Am i imagining things

[georgelee5786]

I've begun to notice a trend. Modern book names seem so much more bombastic than old classics. They insist on themselves.

For example: Lord of the rings, the Illiad, Dracula, Robinson Crusoe, etc. The names are rather plain and simple. They don't seem like they're trying to stand out.

On the flip side: sunrise on the reaping, iron flame, shadow of the wind, blah blah. It feels like every title on the Barnes and noble shelf is trying to be the most attention grabbing.

I feel like I'm kinda imagining this but also I do see it when I go to bookstores. Idk, do you think I'm stunned or am I right?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Not imagining but maybe subconsciously exaggerating.
Some of the titles will be more bombastic, just to stand out from fifteen other books that used a very similar title (even if they're in different genres; Shadow of the Wind may appear as a Fantasy novel, a children's novel - likely about a horse - or a romance novel).
This is also at least partly due to publishing houses doing searches for existing names and then having both legal and marketing departments go over the final title before release.

 

[Tempokai]

The meaning of a word in its use in language. If you something "bombastic" it would be. Words as is are just words that convey specific meaning. When you know a pattern of combination for "bombastic" titles of course you would see it everywhere. It's not about the words, but what feelings author wants to communicate to you, and that sometimes backfires, like in your case.

 

[Zinless]

Because it cool

 

[laccoff_mawning]

Lord of the rings

shadow of the wind

Is there really a difference between these two titles? I think you're confusing "plain" with "familiar"

 

[Garolymar]

Titles are hard so I don't judge them too much.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

I've begun to notice a trend. Modern book names seem so much more bombastic than old classics. They insist on themselves.

For example: Lord of the rings, the Illiad, Dracula, Robinson Crusoe, etc. The names are rather plain and simple. They don't seem like they're trying to stand out.

On the flip side: sunrise on the reaping, iron flame, shadow of the wind, blah blah. It feels like every title on the Barnes and noble shelf is trying to be the most attention grabbing.

I feel like I'm kinda imagining this but also I do see it when I go to bookstores. Idk, do you think I'm stunned or am I right?

The original titles:

Lord of the rings = The Lord of the Rings

the Illiad = is a work of oral poetry, so does not have a title

Dracula = Dracula

Robinson Crusoe = The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself.

 

[Golden_Hyde]

Modern book names seem so much more bombastic than old classics. They insist on themselves.

I introduce you Japanese LN titles. It got so long it basically gives away the premise itself.

 

[FieryLou]

I Was Just a Normal High School Student Who Got Hit by Truck-kun on the Way to Buy Instant Ramen, Only to Be Reincarnated as the Illegitimate Prince of a Fallen Kingdom in a Parallel World Where Magic Is Based on Cooking and My Only Skill Is Boiling Water, but Somehow I Accidentally Summoned the Ancient Spirits of Legendary Heroic Waifus From Every Known Era Including a Yandere Samurai, a Clumsy Valkyrie, and a Shy Catgirl Assassin, All While Hiding My True Identity From the Evil Church, Managing a Tavern That Serves Sentient Food, and Trying Not to Fall in Love With the Overpowered Demon Queen Who’s Actually My Childhood Friend From Earth and Might Be the Final Boss Unless I Can Unlock the Ultimate Ramen-Based Spell Hidden in My Late Father's Cookbook Before the World Ends in a Soup-Pocalypse

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I Was Just a Normal High School Student Who Got Hit by Truck-kun on the Way to Buy Instant Ramen, Only to Be Reincarnated as the Illegitimate Prince of a Fallen Kingdom in a Parallel World Where Magic Is Based on Cooking and My Only Skill Is Boiling Water, but Somehow I Accidentally Summoned the Ancient Spirits of Legendary Heroic Waifus From Every Known Era Including a Yandere Samurai, a Clumsy Valkyrie, and a Shy Catgirl Assassin, All While Hiding My True Identity From the Evil Church, Managing a Tavern That Serves Sentient Food, and Trying Not to Fall in Love With the Overpowered Demon Queen Who’s Actually My Childhood Friend From Earth and Might Be the Final Boss Unless I Can Unlock the Ultimate Ramen-Based Spell Hidden in My Late Father's Cookbook Before the World Ends in a Soup-Pocalypse

And that's just Tuesday...

 

[SurfAngel_1031]

I've begun to notice a trend. Modern book names seem so much more bombastic than old classics. They insist on themselves.

For example: Lord of the rings, the Illiad, Dracula, Robinson Crusoe, etc. The names are rather plain and simple. They don't seem like they're trying to stand out.

On the flip side: sunrise on the reaping, iron flame, shadow of the wind, blah blah. It feels like every title on the Barnes and noble shelf is trying to be the most attention grabbing.

I feel like I'm kinda imagining this but also I do see it when I go to bookstores. Idk, do you think I'm stunned or am I right?

I'm willing to guess a majority of that is because the bookstore needs to still sell actual books. So titles as simple as mine wouldn't get the time of day.
If the cover and name don't make you pick up the book to look at the back cover, then it's a failure.
I tend to think it's more of a money thing rather than any trend. If books with single names started flying off the virtual shelf, books for the next 10 years might only be one syllable.
I mean look at "Reality" TV. That stuff has been dead for years, but Hollywood is still not giving up.

 

[AYM]

Robinson Crusoe = The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself.

The first syosetsu author fr fr

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Lewis Carrol came close with some of his full titles:
The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits
Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass and What She Found There.

And Mary Shelley's best known work would fit in with some of the more pretentious modern titles:
Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus.

And then there's Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote a novel with a title almost longer than the story itself:
The Mysterious Case of Doctor Henry Jeckyl and Mister Edward Hyde.