Awful Classics?

Are there any classics, modern or otherwise, that you can't stand?

I really, really hated The Old Man and the Sea. I don't think Hemingway could have made it more unmoving. I didn't really like Lord of the Flies either.

I must confess to not liking Crime and Punishment...I lost patience with everyone in it and wanted to smack each of them.

Edited to add touchstone above and also confess to hating The Tin Drum. Not only was it a pointless, rambling story with no discernible plot, but Oskar was an annoying jerk who really should have been drowned as a babe.

I found Mrs. Dalloway highly irritating--I found the title character to be a tedious snob.

I usually don't finish books I don't like, but at school I had to. I absolutely detested the following classics:
Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther) by Goethe
La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma) by Stendhal
and
Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane
I'm sure there were more as I'm not very fond of classic literature, but these are the ones that always come to mind when I think of books I literally had to struggle to finish.

Middlemarch

That book has scarred my life. One day - I am an optimist at heart - I will pick it up and not want to throw it across the room after 30 pages. But not yet.

(I've actually read it all the way through, and written essays on it. But it was like pulling teeth with rusty pliers.)

The Moonstone. You can TELL Wilkie Collins was a laudanum addict--the entire book was clearly written under the influence.

It's been years, but the thought of Nathaniel Hawthorne (House of the Seven Gables, and the stories too) still makes me ill.

Ah, Nathaniel Hawthorne... Dr. Heidegger's Experiment was so anticlimatic. The Scarlet Letter was just plain and senselessly tedious.

I hated The Old Man and the Sea, but I also read it for my English class in freshman year of high school with a horrible teacher (he mispronounced the vocabulary words he was teaching us, among other things), so I have no doubt that I completely missed all of the key concepts and whatnot behind it. Maybe if I read it again I'd like it better, but my first experience with it has condemned it to be perpetually at the bottom of my "reread" list.

Also detested Tess of the d'Urbervilles. I only made it halfway through the book before I gave up. I didn't like Tess at all. Or Hardy's writing style, for that matter.

Oh, and The End of the Affair. Which I also had to write essays on but never actually finished... I like Graham Greene generally, but I just couldn't stand this one.

I think being taught (badly, or well in some cases) does certain books a great dis-service.

I Can't Stand Proust. I read Swann's Way just because I wanted to see if I could find some of what everyone raves about there. (That first one even has the reference to the famous "Madeleines," which have of course managed to become an almost universally known metaphor.) After finishing it, I just didn't see what all the fuss is about. No way would I subject myself to the additional hundreds of pages to finish the trilogy.

(De gustibus non disputandum est. Except that is exactly what we are all enjoyably indulging in here.)

I've discovered lately that most of the stuff I hated in school, I actually like now. I begin to suspect that some of my more bitter teachers took a delight in sucking the joy out of what should have been a sweet discovery of literature!

The one book that I have never been able to save was A Separate Peace. I threw it against the wall after finishing it as a high school freshman or sophomore, and I did it again as a college junior.

I also absolutely despised Catcher in the Rye. I only finished the book out of stubborness and spite. I was so bored! And Holden annoyed the heck out of me. I wanted him to shut up, grow up, and get a job. I felt old reading it, and I'm only 24. Maybe I would have liked it when I was a teenager, but I don't really think so.

At first I thought it was because, as a modern girl from the south, I just didn't get it. No frame of reference, and all that. But then I realized that I liked other books set in New England, other books told from a young man's perspective, etc.

(Can't spell today... compulsively editing...)

Perilous limb to step on here...

Dickens "Classic" A Tale of Two Cities was a bore and a waste of paper to me.

Once upon a time, in my youth, I would have put anything written by Hemingway on list my list of aweful classics. Somehow, somewhere, that's no longer true.

The Bell Jar, which I blame on my reading it past the age of thirty, rather than when I was an angst-ridden fourteen-year-old.

(And though I'm somewhat reluctant to admit it, I don't think Sylvia Plath is much of a prose writer.)

The essay I wrote in 11th grade for Old Man and the Sea was the only one I got an A+ on that year but that didn't make the book any more interesting. BUT it was short.

The worst book I had to read in school was Ivanhoe. Even in the 680-page abridged version, every page was painful. But my son read it on the beach in Hilton Head one summer (NOT required reading for him) and loved it. He also loved Beowulf which he read the same summer. Maybe he's weird. Maybe he was switched at birth.

I liked A Tale of Two Cities but probably not enough to have chosen it if it weren't required reading.

Moby Dick, or Moby Richard as we called it in school. The original never-ending tale. And I have never been able to warm up to Hemingway. When I had finished The Old Man and the Sea, I felt like I had been dragged all over the ocean.

I have never seen the appeal of Whitman's poetry. Also, Grapes of Wrath struck me as inferior to either a real novel or a real piece of social criticism. But beyond that, most of the "classic" stuff I've read (mind you, there's tons I've stayed far away from) has been pretty rewarding. I was particularly surprised at how much I enjoyed Paradise Lost. (Mmm....Norton critical edition.)

I love a good classic, but I have to admit absolutely detesting Pamela by Richardson. Just brutal. Every time she talked about her virtue I wanted to throw the book against a wall. On the bright side, the course that I had to read it in also had us read Shamela by Fielding...a very nice satire on the awfulness of Pamela. I think I enjoyed it just a little too much.

I've never read a Dickens novel I liked. I especially hated Great Expectations. Also, I never understood why every highschool kid in the country is forced to read Dickens when there are so many better options.

Thank god...I can finally admit in public that I abhor anything you are going to read in an American Literature class...Hemmingway being slightly tolerable...and I'll forgive the transcendentalists as they made it bearable...just.

I've never liked Dickens either. Hemingway goes in the hated-it-at-the-time category, because he became one of my favorite authors later. There are just some things that are boooooring when you're 14.

And Pamela! The badness of it all! Even all my professors have avoided it. They've all given us a nice little speech about the history of the novel and then told us point blank to stay away from it. I started it and never finished, and I usually finish books I hate out of sheer willpower. I will not be defeated by a mere book! But with that one I surrendered and told it that it won.

Am I allowed to nominate Jane Austen AND Virginia Woolf?

Allowed or not there they are - tooooooooooooo tedious for words (Hardy and Dickens too)

I agree about Dickens. I made myself finish Great Expectations, but I've never been able to finish any others, although I like the ideas behind some of them. A teacher once told my class that when Dickens wrote the serials he was paid by the word. Feels like it every time I decide to give A Tale of Two Cities another go.

Everything by W B Yeats - as James Joyce once said: 'twould give you heartburn of the arse

I made myself finish Henry James Potrait of a Lady. I really wanted to like it but every time I read his stuff I hear it in a really droning voice.

I loved Great Expectations, but I agree that it's a bad choice for high-school classes, and I don't understand why they make high-school students read it. I was asked to read it in high school, but I didn't like it then. Twenty years made all the difference.

My nomination for "hated classic" would be The Faerie Queene, by that jackass Edmund Spenser.

Did anyone else think William Shakespeare was funny? I laughed all the way through high school lit. I liked him very much, but not for the reasons I was expected to like him. And it didn't matter if it was a comedy or a drama. I thought they were all funny.

Heart of Darkness. Loathed the leaden prose, loathed the message. Loathe loathe loathe. Mistah Conrad - He Dull!

Hemingway bored me to tears. It took me two weeks to read The Sun Also Rises. I threw Wuthering Heights and Tess of the D'ubervilles accross the room too many times to count. Just because it's a "classic" does not been that it is interesting. I also find most Canadian Literature to be depressing.

I really didn't like Marcel Prousts' Remembrance of things past!

Oh boy, this is the thread for me. From Pilgrim's Progress through to Midnight's Children I have had to read books at school, for my English degree and, later, teaching career, that have bored me rigid or that I loathed so much I was (almost) tempted to give them away. Top of my list of hated authors is Virginia Woolf, followed closely by Hemingway, Kerouac, D H Lawrence, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Jeanette Winterson and many, many more too numerous to mention. Even writers I love passionately throw out the odd 'dud' that is so bad it should be hurled with great force - The Old Curiosity Shop springs to mind.

THE worst book I have ever read that others rave about is, however, Woman On The Edge Of Time. I cried with relief when it was over. A tip for those who hate Shakespeare: read him when you're older, he really does get better with age.

Moby Dick was awful. "This species of whale looks like it read Plato, that species looks like it read Socrates" or somesuch; and the chapter where judging from the title the whale should have turned up was an 8-pages essay about the meaning of the colour white. BS.
That might have been the first book I brought back to the library without finishing it.

The Great Gatsby - completely uninteresting story, poor characterisation because the narrator was only a minor character himself and had no insight into the actual main characters, far too much namedropping of people I still have no idea if they ever existed, and some of the most ridiculous purple prose I ever read.

The Lord of the Flies was awful, too. There was not one character in it that I could like.
Worst of it was that the copy I got had a foreword that explained the ending and its symbolical meaning.
I want to read a book for the characters and story; putting the ending in the foreword basically said "this book is nothing but a piece of propaganda". Disgusting and pretentious.

Ooooh, I thought I was the only living person who found Jane Austen intensely dull. Why do people love her books and read them over and over?

I do love Jane Austen and read her books over and over, but I know she's not for everyone. Love Dickens, but I think A Tale of Two Cities is weak and not representative of his abilities. Didn't like Great Expectations in high school; read it again 20 years later and loved it--I think teaching Dickens in high school should be banned, as it has probably done more to steer people away from good literature than toward it.

The classic I couldn't stand--Don Quixote. I must confess, I only read the first half. I couldn't face the second part.

I have a copy of The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein that will probably be the last book I ever read if I get round to it since I have read so maany comments to he effect that it both intensely tedious and intensely pointless. Anyone to the contrary?

Two books I have tried and tried to read and failed, though I really wanted to like them were Heart of Darkness where agree with above post and Wings of the Dove . It's like Henry James had a bet with himself, "Can I take a very juicy, tabloid plot and yet make it into a crushingly dull book?' And the answer is .... Absolutely!

Interesting. There've been some classics I've read and haven't liked, but I don't know that there's ever been one which I've read and haven't seen the merits of. I suppose the closest I've come is Jane Eyre which I merely thought ordinary, not bad. Of course, I oppose much of American Lit on principle, but I've read very little.

Jane Eyre made me furious in high school! There I was... budding feminist and political activist, and they give me a book where the heroine does absolutely nothing of interest and never grows anything remotely resembling a back bone. I actually recall writing a rather vicious essay on why that book should be removed from the literary canon. (I was an angry, angry youth.)

"There've been some classics I've read and haven't liked, but I don't know that there's ever been one which I've read and haven't seen the merits of."

I think this is important to keep in mind when we are venting, here. For every book we hate, there is someone else who loves it. We have every right to hate it, and express that, but denying that it has any worth is unfair to all the people who do find it enjoyable. I think we're better off keeping things in the realm of opinion, rather than dismissing things as just plain awful, period.

What irks me about some of the so-called classics is once they are crowned these beacons of the literary world the onus seems to shift to the reader to live up to the work. Well, I contend that many of these books, regardless of the accolades that have been heaped upon them over the years, can and should be judged no differently than the unknown author. All you have to do is see how many surviving first editions of these “classics” have their dust jackets clipped – meaning the required reading of today was in many cases the book on the remainder table several generations ago.

Remaindered means unpopular, not insignificant. Harry Potter will not be in the canon in a hundred years, because it contributes nothing new to thought or literature. Classics, however boring or unpleasant we may find them to read, are classics because they tell us something important about the time or place in which they were written, or because they introduce or explore new ways of thinking, new ways of writing.

Not enjoying the classics is one thing, and I freely admit to that in many cases. Dismissing them is another thing entirely.

I love most of the writers and novels mentioned in this group. Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre I read when I was about twelve and loved them. Does age make a difference. Adore Proust, Austen and Dickens. Do you think there is a cultural factor at play here?? I am Australian, so my upbringing was English literature. I still generally favour English writing over American.

If I ever say I want to read anything by (Thomas Hardy ) ever, ever again... assume I have been abducted by aliens and forced to become the very opposite of my true self. Depressing, boring man. Depressing boring books.

I like (Middlemarch) a lot though. Try again. Please. XX

Heh. I figure I've got at least another 30 years to come back to Middlemarch in, so I'm in no rush. :) (I do like Eliot generally, never fear. Silas Marner is a favourite.)

On the remaindered question consider the following:

His most commercially successful book, which the New York Times Book Review designated as one of the best of 1979, sold fewer than 25,000 copies.

And this of the greatest american novelist Gilbert Sorrentino and his greatest novel Mulligan Stew

Commercial succes is clearly no measure of value of a work

Ethan Frome is a favorite of mine but I also liked Silas Marner.

Lohengrin -- that's an excellent summary of why kids are forced (and should be) to read the classics. They serve a valuable function and that doesn't mean we have to like all of them. It will be interesting to see what "modern" books are considered classics in decades hence. Can anyone think of any books published since about 1950 or so that you think may become classics in the future -- according to Lohengrin's definition?

I'm not sure I agree with Lohengrin's definition- I think there ought to be an element of greatness in addition to the factors he enumerates. As for modern classics? I think the Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor will probably be there. Things like Toole's Confederacy of Dunces, which are unusual and inventive will probably make it into the canon of classics. But most of what I see as making its way into the classics will be the best of (largely) new genres: magical realism, fantasy, science fiction. Yes, The Lord of the Rings, already a classic, will remain so. I would expect to see Ender's Game a classic in a century as well.

Just for the record? Not a "he." ^_^

Was disappointed by Catcher in the Rye. It didn't live up to my expectations.

I like a lot of Hemingway but the Old Man and the Sea is pretty bad. In the same mythic vein, however, Steinbeck's The Pearl is WAY worse!

kageeh, I disagree with the idea that children should be foreced to read classics to show them that they are bad - mostly because in my experience the teaching doesn't go the route of "Yes, this book has flaws, but you should know it because it was the first to introduce idea X", but general implications of "This is a Classic, which means it's Genius, so if you don't like it you are Stupid".
What children learn from that is that reading books sucks.

That is just bad teaching, and not the fault of the books.

If there is an argument for not teaching the classics, it is that children do not possess the critical apparatus to fully appreciate them. This can result in children believing books are boring, so perhaps it would be better to teach them using more popular works. The children who want to read the classics will, just like adults.

I agree with Lohengrin that majority of books labelled as classics have some degree of merit that transcends the text. That doesn't mean we have to enjoy them or like them. It also doesn't mean they are bad, disliking a book has probably more to do with the reader's preferences.

Contrary to Gabriel's message the classics of the future will not come from the new genres of sf and fantasy. Lord of the Rings is a classic fantasy but it is not a literary classic, nor does it deserve to be treated as such. Ender's Game is merely a good read. Magic Realism is different as it happily incorporated within the mainstream, and many of the authors who have incorporated this concept are already established, i.e., Gabriel Garcia Marquez & Toni Morrison.
The majority of the future classics will come from the leading critically-favoured authors of the last 50 years - Roth, Greene, Golding, Updike, etc.

We're starting to veer into some of the topics being discussed in the "canon" group.

I think there are many books of the quality of those most often called "classics" or canonized. For example, Stringberg and Marlowe are right up there in my book, but don't get read much because they are overshadowed by Shakespeare and Ibsen. The Shahnamma is right up there with the Illiad, but we worship ancient Greece, and especially pre-Alexandrine Greece, not the Alexandrine Persia. The Old Serb epics just haven't seen a worthy translator for English popularity, but the Icelandic Sagas have.

Many of these books are more interesting hisotircally than the current classics.

Personally I find Stringberg a bit ropey... ;-)

In reply to Jargoneer, I'm unsure on what basis you contend that sci-fi & fantasy aren't suited to becoming classics. I don't want to dismiss the point, and perhaps I'm misreading your point, but I think an argument has to be made.

While there are no doubt some works of contemporary mainstream fiction that will become classics over time, I'm not optimistic that this age will be well-represented. I neglected to mention Greene simply because I believe his most clearly classic work, The Power and the Glory was written before 1950. I'm not optimistic about Philip Roth or Updike, but then again, I haven't read them.

I must agree with gabriel on this point--if you have other reasons for dismissing LotR and Ender's Game, that's one thing, but dismissing something simply because it is genre fiction is a mistake and, as far as I am concerned, an outmoded way of thinking that is holding literary study back.

My daughter's 8th grade Honors English class (she teaches it) had to read Watership Down, also a fantasy. I suppose it had some allegorical merit that even the kids could understand but I didn't like it. THey also had to read Tom Sawyer which, in my mind, is far too simplistic for 8th graders who shoud be reading Huckelberry Finn. But we, back in the last century, read MacBeth in 8th grade and I thought that was a great intro to Shakespeare. Now they all read the combo-book West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet. At least, they no longer seem to read Bless the Beasts and Children. Remember that one?

Regarding the question of classics written since 1950, I think To Kill a Mockingbird and Catch-22 are works that will still resonate at the end of the century.

Back to the original topic (not that the digression is not worth continuing...) I also hated Heart of Darkness, maybe because I was a huge fan of Apocolypse Now I expected more. My husband, who rarely reads fiction, however liked it. Each to their own.

Another classic I could not stand (and could not finish) was Death in Venice. Maybe when I am 60 it will do it for me, but not now.

In high school we called Austin's famous tome, Pride and Punishment. Ugh!
To the Lighthouse makes me feel like a beginning reader all over again. I try to avoid this feeling whenever possible...
The Great Gatsby still perplexes me.
Please be nice to Fyodor D. He's my namesake!

My point on the remainered books was not to suggest that the literary value of books should be determined by their sales, any glance at the current NYT best seller list would send that theory right out the window, but rather that the literary value of fiction is highly subjective and remains so even after a given book has been deemed a classic. In fact, in recent years with publishing projects like Library of America for example, where "the best and most significant writings" are sought out and preserved; i.e., are turned into classics. The question needs to be asked, significant to whom? Inevitably this process gets sullied with political and cultural wrangling, resulting in works that may or may not strike a given reader as significant much less entertaining and good literature.

I wasn't dismissing sf&f completely. I think there are good writers in genre that deserve more recognition in the 'literary' world - wolfe, dick, john crowley, le guin. I just can't see a change that brings sf&f into the 'canon', in the same way that it is unlikely to include other genres like crime, etc.

Roth & Updike are certainties to be future classics, according to their own peers. (See the New Times Book Review best American novels of the last 25 years). It is people like Martin Amis, Easton Ellis, Franzen, etc, that may lose out.

We all have classics we don't like. I have never really warmed to Dickens, and I disliked The Catcher in the Rye. At the same time I can't help thinking that a bad classic is better for you than a good Jeffrey Archer.

I didn't care for Watership Down, but ended up having to read it again for a mythology class in high school. Then I liked it, until my little brother started obessing over it, then I hated it again.
I totally agree that a great starter on Shakespeare is MacBeth, I'm so glad I didn't get started on Romeo and Juliet.

lorsomething
Yes, Shakespeare is hysterical! I recently saw a program on the Ovation channel about the Globe Theatre in London, and once performers were working in the same environment as he did, that the plays take on new meaning, and even a tragedy can be comical. Really interesting to watch.

Dismissing "fantasy" as a genre seems strange to me, but perhaps I don't understand the term. It includes lot of very different works---a whole lot of worthless crap that is derivative of J.R.R. Tolkien, but also books as disparate as Perdido Street Station, Northern Lights, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Jonathan Strange, the short stories of Borges, Egalia's Daughters, and so on.

I think the establishment has canonized Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books as "classics", and they're undoubtedly "fantasy".

But as I said, perhaps I son't understand what was meant by the term; perhaps the previous posters only meant to include the Tolkien-derivative stuff.

Jargoneer- I think I still disagree with you about the canonability of sf&f works. I see the reasons why crime/mystery really can't make it in- a certain narrowness of scope that is inherent in the genre- but I don't see how that, or a similar objection applies to sf&f. Of course, much of sf&f has fallen far short of the standard of excellence that is a prerequisite for consideration in any canon. Of the authors you mention, I think some of Dick's work is already well on its way to inclusion in the canon.

On Roth and Updike, I am merely expressing my sense that contemporary mainstream literature hasn't the force or vigour necessary to maintain readers once its age is past. Perhaps I am wrong- and I've said I have no basis on which to judge Roth and Updike in particular- but time shall prove whether that is so. Again, my skepticism is for the broad swath of recent literature- which Roth and Updike just happen to fall into.

