variations on a theme, but few writers of recent times have his command of the English language and turn of wit.
Posted by: tom at Jul 3, 2007 10:32:39 AM
Wind in the Willows, for the same reason as Wodehouse.
Posted by: Luke at Jul 3, 2007 11:05:07 AM
I would agree that Emma is a vastly underrated novel, as most people are attracted by the wittier and more fun Pride & Prejudice. (My sentimental favorite, though, is Persuasion.)
As for Dickens, I've read all his novels (yes, willingly), and I would say Our Mutual Friend is my favorite and Oliver Twist my least favorite. Bleak House is good, but not as enjoyable as some of his less "serious" works (like Martin Chuzzlewit, which I also love.) I love his overstuffed novels, even the messes like Nicholas Nickleby and Pickwick Papers, and he does pretty well in the shorter works, too.
I'm glad I decided to re-read Dickens as an adult, because my run-in with them in middle and high school really put me off.
Posted by: meep at Jul 3, 2007 11:11:33 AM
I love Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, Chekhov's short stories and plays, Ibsen's plays, Lampedusa's The Leopard, but the are not really underrated.
What about Jünger's Storm of Steel?
Posted by: Lars Smith at Jul 3, 2007 11:12:34 AM
If Underrated = (Reputation/Quality) then Trollope's "He Knew He Was Right" ranks very very hight.
Posted by: Dennis at Jul 3, 2007 11:14:58 AM
I would argue that Kipling's Kim is an excellent and very underrated classic.
Posted by: SamChevre at Jul 3, 2007 11:32:46 AM
