January 2011

Overrated Every writer wishes he or she could be overrated, but only a few in each generation are so lucky. Although forgotten within a decade of their deaths, overrated writers win a lot of prizes during their lifetimes, are well paid for their efforts, and generate a following among the critics. If you were an American novelist working in the early decades of the twentieth century, for example, you would have had to deal with the critical consensus that Joseph Hergesheimer was a truly great writer. Hergesheimer specialized in overwriting, and his best-known work, Java Head , published in 1918, was considered a masterpiece. The story of a fishing village on the coast of Massachusetts, it now seems horribly dated. Nobody reads it. Ever.

Overrated For years the name Ellery Queen was almost synonymous with detective fiction. Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay, the cousins who wrote as the pseudonymous Queen, cleverly gave the same name to their detective. At the time of their first book, The Roman Hat Mystery (1929), the most successful detective in America was S. S. Van Dine’s insufferable Philo Vance, so Lee and Dannay made their protagonist a virtual clone. He was just as pompous and erudite, irritating as hell, and as realistic as expecting to see Saddam Hussein perform Swan Lake in a tutu. Both detectives lived in New York and spent the best part of their lives wearing tuxedos and getting called in by the NYPD to help solve crimes. There wasn’t an iota of originality in the character then, and age hasn’t improved him.

Overrated The most overrated, overexposed, and overanalyzed industry is the financial sector. Cornelius Vanderbilt captured in three words all anyone needs to know about the market: “It will fluctuate.” Yet most people view asset management as alchemy, and every breath and blink of Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, is parsed for hidden meanings. Yet Greenspan and every other economist knows that following the “key indicators” is like steering a ship by watching its wake.

Underrated Without the chemical industry, modern life would not be possible. Yet even in the sector’s hometown, plant managers complain that the Houston Chronicle covers real estate and fashion more knowledgeably than it covers their industry.

Overrated My Fair Lady . Nearly 50 years after its 1956 premiere, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion remains the summoning term for the great American musical. One reason is its book, witty and provocative, whereas the typical musical’s script is an emptily functional dirt road connecting green zones of song and dance. And no wonder. This musical isn’t a version of Shaw’s Pygmalion ; it is Shaw’s Pygmalion , with musical truffling.

And what about that score? Isn’t it a crazy jumble of styles, from Middle European operetta ("You Did It") to English music hall ("With a Little Bit of Luck,” “Get Me to the Church on Time"), from a kind of updated Gilbert and Sullivan ("Why Can’t the English?") to contemporary Broadway (“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?”), and taking in stopovers in inappropriate Latin rhythm, the habanera (“The Rain in Spain”) and enraged jota (“Show Me”)?

Overrated When it comes to the Founders of the American Republic, it’s tough to find an overrated figure. By definition, Francis Bacon said in his Essays, “founders of States and Common-Wealths” take “first place” in the race of fame. When the founders in question create one of the freest and at the same time most stable commonwealths in history, the question becomes even trickier. How do you overrate George Washington’s virtue? Unlike Julius Caesar, Oliver Cromwell, and Napoleon Bonaparte, George Washington never sought supreme power for himself, even when, arguably, it was within his reach.

Overrated To millions of Notre Dame fans, George Gipp, who played football at South Bend from 1917 to 1920, was the greatest gridiron performer of all time. But, pardon me, isn’t his alleged farewell spoken to his coach, Knute Rockne, as he lay dying in December 1920, really why we remember the guy?

“I’ve got to go, Rock. I’m not afraid,” Gipp, only 25 years old, supposedly whispered. “Sometimes when things are going wrong, when the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out and win one for the Gipper. I don’t know where I’ll be then, Rock, but I’ll know about it and I’ll be happy.”

The romantic words have become far better known than Gipp’s playing. In fact, Gipp may never have said them. Rockne may not even have been present when Gipp died, and to top it off, Gipp was never known as the Gipper. He was just plain George. In truth, Gipp was the quintessential “tramp athlete” of his time, which means that he drank heavily, gambled constantly, and perhaps even bet for and against his own team.

Overrated History is replete with stories of failed rifles. Most of these failures disappeared from the marketplace and survive today only in collections or as curiosities. For a select few, however, flaws and shortcomings didn’t end their careers as production models. They exist in the millions. Their owners treasure them. Praise them. Even love them. Consider the 1903 Springfield. At the dawn of the twentieth century the U.S. Army needed a new rifle, and badly. The war with Spain was over. The rifles in production had displayed their weaknesses in engagement after engagement. The “Trapdoor” Springfield fired the .45-70, a cartridge loaded with black powder. Every shot produced billows of smoke, giving away the soldier’s position. The 1892 Krag-Jorgensen was fast to shoot—but slow to reload. Against the Spanish troops armed with German Mauser rifles, U.S. Army units found themselves outmatched. They needed to do something. But what?

Overrated Ally McBeal made her debut in 1997 and for the next five years was the most analyzed female character on television. A graduate of Harvard Law School working at a high-powered Boston law firm, McBeal seemed to embody modern feminism. With a career of her own and a six-figure salary to go with it, here was a role model young women could relate to. But McBeal turned out to be a collection of neuroses, which made for entertaining TV but did nothing to advance the feminist cause.

McBeal’s quest to find a soul mate defined who she was and sent soaring the collective anxiety of female viewers who by age 30 had failed to marry and bear children. When the actress playing McBeal, Calista Flockhart, grew so alarmingly thin that she was routinely referred to as waif-like, the insecurity of the fictional character spilled over into real life.

Overrated Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville.

Underrated What I Saw in America by G. K. Chesterton. In 1830 Alexis de Tocqueville came to America to write a report to the French government on American prisons. That so many people for so long have taken the resulting book, Democracy in America , to be so much more than that is in large part the result of Tocqueville’s own arrogance. It’s the lack of same that makes G. K. Chesterton’s What I Saw in America , published in 1922, so much more incisive.

Overrated As Fantagraphics Books’ recent reprint of the complete run of the first two years of Peanuts proves, Charles Schulz’s comic strip was once funny, audacious, quirky, and inventive. These early strips first appeared well over a half-century ago, however, and in the last decades of its original run Peanuts was bland, repetitious, smug, and not particularly amusing.

Possibly Schulz was influenced by the nearly universal perception that he was a really sweet guy along the lines of your favorite uncle. Peanuts grew increasingly nice, cozy, and, too often, preachy.