To say "I just can't see a change that brings sf&f into the 'canon'," is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Unless we try and create the change, "see" it and work towards it, it won't happen.

And then works like The Left Hand of Darkness will continue to be stigmatised. And, frankly, how is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? fundamentally different from Brave New World? Why is one "science fiction" and the other not?

Genrefication is a POX. It limits us and leads to closed minds.

I guess my distaste for fantasy and sci-fi is that those books are about things that cannot be true. Huxley's Brave New World has already come true, hasn't it? Certainly, 1984 has. They may have been fantasies in their time but not now. But I seriously doubt that Lord of the Rings will ever be a reality. And anthropomorhizing (is that a word?) animals (or vegetables, for that matter) drives me nuts. I score extremely high on rationality so maybe that's my problem. I realize millions of readers love fantasy and sci-fi and I cannot begrudge them their prejudices if they do not begrudge mine for true crime.

One of the reasons I love to read so much is that I am an information junkie; I enjoy learning new things and finding out about the world. Sci-fi and fantasy cannot do that for me.

The whole point of sf & f is that they can examine things such as gender, sexuality, race, etc. in ways that "realistic" fiction never can--by looking at social constructs of gender from the outside, from the perspective of a people who do not have gender (Left Hand of Darkness), or a people who have been without one gender for centuries and learned to adapt their science and their lives (the works of Joanna Russ, among others), sf & f can explore how much of our ideas about gender are artificially constructed and how much such constructions are useful to or hinder us.

Issues of race and racism are explored by using "aliens" or elves or what have you.

Issues concerning the environment, the human arrogance that claims we are the most important species, these can be explored in works such as Neil Gaiman's "Babycakes," among many others.

It is precisely by making us look at our world through a different lens that sf & f teach us--by seeing a world with similarities to ours, but gone awry or with one aspect or another emphasised all out of proportion, we are forced to examine the way we look at our own world.

Science fiction and fantasy are ALLEGORY. Just like Borges' "The Library of Babel," just like Animal Farm, good sf & f teaches not through literalism but through allegory.

the publishers define the genres and push them - of all "S/F writers" I would suggest that Ballard is most likely to make the canon

Brilliant entry, lohengrin! Couldn't have said it better.

Indeed, lohengrin.

I would go as far as to argue that science fiction and fantasy are superior as genres to other forms of literature, owing to their utility in thought experiment, and also the discipline of the imagination as a necessary faculty.

I'll make my report as is I were telling a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. Thank you lohengrin.

And by the by, I don't know about Brave New World having come true. Last time I checked I wasn't a clone kept happy by a liberal supply of drugs.

You can be given that liberal supply of drugs if you ask the doctors real pretty like!

Seriously, I would make the point that the rise in diagnosis of mental illness (and treatment thereof) is certainly approaching Brave New World. Something wrong with you? There's a commercial on tv that shows a drug that will fix it.

As a sufferer of major depressive disorder, I have to say, I wish the drugs for this disease were half as effective as the stuff they get in Brave New World.

Ah Lohengrin, you almost make sci-fi and fantasy a must-read. Your explanation is wonderful and I agree with all your points. Yet, it doesn't make me yearn to read those genres, at least not yet. There is so much more left for me to learn about the world that is before I attack the world that isn't.

You also made a point that leaves me to understand my distaste better. I am extremely non-creative, or, as a friend says, I'm very left-brained. I would stand stock still and cry as a five-year-old told to "be a tree in the forest" in a rhythmic dance class (very expressive) but I thrived in ballet (very structured). In high school art class that my mother forced me to take, I would cry when told to "draw a picture of anything you want". I didn't have the ability to draw a realistic picture and I utterly lacked the creative ability to draw anything else. So, although sci-fi and fantasy would allow me to look at the world in a completely different way, I would be unable to enjoy it.

I think Papalaz makes a very valid point - readers tend to judge books on whether they are good or bad; it is publishers, and booksellers, who define genres, and what is in them.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was published in the UK as literary novel, not a genre novel. This meant it got reviewed in the main book sections, and not a paragraph in a side column. Personally I can't see what makes this book different than any number of books published as genre works. (I actually struggle to see why it has been so lavishly praised, it read to me as an overlong children's book). Similarly, Philip Roth's last novel, The Plot Against America is a sf stable, an alternative history. Ian Banks was told told by his publisher to use another name for his sf since it could confuse his existing readers, hence Ian M Banks.

Simply put, publishers will market a book the best way to maximise sales. If sf&f authors could sell more published as mainstream authors or classics they would be packaged that way. Look at J. G. Ballard, after Empire of the Sun all his work was repackaged as general literary works because he was now selling to non-sf readers. He's still writing in the same vein as before however. (To be fair, it works both ways, Jane Austen has just been relaunched as a romance author).

kageeh: Thank you! I can entirely understand being very left-brained and having trouble with sf & f for that reason, but I am very glad that I can at least make a good case for why these genres are important to look at seriously, and how much they can teach. There's been a lot of really good scholarship on gender, sexuality, race and the environment in sf & f, but it's still a very stigmatised genre, to so many people.

jargoneer: Yes, the publishers and booksellers make the genres, but the consumers buy into them. "It helps me decide what to read" is a common response, but to me that is very limiting! If you only ever browse one or two sections of the book store, you will miss so many valuable works! Not just in sf & f, but in children's/YA lit, graphic novels, even mystery and horror (some of the best examples of psychology are in mystery and horror, for instance). I think this desire/willingness to compartmentalise things as this OR that, rather than this AND that is part of what makes genre work so stigmatised--you should see the resistance from some people in an English class when the prof suggests that there is a fantasy reading of The Library of Babel, IN ADDITION to everything else it is.

jargoneer, the case of Jonathan Strange is a particularly amusing one, given that Susanna Clarke has stated that she regards it as a work of fantasy -- in contrast to, say, Kurt Vonnegut, who doth protest too much, as it were, that his works are not to be considered genre fiction.

kageeh: I'm curious about your definition of fantasy and sci-fi. In another thread you called Life of Pi a fantasy which in my opinion it is not. Though I doubt it would ever happen, it is definitely realistic. If it were a fantasy then you'd also have to call The Old Man and the Sea fantasy. And countless other books that many would agree are classics.

Very interesting discussion. Like kageeh (I had the exact same art class experience, btw), I too am too literal minded for a lot of fantasy. Over the years I have indulged in some, but just didn't click with the wizards and dragons stuff. SF is easier for me to deal with, but again it's limited. The S in SF has to be feasible and not too much of a stretch; plausibility is key for me. That's why I enjoy Greg Bear and to a lesser extent Michael Crichton.

I don't dismiss the genre as a whole, but I understand why it's done. On the surface much of it seems silly and juvenile - judging a book by the cover syndrome. And to be honest, there's a lot of junk in those genres, not probably any more than in any other genre, but those lurid covers and purple prose really stand out.

I guess this didn't take the discussion any further, but hopefully kageeh doesn't feel so alone. : )

Jargoneer - a small OT note. Ian Banks is not the same man as Iain Banks, and it is the latter that writes as Iain M. Banks. The presence of Walking On Glass and The Business on the page of the one-I Ian is attributable only to data entry error; the man who wrote The Haynes Baby Manual definitely didn't also write The Wasp Factory! (A quick read of each would confirm that beyond any doubt... although now I have to wonder what a two-I Iain baby care manual would be like.)

BoPeep: I imagine this baby manual would have such entries as "If the baby's crying gets on your nerves, strap said baby to a huge kite, send it flying across the ocean, cut the string and watch as it disappears from view" :)

lohengrin writes:

The whole point of sf & f is that they can examine things such as gender, sexuality, race, etc. in ways that "realistic" fiction never can--by looking at social constructs of gender from the outside, from the perspective of a people who do not have gender (Left Hand of Darkness), or a people who have been without one gender for centuries and learned to adapt their science and their lives (the works of Joanna Russ, among others), sf & f can explore how much of our ideas about gender are artificially constructed and how much such constructions are useful to or hinder us.

Issues of race and racism are explored by using "aliens" or elves or what have you.

Actually, this expresses precisely my reservations with the sf/f genres. By not having to reflect the world as we find it, the genre allows ideologically motivated authors to suggest that we ought to reevaluate our ethical/social judgements. It works on an extremely powerful psychological level, because it is based on our need to suspend belief in order to plunge into the story. But it isn't based on anything real. It essentially asks us to realign our beliefs on a set of facts which do not exist.

It doesn't ask us to do anything but THINK. What we do with the ideas we take away, that's up to us.

Sure- all I'm urging is discernment. But there is a need to recognize an invalid form of argumentation. And quite a few people fail to recognize it. If you haven't noticed people accepting ideas based on the fictional representation of a universe, I'd be surprised.

The real question is how can sf/f raise valid questions, and how can it fail to do so. I think I've pointed out a manner in which sf/f often makes implicit arguments which are invalid. But surely that's not the only manner in which sf/f can raise moral questions.

Gabriel: This is hardly a problem limited to sf & f. Look at the furor over the piece of trash that is The DaVinci Code. And I think you are incorrect: the real argument here, the only one that I have been making is that fantasy and science fiction are as valid as literature as any other works of fiction. Yes, we must evaluate each work individually, but the dismissal of an entire genre as "useless escapism" is ridiculous, especially in this day and age.

lohengrin- look back at this thread. You'll find me the first to object to the dismissal of sf/f.

I dislike some modern literature because I find the psychologies described are unlike anyones in the world as it does exist, so certainly the problem isn't limited to sf/f; but I suspect it is most prominent in these genres. The ability to dispense with the world as we know it allows both the deeper exploration of themes as well as deceptive argumentation. I think both the good and the bad sides of the genre are in evidence in Heinlein's Starship Troopers in respect of militarism. On a principally negative note, I'd suggest A Door Into Ocean largely relies on the constructed world to make the points Slonczewski desires.

By definition, the allure of good SF is not what is, but what might be.

It's been a long while since I read Frank Herbert's Dune, but what I recall of the political intrigues and machinations for control of Arrakis spice is eerily reminiscent of today's action in the Middle East.

When it comes to gadgets and gizmos imagined by SF writers, many have since come into use or are under development. For visionaries from Jules Verne to Isaac Asimov, an appropriate motto might have been "Dream it, and they will build it".

Lohengrin and TheBlindHog - Very well said. I agree. No problem in the real world has ever been solved without imagination, the key element in SF&F.

Opinicus - I'm glad there's at least one other person who laughs with Shakespeare. He is the keenest observer of human nature and probably the greatest playwright who ever lived, but he was also a comedian. He had his serious moments, but they didn't seem to last long.

One of the all time most boring books I have ever read was by James Fennimore Cooper. I can't recall which book it was but it was part of the "Leatherstocking" series. Thirty some pages of an arguement between two characters regarding fresh water sailing as opposed to salt water sailing. I couldn't help thinking that todays editors would have a field day with those thirty pages...............then again I have read a few recent publications that seemed to have skipped the editing process all together.

The Ox-Bow Incident was hands-down the worst book I ever had assigned in school. Perfectly awful!

Re: Cooper
The Last of the Mohicans was one of the very few books I started when in high school and never finished. The only other ones that I remember were Moby Dick and The House of the Seven Gables. Of course there were a few others that would not have been finished if they had not been required reading.

George Orwell is one of my all-time favorite writers, but it irks me that he is known primarily for his two worst books: Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. These were first inflicted on most of us in school by bandwagon-jumping teachers. I had to read Animal Farm in the 8th grade, then again in the 10th. I had to read Nineteen Eighty-four in the 9th grade, again in the 11th for an English class AND an American history class, and yet again for a college class on the 20th-century novel. (Sheesh! I had a bunch of dystopia-obsessed teachers.) That was enough. I haven't reread either of them in thirty-something years

I echo those who lament Heart of Darkness and Dickens, which I always pick up when I can't sleep but am extraordinarily tired. However, I am utterly dumbfounded that some of you didn't enjoy Don Quixote! What is it that turned you away? It must be one of my favorites of all time...

I hated Don Quixote. Everything about it; the diction, the style, the plot, the characters - everything. Why this is lauded as the world's greatest book eludes me. Bah.

The Alchemist by coelho considered a modern classic? I cannot stand it.

Nostromo
Of Mice and Men
Tom Jones
Jitterbug Perfume
The Bible
Giles Goat-Boy
Atlas Shrugged

I was forced to read An American Tragedy in one high school English class. By the time I got to the part where the guy was rowing the pregnant girl in the middle of the lake, or somesuch thing, I was hoping he'd push her in and she'd grab hold of his hands and drag him in with her and they'd both drown and that would be the end of that insufferably long, tedious, uninspired, depressing book. Needless to say, I never finished that horrible novel, and I think I almost flunked the class, notwithstanding I am otherwise literate and well-read. It was such a traumatic experience, it was years before I could read another classic, except Shakespeare, whose works I have always loved.

Having said that, my favorites literary novels include My Antonia, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, Invisible Man (isn't that post-1950?), To Kill a Mockingbird (ditto), and Huckleberry Finn. Oh, yeah, and Stoker's Dracula, if that is considered a classic.

I had to read Francois Mauriac's Therese Desqueyroux for A-level French and I can safely say it is the most depressing book I have ever read. (Sorry don't have the necessary character set for the accents)

Tess of the D'Urbervilles was required reading at school and I couldn't stand it. Nothing against Hardy and his writing, it was just unbearably depressing.

Surprisingly, there seems to be a bit of a consensus here. The Old Man and The Sea is a pet hate of mine. Tess of the D`Urbervilles suffers from some very hackneyed literary effects - whatever mood Tess is in the weather and her surroundings miraculously compliment it - happy/sunny, depressed/bleak. Dickens I`ve tried, his sentence structure is bit unwieldy for my taste.

I`ve never understood how `classics` differ from `fiction` - who decides which category a particular book goes in ? I once asked a teacher at school - he rather overestimated my level of insight and assumed my question was rhetorical. He told me I`d raised an interesting point, remarked "who indeed ?" and moved on to other things !

I was an asker of awkward questions so you can`t blame him.

Sorry all, but I really disagree with those of you who disliked Lord of the Flies - one of my favourite novels of all time.

Thalia -- Lohengrin defined sci-fi and fantasy, not I (or at least I didn't do it well). Life of Pi is an allegory, not a fantasy. Sorry if I misled you by saying it's fantasy -- although there can be a fine line separating the two. I really enjoyed Life of Pi. I read Old man and the Sea in high school but I can't say I enjoyed it especially.

One of my all-time favorites is The Lovely Bones which is certainly not non-fiction. I just loved its depiction of heaven and viscerally wanted it to be true. But a book like that is not the same as one about flying dragons and such.

Bookmarque -- thank you for your support! I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who cried in art class. Ironically, all four of my kids are artistic, two of them amazingly so. I don't know from where they got it.

What kinds of books do you enjoy?

Wait a minute! Isn't schlock fiction ala Joan Collins "useless escapism"? Well, maybe not "useless" in that I compare such fiction to sorbet between courses of a meal meant to clear the palate.

dhalgren -- The Bible}? The Old Testament is an unparalleled source of literary foundations. Almost every story ever written can be found in the Bible.

As a person of decidedly Hebrew descent, I see the Bible as history and allegory, not a book to be believed literally. But I was reared by atheists so imagine my chagrin when a story read in a high school English class was described as an allegory based on the Garden of Eden and I had no idea what the Garden of Eden was. I have since educated myself.

My definition of a classic is a book that has survived the times and/or is the origination of a story or technique that is ever afterward copied. Thus, my own library has some fairly recent (as in the past 50-75 years) unusual suspects classified as classics. Examples include Carrie, Charlotte's Web, and Love Story. Many will vehemently disagree with me.

One of my favorite classics is Wind in the Willows...I read for the first time at the age of 40. I enjoyed is as much or more as the two boys I read it aloud to at night.

I love how a lot of these books are things that we were forced to read in school. No better way to make someone HATE something than to force it upon them. I wonder how our perspectives would change if we came to these works willingly.

I hated The Scarlet Letter, The Pigman, everything by John Steinbeck except for The Grapes of Wrath, and Diary of a Young Girl. Yes, I hated the quintessential Holocaust memoir. She's really not an interesting person, just really, really unlucky.

As for classics I read willingly and still hated, I'd have to put The Great Gatsby up there, and the Foundation books by Issac Asimov. Never finished the former, have no idea how I made it through the latter.

What constitutes a "classic"? Good question. I've been led to believe it's all down to the 'canon' and the literary critics of The New Criticism school. In other words academics from the mid-20th century promoting literature as a way to better oneself!

I might be wrong.

The classic I've least enjoyed has to be Jane Eyre. Although I did find it was possibly the most accessible 19th century novel, it still didn't move me in the way Wuthering Heights did.

There is a literary canon group, although discussion appears to have tapered off.

I'm with kageeh in that influential works are considered classics, regardless of their individual merits. Certainly works like Pamela would go in that category. Other than that, it's certainly up in the air! There are so many female authors that weren't acknowledged until the recent decades, also world/minority authors. As much as I enjoy the classical western canon, the work of revisionists has been enormously beneficial.

I will still never like Jane Eyre or Catcher in the Rye, though. Ever. I keep trying and I just keep hating them.

I browsed finding problems with some, agreeing with many. Then I saw the word Ibsen.

Now, you may abuse the old man in the sea, Proust, good ole Raskolnikov, but IBSEN. Ahh, that is truly not to be read. Perhaps it can be dressed up in a proper theatre...perhaps.

Fyodor, myself, and hopefully a few others thank you for the air time.

Did someone flag my post because I said I hated reading Anne Frank?

I don't know Lampbane but there certainly are a lot of red flags on this thread and I don't see anything wrong with any of the posts. Looks like someone finds any post that doesn't match their own opinion offensive.
Heck I totally disagree with you about Anne Frank but I didn't find your post offensive.

I am new around here. How does one flag a post, by simply left-clicking on flag-abuse?

Yes Reading, just click on where it says Flag abuse and it activates that little red flag.

I may have done that to one of my own posts just out of curiosity.

Interesting how often Hemingway is being cited here. I evaded The Old Man and the Sea in school somehow, but we did read The Sun Also Rises; I quite liked it. Then, more recently, I read For Whom the Bell Tolls and loathed it from beginning to end. It's been a couple of years since I finished that one, but it still hasn't worn off completely!

Lolita was terrible and I couldn't finish.
Anything by Hemingway usually sends me screaming. It's just too masculine.

To disagree with some posters, I loved Catcher in the Rye as well as Gatsby; I've read both again and again. I also loved A Scarlet Letter though I hated it when I had to read it in high school. I've found that a lot of things I read in high school and hated I now love. Sometimes you just need to age a bit and get a different perspective; sometimes they still suck! :)

It's interesting to see how often Hemingway appears. I have never cared for his style or his attitude, and The Old Man's obsession with his fish is beyond me. In recent years I've given him another chance, because I have frequently found that to be a worthwhile endeavor (I remember being left quite cold by Pilgrim at Tinker Creek the first time I read it, and now it's right up there on my favorites shelf with Walden ). But I am even less impressed with Hemingway now than I was in high school. I think it's also worth noting that as an English major in college I concentrated on American literature, and we didn't read a single work of Hemingway in four years. Of course those were the late '60's and early '70's, when the macho man was distinctly out of favor on small liberal arts campuses.
And here's another vote for the wretchedness of Lord of the Flies. To quote someone, "That writing was wrote rotten."

I think a good place to start with Hemnigway is his short stories -- Soldiers Home, Hills Like White Elephants, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber and then move on to A Farewell to Arms. I also like The Sun Also Rises, but most Americans have been forced to read that in high school so it is almost pointless to recommend it.

See, I didn't even like Hemingway in short-story form. A Clean, Well-Lighted Place was a tough read, short or not, because I just didn't connect with it at all.

lohengrin

Well Hemingway isn't for everyone, that's for sure. But I don't connect with all of his stories either. I appreciate Hemingway most, perhaps, after reading something that is complex and wordy -- something by Henry James for instance. I don't imagine you're a Henry James fan either.

Haha, no, I'm not very fond of most American writers, barring sf/f and Poe; there are other exceptions, but as a general rule American "classic" writers have underwhelmed me. But to be fair to my own country, so have a lot of Canadian writers.

I am not a fan of John Steinbeck or Hemingway and I hated The Great Gatsby when I first read it but it improved after re-reading it as an adult.

I still hate The Red Pony though.

