I read this book a while back after hearing the universal praise for it, and ended up not enjoying it. The prose was often confusing, with some parts that I’m still not sure what exactly was happening. Characters felt one-dimensional with rarely any development and the female characters were so useless that it’s borderline misogynistic. The themes of the story had no nuance, being either shoved in your face constantly or literally explained to you in a long-winded monologue by characters made only to spout these facts. Not only that, but the whole message of “book good tv bad” is just incredibly overdone, with the fact that various television shows, along with video games and music, can tell powerful stories that change the lives of those who experience them on the same level, if not better, than books do. Now books are important and are an amazing medium, but disregarding everything but books is extremely elitist, leading to the entire book sounding like the rambling of an old man who complains about every bit of technology while being told that vaccines cause babies to turn into reptoids by Facebook. Outside of the book itself, I see many people defending it vehemently, calling everyone who didn’t like the book “part of the problem”, basically belittling them for not being a snob who reads nothing but dry, lifeless literature from 400 years ago. What did you think about the book? Why did you like/not like it?
I think it’s popularity among the public is just a result of its popularity in school curricula. Tons of people in the American school system had to read it. Most people don’t read outside of or after leaving school, so it’s common to a see a list of favorites that just looks like an English class reading list:
Great Gatsby Fahrenheit 451 1984 Animal Farm Brave New World Lord of the Flies Of Mice and Men
I like some of these more than others, but I don’t really think of them as these masterpieces (except for maybe the Great Gatsby), but just that they are widely taught, and since they’re widely taught, there are countless resources available for teaching them, whereas more recent books that might seem to have advanced beyond the scope that these books explore don’t have as much a precedent for being taught, don’t have as many available resources to teach them, and don’t have as much of a “settled” opinion on what they mean. So, it’s the English programs.