I must say that 20th Century Classics tend to appeal to me the least.

I can forgive women in Regency and Victorian novels for not being more self-possessed and I can forgive men in the 18th and 19th centuries for thinking women were weak, fainting holes with which to fill with children.

The more recently a book was written the less patience I have with it if it pushes certain buttons.

I really didn't like American Psycho which is supposed to be a modern classic.

I admit I haven't read everything by Hemingway or Steinbeck so I suppose I might change my opinion on reading more.

But I must admit that most books that have been mentioned here I really liked.

When I first read through this thread it occurred to me that a lot of readers hate some really good books.

I've been trying to think of a book that I can't stand but it isn't easy. Franzen's The Corrections is a book that I disliked rather intensely while reading it. But, like it or not, I have to admit that it was well written. I just thought Franzen was too one-sided about everyone and everything.

I think that when we are older, we have more time to read a book without distractions and without the necessity of "having" to read read it. Then we can better concentrate on the actual writing and not just the plot, if there is one (and I do prefer a plot in my books). If I ever get all the books I own today (and then the ones I own tomorrow) read, I may go back and re-read some of the horrors I had to face in high school (Ivanhoe in particular).

Having collectively trashed hundreds of classics, we may just have to admit:

a) Somebody on here will hate any particular great book; and

b) Hundreds of people on here will like a book that is truly awful.

In conclusion, "it was a dark and stormy night" when I gave up on this line of discussion. ;-)

pechemerle, that's why I, personally, view this group as more of a place to find that elusive "oh my god, ME TOO!" that saves you from feeling alone in your hatred of a popular work. *G*

I have never managed to make it through anything by Tolkien. I know everyone loves The Lord of the Rings but I just can't make it to the end.

No, everyone does not love The Lord of the Rings. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

But it sure feels like every sf/f fan loves Tolkein. Except meeee. *laugh* That's what I mean about the "oh my god, me too!" syndrome. Every time I find someone who DOES love sf/f but hates LotR or Harry Potter, I'm all thrilled.

You're not alone lohengrin. I love fantasy, like sf, and I think LotR is plain boring. I made it through the whole thing, but just kept on expecting that it would get better. Which it didn't. The last hundred pages or so even just dragged on and on.
I do enjoy Harry Potter though, I have to admit.

Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens. Dry, dull, and not worth the effort as far as I'm concerned.

I'm willing to say "to each his own" about Flaubert, but he was a waste of my time as well. You want to know why younger people don't seem to care about reading? Because teachers make them suffer through books like iMadame Bovary/i in High school. Explain to me what connection a 17-year old boy could possibly make with that book. If one could, I would be really worried about him.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy used to interest me. Then I turned 10.

Why are people talking about The Lord of the Rings in a thread on classics?

If one must talk about Tolkien on this thread, I'd think trashing his second rate translation of Sir Gawain ought to be enough.

Let's see if I can raise the ire of some Jane Austen fans. I've often heard Emma described as one of the "best-loved characters" (and novels) in literature. Ugh! Are you kidding me? I don't find the novel nearly as interesting or charming as P&P or S&S. As for the character Emma, I think she's one of the most OBNOXIOUS in all of English literature...small-minded, spiteful, vindictive, stupid. I find myself hoping she actually gets what she deservers, which is nothing good.

I save my Austen spleen for Fanny in Mansfield Park. What an annoying character!

srharris19 - We're in complete agreement. I found Emma shrill, self-serving and conniving. The whole story bored me and I didn't find it nearly as sarcastically funny as P&P or Pursuasion. I never understood why that novel and Emma in particular gained the popularity they have.

After reading some of the things posted I have come to the conclusion that classics have to be determined by the reader and not necessarily what society thinks. I also think that most of the classics are classics because they speak to the authors ability to create something, which connects on a meaningful level with a lot of people. However, if some people don't have this connection then this may be a reason why they see something as an 'awful classic'. This makes it that much clearer that there is no objective mechanism for determining whether or not something is a classic.

Bookmarque, probably because for all Emma's faults, she's a real character with silly ideas some of us share (if we're ruthlessly honest/self-critical) or our acquaintances do. Her worst faults are silly ones, she's not a Great Force of Evil, in the scheme of things. Ultimately she learns something about herself (as do Elizabeth Bennet/Mr Darcy, or Elinor and Marianne, of course), and that's always good. We can root for her redemption.

Fanny Price, on the other hand, is a dreadful priggish drip from start to finish and all we can hope is that a hopelessly lost dragon wanders into the book and eats her before she gets any worse.

Refreshing to see many share my dislike for Hemingway. And while I quite liked Pride and prejudice, Sense and sensibility seemed really shallow and silly.

Anyway, I don't like not liking classics. Usually I think there's a reason for these books to have been there for so long, and I feel bad about my inability to grasp it. Well, sometimes I do think everyone else is just plain wrong and should listen to me instead of decades of critic and popular acclaim. But most of the time an awful classic makes me frustrated not only with the book, but also with myself.

Jane Austen wrote Mansfield Park in reaction to criticism that she could only do attractive vivacious characters. That is why Fanny Price is so meek and mild, if not downright boring - the problem is that the novel drags to an extent due to her personality.

With the exception of Persuasion every Austen novel results in the heroine gaining self-knowledge. In Persuasion it is the hero who has to gain self-knowledge.

I don't think you can call Austen's novels shallow though, whether you like them or not. Austen really does highlight the social and economic pressures facing women in her time; it is hard to think of any other author who confronts the economics of love and relationships more. Think of Pride and Prejudice, there is a lot more talk about money than there is about love.

I agree with the idea that sometimes not liking a classic can be down to a reader's inability not to grasp it. It's always interesting having a discussion with someone who loved the book and can highlight points you may have missed. I have gone back to works afterwards and on re-reading realised how much I missed initially.

I wouldn't say that Austen *confronts* the economics of love, really. She was part of the system and accepted it, saw no reason it would or should change. But she does lay it out very clearly, yes.

Bopeep - the thing is, I don't recall that Emma ever learned anything. She felt justified in manipulating everyone around her because of her inflated ego. I felt that she just returned to her usual ways in the end. I hope even in my most self-critical moments, that I am nothing like her.

She learns how she must consider others, several lessons of humility, how flawed her judgement can be, how to fulfill her role in society to best advantage, and that you can't get away with everything just because you're funny, rich, and pretty. Austen gave her much more, materially, than her other heroines, and yet she still has so much to learn before she can be truly worthy of it.

You are never sarcastic, confused, insecure, prone to meaningless nervous chatter, easily amused by your own jokes, or tempted to view life with an overly romantic eye? Lucky you! :-)

lucasmurtinho

Your comment about how you "don't like not liking classics" is an interesting one. I think that too often we are led to believe that because a book is considered a classic it must be a book we should read. But some classics, either because of when they were written or because the writer's style is difficult, can be slow going.

I happen to like many of the novels written by Henry James, but I also know that many readers find his style idiosyncratic in the extreme, and that's putting it mildly. But I also find James Joyce's Ulysses, which we are told is the greatest novel of the 20th century, somewhat of a bore. So don't be too hard on yourself if a "classic" doesn't hold your interest, or if you don't quite grasp what supposedly makes it so good.

But don't give up on the classics either. Many of them are worth reading and not at all difficult to grasp.

I think our reaction to the classics is very dependent on when we encounter them. When I was teenager, I read every time I slowed down enough to hold a book. I was stuck in my world, so it gave me other worlds to explore. I read every word of everything. When I got a bit older, I became more discriminating. And if a book wasn't what I had hoped, I would quit right in the middle. Now, I read much less, so if the book doesn't offer me something worthwhile by the second chapter, it doesn't get another chance. Life's too short, as they say. That said, there were some I disliked from the start and I've never changed my mind.

laytonwoman3rd, I'm going to plagiarize your quote. I love it.

I didn't see that at all bopeep. She's a manipulative bitch to me and that's about it. She never really repents or changes. She thinks she's all that and the tired old bag of potato chips.

and yeah...I am pretty lucky, but my jokes do amuse me, too.

lucasmutinho -- I agree with you on not liking not liking the classics. I feel as if there must be something wrong with me that I don't like Jane Austen or Hemingway or anyone of that ilk except George Eliot. It was always such a chore to plow through those in high school and college and now I delight in reading only what I want to read. But there's still that little niggling thought that maybe it's me . . . .

kageeh: I have a theory, and no proof, that one is more likely to prefer English literature if one's background is English. I grew up in Australia at a time when our education and literature was English and we sang "There'll Always Be An England" at assembly. English lit was my upbringing and I still prefer it to American lit (generally speaking). A lot of the classics authors I loved - Dickens, Hardy, Austen , the Brontes - have been given a bad rap in this group. Of course Steinbeck and Hemingway haven't fared too well either. Does anyone have any thoughts on this??

Born and raised in the Southeastern US. I can't stand most Southern authors and don't really like many of American 'classics' (Steinbeck, et. al.) but much prefer a lot of English novelists from Henry Fielding to Nevil Shute. And of course many of my favorite writers of genre fiction are from England. So maybe its more a matter of personality?

I'm Canadian and my favourites are English, Japanese, Russian and French literature. *laugh* So what does THAT say?

hailelib: There goes my theory! Interesting, though, how our preferences are formed.

I enjoyed reading Dickens and the Brontes because their stories had plots and action and even dialogue (heavens!). I can't say that for Pride and Prejudice or anything by Joseph Conrad. Itried mightily to get into Heart of Darkness but there simply wasn't anything there. I still prefer plot, action, and dialogue in my books.

No plot, dialogue or action in Pride and Prejudice? Surely you jest.

Surprised no one has mentioned Faulkner yet... the master of the endless, wordy sentence with no end in sight. Ick. The prose is just nauseating!! Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels this way!

Book_cat - yes, long sentences by a truly incredible writer! I'm afraid you may be the only one.

If you want to try some more accessible Faulkner, it's worth reading the stories in Knight's Gambit. To me, at least, Faulkner is a rare treat, a deserving classic, certainly not that horrid Austen stuff.

Nope, I loathe Faulker as well.

And A_musing, you are certainly very fond of being dismissive of things you don't like. LotR was being discussed on a Classics thread because many people consider it one. And to suggest that Austen is not "a deserving classic" is very insulting to the people who feel otherwise.

Please try to limit your comments to your own personal taste, rather than suggesting that everyone else is "wrong."

Faulkner can be a very slow read, even for people like me who think highly of As I Lay Dying, The Hamlet, and Light in August. I admire The Sound and the Fury but understand readers who find it difficult if not impossible to read. Absalom, Absalom! is also a chore.

Austen -- talk about two authors who really don't have much of anything in common -- can be very entertaining but also a slow go. I think Pride and Prejudice is an excellent novel but would never think of reading Mansfield Park again. Once was more than enough.

This group of diverse people (whoever they may be) is guaranteed to have differing opinions. None of us can offer empirical proof that our own designated masterpieces of literature are the correct ones. Vive la difference!

Lohengrin:

I'm not really as dismissive as you may think - I've taken the time to read the stuff (in Austen's case, repeatedly), even if I felt like throwing the book across the room sometimes while reading it. Please feel free to mentally footnote each of my posts with a "YMMV" or the equivalent, as they are, of course, my personal opinions. But hopefully a few can get a chuckle from those posts. Don't take em too seriously.

But, for those dismissing Faulkner, (1) I feel your pain -he ain't easy; (2) it's not all like that - try some of those Faulkner short stories I suggested; and (3) I totally disagree and am not ready to give up on any of you. It's great stuff! Really! You should try it again.

For those advocating Austen, you should just give up on me, at least. I've tried. I just don't get it.

Jargoneer:

In defense of Austen, you say: "I don't think you can call Austen's novels shallow though, whether you like them or not. Austen really does highlight the social and economic pressures facing women in her time; it is hard to think of any other author who confronts the economics of love and relationships more. Think of Pride and Prejudice, there is a lot more talk about money than there is about love."

Far be it from me to get in the way of other's enjoyment of this particular sour wretch, but how would you compare Stendhal's The Red and the Black on some of these scores? Austen has been much celebrated by those looking for early 19th century social novels focused on women, but I don't think she has a monopoly. Stendhal is just one example of someone who explores the territory. Some 30-40 years after Austen, Flaubert does a pretty good job as well (though I'll confess, there are times when I think Madame Bovary is incredibly derivative of The Red and the Black).

Agree on this one -- Nostromo was better though. Very readable.

Actually, I've never been able to get through Nostromo, after several starts. And I mostly like Conrad. My favorite isThe Secret Agent, a perfect and perfectly chilling meditation on the relationship between the personal and the political, via an anarchist agent instructed to plant a bomb in a public place in late 19th century London. The ending has terrific emotional impact. (no puns intended -- :-) )

I'll take stylistic innovation and thematic complexity any over plot and action: therefore I'll read every book Faulkner ever wrote before I pick up another Dan Brown!! Ugh!

Oi, there's a difference between badly written, cheesy plot and action, and well-written plot and action. o.O

Very true, lohengrin. Style and action are definitely NOT mutually exclusive. Nonetheless, I have read and loved a lot of well-written books in which almost nothing "happens." Plot and action are ALMOST irrelevant to good writing; they don't even crack the top 20 of what I'm looking for in a good book.

And while I'm making lists...Faulkner is one of the top 5 (3...2...well pick some other small number) greatest American writers of all time. And Mr. E. H. is in that club too!

I went through a period of reading a LOT of Faulkner and enjoying it. That has grown cold, cold. At first his writing seemed brilliant. Once the formula was learned, the effort to read it was not worth the return received.

Similar enthusiasm in college for Thomas Wolfe of Look Homeward, Angel fame has disappeared. Lots of teen/young adult angst and not much else.

Hemingway: "He sat by the fire. The fire was good. It was good to be by the warm fire. The smoke rose into the treetops above the fire. The trees surrounded the fire. etc...." Hemingway occasionally rose above his normal style, but not often enough. I did like some of the Nick Adams stories.

A post script to my previous post:

As others have said, just because I do not like a classic does not mean it is without merit. I am not attempting to disrespect anyone who likes these authors. (am gun-shy from getting jumped up and down on by someone in another group)

The Great Gatsby is one awful book,i don't know what is so great about the great gatsby?

I normally hate meta-discussion, but this is the kind of forum that almost requires it, as you can all see if you follow the way it alternates between declarations of hatred towards particular books and declarations of annoyance at the declarations of hatred.

It seems to me there are only two reasons for bothering to say, "I think a particular classic is in fact an awful classic". One is as a kind of conversational introduction of yourself, kind of like saying, "I like pina coladas and taking walks in the rain". In that vein, I tend to find it way more interesting when someone tells a story that's personal and idiosyncratic about how they came to really hate a particular classic.

The other reason is to try and persuade people who might otherwise regard a book as a classic that the book in question is overrated or undeserving of that status. And again, it means a lot more to me along those lines if someone is fairly detailed in the way they make that case.

Saying, "Anne of Green Gables blows" just doesn't do much for me whether or not I feel the compulsion to defend that book. Saying, "I remember in junior high school that I had a bunch of friends who kept telling me how great Anne of Green Gables was, but when I started reading it, I found Anne herself so much like my annoying aunt that I could never get past that to the book itself" is interesting. Saying "My problem with Anne of Green Gables is the combination of the overwritten lyricisms about Prince Edward Island and the overwrought depiction of Anne's own character", well, I might still have a come-back or challenge to that, but it puts some meat on the opinion.

i add (five people you meet in heaven)

I think it's important to read The Great Gatsby and other so-called classics so you can sprinkle your otherwise everyday speech with literary references and understand them when others do so also :).

srharris19 I must agree with you! The year I had to read Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, Steinbeck's The Pearl and Shane by Jack Shaefer was the worst. To me they will always be 3 of the most boring books ever. I have read alot of books and enjoy many classics but I will never reread those.

Kageeh, I hope that was said tongue-in-cheek. I got a good giggle out of it, anyway. :)

Lorsomething -- only partially :). I still thought the book was silly. On the other hand, I know people like those in the book . . . .

It's a least favorite of mine, too. Was anything said in it that would be worth remembering and repeating? I can't think of anything, but my head is too full of countless other tidbits of useless information.

Yes, there certainly are. I am entirely opposed to The Great Gatsby, I had to read it in high school and was the first school book that I didn't bother to finish. I also wasn't the biggest fan of Great Expectations.

I'm trying to think of a book I had to read in high school that I really liked. I'm thinking . . . still thinking . . . can't remember one. But I have re-read some of those books as an adult -- The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies -- and found much to appreciate. So maybe the high school experience has a lot to do with our inability to appreciate what our teachers forced us to read. Maybe the fact that we were forced is the problem. Just a thought.

I'm a relatively new thinger - with most of my books still to be catalogued - and only today did I even think to check out the groups.

I'm coming in late, I see, but so far as I've read nobody has fingered my personal bete noir - Candide.

I got the joke at the end of page two, but he just kept on writing it. I never thought such a slim book could be such a slog.

High school did dreadful things to certain authors for me, too. I went to an awful boys' school in Hawaii where the whole reading list was "manly" - stuff boys should/must like. It took me 145 years to re-read The Iliad and discover it was really quite beautiful, after all.

Hello everyone:

For years I have tried reading books by Jane Austen but I can't stand her prose and the topics of the time. I've tried also watching the movies based on her books but end up falling asleep. Does anyone feel the same way I do? or better yet, can someone tell me suggestions on how to approach her literature?

Think of Jane Austen novels as adventures in civility. At least here in the States, that's something we don't have nearly enough of. Her books can also be quite funny, but the humor is decidedly subtle. Her best book as far as I'm concerned is Pride and Prejudice, and I hate Darcy and will never forgive Elizabeth for marrying him!

I thought reading The Jane Austen Book Club would maybe help me enjoy Jane Austen, but it was even worse!

Responding to 188 (CarmenDC):
I've never read her books, but my friend who loves her books said, "Come watch this copy of Pride & Prejudice I have, this version follows the books exactly!" I feel asleep. Several times. I don't think I'll be reading her books any time soon.

Being a man, I thought I would despise Pride and Prejudice, but I enjoyed it. There is no accounting for taste.

I have found the need to read about 200 pages of any previous century's literature before it starts to click. Then the ideas start rising out of the text. It is a commitment of time and energy, but well worth it. Also, reading it aloud also aids in getting at what is being said.

Thanks for that advice, poemblaze! It might be worth a try...when I have the house to myself sometime!!

peaceangel:

you are welcome. I hope you have the house to yourself sometime and that reading aloud does work for you.

I've got another suggestion: "Read" Pride and Prejudice on audiobook. I resisted reading it for years, until after reading some of the posts on this website and BookCrossings, then decided to give it a try. So I'm reading it for the first time on audio, and it is absolutely splendid! The reader (I don't remember her name) does the various characters' voices really well. I was listening to it on the train yesterday and in a few places it had me chuckling out loud, and I wondered what my fellow passengers would have said had they known it was Pride and Prejudice that I found so amusing. :)

I can't even begin to explain how happy I am to find other people who don't get on with Dickens.

I was once thrown out of a third year English Lit tutorial for calling him boring - granted my tutor had devoted her life to studying the man, but it struck me as a bit of an overreaction.

As with many of the authors I dislike, I can appreciate Dickens' skill, and even some of his descriptions, but they're not enough to keep me from falling asleep, or getting frustrated.

May I add another real stinker to the list? J.M. Coetzee is a Nobel winner and utter windbag, as well as being more than a tad misogynistic. As a South African, I'm angered by the overly simplistic portrait he paints of this place, and I think his characters are all horrible and one-dimensional.

The Qur'an. I didn't find it objectionable, just bloody boring. Usually when I read the scriptures of a religion other than my own, I at least come away with an understanding of why that faith appeals to its adherents. Not so here.

Count me among the Faulkner and Heart of Darkness haters, too.

Laura

In one college course I had we had to do book reports from a reading list of the professor's favorite books. It was well known that she wasn't happy when students didn't like her choices. I always had to read at least three books from the list to find one that I could convincingly say something positive about. A very bad semester for reading.

Re: the Qur'an
Could it have been the translation or did you try more than one?

hailelib

Once upon a time I was a professor of English. Yes, I was one of those people who "force" students to read poetry, drama, short stories and novels. Then I "forced" them to write something about what they had read.

Most students in my classes were quite adept at telling me why they hated something or found it boring. (Boredom, by the way, was the most often cited reason for not liking a book or author.) So like your professor, I required my students to find something positive to say about what they had read. By the way, they could still tell me why they hated a particular book or author. Every once in a while, however, a student would admit that in the process of trying to find something positive to say about a particular reading selection, they discovered that it wasn't quite as hateful or boring as they first thought.

That, in a nutshell, is what educators hope will happen. Because dont forget that educators were once students who were "forced" to read things they hated or found boring. But as educators they've moved beyond merely liking and disliking what they're told to read. And that is what students, if they deserved to be called students, must also learn to do.

I haven't read anything in this lifetime I liked less than For Whom the Bell Tolls because it felt so calculated, artificial, to me. It felt, like all the rest of Hemingway that I have read, as though every time ol' Papa confronted the typewriter, locked it in deathless glorious combat between Man and machine, he was thinking: "How much more Manly can I make this sound without actually drawing testicles on each page?"

I don't like silent movies, either...theatricality galore in the acting style of the day, chins a-quiver and dewy-eyed Bambi-style emoting 'til I want to scream in sheer Hemingway-esque testosterone poisoned rage, "GIVE IT A REST!" This, not coincidentally, expresses my sentiments when reading the turgid, overblown, bludgeoning prose of dear Charles Dickens. Miss Favisham needed a good, swift belt, a change of clothes, and a housekeeper with strong opinions on hygiene.

Re - readingmachine, it is so easy to say that and this is crap, or this and that is a masterpiece, that is useful for looking for the positive in the negative, and the negative in the positive. However, that requires critical thinking, and why waste your time thinking when you can just say 'rubbish' or 'great'. We live in a society where everyone is voicing their opinion, but very few people seem to be able to explain the reasoning behind their stance.

Re - the theatricality of silent movies. Yes, it is dated, over-the-top, etc, but have you seen a Richard Gere movie? The first time I saw him 'act' I wondered why someone had painted a face on a plank of wood. I know which one I would choose.

It is easy to dismiss something by claiming it's boring or dull. I am just a little suprised at how many people at Library Thing do that.

readingmachine:
This professor was actually insulted if students didn't like her reading list and then told her so. (Having been married to a professor for 35+ years and being a teacher myself I know that isn't typical.) I was extremely relieved that the required novel was one that I had already read and loved, (The Once and Future King). To this day I am convinced that the only reason I managed a B in the course was my favorable reaction to this book and the fact that many others in the class couldn't hide their negative reaction to White and his tale. Apparently they felt that a book about King Arthur couldn't possibly have literary merit or staying power.

Hailelib -- I suppose it *could* have been the translation (though the one I read is a brand-new one from OUP, which supposedly conveys the feel of the original Arabic like never before), but I think it was the subject matter I found tedious rather than the language in which it was expressed. There's only so much ranting about Muhammad's enemies I can take. I really got the sense that if you removed all that, there wouldn't be much left.

Readingmachine: How do you think readers should cope with the fact that some books genuinely ARE dull? I'm sure there are people in the world who thoughtlessly dismiss a book as "boring" if reading it is harder work than watching TV. However, I doubt that people who have signed up to a literary web site like LT would fall into that category. Why not give your fellow posters the benefit of the doubt and assume they are expressing valid opinions?

Laura

laura

I'm all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, but so many of the comments here are entirely typical of people who are ready to give up on a book after reading 3 pages, especially if they are being "forced" to read it. To say a book is boring is to say nothing about it that is valid, in my opinion.

As for dull books, I have never known a teacher to purposely assign students to read a dull book. Some teachers undoubtedly do a better job of teaching the books they assign, and I think that is also a big part of the problem. A teacher cannot simply say, "This is a great book and you will like it." That doesn't work. Nor should a teacher insist that students like a personal favorite. That's outrageous.

Although I actually liked many of Charles Dickens' novels, I do agree that he was excessively verbose. It seems he could have used a good editor. I recall realizing whole paragraphs and even chapters of his work were unimportant and, in my opinion, removable. His themes and plots kept me going...

One person's dull is another person's thrilling, and it's hard to know who will take to what. I complain about Austen, yet am very well aware that most would find some of my favorites (to take an extreme case, Robbe-Grillet, for example) incredibly tedious. How many complaints, utterly incomprehensible to me, have I heard about Moby Dick? And what are people doing now, complaining about, GASP, Dickens!!

And my tastes have even changed over the years, so some I couldn't stand in my teens seem wonderful in my forties. Though, what can I say, Austen still reads more like an inventory than a novel and Shakespeare, alas, is still full of clichés.

A lot of those dime a dozen phrases in Shakespeare first saw print in one of his plays but I can understand how you feel though I love Shakepeare myself. The book I don't understand anyone liking is Moby Dick. (And we have 2 copies of it!)

A_musing

You've hit the nail on the head a couple of times. My reading tastes have certainly changed over the years. For instance, as a young man I devoured Dostoyevsky's novels and found Tolstoy rather dull (there's that word again). All these years later, I am much more prone to read almost anything by Tolstoy.

Your mention of Robbe-Grillet also reminds me that I started The Voyeur and The Erasers each about three times without much success. And then I read them in rapid succession on the fourth try and wondered why I'd had so much trouble getting into them.

I'm not so sure Shakespeare is full of cliches. Rather, he's been quoted so often that now his words sound like cliches.

(By the way, I meant the Shakespeare and clichés thing as a joke -- someday, I have to figure out how to give my writing the proper inflection to deliver those lines properly. I actually think he's a pretty good writer for someone who doesn't write in good, clear, modern English.)

Hailelib,

I'll try to explain some of what's appealing about Moby Dick to me -- it's one of those books that you read many times at once - for the story, for the puzzle of sorting it out, for the philosophy, for the language and poetic diction, for the history. It is slow going, because it is best read with a lot of thought going into each page, and it's good that the chapters are, for the most part, short for that reason. But, if you like a good puzzle, and have an interest in the wide range of history, philosophy and religion that Melville is making a running commentary on, and still enjoy a good, albiet slow, story, it's an incredible book. But reading it is not relaxing. It is work. But rewarding work. And you have to enjoy the aspect of it that is a puzzle, especially when you are trying to decipher heavy symbolism coming out of a culture almost 200 years ago with very different reading habits than our own.

If you ever have an urge to pick up the book again, I'd encourage you to read it slowly, in chapters, over a long time - you can read it almost like many read the Bible, not cover to cover, but story by story.

A_musing

I agree. If only he wasn't so -- like -- totally poetic all the time. And what's up with all the kings and queens? Weren't normal people good enough for him? (Rough approximations of student criticisms I've heard with my own ears.)

I tend to choose fiction for fun, fast reads and a wide range of nonfiction for those slow, need to think about this and mull a bit before the next page, section, whatever.
Basically, if the book is giving value for the time spent, then it's worthwhile. But we all see this value differently.

People can genuinely not like something, can even find it dull, when another person loves it. Just because many people in this forum have used the word "dull" in their estimations of certain books does not mean they are dullards (pun intended) whom one can feel superior to in taste and intellect. Different people like different things and can express it however they wish.

Thank you, poemblaze. That's exactly the point I was trying to make.

Readingmachine, I find your statement that "I have never known a teacher to purposely assign students to read a dull book" to be (among other things) something of a non sequitur. I didn't mention teachers or assignments in my question; I am talking about how readers interact with books in the real world, not the classroom.

In the real world, intelligent, well-intentioned people sometimes make a good-faith effort to read a particular book, only to find the book ... well ... boring. What do you suggest they do in that case? Hang their heads in shame for not having a more "meaningful" opinion?

Laura

Laura

To say a book is boring means nothing, just as saying a book is nice means nothing.

And I can't fugure out what could be wrong with wanting readers to have meaningful opinions.

Readingmachine,

So am I to take it that you are making a deliberately meaningless statement when you say, in one of your reviews on this site, "Solzhenitsyn can be a bit of a bore"?

And I would say that the problem with expecting others to have "meaningful" opinions arises when you set yourself up as the sole judge of what is "meaningful."

Here's what I wrote: "I know, Solzhenitsyn can be a bit of a bore. Start with this, which is easily his most accomplished novel." It was intended as a kind of response to, or alternate take on, another short review of the same book wherein the reader concluded he/she must have been really depressed to have liked Cancer Ward, which I give a 5-star rating. I must admit that none of my comments -- and I haven't written many -- are more than a sentence or two and therefore not terribly meaningful. They're just brief statements of admiration or, in a few cases, displeasure.

Where have I set myself up as the sole judge of what is meaningful?

A_musing says: Shakespeare, alas, is still full of clichés.

That made me laugh out loud! Of course, Shakespeare appears to be full of cliches -- but he wrote them first!

Just to weigh in on the "boring" debate...

A book can absolutely be boring, no doubt about it, and I have no qualms about using the term. I think what might be useful is to say why, for you, it was so. For example, the plot moved too slowly, the characters didn't get my interest, too much time spent on flowery descriptions, it was all about sailing and I hate the sea, etc. What is helpful is a bit more background information about what was boring for you. That way, the sea lovers among us might know this book is for them.

Clearly none of us here are afraid of voicing an opinion on why they disliked a book, so you may as well go at it with both barrels!

Readingmachine #205: I'm all for giving people the benefit of the doubt, but so many of the comments here are entirely typical of people who are ready to give up on a book after reading 3 pages, especially if they are being "forced" to read it. To say a book is boring is to say nothing about it that is valid, in my opinion.

Despite the little "in my opinion" tag, this is where others would be likely to form the judgment that you consider your own opinion and your own standards superior to and a model for others.

I personally prefer opinions like "it's dull" ior "I liked it" to be bolstered by examples and some kind of analysis. I use the tactic of asking questions when faced with opinions that feel incomplete to me.

That said, opinions are (in my grandmother's memorable phrase) like nostrils...everybody got one or two, nobody really wants to look deep into yours 'less they love you like fury. An opinion like "it's nice" might not induce to to start a deep conversation with the expressor of the opinion, but how is that opinion in any way meaningless?

Why would you, readingmachine, be unable or unwilling to glean from that opinion the meaningful observation that a particular book's audience includes at least this person who can't (or perhaps chooses not to) articulate the way in which the author's thoughts have touched him/er? Especially in the case of a classic, it would seem to me that the meaning one might derive from this hypothetical example is that classics become classics because they "reach out and touch someone" who isn't in the stereotypical verbose and analytical audience for The Classics.

Offered as possible alternatives only...I cannot nor do I want to prescribe a particular mode of thought or action to other Thingamabrarians. But to all who sense a judgmental component to this lecture...yep, you're right, it's there.

I have to second sarahjanesandra there. I was really quite underwhelmed by The Sun Also Rises, and even though I know what it is hailed for (lifestyle of ex-pats, Hemingway's description of the Fiesta, etc.), it too bored me to death (almost, obviously).

RE: terms like boring.

Some of the vagueness in comments may well come from (myself included in this) not touching books by a particular author for a very long time after determining they aren't to taste. The memory of having disliked certain books is there, but the why or wherefore is ten, twenty or thirty years in the past.

I couldn't stomach most Dickens, and I am hard pressed to remember the exact reason. Probably verbosity about characters which bored me. I love Melville's Moby Dick, though, which makes many people's eyes glaze over. A puzzle. Will have to go back and see why the shudder arose in the first place.

Poemblaze, Good analysis. I loved Dickens when I was younger (I have a great love of British history, so it was like stepping into that world, which was unavailable to me in life.) But I am one of those who resented having to spend my time reading Moby Dick. I knew nothing of the sea or fishing and neither of those things had anything to do with my life then. Therefore, the book was just long and tedious. I have not tried to read it again for a couple of reasons, namely, there are so many other great books to read and I know how it ended. Art of every kind is a personal experience. The only relationship that matters is the one between ourselves and the work. Other opinions are like mistresses/lovers: they can be interesting, sometimes helpful and always a diversion, but in the end you go home alone.

lorosomething

I am a landlubber too. I still liked Moby Dick. It is kind of an anti-"Rime of the Ancient Mariner". Similar catastrophes, very differently worked out in the main character of each.

Since you stand by it so firmly, I may give it another chance. Maybe one day when I'm restless and need an adventure. In my case, I think it would qualify as uncharted territory. :)

readingmachine, you are being a snob, and it is very unpleasant. This is a board to talk about books we don't like, from the classic canon. To say that because some of us choose to call the books "boring" we are somehow less intelligent, is frankly offensive.

This is a place for people who read and who love books. It is not a professional or scholarly literary critique venue. At least, this particular board is not. And it shouldn't have to be. This is more of a tea and sympathy forum, and if you're looking for "meaningful" conversation (by your very specific definition), maybe this isn't quite the board for you.

Whether you like it or not, some of us read for *gasp* fun! And if it's not fun, we tend to be less interested. I find Shakespeare fun. I do not find Faulkner fun. And you know what? That doesn't make me stupid, or make my feelings "meaningless."

lorosomething: For many people it is the worst thing on their reading list from hell. Don't necessarily put stock in my enthusiasm.

Why don't we take a break from slagging off readingmachine. Let's get back to the point. Here's a thought: I've never read a "classic" I didn't like as far as I remember. Can anyone think of something appalling that I've missed - it would have to be a work not previously discussed here.

Here's one I don't think has been mentioned: The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald. I read it after years of hearing it described with terms like "heartwarming family classic," "timeless humour" and so forth. Imagine my shock when instead, I found myself reading a sickeningly racist diatribe about American Indians. I'm not talking about naive political incorrectness here: the woman SCRUBBED HER ENTIRE HOUSE WITH LYSOL after every visit from her Native American neighbours.

Even if you manage to make excuses for the racism, MacDonald does not come across as a terribly appealing personality; she seemed to regard it as a personal affront whenever she had to deal with someone who didn't come up to the standards of her usual social circle.

The book does have some redeeming qualities -- it's vividly written and has a few very funny moments -- but I ultimately did not feel right about having it on my shelf and jettisoned it from my library.

Laura

Just a brief note here about lohengrin's reference to The DaVinci Code as "a piece of trash" - hardly trash, for the book performs a quite useful function as a cure for insomnia!

I'll let the more intellectual sorts argue over what are classics and what are not, though.

Old Man in the Sea wasn't written to be appreciated by the young. Try it again when you're over 30. Or better, over 50. It'll make more sense.

--Terry B.

You should try the movie of (The Tin Drum). It impressed me because the subtitles were translated by Ralph Mannheim, who also translated the book. They don't ususally take that much care with the subtitles. I also own an Esperanto translation.

I can appreciate ((Hemingway)) for his simple style. If you're studying a foreign language try reading (The Old Man and the Sea) in that language. I first read it in German when I was about 14 (Der Alte Mann und das Meer) and now I have a copy in Esperanto (La Oldulo kaj la Maro).

Another modern classic I just can't stand popped into my head today: On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I don't mind the scatteredness of the book, I mind the unending, self-referntial armpit-sniffing of the book. It never breaks out and makes itself more than an interesting experiment in style.

The book equivalent of gymnastics...all very impressive, but why?

Took me many tries before I finally got through Middlemarch. It could win a special award for top ten tedious books. I decided to spare myself Nostromo and Magister Ludi after 6 or 7 runs at each. The next step would have been self flagellation.

Sure, On the Road is, formally, a shambling mess - but bits of it are beautiful.

And those glimpses of beauty excuse a lot of its structural sins.

A Tale of Two Cities boring? Gasp! I used to pretend to be Sidney Carton on my way to the guillotine...suffused with tragic heroism; head held high. 'Course twelve year old girls like that sort of thing...

I couldn't agree more with stevenschmitt about what constitutes "best and significant" in literature. There are works by modern authors that are critically acclaimed but which I find obscure, offensive, depressing or a scintillating mix of all three qualities. I think we tend to believe that classic literature reflects the 'zeitgeist' of the era as determined by inhabitants of a few ivory towers. To be sure, not everyone reads widely or well or wants to and this limits the ripple effect of ideas presented on the written page but I think any work could be identified as classic if it reflects some moving truth about the human experience and some echo of that effect can transcend the era in which the book was written. I often grieve to think of what gems haven't survived the passage of time and what subtle or great effects they might have had on life and thought.

AsYouKnow_Bob #237: I am disinclined to allow flashes of beauty as excuses for general ramshackleness. I acknowledge the flashes, oh yeah, sure. But the whole never even makes the sum of On the Road's parts worth the time and effort for me.

I can't help wondering what would have happened if Kerouac had been edited by Maxwell Perkins, who edited Thomas Wolfe in his best and most moving work. Once when I was an agent I sent a wonderful piece of writing to an old-school editor at a smaller, literary house. It was way too long, and way too recursive, but I loved the energy and the truthfulness of the book.

It was rejected in a very simple sentence: "I know there's a great novel in here somewhere, but I don't have time to find it."

That honesty still stands out in my memories of the sea of "not right for my/our list" rejections as the most refreshing yet disappointing thing anyone said of a client's book.

terrybanker: if, as you say, Old Man and the Sea was not written to be appreciated by the young, why are so many jr high and high school students forced to read it?

I had to read it for the first time in 8th grade, and, as a 13 year old girl in landlocked Arizona with no interest in fishing, I certainly found it EXTREMELY boring. I don't so much think my opinion would change much now (25 years later).

I have to read Ahab's Wife for bookclub later in the year and I'm hoping it's nothing like Moby Dick. Has anyone here read it?

I wonder if some of us uniformly dislike classics because those were the books we had to read in school. Nevertheless, I probably wouldn't pick a classic for pleasure reading because there are so many other more recent books that demand my attention and time is short. And I'm not being tested on them.

Having said that, however, there are a few required-reading classics that were not hateful. I enjoyed Silas Marner, Ethan Frome, all the Shakespeare plays, a few Dickens and a few I have since forgotten. Edgar Allen Poe was always a favorite, probably because of his bizarre mind. I've often wondered if I would like these books better if I read them now. But there is so little time . . . .

I haven't read The Egg and I since I was a child and, of course, then I didn't notice racism. I just thought it was a cute story. But I had a very similar reaction to A Tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. My book club picked it as a favorite classic to re-read and see how or if our opinions had changed over the years. I was simply appalled at the anti-semitism and anti-semitic stereotypes that run rampant throughout that book! How could I not have noticed that before?

kageeh, I loved Ahab's Wife and have recommended it to a few people. I can't say how it compares to Moby Dick, since I've never successfully made it through that one (I like a good seafaring tale, but it seems like we never get off the dock).

richardderus' comment about On The Road made me realise that the earlier discussion about growing into books can also work in the reverse.

In my early 20s I idolised Kerouac and even carted a copy of On The Road with me all the time (how pretentious can one get?) Now, reading it a few years on, I see the flaws and struggle to stay engaged.

What I'm wondering is: do we grow out of books naturally, or does increased reading and experience just make us more critical as readers? What do people think?

Good question, Rebekahn. I think we naturally grow out of books. But I think it is because of the changes within us, the things we've lost, like wonder and simplicity. The book seems different to us and so the things we take away with us are different, but the book remains the same. Maybe that is maturing, but we lose a lot in the bargain.

I was never able to finish any "classics" of the Quebec litterature that they attempted to inflict on me in high school, be it Maria Chapdelaine, The Tin Flute (Bonheur d'occasion) or, and especially, The Outlander (Le Survenant).

Despite being strong on SF, I could never read my ass through dune either.

Vous etes Quebecois(e), circeus? Anglophone ou francophone? Quebec ou Montreal ou quelque-part entierement d'autre?

Obviously I'm anglo, or my French wouldn't suck so bloody bad.

Born and raised in Quebec city, yup.

Heh. Montreal, me. Not born, but been here for 23 of 27 years, so pretty much raised. ^^;

Rebekahn -- That's not a simple question to answer. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn appalled me on a later reading because my life experiences had enabled me to see the instances of anti-semitism as glaring defects in a heretofore loved book. But when I re-read my all-time favorite Marjorie Morningstar, I loved it even more than when I first read it in high school. I was able to better appreciate the nuances of a young sheltered girl trying to find independence because, as an adult, I had lived a part of her life. I was also, by then, able to understand that when dreams do seem to come true, it's not always what we expect.

Sometimes, I think I should re-read some of the books I initially found inscrutable such as Heart of Darkness or Ivanhoe because maybe I would now be able to see why many people think they are so good. But time is short.

Not a classic, exactly (though it depends on your definition), but I loved Narnia as a child, and cannot tolerate the books now that the Christian message is so incredibly blatant to me. ^^;

I think there is a third factor working on what affects reader's attitudes to books, and that is simply time (or culture, or context, or whatever). When readers first encountered A Tree Grows in Brooklyn every few would bat an eyelid at the anti-semitism, in the same way very few would at slavery in Gone With The Wind. I'm not saying readers were rabidly anti-semitic or racist, but these attitudes existed on a level within society then which they don't now.

Does this mean, therefore , that when we read 'classic' books we may have to accept that they will have values that we can no longer accept? If the answer is no, does that mean they should no longer be considered classics?

Kageeh - I agree, I keep thinking I should go back and re-read many of the books I just couldn't manage when I was younger. I dismissed them at the time as 'boring' or 'difficult' but now that I'm a little older, I relish the challenge.

And perhaps they'll make more sense to me now, becuase I have more experience under my belt and may be able to really understand what's potting.

Although I must confess, I gave 'A Tale of Two Cities' another bash the other day, after a good 10-year respite, and still couldn't hack it.

I have tried Ulysses more than once, and I just can't do it. I know it's supposed to be the greatest book of all time (in someone's opinion anyway), but I sure don't see how.

I had to read a lot of Faulkner in college, only because I had to. His sentences are way too long for me!

Well. Had never read it before, but I read to the end of the Song of Hiawatha. Longfellow ends with the arrival of europeans who inform the native americans that Jews are the accursed of God. Hiawatha departs, informing his people before he goes not to harm these white people because they bring truth with them. Hiawatha sees his people will greatly decrease in number, but doesn't seem too concerned. Longfellow seems to attribute native american people's destruction more to infighting than to the fact that whites lied to them repeatedly and would not even tolerate tribes which embraced white culture. I am nauseated.

There is a lot of solid, well researched information about native american legends. The galloping meter does get old/singsong in several places. But the poem not that horrible until Longfellow --to anyone in 2006 who isn't a racist -- trashes his poem in the last two segments.

I had to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for my Sophomore English class last year and absolutely hated it. I have a problem with most early Southern 'classics' (Think Across Five Aprils and To Kill a Mockingbird) in that they're all pointless plotlines and anecdotes culminating in a dramatic incident in the last thirty pages that has little to do with the rest of the book.

Nothing against Mark Twain; I loved The Adventures of Tom Sawyer when I read it in eighth grade.

I couldn't bring myself to finish anything by Joseph Conrad - he's just SO DULL. It took about half an hour to finish a page of Nostromo - and even then I couldn't remember what I'd just forced myself to read.

There are some "classics" that are just poor reading, despite their reputation. The more interesting question, though, revolves around why we sometimes don't take to a classic that genuinely deserves its repuation. Some aspects of this question have been touched on by others above: whether it was required reading, how the teacher presented the work, how old we were when we first tried reading the work, whether the work was inappropriate for the age we were at when we encountered it, etc.

I have found that some novels that would certainly seem difficult going are nevertheless enthralling if picked up at just the right time (by age, or my mood, or where I'm located geographically). This happened with Eliot's Middlemarch; somehow I happened on the story of Dr. Lydgate's struggle for a meaningful career at just the right moment in the arc of my own life.

Other thoughts on what makes one receptive or non-receptive to classics?

I have struggled with a few classics...The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye...not sure why they are so classic.....I think it is because they are very 'American Calssics' and as I'm not American maybe I miss some of the subtlies of the stories. The next one that I'm ashamed to mention is Middlemarch...I know people think it is wonderful but I just cant get into it. I had it as a Book club book last spring and still havn't managed to finish it. I keep going back to it but I just dont like it..I find it boring. I have read lots of other large books since ( Anna Karenina, Bleak House, A Suitable Boy, Count of Monte Cristo) and yet Middlemarch defeats me. I think other peoples comments about the timing of reading books counts...even to the point that Dickens books somehow suit those long days Nov - Jan and somehow seem inappropriate for the Summer months.

Racism and other forms of intolerance are rampant in the classics but that's no reason not to read them. That being said, it doesn't make the books any more enjoyable to read. They're a snapshot of a moment in time. Maybe we need to know such things in order to better appreciate the need for tolerance and diversity today. Or I'm being too philosophical for a Monday mroning.

When I read Conrad's Heart of Darkness in 9th grade, for instance, I don't think I was ready to appreciate the nuances and beauties (?) of the literary form. If a book didn't have an interesting plot, reading it became an unbearable chore. We were required to read critics' reviews of the books assigned but sometimes even those didn't help. Whereas I might pick up a Hawthorne book today, I would never even touch a Conrad one.

kageeh

Didn't say I wouldn't read classics with racism in them, just indicated dislike of the racism. The window into the past is worth looking into, even if it is often not pleasant.

Another vote here against Great Expectations, which I had to read in high school. (My class had the option of either doing that or a really cool mythology unit, and I've never really forgiven them.) I read Moby Dick on my own, and if I'd had any sense at the time I would've done the abridged version.

I'm not a fan of Jane Austen. I teach Emma as extensive reading to ESL students... It makes me totally apoplectic... It makes me want to open a vein. It makes me want to read The Bell Jar just to cheer up afterwards.

I have to drink a lot of coffee the day I teach the ball at the Crown Inn, so I can pretend to care that Emma and Mr. Knightley are starting to care for each other... dull dull dull.

Marian ~ Emma makes you "want to read Bell Jar just to cheer up afterwards." ROFLOL. Thanks for the bellylaugh!

I hated The Lord of the Rings. The films were ok, though. Loved The Hobbit, though

What makes someone either receptive or non-receptive to classics probably depends a lot on personal circumstances (such as having to read a lot of boring books in school) or personal interests. But I find, including on this thread, that most people are turned off to books that tend to be overly and self-indulgently wordy, laborious to read, and geared more specifically to the times in which they were written (i.e. Dickens, Hardy). Those books just don't age well.
My main beef is especially with teachers at the high school level and below who are trying to get students interested in reading by slogging them in the heads with Shakespeare and Faulkner and Flaubert, and then wondering why the students don't care. It's not that they are bad books, but if you're teaching someone to swim, you don't start by throwing them into the deep end of the pool and expect them to want to get back in later, right? That probably does more to turn people off to writers who are worth the extra effort, like Hemingway and Faulkner, than the actual books themselves.

I loved Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolfe and even made it through To the Lighthouse, but The Waves made me crazy. I agree that Tess of the D'Urbervilles is bad and Moby Dick is chosen as a classic simply so teachers can take revenge on their students and make them read the tedious thing.

The bestseller lists would tend to prove that people are not put off by works that are "overly and self-indulgently wordy". When writing a fantasy series, for example, it appears to be meritorious. Hardy can be hard-going but doesn't that just mean he deserves the extra effort as well.

The swimming analogy doesn't make much sense, by high school, pupils should be reading with ease, therefore giving them a classic should only be stretching their skills - rather like asking a swimmer to attempt an extra 10 lengths. You wouldn't expect the school to keep teaching basic arithmetic because some students find algebra too difficult and boring.
There is no evidence to suggest that if you teach children using more contemporary works that they will read more. By high school I would argue that most people who will read regularly in later life are already reading regularly. At least by using the classics everyone is exposed to one or two decent books in their life.

I argue that having books designated "classics" and force people to read them is NOT a reading exercise - instead it is a matter of socialisation; of how we come to share ideas and behaviours that mark our society in different ways. As an example a lot of the books referenced here are not on any "classics" list in Sweden, where I come from, and a lot of our swedish "classics" never crossed the border either.
A few are deemed classics in all of the western hemisphere, or in certain cultural spheres, but those are not in majority.

Recently we've had this public debate in Sweden about instititionalizing (or not) a literary canon. The idea is to mark "the Swedish cultural heritage", and supposedly they already have this in Denmark. My backbone reaction was that this is rubbish, but in a way we already have this canon and as it is inofficial there is no way to influence it.
I don't know. But those who suggested it wanted only (or mostly) swedish authors to be on the list, and to me reading is a chance to get to know the other; cultures and behaviours different from the one I live in...

Here is my list:

1) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
2) Persuasion
3) Tess of the D'Urbervilles
4) The Sound and the Fury
5) The Scarlet Letter

There's not really a point to this, but I really, really, LOVED A Portrait of the Artist as a Young MAn, just as I love Stephen Hero, Ullysses,and the Dubliners.
But yeah, I supose Joyce can be massively confusing and seem completely pointless.

Compared to Ulysses, Portrait is a walk in the park, but I don't understand why Joyce spends thirty pages explaining Catholicism. I was all, "What is this?" Also, I have a BA in English, but I don't understand the concept of spending a long time trying to figure a book out. I think it's presumptous and pretentious of an author to think that readers are going to study his or her book.

I don't really agree with that, for me, it's like music. Or like a gift that is given to you, be it by God, or Chance or whatever you may believe, but with some people, writing isn't something they chose to do, they just have to. And then it doesnn't matter if the people can understand what they write or not, the important thing is that it's done. Half of the time, reading Joyce is just pure music, music made with words. The meaning then comes to you after a while, or you go back and read it again. But isn't something that is put in a way difficult way just so that people need to think, it's something that can't be put in any other way without losing out on something. And my opinion is that it's important to think about a book. Cause there are always more layers to it than is obvious from just reading through. I'm sorry if this sounds ridiculous to you, it's of course just my way of looking at it, and probably most people will agree with you.

I can certainly see your point. I actually feel that I am in the minority when it comes to this. Most people I've talked to think Joyce is fantastic. I only got a degree in English because I needed a bachelor's so I could go to grad school. I'm the type of person who has interests in so many areas that I do not want to spend a lot of time on one thing (in this case, a novel). I want to read a lot of books rather than spend months on one, if that makes any sense. To each his own, man.

"I want to read a lot of books rather than spend months on one, if that makes any sense."

Sure it does. I'm like that a lot of the time. I am usually reading two or three books at the same time, and don't always care a lot which one I finish first.

On the other hand -- there are times when I am quite happy to sink into a long book and not emerge until weeks or even months later. Middlemarch was like that for me; I didn't want it to end. (I know there are others, particularly posters to this group, who hated it.) Maybe it had something do with my reading it during lengthy morning and evening commuter train rides in Tokyo; maybe not. :-)

And sure, chacun a son gout.

Even though I've just rambled on about Joyce, I also agree to this. I don't think I ever read only one book at a time. It makes sense really, I guess, as quite often you read different books when in different moods, so logicaly, you need to read more than one book over a period of time to satisfy your moods. But a lot of people I've mentioned this to think that's completely crazy.

I agree, Blackeminence, reading is just like eating - sometimes you want something meaty, sometimes something light and frothy - so it makes sense to have at least two books on the go for when your appetite changes!

This is a great thread, but I think what you have to remember with Dickens and co is that they were written to be read aloud, in a leisurely age who didn't mind taking their time over a book, and wanted it to last. Best thing to do is to skip pages, particularly when Dickens in particular goes into one of his very unfunny subplots with grotesque characters.

I've always loathed Thomas Hardy's "The Mayor of Castlebridge;" I understood the point of it, but it always seemed like a book designed to bore high schoolers-- heavy, filled with symbolism, and as zesty as oatmeal

I have to say, I've never been able to enjoy Mark Twain. I've tried several of his works over the years and always, ugh. (Can't go into more detail as I haven't read anything by him in awhile.)

I also didn't like Old Man and the Sea, but I do enjoy a lot of other Hemmingway.

Ugh, Dickens. The only thing more depressing than reading something by him is the fatal combination of The Awakening and Tess that was supposed to teach us about "proto-feminism" in junior year of high school. I've never wanted to slap two female characters more. Edna for being a whiny baby, and Tess the "strong" for being so secret in her strength that she thought her life was worth less than her boyfriend's approval. Ick.

Oh, and I also have a problem with Stein. If she's going to write in French syntax, um, she shouldn't write in English. Would've saved me loads of trouble in first-level Lit.

If I had to pick just one ... Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is the worst waste of paper and ink I have ever had the misfortune to read. It is easily the most poorly-written international bestseller foisted on an unsuspecting and undeserving public. If speculative novels about the fate of religious artifacts interests you, try The Last Cato. It stumbles a little, too but at least the author starts on a much higher stair.

Jargoneer says: "The bestseller lists would tend to prove that people are not put off by works that are "overly and self-indulgently wordy". "

I tend to believe that the bestseller lists perpetuate themselves. People see a book at the top of the list and they buy it so they can say they have it or to make their book sleves look good. I have trouble believing as many people actually read the "overly and self-indulgently wordy" books as the bestseller lists would indicate. But then I'm pretty cynical.

Or maybe the tastes of "literary elite readers" are very different than the Average Joe's. Bestseller lists are made up of the later rather than the former.

~ From an Average Jane

It's a combination of both word of mouth (people buying stuff because of other people buying it- Exhibit A: Harry Potter), Average Joe's buying Danielle Steel, and how good a new book actually is. Publishers should also look into hiring Hugo Chavez-- he worked wonders for Chomsky!

I tried reading Hardy's "Tess" years ago and couldn't finish. I got so angry over her husband's hypocrasy. Scarred me for a very long time, causing me to avoid Hardy. There's hope, though. I recently read Hardy's, "Far from the Madding Crowd" and really enjoyed it. I'm going to take another try at Tess soon.

I suspect I'm lucky to have come across many of the classics as an adult. When I was 16, a favourite aunt recommended Pride and Prejudice to me. I found it to be deadly dull, and gave up reading after a couple of chapters. Twenty years later, I decided to try Jane Austen again, and was very glad I did. For one thing, I had enough experience under my belt to appreciate both the social situations and Austen's drily humorous take on them. Also, although it was true that Austen's female characters live fairly circumscribed domestic lives (which, to many people, equals boring), they still possess moral agency - something I happen to look for in a heroine. (This is one reason why I have a profound soft spot for Jane Eyre, despite that book's gothic histrionics.)

I know a lot of people dislike Emma's character, and I agree that she is one annoying little memsahib at times. But the fun thing for me about Emma as a novel is the contrast between Emma's interpretation of her experiences and what is actually going on. You see virtually everything in the novel through Emma's eyes, yet so much is going on that she either ignores or completely misinterprets ... it's very entertaining! And sometimes (as in the question of Jane Fairfax's piano) it's even a whodunnit of sorts.

On the other hand, I was bored by Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey and the rest of J.D. Salinger's oeuvre as a teenager... and I'm still just as bored now. But I can guess why other people enjoy him, and it doesn't bother me that they do.

I also loved Thomas Hardy, that darling ol' melancholic, but I haven't read him for years... must go back and see if Tess now seems as dire to me as she does to everyone else ;-)

Kageeh - I do think you have a point, the bestseller lists do appear to be self-perpetuating, (how can a book be a number 1 bestseller if it has just been released?) but readers are very loyal, or cautious - they tend to go for the same thing/author as before. This is not a criticism of readers of bestsellers, I think readers of literary works do the same, i.e., waiting for the new Updike or Amis. It's not that different from tourists who eat the only thing they know on the foreign menu - you know what you are getting, and it's safe and comfortable. (I'm not excusing myself from this either, I know there are certain authors I read regardless).

Whenenver I hear someone praising a long 'over-wordy' novel it is always the same - it is a novel I can escape into. You could make an argument that the purveyors of bestselling fiction now are the true heirs to writers like Dickens for that reason.

Re - Salinger. Holden Caulfield is one of the most irritating characters in fiction. Throughout the novel I kept hoping something really bad would happen to him (it's the same feeling you get when you want the slasher to kill the annoying teenagers in a horror flick) but in some ways I have to admit he was a good character as I still remember him relatively clearly despite not having read the book for years.

Well yes Dickens was very much the popular bestseller author of his day. Todays beastseller writers follow much more in his his footstep than do the majority of "literary writers"

Simon

I don't know, folks. I love almost everything most people here seem to hate. Doesn't anyone detest John Grisham and love Faulkner, Hemmingway, Dickens, Henry James, Hawthorne, and Melville like me??

Hate anything Shakespeare and thoroughly disliked the Scarlet Letter.

I think Dickens could have been a great writer if he had just joined a good writing group.
He just need some one to reign him in occasionally. if only I had been there.

->295 chrisdroberts: - yes, I'm sure there are plenty who despise Grisham, but this is the CLASSICS you hate thread, not the modern-day, grocery store thriller hating thread, although I think there is one.

Like most people (I assume) I disagree with a lot of people on this thread. Maybe not about the same books, but I know some people love the books others hate. I love Gatsby and The Scarlet Letter, but this only came after being taught them again in college. In fact, The Scarlet Letter may be one of my favorite "classics" now. This is a result of studying Hawthorne's life and his making of the novel. (Not that I put too much stock in New Criticism) Anyway, on with my hated classic:

An American Tragedy and Jennie Gerhardt and probably anything else by Dreiser. The writing is so simple it almost seems childish. He attempts to portray the female protagonists as brave and persevering but makes sure they aren't too smart. It's just awful. But don't take my word for it.

Brian242, sames goes for Dreiser as for Hawthorne: it helps to know about life and literary aims. He was a social Darwinist, and believed that most people could not overcome the limitations of their place in society. This is essential to understanding his characters like Jennie Gerhardt and Sister Carrie.

I don't have a great liking for Dreiser either, but I do understand his methods and how they influence his writing style.

Only one so far I can truly say I didn't care for was Lord of the Rings. I really enjoyed the movies though. =)

It seems to me that the worst sin of a book is to be boring, especially for a classic: the only person to bore me to tears is Hardy.

I've just arrived, and read through all 302 messages. Wow! Such passion! All these "hated" books and/or authors! I feel like a glass of warm milk: I like almost everything that I've ever read. I'll grant you that there are a lot of authors that I'm never going to read any more of. (Madame Bovary) was enough Flaubert. I still haven't read (War and Peace)--well, I'm saving that one--when the Angel of Death approaches, I plan to say: "Come back next week; I have to finish War and Peace." It's true that having books assigned tends to be a turn off, but I really enjoyed everything I had to read. No, not everything. French literature has some not-very-much-fun books: yes to Dumas, Camus; no to Gide and Sartre and the little prince. I don't know that I'd have read (The Magic Mountain) had it not been assigned, but I'm glad I did. I am a little suspicious of works in other languages, because so much depends on the translation; the wonderful Fagles translation of the (Odyssey) brought that "classic" back for me. For those complaining about Shakespeare's "cliches": it's obvious that WS just filled in between all those famous quotations! Still, I think that you can still enjoy the movie in between "of all the gin joints in the world" "I'm shocked, shocked!" "Play it, Sam" "We still have Paris" "C'mon Louie"--I can't finish that because it's probably mixed up with that e e cummings poem with the line "theres a hell of a good universe next door/ lets go." Anyway, just work around it. BTW, someone suggested reading books aloud; my husband and I have done it for years and it works wonders.

> I like almost everything that I've ever read.

I'm with you. There is very little that I don't like and the ones I don't, I either don't finish or shrug them off. I can't say there was any book I actually hated or felt was "trash." Heck, I love me some trash reading! The only exception to this was Great Expectations and it was more because it was required reading and it went on and on and on.

My biggest thing is why classics are classic. Most people can not relate to them and either are bored or think they are awful. I cannot even get through most classics because the language is so archaic that it just makes me shake my head and throw the book. (Classics are great for target practice though. lol) The only classics that I have liked are Dracula and Dr. Heidegger's Experiment. I did not like The Scarlet Letter which I was forced to read for English and I could not even finish Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, all Shakespeare plays except Romeo and Juliet (which I still don't think I fully understood aside from the double death and tortured love).

Also I reserve my opinion on Frankenstein because I have yet to read it but I think I will start it now just so I can include it on my list of "classics: what I think"
So why are they classics?

- Jessa

I like most classics, but Pamela -- ugh! Didn't care much for Madame Bovary, either, or anything by Thomas Hardy. To each her own, I suppose!

JBookLover:

I agree with you: Who decided that these books are classics?

As far as Frankenstein is concerned, I throughly enjoyed it, although it is very, very different from the Hollywood renditions. It is a Gothic masterpiece, not really horror.

If you like Gothic novels, I recommend The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. It is the first Gothic novel and is a quick read at just over 100 pages. It's got it all: ghosts, eerie castles with secret passageways, murder, and dark family secrets.

precipitation - sounds great. it's on my wishlist.

I guess the question should be the next topic for discussion. I am going to repost my question in a new thread. It will be interesting converstion. I think this group might have a lot to say seeing as it is called 'Awful Lit'

- Jessa

Grisham...awful! Stephen King...dreadful! Dan Brown...unbelievably bad! And, like chrisdroberts said, Faulkner, Hemingway, Dickens, Henry James, Hawthorne, and Melville: beautiful, interesting, stimulating, challenging. In short, worth reading.

I absolutely hated almost every book in my college English 105 class (the theme was Values Conflict). I trudged through Tom Sawyer, Native Son, The Invisible Man, Sons and Lovers, Moby Dick. I do like Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, the short stories of Mark Twain and Hemingway, of the Bronte's I find only Wuthering Heights readable. I had to read An American Tragedy in high school. Why did he make the "hero" so utterly lacking in any redeeming characteristics? All I could think was he got what he deserved. I liked Great Expectations, but I've never been able to finish Oliver Twist and I've tried several times. I do love A Confederacy of Dunces. I liked Fitzgerald better in high school than I do now, whereas I like Jane Austen more. I've been meaning to give War and Peace another try. I haven't tried in twenty years, maybe I can appreciate it now.

"I have found that some novels that would certainly seem difficult going are nevertheless enthralling if picked up at just the right time (by age, or my mood, or where I'm located geographically). This happened with Eliot's Middlemarch; somehow I happened on the story of Dr. Lydgate's struggle for a meaningful career at just the right moment in the arc of my own life.

Other thoughts on what makes one receptive or non-receptive to classics?"

Wow. I'm with you on this one, pechmerle. Robertson Davies writes that the books you happen to need at each turn in your life always seem to find their way to you (excuse the awful misquote, for his Merry Heart is not now at hand.)

I'm gonna have to second the inclusion of The Last of the Mohicans in this thread. Plus I'll throw in The Deerslayer for good measure. There have been many classics that I have not enjoyed overall but at least I could argue that "technically" they were well-written and the authors had some actual facility for writing. Not so with James Fennimore Cooper---that's just some baaaad writing all-around that's been canonized IMO.

I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd dive in with a new (mildly) loathed "classic": Neuromancer.

I read this back in high school because I was on this kick of reading books to improve my general knowledge of literature, to broaden my horizons, to not feel so clueless around my peers who read Shakespeare and Victor Hugo for fun (no foolin', I went to a school for smart kids). A lot of the kids were real tech heads, so I grabbed the cyberpunk books whose titles seemed to come up the most.

God, what a leaden book. I know it's a science fiction classic, that it won the Hugo and Nebula, that it's where the term "cyberspace" came from, but it was his first novel (to my knowledge) and boy, does it show. The pace was sluggish, the dialogue dense, and the conclusion... well, I barely remember now, something about a private space station and an AI?

To be fair, I did read the rest of the Sprawl Trilogy, and they fared much better: Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. I think Count Zero was my favorite, if only because the main character amused me.

I've also read Virtual Light and its (not-as-good) sequels, plus Pattern Recognition (which I enjoyed, even if it was a bit of a silly plot - viral video? Meh.).

For whom the bell tolls where's the German air force when you need them?
Catch-22 repeats the same joke for 400 pages. Some of the set pieces were funny though.
The Red Badge of Courage tedious.
Bleak House couldn't figure it out except for the anty-imperialist rant.

Oooh...other people who didn't like Catcher in the Rye! I always hesitate before admitting it, but from the 1st time I read it back in high school I thought Holden was whiny. I also had trouble with Moby Dick, although I think I should give it another try. And for some reason I can never get into anything by Hemingway, and I have tried.

Re #315: I have never been convinced that I should read a book just because someone says I should and that goes triple for classics. There are too many truly wonderful books to read that have the potential to affect the way I perceive issues to spend precious time trying to read something that doesn't grab me within the first 50 pages or so. I will not be a better or worse person for not liking Hemingway or for never having read Moby Dick. Knowing that the latter is about a whale is sufficient at cocktail parties.

I also read Catcher in the Rye in high school and was unimpressed. Some of my fellow classmates were drawn to the "dirty" words and adolescent sexual aspects but my parents had never censored any book we could understand so those aspects were nothing new to me. The fact that Holden was a boy and had "boy" issues made the book less relevant for me as a teenaged girl. Most of all, however, as miserable as my teen years were at the time (and, believe me, I was convinced NO One was as miserable as I!), I did experience momentary flashes of pleasure. Holden never did. He hated everything and everyone with equal abandon. He was entirely too nihilistic for me.

Wow, what an epic thread!

I'm surprised at the number of posters who use the word "forced" when talking about what they read in school. English was my favourite subject at school - the only one I liked in fact - and I never felt "forced" to read what was on the curriculum, even when I didn't understand/enjoy it. Shakespeare's As You Like It is a case in point. We had already studied The Merchant of Venice at O Grade level, then Macbeth at Higher, and I loved both of these, but for some reason I just couldn't get the multitude of characters in As You Like It organised enough in my head to figure out exactly what was going on in that forest. Even so, I didn't hate the play as a result - I looked at it as a challenge and read it over and over. I think that for Shakespeare especially, having good teachers who encourage discussion about language makes a huge difference, and I was lucky there.

I received a Dickens compendium when I was maybe 12 years old that I still have, and I always enjoyed the darkness of his stories. In the UK, BBC TV made some fantastic adaptations which helped - their Miss Haversham was particularly memorable.

Read Hardy at school, and although I found his language flowery and meandering, the stories were really quite sad. These are definitely on my list of books to read again now that I'm older to see whether I like them any more. My parents had some D.H. Lawrence and I read a couple of his too (yes, I was looking for the risqué bits!) and again the language and writing style is just as memorable as the plots were. His books were the subject of my 6th year English dissertation - I was fascinated by his portrayals of social class in Northern England, and again, I might come back to read these again in the next few years. I completely agree that you often find new depths by re-reading things you might not have liked initially.

Just realised that I haven't mentioned anything awful, but I can't think of anything right now that I didn't at least get something out of.

I was indifferent to Catcher in the Rye and wondered what all of the fuss was about. It took me an absolute age to read On the Road when I was about 21, maybe because I kept waiting for something to happen. At that time though, I didn't know much about Kerouac or the Beat movement, and maybe I'd get more out of it if I read it again.

I've never touched a Jane Austen book, or film for that matter, and have never had a desire to. Tales of romance and marriage aren't really my thing, though I'm ready to believe and have been told that there's a good dose of sarcasm in what she says.

Boy do I agree about DaVinci Code-I spoke of my dislike at work and thought I'd get my head chopped off. as I read it I kept thinking this makes sense as a movie not a book-alas I haven't seen the movie yet but I heard it is bad so we shall see.

>316 kageeh:
The fact that Holden was a boy and had "boy" issues made the book less relevant for me as a teenaged girl. Most of all, however, as miserable as my teen years were at the time (and, believe me, I was convinced NO One was as miserable as I!), I did experience momentary flashes of pleasure. Holden never did. He hated everything and everyone with equal abandon. He was entirely too nihilistic for me.
I liked that however weird or miserable I was feeling, I wasn't as whiny or irritating as he was. (I like the book, btw, although I have no particular affection for the character.) On the other hand, The Bell Jar depressed me for months. She was a girl! She liked writing! She could be me! Wahhhhhhh! ;-)

(Yeah, I outgrew that one in the end, and now I can hardly re-read it for laughing at myself, and the narrator.)

Glad to see I am not alone in hating Dickens, and particularly Great Expectations. I have an English degree and my family turn to me expectantly when questions about literature come up in quiz shows, but Dickens gets a disproportionate amount of attention which means I can't answer because I avoided him a every opportunity. I do remember reading Tale of Two Cities when I was quite young and enjoying it, but I suspect that may have been a child's abridged version or something.

Thomas Hardy - Jude the Obscure beats any modern soap for complete improbability and relentless misery.

Poetry - I hate Wordsworth. Rightly, in my view. I think I bumped my degree up to a 2(i) with an inspired essay on how a tiny Medieval hymn to the Virgin managed to evoke more emotion in a few lines than Wordsworth manages to argue and bleat us into in his entire canon.

Also - oh, my goodness yes - on the subject of poetry: R S Thomas - Ronald Stuart Thomas. Poems about deeply depressing men with deeply depressingly repressed emotions on deeply depressing Welsh farms. I had to do a presentation on him for my Theology course and chose one of the worst for the hell of it but actually couldn't get through it without collapsing in helpless laughter on almost every line. OK, so he did write other stuff, but mostly I want to set the wonderful Flora from Cold Comfort farm (my favourite book) on him to sort him out.

"I do remember reading Tale of Two Cities when I was quite young and enjoying it, but I suspect that may have been a child's abridged version or something."

Might well not have been, I read it when I was about ten and enjoyed it, and have even reread it a few times in the past years, but it remains the only Dickens I like.

I just finished Anna Karenina, and while I wouldn't call it awful, it was very disappointing. Gee, Leo, why don't you whack us over the head a few more times? Give me Dostoevsky any day.

I had trouble with Anne Frank because I object to unsanctioned diary-publishing, not because I didn't like the girl. Right to privacy, people, right to privacy.

I didn't like Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. I found it disgusting and pointless.

Everything serious Mark Twain ever wrote grated on me. He was a great humorist and a mediocre novelist.

I hated The Catcer in the Rye, too.

Well, the first time I tried The Lord of the Rings I hated it, but then I tried again a few years later and now it's one of my most favorites. I also immensely disliked Oliver Twist—it took me 1 1/2 years to read! Maybe I was too young, but I don't think I'll be giving it another chance any time soon. The only other Dickens I've read is A Tale of Two Cities and I adore it. But then, I like anything that has to do with the French Revolution. I never read Tess of the D'Urbervilles, but I listened to most of it on audiotape and thought it was dreadful. Another classic I couldn't stand was The Diary of Anne Frank. I couldn't stand the title character.
I know this is only my opinion, and these books do have merits that I am simply not enabled to appreciate. I don't want to throw mud on any book just because I couldn't enjoy it. (Heehee, you can tell someone is a real bibliophile when they're afraid of offending a book, and one they didn't even like at that!)

Oh I agre with you there, I sometimes find myself apologising to a book if I've just dumped it somewhere in a corner and not looked at it for ages...

Yep, The Da Vinci code is absolutely scoring my ten top worst readings ever. Mostly because it's so awfully bad written...Have never managed to finish À la recherche du temps perdu by Proust either. It's a little bit like the To the lighthouse/Tolkien -syndrome, it's sooo slooow and nothing ever happens.

"Sir, if you're calling the author of A la Recherche du Temps Perdu a loony, I shall have to ask you to STEP OUTSIDE!"

--Mr. Praline (John Cleese) in the Fish Licence Sketch

I´ve spent a bit too much time in lit classes to really give too much of a damn about what I "like" or "dislike"...things are either "interesting" or they´re not these days, and there a bunch of writers I find interesting and worthwhile that I really don´t like. Jane Austen, for example. There are, however, a few books I still couldn´t see the point of. Among them-

Andre Malraux Man´s Fate - Arrived before Camus and Sartre, but feels ripped off their works anyway. Don´t read it if you don´t know a whole lot about Chinese politics in the 30´s. Actually, we had a whole class on that, and it still didn´t help.

Gertrude Stein´s poetry. Actually, her anything. Interesting, maybe, in the way that incomprehensible performance art is sometimes interesting, but a real chore to read.

I seem physically incapable of reading anything by Henry James without falling asleep.

I haven´t read it since I was fifteen, but Jack Keroac´s On the Road struck me as pure ego-driven, nonsense.

Early Hemingway, partcularly The Sun Also Rises is swell, but his later stuff, particularly For Whom the Bell Tolls is awful, a parody of itself. Yeah, Ernest, I know you´re story´s set in Spain and all, but your writing still reminds me of turgid Spanish newspaper prose. Unprintable!

Oh, and I just wanted to add that Don DeLillo is an utter hack. Oh, yes, your little yuppiefied world is so fragile! The blandness of modern life is so oppressive! Underworld has readable bits, but most of his stuff is neither funny nor insightful, and at the end of the day it just reminds me of the cover of Brian Eno´s "Another Green World" album.

Oh, and I´ve also got my doubts about Milan Kundera, perhaps for the same reason. All very pretty and fragile and well-sketched out, but how are we supposed to feel about this stuff, Milan? The whole thing feels airless, and while his literary games are clever, I never get the impression that his charactes could ever exist in anything approaching reality, or that anyone´s life operates that way. Gosh, I sound old-fashioned.

Catcher in the Rye - read it in high school, made me want to slap both the character and the author... though that did cause me to find the way it was used in the movie Conspiracy Theory particularly amusing.

Had the "unfortunate opportunity" to cover Tale of Two Cities twice in high school English classes... the second time yielded a paper deriding the brutal and unsubtle use of foreshadowing (it was, after all, written for serial publication specifically to make money) that made it even worse to read a second time :-) The teacher deserves a fair amount of credit for judging the paper on it's merits and setting aside the fact that it was her favorite Dickens work.

(Given those two points I suppose it's not surprising that the non-technical part of my library is mostly devoid of "literature" and instead consists of spy/military novels and science/speculative fiction...)

Message 330: I'm with on Kundera ... even at the height of his popularity here, that stuff was just too "precious" for me ... on the other hand, while Delillo does seem to have lost it, his earlier books like The Names, White Noise, and Ratner's Star are, IMHO, excellent ... I've noticed a lot of people here are kind of put off by post-modernism ...

My then seventeen-year-old self absolutely hated A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Sure, classics are often great works but unfortunately do little do inspire or motivate young adults of today.

It seems to me that many of the classics that I had to read in high school top my list of worst reads such as Ethan Frome and Great Expectations. After reading that one, I won't even try picking up something that Dickens penned. Also, I generally am a fan a Shakespeare's tragedies but can't stand Romeo and Juliet.

A couple of months ago, I sent Henry James' The Golden Bowl right back to the library the minute I accepted that not only did I not care about the characters - I had grown to loathe most of them!

Sandfly #20: I had a strange high school experience that I never had to read either Dickens or Shakespeare at all. Instead, for different classes, I ended up with a requirement for "Catcher in the Rye" (which was okay) and "Lord of the Flies" (Ugh!) twice each - along with "Ethan Frome", "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", "In Cold Blood", "The Jungle" and a few other goodies.
My first Dickens was "Pickwick Papers" (audiobook) as an adult - very funny and silly. My first (and only) Shakespeare I read was "Richard III" for a Lit class at age 40 (I liked it). I know the basic plot of "Romeo and Juliet", that "MacBeth" has witches n spots n stuff, and that everyone is dead at the end of Hamlet. That's about it for ole Willy n me.

Re: 329

Speaking of Gertrude Stein, I had to read Three Lives in an American Lit class, and it is the most horrible thing to which I've ever been subjected. She just repeats the same thing over and over. She claims that she was trying to create the literary equivalent of a Picasso painting, but I don't think it works. I like Picasso.

>but I don't think it works. I like Picasso.

*snickers*

I absolutely HATED Lord of the Flies. I also hated Scarlet Letter, but I'm giving that one a second chance. I found Death of a Salesman boring.

JamieJM #338 -- I believe I found Death of a Salesman to be a great read only because I had seen the movie first. I had a crush on Kevin McCarthy (brother of Mary) who played Biff. Then I fell in love with The Crucible because my high school put it on and I had a crush on one of the actors. I had a lot of crushes, sigh. Then I ended up writing my high school senior thesis on Arthur Miller and the search by three of his characters for their identities (not a very good paper).

The Scarlet Letter is one of the most dreadful books I've ever read. I was all, "Why didn't Hawthorne wait until the end to reveal that Dimmesdale was the father? That would have been better." My wife then explained to me that the point of the book was that keeping a sin a secret is ultimatley more destructive than hiding it. I can see that, but the book is still boring and difficult to read (the prose is horrendous).

Prompted by something elsewhere, can I confess that I can't stand anything by Virginia Woolf? I believe I've read everything she wrote fiction-wise, read her diaries and other writing but still cannot abide her. There. I've said it.

Fair enough :). I read To the Lighthouse, and while I found the structure interesting, it didn't change my life or anything. The only really good thing about it is that it was a fast read at a time when I was way over my head during my senior year as an English major. I don't think it's essential reading. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, however, is fantastic.

I'm not sure if Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar is a classic, but I hated it. I made myself finish it. The whole thing seemed as if she's seeking attention in a bad way. I guess I just wasn't feeling it.

>329 TheAmpersand:: Sorry Ampersand didn't like it, but I think some of you who don't like Dickens, Austen, etc., would like Andre Malraux, Man's Fate. Some interest in the Chinese Revolution helpful but not essential. The touchstone also takes you to my review.

Lord of the Flies is alright until you get to the last line. that line positively kills it. i mean - c'mon "wept for the loss of innocence" ?????*i hope i remembered that correctly*. he's a pre-teen for heaven's sake.

don't like austen or the brontes (they are equally bad), dickens muchly elevated in comparison - i think i got through the first page of Wuthering Heights before i gave up. permanently.

and RUSHDIE. do not read The Satanic Verses. it was an absolute chore.

Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables is one of the worst books I've ever read, and I'm a big fan of classic literature. I remember spending an entire semester in university reading classic American novels, and when we got to Hawthorne, I could barely push myself through.

Piers Plowman was even more painful. I'm a huge fan of Middle English literature, but I wanted to hang myself when I was trying to get through this book!

Oh goodness, another really bad read: I took a Canadian lit class and had to read "Who Has Seen the Wind." BOOOOORRRRIIIIIINNNNNGGG! I wanted to cry it was so dull!

The movie was even worse!

Middlemarch took me nearly two years to finish. I can't imagine reading another book by George Eliot. I can't believe that anyone would consider that book readable. Is there anyone here who would recommend it unreservedly? I agree with the posters above that sometimes your life and a book seem to meet with complete synchronicity and that makes all the difference.

There are books that I soldier through but enjoy not a whit while reading (To The Lighthouse) and others that I keep picking up, year after year and cannot get through more than a few pages before it goes back on the bookshelf (I've been trying to finish Tom Jones for like seven years).

"House of the Seven Gables" was the first audiobook I ever listened to, figuring I'd never read Hawthorne, so it might be easier to let it "wash over me" than struggle through a print version. I was right it seems.

As far as Tom Jones is concerned I read it my last year in high school (and had to write the book report on a Friday night because a friend and I were going to see the movie on Saturday) and absolutely loved it. Then read it a couple more times in the next 6 years and still loved it. Wonder what I would think now?

Another vote against Tess of the D'Urbervilles. But then, I probably did start it too young. Also, I blame myself for not having the patience for descriptive writing.

I would also like to stand up for Tolkien. It is not some lengthy made up fantasy, nor (as Tolkien wrote himself) is it allegory. If you look at it as allegory then it's like calling everything but the overall plot meaningless and superficial. He wrote it as a mythology for England, seeing as we don't really have one. He drew upon beliefs from the dark ages and worked it all together into a story so well devised that it's like history. He wrote languages! And made maps and cultures and-- I'll cut it short here.
I doubt I'm changing anyone's mind. They see 'wizard' and roll their eyes.

I hope I'm not offending anyone by pointing out the obvious, but Shakespeare is so much better when you see his work on stage, as opposed to sitting down and trying to work out what all these old words mean. Someone asked above why he wrote about kings rather than common people? I think it may be to do with who commissioned his work; if it wasn't royalty then it would most likely be nobles. And anyway, write about royalty and everything escalates- the scandals, the settings.

Here's another vote for Moby Dick. I had no clue what he was going on about from the first page.

If you hated Moby Dick, you'd really hate Billy Bud. I can't believe I was put through it. I must say I am surprised to see the number of people who hate Dickens. He is wordy, but his books are so good to me.

Dickens is wordy because he was paid by the word. Talk about selling out!

WhenI was about 13 I went on this kick to read as many "classics" as I could get my hands on - and loved most all of what I read. There were a few like Faulkner that I was just too young for and so couldn't appreciate them.
But one nice side benefit was that I got to read and enjoy them on my own rather than just read them in school and have to spend weeks at a time on one book picking it apart. I loved literature classes but I always hated that it would take forever to get through one book and by the time we finished with it I couldn't stand the book. Much like songs getting overplayed on the radio.
Thus, I absolutely cannot stand either Billy Budd or Candide. Both books make me cringe at the very thought of them.

Don't ever read Lorna Doone. Please, take my advice and avoid that book like the plague. It was so boring and the author, Richard Blackmore skipped all of the parts that might have redeemed this book towards the end.

I've seen people in this forum ask things to the effect of , "Hey! Why are you picking on (say) Willa Cather and not (for example) John Grisham?" I believe that once a book has the aura of canonization around it, it becomes more powerful (and dangerous). We are taught: this is beauty, this is truth—often to our detriment.

So...to weigh in on the Faulkner debate: can't stand him. Nor do I think that Tolstoy, Dostoievsky and company are god's gift to humanity.

While I'm venting: I'm sick of Shakespeare's long shadow obscuring the rest of the landscape.

But, on the other hand, I like the American Renaissance folks, Candide and Gertrude Stein, whose The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family's Progress I will take over many other modernist monster-works in a hot second.

Hmm..why do I feel so dirty AFTER confession?

Jane Eyre.
That sanctimonious little bitch deserved a good slap most of the time.!

http://thelectern.blogspot.com/2007/02/jane-eyre-charlotte-bronte.html

I'm just going to say it: I hated Lolita. Maybe I'm jaded, but I wasn't at all offended by the story. The prose, however, is ten shades of purple. I'm pretty sure I could get the same effect by stealing the diary of a sensitive (and annoying) 14-year-old boy.

Grapes of Wrath was the one that immediately came to mind.

>360 redsmartie: Word. I hate Steinbeck, but I don't say that out loud because I live in the central coast of CA where he is revered as a saint. Personally, I think he went slumming and then exploited a bunch of poor people.

I like The Grapes of Wrath, but the Steinbeck that I can't stand is The Pearl.

>> 351 I have to disagree about seeing Shakespeare on stage. I like his work, but if I try to watch it on stage and I haven't read the play I find it hard to follow. Reading it gives me a chance to absorb it and work out what's going on. Granted, I've only ever seen high school productions, so I'm sure a professional performance would be easier to follow.

There is an age constraint of relatability with quite a few of the classics. Catcher In The Rye is definately one of those..The Bell Jar and Ordinary People as well.

Message 364: dawlheart
There is an age constraint of relatability with quite a few of the classics. Catcher In The Rye is definately one of those..The Bell Jar and Ordinary People as well.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Although part of the definition of a classic is that it withstands the centuries, books like Catcher in the Rye must seem very anachronistic and dumb to today's rather more jaded teens. And books about suicidal young people seem like risky reads for many teens. Although I certainly don't agree with censorship of any kind. I think books such as The Bell Jar and Ordinary People should be accompanied by lots and lots of adult-teen conversation stressing the difference between the perfectly normal thinking about suicide and the devastating actual doing.

"Here's another vote for Moby Dick. I had no clue what he was going on about from the first page."

Oh, I DID know what was going on--it's a story about a guy chasing a whale, right? But that's about as much as I have ever gotten from this. Another "message" book I had to choke down to get through is Heart of Darkness.

Maybe books like these are why I prefer non-fiction to fiction any day.

Loved Tess, but hated Jude the Obscure. There was a moment when I threw the book across the room, I was so mad at it and its fatalism.

I think Shakespeare on the page is so different than Shakespeare on-stage, they're not even the same experience at all. I have loved both.

I have to throw in my lot in disliking Catcher in the Rye. My dad gave it to me when I was about 10. I read the first page, got bored, and stuck it on my bookshelf. Now seven years later, I read the whole thing, and found Holden to be utterly ridiculous, unbelievable, and pretentious. I just really didn't recognize any point to the book, which was supposed to be insightful.

I am a huge fan of Pride and Prejudice, but I, too, never been able to read a single other one of Austen's books. Ditto The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit: I read the trilogy, but never made it through The Hobbit.

I'm surprised, after reading -- or at least skimming -- through all the posts on this page, that no one has yet to mention Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I won't argue against any literary merits it may or may not hold; my problem is Wilde's voice itself. He seemed so obsessed with his own cleverness that I was amazed by how long it took me to get through such a slim novel.

I love Wilde's quotes, even out of context, but it seems to me that his literary works -- Dorian Gray in particular -- are nothing but long-winded, cleverly constructed quotations.

The Catcher in the Rye is not bad, per se, but it's a disappointment after everybody and their grandma told me it was the best thing ever. Holden's voice strikes me as something J.D. Salinger must've had to put a lot of effort into keeping up throughout the story, and it therefore seemed affected to me.

Also, I don't find To Kill a Mockingbird to be anything even approaching amazing. It's another "You'll love it, it's brilliant!" book that I didn't love or find brilliant.

Another vote for The Golden Bowl by Henry James. The 3rd or 4th time I went to pick it up again, I realized I was forcing myself to read it, reminded myself "I do not care about these characters, I do not even *like* these characters, I am under NO obligation to read about these characters"; that was that.

How about Samuel Richardson and Pamela? Five hundred pages of the most insipid, morally "upright" character I've ever come across.

Heh, the tagline is "virtue rewarded", but the only virtue in that book is the reader's for finishing the thing!

I also have an intense dislike for Arthur Miller's whole body of work.

Miller makes me want to watch Elia Kazan just to spite him.

#303, thanks for your refreshing comments. Many of the posts I have read here remind me of my son, a high school freshman, who comes home angry that he is being "forced" to read a "boring" book. I suggest it is not so much the book that is the trouble.

Many of the books that I was "forced" to read in high school- Shakespeare, Melville, Twain, etc - were given a context, and were not isolated events unto themselves. We read Shakespeare throughout an entire quarter. We put on our own plays. (And yes, Shakespeare is hilarious.) I had a whole semester of Twain. His entire biography as well as his life's work in literary output was consumed across the panoply of the America of his time. Melville's Moby Dick was read slowly and discussed in detail along the way. I loved all those books, even Beowolf, because I felt smarter after reading them. Each book contained a lightbulb moment for me.

For those contemplating taking up Moby Dick now to see if the opinions of their youth were justified, don't sit alone reading it in your room under the eaves. Join a discussion group with at least one learned Melville person in it. This is not just a fishing story with an obsessive compulsive character.

For the person who much earlier in this thread mentioned the Old Serbian Epics, may I direct you to a fine magazine called Serb World. Over the years, from time to time, they have published translations of the epic poetry and fairy tales. It is a tradition rich in magical fantasy which I hope gets a full exploration by someone who can do it justice.

I just happened upon this thread also. For a long time, I hated, hated, hated Jane Austen and Henry James' Portrait of a Lady especially. This was due to personal reasons-- odd as it sounds, these books remind me of a painful teenage relationship.

Now, 12 years later, I'm back in a classics-on phase. I re-read Portrait of A Lady, and still found it boring and very difficult to read, but not as snobbish as the last time I read it. Just a matter of taste, I guess. I can see how other people might like the book.

I'm finally trying Pride and Prejudice again. I "get" more of the humor this time, though it's still slow going. And, though I've watched several screen adaptations, the only one that helps me remember the plot is the Bollywood version, Bride and Prejudice.

As a French reader, I have to confess (with shame) that it bored me to tears to read Balzac (Le lys dans la vallée, The lily in the valley??) in high school. I should try again, 40 years or so have gone by, now, and Balzac is Balzac, but I procrastinate...

I have a relationship with "Ada" which is difficult to describe. I really struggled through this book, hoping there would be that breakthrough you sometimes have to wait for, and it never came. I felt compelled to continue reading it though, not because I wanted to but because I felt it was something I should do. It would give me a sense of completion or understanding or something.

I'm not ready to bag this book, in some ways it is clearly brilliant, but reading it was an awful experience. I'm still glad I read it and will have to go back and re-read it one day as is needed for most Nabokov. I just don't think I will be ready to read it for a while yet. Maybe if I break my femur one day or something...

classics I think are read better as adults. I would recommend jude the obscure, it's amazing the amount of misfortunes that can happen to ona single person, but it's a very fun book to read!

I'm glad to see other people that don't think 'catcher in the rye' was the bestest thing ever. I really liked the beginning, which made the complete cop-out of the ending that much more disappointing. What happened??? It feels like he reached his publishing deadline and just gave up. Poo.

I have never been able to read D.H. Lawrence with pleasure. Dismal lives, dismal people, dismal plots, dismal themes. Who cares about this stuff?

But chacun a son gout indeed. Some people adore Lawrence. I, on the other hand, can't believe there are folks who hate To Kill a Mockingbird, or The Lord of the Rings, or Middlemarch.

Interesting how often Hemingway comes up. Is it because many people have lost the taste for his style? Or just because so many people are exposed to him in in school, and he's an author very frequently read? I.e., more people seem to hate Hemingway than hate Crane because more people have read Hemingway than Crane?

Well, I can certainly tell you why one of my students hated To Kill A Mockingbird - it was the fact that Atticus Finch had no known faults and couldn't do or say anything without a big shiny halo popping up over his head. Example: "My, I'm so considerate towards the little birds and creatures that I won't handle a gun even though I'm the best shot in the state! Just call me St. Francis of Assisi!" He also had a problem with Tom Robinson's withered arm. To paraphrase him, "You'd have thought that if Miss Mayella had been checking him out for months on end, she'd have constructed a smear story that took that withered arm into account. How could she NOT have noticed it? Nobody is THAT stupid!"

Those were his reasons why, and personally I loathe the scene where Scout "shames" the lynch mob into hanging their heads and going away with her "Hey mister!" speech. REAL lynch mobs would have shot Atticus AND the kids too. Let's not have any lachrymose sentimentality about racist lynch mobs.

These tiny faults are not enough to make me "hate" the book, but they do make me see that others might well have a problem with it.

I had to read "Wuthering Heights" in my AP lit class my senior year of high school. I hated it. The story is over 1/3 of the way through the book, but the words continue!

Anything by Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad or James Fenimore Cooper makes me gag!

I love Nathaniel Hawthorne, but The Scarlet Letter is not his best work.

I got a list of "classic" books from my high school lit teacher. 30 years later, i'm still trying to finish the list, but I find I just can't take a steady diet of the classics. My reading list is miles long, without the classics, and I generally spend my reading time on modern fiction. Having said this, I do try to read a classic now and then from the list. Last week, I started The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann which won the Nobel prize in 1929. I have given it up after 100 pages or so - aaarrrgh. I hate not finishing books, but truly, I just couldn't do it. Maybe it was the translated German - long, long, long convoluted sentences and ponderous and the book was a wrist buster! Truly, it just seemed archaic in style and language. Even Jane Austen reads better than this. Also totally agree with Joseph Conrad in 382 above. I just did NOT get Heart of Darkness

>383 Lalafo:: It's not the translated German. Believe me, Thomas Mann constructed extremely long sentences also for German. I remember reading Death in Venice (which I love by the way) in high school and going over the same sentence over and over again, and that sentence extended over two and a half pages. I have never read him in English, but it's especially confusing in German because verbs are often taken apart and one half of the verb is at the beginning of the sentence, while the other is at the end. Imagine that in a page long sentence...
However, Mann is a lot of work, but in the end it's worth it.

This is a fun thread. I actually love some of the books you all hate.

Some classics I really did not enjoy are Heart of Darkness (extremely boring) and Catch 22 (extremely repetitive).

Thanks Thalia. I promise I will try again with Herr Mann, perhaps not just at the end of a long winter when I'm itching for something light and spring-like.

I hate Magister Ludi. I 'm content to be a philistine and never finish it. On my last try I got within 100 pages of the end, a new record, and I still abandoned it. God, I hate that book. And Nostromo was also a no-go over the course of several years. I also hated Moby Dick in high school; it's become an American tradition to hate the book, I think. Since then, although I've not reread it I have come to think that Melville was a superb writer. I find that as I grow older I have less patience with dismal plots, settings, characters, etc. passed off as the pinnacle of literary achievement. Don't even pick up anything by Joyce Carol Oates anymore; even to the point of avoiding anthologies edited by her. Shudder. Time is short; thousands of other books beckon and I feel a sense of nervous dread that there's great stuff out there I'm missing. What was that quote by Borges? I think something along the lines of "I've always imagined Paradise to be a sort of library." Encouraging thought.

I've seen almost nothing in this thread about Russian lit, which as a body I find excruciatingly tedious. In attempts on some of the classics, I feel as though I was reading it letter by letter.
Agree that all of Hemingway, with the exception of A Movable Feast is self-conscious tripe.
I also think Charles Dickens one of the most overrated writers ever to put pen to foolscap. His plots were laughable, those vaunted quirky characters merely caricatures or just plain weird for weirdness' sake. Trollope was a far superior writer who gets short shrift.
In defense of Moby Dick: for God's sake, skip the chapters on the whaling industry. It really is like a whole separate book interspersed. I can't believe that people didn't think that at least the opening chapters are hilarious (the sharing the bed scene? come on).
While I loved the story in The Lord of the Rings and have seen the movies umpteen times, I was disappointed when I went to reread the books. I remember being mesmerized as a teen, but 25 years later found that ol' Tolkien actually wasn't a very good writer. My fingers itched for a red pen.

" but 25 years later found that ol' Tolkien actually wasn't a very good writer."

you shock me, that's as near to blasphemy as anyone can come...

That you find the book tedious, that you don't admire the style, don't understand his language, that I can understand if not agree with, but to have the arrogance to judge him not a good writer? You find me astounded.

I agree with stringcat3 - you can admire the intelligence and dedication involved in producing LOTR, etc, etc, but Tolkien is a not a good writer. There are many passages like -
'Here, spring was already busy about them; fronds pierced moss and mould, larches were green-fingered, small flowers were opening in the turf, birds were singing. Ithilean, garden of Gondor now desolate kept still dishevelled dryad loveliness.'
or
'A golden afternoon of late sunshine lay warm and drowsy upon the hidden land between. In the midst of it there wound lazily a dark river of brown water, bordered with ancient willows, arched over with willows, blocked with fallen willows, and flecked with thousands of willow-leaves. The air was thick with them, fluttering yellow from the branches; for there was a warm and gentle breeze blowing softly in the valley, and the reeds were rustling, and the willow-boughs were creaking.'

And then there are endless passages of dialogue like -
"It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise."

"Yet seldom do they fail of their seed," said Legolas. "And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli."

"And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens," said the Dwarf.

"To that the Elves know not the answer," said Legolas.

This is not about style, it's just not good prose.

#390> it's just not good prose.

Correct. The 'willows' passage is great prose.

Blasphemy? I hope so ;-) There's nothing so invigorating as poking a finger in a god's (or demi-god's) eye.

Tolkien's style is at best overwrought and creaky. I assure you I understand his language and find it painfully stilted. And to judge him not a good writer is not arrogance but the prerogative of the good reader.

I often astound people. It's a gift.

I agree with the previous posts about Tolkien: dreadful stuff, but Stringcat3 you are so, so wrong about Dickens. He is a far superior writer to Trollope, who really was a load of old, well, trollope. At least Dickens's prose fizzes with energy and his characters live. Hemingway couldn't write either: the best he could do was string prepositional phrases together and call it writing.
Another so-called great writer who is pathetically overblown and tedious is Lawrence. James Wood has an essay about him in this weeks' Guardian.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2030162,00.html

He quotes copious quantities of the stuff, and it's all pretty dreadful. Come to think of it, it reads rather like the Tolkein Jargoneer quoted above.....

stringcat3

though I still don't agree with most of what you said, you're right, it's a good gift ;)

I'd really like to participate in this conversation, but this page is getting too long for my browser to handle. I can't even get the "post a message" to work properly half the time. Is there any way we could start a new thread? I already made a new thread, but no one seems to care. You can make another one if you wish, as long as people use it.

Please, please, please, for all our sanity...

Mraiow, tomcatMurr! Dickens prose fizzes with energy? Good Lord - how many times, about 2/3 of the way through a Dickens tome, have I turned page after page noting, "well, nothing happened here, nothing happened HERE." And as for his characters living - sure, if comic book characters are considered to be alive. Larger than life or over the top characters may be memorable but they certainly aren't alive in the best novelistic (did I make that up?) sense of the word. Trollope's characters are real people, except perhaps for the tiresome Lily Dale, who deserved one or two thumps on the side of the head. Think of the Barchester Towers feud between Mrs. Proudie and Archdeacon Grantly. Dickens would have hamfisted it for cheap laughs - Trollope is exquisite.

I do agree, however, about Lawrence. Have tried to read him several times, and retreated in dismay. Dreary, dreary, dreary.

I disliked Moby Dick when I read it in 7th grade, except the parts with the barbarian scattered throughout. It's doubtful I would have finished it if I were not in competition with my teacher. One of these days I'll give it another try and see if my taste have matured enough for it.
House of Seven Gables was attempted at around the same time and I believe it is one of the few books I have never finished.

Stringcat3, well, if you read a writer like Dickens looking for things that happen, then there will be pages of nothing, as you say. For me the point about Dickens is that it's all happening in the discourse, it's in the prose. Read Chapters 32 and 33 of Bleak House, preferably aloud, and then tell me that there's nothing happening. You see I find Trollope boring because the prose is so pedestrian.
And yes, comic book characters can come alive. Think of a skillful cartoonist, who can sum up a character in one swift line and your imagination supplies the rest.

See my blog for more on Dickens. I hope I can change your mind, stringcat3. Dickens is one of the great pleasures of life. :)

www.thelectern.blogspot.com

What about Lawrence's poetry? Some of it strikes me as rather good, especially the animal poems. If only he would leave figs alone...

Apparently none of you is courteous enough to heed lampbane's plea in #395. Perhaps lampbane was too courteous to shout:

This thread is too long!

STOP POSTING HERE. POST TO "AWFUL CLASSICS PART 2"

the bell jar happened to be amazing. one of my favorites. sylvia plath is one of my favorite authors ever. but old man and the sea was horrible. i had to read it in english class, and it drug on and on with analysis and interpretation.

For Goodness Sake Switch threads!

Will someone more ept than I please put a link to Awful Classics Part 2 here, so people can just click and go there.

I can't stand anything by Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, John Updike or Philip Roth.

Among more recent books, I hated The Kite Runner and The Lovely Bones.

I'm still trying to like Henry James and Thomas Pynchon. Not giving up on them yet.

Coming up for Air and Animal Farm. Reading them was a horrible experience. House on Mango Street was a joke. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a bore just like The Glass Menagerie. Tess of the D'Urbervilles was terribly depressing but very true. The Message in Black Boy pissed me off and A Raison in the Sun was pointless.
But nevertheless I am glad I read them.

Carminowe, I'm with you. I just read Snowball's Chance, by an American author, John Reed (really, that's his name) and I'm completely feeling like everyone who harbors serious questions about Animal farm should pick it up. It's a 9/11 rewrite of Orwell's version. Very upsetting, and original.

I'm sorry, but I could not finish {Watership Down}. After having read and enjoyed the The {Redwall} series by Jaques (sp?), I thought it was a lot of the same thing over and over again and didn't move quite quick enough. Did like the social aspect behind it with why the rabbits needed to go elsewhere and all, it was just too slow for me with not enough to keep my interest.
That said, I liked TLotR trilogy and the {Hobbit}, even though they can become very descriptive and slow... I don't know what made the difference for me. I couldn't read the pre-quel though... Salamandastron, I think?

Hemingway drives me around the bend everytime. The writing is, so, important, you see? Do you see it, the importance? It is there, in the words. We drank wine and talked. We knew. You must have it, the aficion.

I just finished a farewell to arms and found it very boring. no one talks like that.
also, great expectations i have started twice and couldnt pull through.
Lord of the flies was dumb too.

#410 Hemingway drives me around the bend everytime. The writing is, so, important, you see? Do you see it, the importance? It is there, in the words. We drank wine and talked. We knew. You must have it, the aficion.

--------------

Okay, Gregtmills . . . thanks for wrecking my keyboard. I just sprayed coffee all over it.

The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark was the worst classic ever assigned to me in school. Just deadly....

I just realized that I posted my response twice -- my apologies (once on Aug 19 and once on Aug 24). But, given that I posted the same title both times, I must really have hated it.

>414 jillmwo:

I'm going to let this one pass, jillmwo, but next time...

#1, #7, #17, and #31 all hated Hemingway and castigated The Old Man and the Sea. It is beyond my ken how such a simple, powerful, and compelling story of conflict and hope and resolution could be hated, despised, or boring. I suggest most of those bored by classical writings have been weaned on television at the rate of six to eight hours a day, or experienced the heretofore multi-mentioned snobbish teachers who assume if you don't turn cartwheels while reading their assignments, you are dumb.

at the risk of sounding like a 1960s liberal, some of my best friends have never read one book in their lives, but hot damn, can they fix my car and motorbike! Or entertain me conversationally about human affairs!

i, too, hated Pamela until my graduate mentor made me read it and spend time with her explaining it and Trisham Shandy (neither of which I wouild foster on anyone younger than 18, errr, maybe 35!)

See you in hell, Last of the Mohicans. ;)

418 -
yeah, but if you don't read it, you can't appreciate Twain on Fennimore Cooper's literary offenses - makes it all worthwhile.

Oh, I trudged my way through it, like a bad relationship you know is doomed from the first blind date, all the way through the bitter break-up and the guilty, secret viewings of the Michael Mann film... ;)

I feel your pain at Heart of Darkness and Dickens. I had to read two Dickens books and Heart of Darkness in the same semester one year in High School. I don't know how I avoided going into hibernation. I remember that one of them was Great Expectations, which I tried to get the teacher not to do by pointing out that it has two endings, the original and the sell out version and how could they expect us to respect someone who would do that, but sadly we were forced into it. I think we got to read Jane Austen next semester though which I did like, and Hamlet which I wrote an essay on how his fatal flaw was procrastination and he should have just killed his Uncle in the first act and saved the rest of us the time, not to mention all those other people who ended up dead because he actually went bonkers while pretending to be. I actually do like Shakespeare, despite what this may sound like. The dialogue in Shakespeare is almost always great even in the plays with the weakest plots. Dickens on the other hand. Ouch. And although he was paid by installment, rather than word, the fact that enough people would believe that he was paid by the word for that to have become a popular theory kind of speaks for itself.

To be truly enjoyed The Old Man and the Sea has to be read aloud with dramatic effects. My teacher in High School spent 3 days reading it to us and it was brilliant. I still hate Hemingway, but when I think about The Old Man and the Sea I can visualize my teacher standing there, talking to his hand, and asking why it betrayed him.

Ah I love Dickens, and great expectations is one of my favourites! I think it's unfair to penalise him for 'selling out' as, unlike in the Renaissance, Dickens had no patronage and had to be able to buy food! He wasn't from an upper class family with money and land, and he wrote primarily to buy nice things and improve himself in society, and live the bourgeos dream.

I admit though, some of the books are a bit heavy on descriptions.

I don't mind if authors "sell out", some of my favorite books are by authors who I consider more as sell outs than Charles Dickens, after all he didn't have hollywood and merchandising (as much) to contend with. I just really hate his writing style.
He wasn't the only one to change a story just because fans wanted a different ending. Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes and James Bond, but then had to bring them back due to fan demand. For that matter I'm all for comics and they retcon things all over the place.
Mainly my argument was to get out of having to read anymore Dickens, rather than because I took it seriously that he was a sell out and therefor unworthy of being read. If I liked his writing style more I really wouldn't have cared too much. However, English teachers tend to ignore arguments against reading things just because you don't like the author's characters or writing style.

Yes unfortunately I think many a good novel is ruined by exposing young people too early to works where the subject matter has little to interest them (inheritance laws, poor houses etc) and the language is too far removed from our own.

This proves that literature does not transcend time but is rather a product of its own epoch.

I know for me Shakespeare was ruined by over exposure to tragedy as a young person. Even at University (where again I was forced to study him) I didn't get on with it and thought there were far more deserving people that we could be studying (Marlowe for example.)

I think I have some kind of idiosincrasy when it comes to Russian classics-You know, Tolstoj, Dostoevskij and the like. I've only managed to finish Crime and Punishment so far and have begun (many times, in fact) Anna Karenina. I remember I loathed Hermann Melville when I was a school student but haven't tried reading it again later...

I can never finish Russian Lit. it always makes me really depressed and I end up giving it up.
I started Shakespeare with a copy of Midsummer Nights Dream that was modern English on one page and the original on the next. I was reading it for fun too, so I didn't have to worry about writing papers on it or anything. That might be why I still love Shakespeare today. It's sometimes better to ignore the plots and focus on the really cool things he did with language though.
I think it's better to have the original and modern language versions of other things to start out with on lots of things, like Canterbury Tales. Otherwise it's really frustrating trying to read them. Once you get used to them though some turn out to be pretty good.

The Old Man and the Sea just could not keep my attention. Heart of Darkness and The Scarlett Letter were almost as tedious.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was also not my favorite read, and I can't say I didn't like the book at all because I did to an extent. I think it was just that Stephan Dedalus pestered me to no end.

Were he still alive, Henry James would be in need of a good slapping with a wet fish.
Sheer masochism drove me to read "The Ambassadors" through to the end - not only was it written in some sort of elitist code, the whole experience felt like reading with my head in an ever tightening vice.

A Wrinkle in Time is proving to be a tough one to get through. I've tried three times now, and have yet to get to the alternate world.

I dislike anything Hemingway. He's wordy and boring. I liked Tess of the D'Urbervilles, but it was definately a forced effort. She is not for the faint of heart or narcoleptic.

I found The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton extremely difficult to get through. In fact, I am confused by the fact that it won a Pulitzer Prize. While I think I understand the greater issues that Wharton was speaking too, I think a less cumbersome story could have easily illustrated those points. Also, its the first and only novel that I've ever read with a dictionary at hand. Her vocabulary was expansive, but it finally became frustrating. I eventually gave up and just passed over the words I didn't know.

I liked A Wrinkle in Time when I was a kid (5th grade) but I've tried to read it again without much success.

I hated The Catcher in the Rye when I read it in High School. Holden really annoyed me.

Reddragon and Bubbling,

I actually enjoyed The Age of Innocence. However, I listened to an audio version.

The Ambassadors is on my TBR list, but it can stay there for a while. It doesn't sound like it will move up in my preferences, audio or not.

I would probably be willing to listen the audio version. I doublt I woudl ever read it again. Are the audio versions uaully abridged? I've never actually listened to an audio book.

#433: It seems like a lot of people I know really love The Catcher in the Rye and see Holden as some sort of adolecent hero, but to me he came off as an obnoxious jerk. I couldn't even finish the book.

Just checked this thread out of curiosity and I think it's my one and only time 'cos people are busy hating too many books that I love, but I did just have to jump in yelling 'Yes! Yes!' at those comments from HokieGeek and JackFrost. I always felt that HC would have benefited from a good kick up the backside. I can just about understand why teenagers going through that obnoxious phase themselves (and yes, we all do, I went through it too, some would say I'm still there) might identify with him but (thankfully) they mostly grow out of it pretty quickly - why an adult would see anything worthy in this little creep I really don't understand. Too self-pitying for my liking by far.

#426 spot on.

I don't envy my sixth form English teacher having to try to enthuse a group of 16 year old boys about Jane Austen (Emma was a set A level text), but he put me off for life.

Reading 20 pages of The Portrait of a Lady during my degree did the same with Henry James. Life is too short to deal with his convoluted prose.

My father, from whom I have inherited my bookworm tendencies, gave me a copy of The Old Man and the Sea for my 14th birthday in a sort of "read this, my son, then you will understand what it means to be a man" gesture. I read it in an afternoon and it instilled a life long love of Papa and lean prose. It was a formative experience.

I'm reading Catcher in the Rye now and while not horrible, I'll be glad when I'm done. I'm more amused than annoyed by Holden. He's so angsty teen male. And angsty teen male doesn't hold my interest.

God Bless you people. I can finally say it out loud. I freakin' HATE Dickens. And I hated A Separate Peace. My English teacher and I were close to fist fights when I was in high school over ASP.

OTOH, I enjoyed Catcher in the Rye. Of course I read it as an angst ridden teen. If I tried now as an almost 40 y.o. it may just annoy me.

Oh, and Thomas Hardy! What tedious stuff that was.

440 That's what I meant about people hating stuff I love - Dickens and esp Hardy. Can't bear it. Have to leave.

Reddragon,
There is a BOT version of The Ambassadors and it looks like it is an unabridged version. Maybe I'll try it (ie borrow it from a Library service) after all.

Don't worry Sloth....I too love Dickens and Hardy. And probably any other verbose 19th century authors.

Catcher In The Rye however made me want to throw the book across the room in the vain hope that Holden Caulfield would feel the impact of the book against the wall and at least come up with a bruise. That boy needed a serious kick up the bum.

#440/443 Re those two - although I've loved Hardy practically since I could hold a book, Dickens took a bit more getting into. Back in the days when I only read for pleasure I didn't really get him. It was only when I did my degree and was forced to study Great Expectations for a year that I discovered the value of giving plenty of time and attention to authors like him. Nowadays I love his work and still haven't read everything yet so really look forward to the times when I put aside everything else that requires coherent thought and settle with one of his books for a few days. You can't rush through them though, desperate to find out what happens at the end; you have to spend time enjoying the characters and the humour and the general 'Dickensiness' of them. Or not - as I'm sure plenty of other people will tell me.

In regards to The Catcher in the Rye, I've read this three times, all three times at different stages in my life. The first time, when I was 14, I found HC very obnoxious and stupid; I thought the whole book was pointless and couldn't see why anyone would read it.

The second time I read it, I was about 16, and thought it was THE greatest novel ever written. I totally got Holden, he knew what it was like to be me. He was my hero. I loved it so much the second time, I read everything else Salinger wrote. I still love Franny and Zooey, almost named my kids after them... almost.

The third, and last, time I read Catcher, I was a mother of five, the oldest being 12. I hated it, again, and thought Holden was a spoiled, obnoxious, whiny brat who desperately needed a good go around with The Bandito (that's the name of our paddle.)

I think a really great classic will be good no matter what age you are when you read it. However, some books are better understood, and more appropriate to be read, at certain ages. I would not hand my 15 year old a copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover, probably wouldn't hand her Jane Eyre at this point in time, but they are great classics.

I would not call Catcher a great classic, I wouldn't even call it a good book, but for a brief window of time I did call it the defining book of my life. Then I grew up.

I just finished Catcher. I really didn't like it at first, I found Holden too angsty and annoying. But then something clicked and I found compassion for him. The story really turned around. As much as he "talked trash" he rarely acted on any of his angst and his actions showed him to be a good kid. Lonely and depressed and angry and confused, but deep inside, a good kid.

Goodness...

I hated Catcher In The Rye. Even though I'm an angsty teenager myself, I could not STAND Holden. I just wanted to strangle him.

I also hated Mrs. Dalloway. I think it's God's worst book. Stream of consciousness? I can barely understand it.

And, finally, The Scarlet Letter. Good Lord, that was like pulling teeth.

But, favorites by FAR..Pride and Prejudice and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Both worth my time reading.

I was so glad to see that someone else grew up to love The Scarlet Letter. I think I watched the movie in high school because i couldn't get through the book with out wanting to burn it, but then I read it in college and I loved it. I re-read it some times because I like the way I look at life when I am finished.

Wuthering Heights is one of the worst books I ever read. No appeal whatsoever.

Phlox - I'm with you on Wuthering Heights - that horrible, sulky, smelly Heathcliffe - yeauch! What is wrong with some women?
Surprised to hear all this loathing of The Scarlet Letter, though. It's not my favourite book ever in the whole world but I enjoyed it and could happily read it again (in fact, I only keep books that I intend to read again so, generally speaking, if it's in my library and not tagged 'Sold' or 'Gone to Charity' then I've enjoyed it. Having said that, I do believe WH is still in there but that's only because I still have hopes of suddenly wanting to read it and get to like it. It's not really going to happen.)

The worst book I have ever read has got to be The secret Garden by Frances Burnett, it took me three months to push through it (then again I was in fourth grade so that may have been why it took so long and I hated it so much) it was just so dry and I hated the characters. Then The wind in the Willows I couldn't even finish it was so boring.

Thalia, your post made me laugh. I had a tough time with those same books. To your three I will add Romola. I love George Eliot but absolutely hated that novel. And if The Marble Faun weren't part of a LoA omnibus, I would have disposed of it immediately after finishing it.

I don't know if this is really appropriate, but I really felt like standing up for Wuthering Heights and especially poor, misunderstood Heathcliff. Not misunderstood because I think he's a sensitive soul, but misunderstood because he's a monster who people seem to compare with Mr. Darcy.

I have to agree that Heathcliff would not make a good boyfriend/husband. I think that might be a bit like saying Ahab would not make a good boss. It may be true, but is it entirely relevant?

Right on, CarlosMcRey. I am not very familiar with old, gothic novels but I thought Wuthering Heights was a great book. Yes it is over the top and has some unpleasant characters, but I enjoyed reading it.

War and Piece, I don't like it and I don't like the author, he was dead set against Shakespear who I really like.

I like Wuthering Heights in theory but I didn`t enjoy reading it, I do however understand why people like it so much.

I definatly want to stand up for The Secret Garden, however I read a couple times before I liked and I dont like A Little Princess which is marketed with it.

I really want to stand up for a wind in the willows because I like it and I enjoy it.

I think Dracula was depressing and I didn`t enjoy it.

Dracula by Bram Stoker. It seemed to start out okay, but just got worse and worse as it went on. I don't know how anyone could think this book scary.

I feel like such a bad reader for admitting this, but I just can't enjoy Jane Austen. I'm trying to push my way through Pride and Prejudice right now, and all I can think of is how much I dislike 99% of the characters. They are a mix of stupid, stubborn, stuck-up, and greedy. Even Austen seems to dislike them right along with me! The only one I wouldn't mind spending time with is Mr. Bennet. We could lock ourselves in the library and laugh at them all.

Though I love her now, I also used to hate Jane. Forgive me please, ninjapenguin, if I'm making assumptions about your age but I found I had to hit middle-age myself before I really learned to appreciate her. I think you have to have got over your own 'courting' days and be able to look on the books from a more historical perspective before you can really see them for the genius they are.

Then again, maybe you'll just never like them. I'm not suggesting you HAVE to and it's certainly nothing to do with being a 'bad' reader. Thank god we don't all share the same tastes! Only do yourself a favour and chuck P&P in the bin (or give it away) if you really hate it. Life's too short to read anything you don't enjoy.

#456
I just finished Dracula a few days ago. It's not something I'll reread soon, but for me the scary element came from completely avoiding the vampire myth for most of my life. I've never had anything to do with Anne Rice, movies featuring vampires, adaptations of the book, etc. I think if that hadn't been the case, you're right -- it wouldn't have been frightening at all.

Hemingway seems to be catching a lot of flack. Fair enough, although I didn't mind The Old Man and the Sea. My most hated was Portrait of Dorian Gray...deathly boring. It dragged forever. Although I did choose it for school which may have increased my dislike for it. Catcher in the Rye as well I could have lived without reading. Oh and Frankenstein. Maybe I should stop before I name every classic I have read.

457 I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice a lot more after I saw the BBC production and realized how much of it was actually humor and poking fun at people.

Yes, Morphidae. Good point. I learned to appreciate Jane Austen only after I realized that I was taking her too seriously. Once I took the attitude that if something could be read as funny, then it is funny, I went from lukewarm on Austen to loving her. This approach also worked with Nancy Mitford's In Pursuit of Love. Horrid book if you don't look at it that way.

You're both dead right - the different between JA and the Mitfords though is that Jane was being deliberately funny. The Mitfords, though genuinely witty, were deadly serious in their snobbishness. Who cares though? If we can get a laugh out of them, why shouldn't we?

i had to read A Tale of Two Cities for my sophmore honors english class. i hated it. it was so boring and dull. i like classics. that was one of the first ones i read and it almost sterred me away from classics.

Little Women. I'm not sure I've ever read it in its entirety. People say they love it, and I always wonder if they have ever actually read it, or if they're talking about one of the many movies, which I do enjoy.

I enjoyed An Old-Fashioned Girl, Eight Cousins, and Under the Lilacs. But not Little Women.

>465 LydiaHD: I read Little Women in the last couple of months for the first time since I was a kid, every word, and adored it. So yeah, people have read it.

:)

Good heavens, that was unexpected, Morphy. It almost inspires me to give the book another try.

It's a quiet, gentle read. Nothing really exciting happens but I finished it with an "aaaaaaah, nice."

Just thought I'd mention this as I'm obviously not the only one who missed it the first time around. Somebody very kindly set up a new thread for this discussion about a million years ago. I was having a browse through some old comments yesterday and just happened to notice this. Message 403 gives the link.

I entered this discussion with the intention of looking for someone else who hated this book as much as I did. I didn't have to look far to find you! I can't say I hated the whole thing because I only read half. It was as much as I could stand. I was considering taking a course in British Lit but this book convinced me to choose something else!

Hey, hey! A word in support of us Brits! Little Women is an American book and Louisa May Alcott was an American author! (We are still talking about Little Women?) If you let that put you off British lit you missed some treats. (Not that I'm knocking American lit, which I revere too.)

Dracula for me is scary in what it doesn't say, the count has such a dark presence over the whole book and all its events, something which becomes clearer for me upon subsequent re-readings. He controls, he is at the heart of the novel, without actually needing to assert himself into that role. He is sustained through fear and ignorance. And the image of his ship arriving in the bay will stay with me.
Of course, this is tainted somewhat by my love for Peter Cushing as van helsing.

I too want to stick up for wuthering heights Heathcliff and Cathy are so messed up, but it is society and the delusions of others that have so warped them. Poor Heathcliff (although I've always been a sucker for the misanthropic misunderstood types.)

If we're taking about truly awful classics, how about anything by Thomas Hardy, the truly boring Martin Chuzzlewit or the stupendously annoying Middlemarch?

Anything Walt Whitman or Herman Melville. Mark Twain isn't wonderful either. I also can't stand A Separate Peace, most of Emily Dickinson's crap, or Death in Venice by Thomas Mann.

I'm sorry, but I really hate the Scarlet Letter....boring as hell. If I wanted to read a drawn out episode of the Jerry Springer show, I'd buy his darn book...

I lost my time in reading The Anatomy of Melancholy. I just cannot understand what pushed me to embark in reading it from cover to cover. Perhaps I still expected, up to the last page, to find a funny anecdote; but it's apparently not in Burton's habits.

One good thing is that, after closing such a boring book, I got the impression to come to life again.

I have to give my vote(s) to:

Jane Eyre - what a bunch of melodramatic garbage
Catcher in the Rye - I was bored to tears
The Maltese Falcon - too unbelievable
Wuthering Heights - I may have enjoyed it if the teacher I had at the time did not over it adnauseum.

I realize for the times for which they were written then were groundbreaking but I don't think they stand the test of time.

i actually think that Wuthering Heights isn't that bad.

i'm reading it now for honors english 9. i'm not that far, but i think it's pretty good.

in the beginning it was confusing to find the plot, or even if the main character was a boy or a girl (i didn't pay close enough attention) but i found that this is a love story unfolding.

it may not stand the test of time, but its pretty good for how old the writing and language is.

I enjoyed The Old Man & The Sea but found Hemingway to be very sexist in attitude in his other works. I really got disgusted w/Wuthering Heights or rather w/Cathy & Heathcliff who both seriously needed a shrink-actually one for each of them as they are so totallly screwed up & I finally concluded that they deserved one another! I liked Catcher in the Rye in that it captured totally the way some teenagers think or rather what they would like to believe is thinking in which everything is filtered through their how-all-my-problems-are somebody-elses-fault-screen! I've got a grandson just like Holden & guess what? He loves Catcher in the Rye. 8^)

Catcher in the Rye isn' bad, it is just not one of J.D. Salinger's best works. I mean, Franny and Zooey is so much better crafted and more interesting.

Personally, I think Steinbeck is Satan and reading Of Mice and Men was one of the most grueling experiances of my literary life.

The Great Gatsby is also one of my least favorite books that is commonly accepted in the canon. I never finished it. I just remember despising the narrator and thinking he was incredibly self indulgent and irritating. I guess I just didn't connect with it, at all.

43 lohengrin
My problem is who decides what is a classic? I bought The Great Books of the Western World in the 80s, read the introductory parts by Mortimer Adler, read some of the books. But I evnetually sold them because I had this ongoing argument with the editors everytime I passed the books (and they sat next to the TV). In the 80s edition, there were no women writers included (and why is it just the WESTERN world? The Harvard classics manages to include books outside the "Western Canon"). I do not feel Tom Jones is a classic but definitely think Middlemarch is.
Many apologies, this is not a personal attack, but a long pent up vent that your post just sparked!

WOW, I'm overwhelmed that there are others out there who look at some of these classics and laugh!
My Oh, Please, list includes: A Tale of Two Cities (it is a far far better thing than anything I have ever done)
Shakespeare. I don't find his comedies funny and his tragedies are all -- if you're a major character, you're gonna die. My especial disfavorite is King Lear. While this is also a fairy tale (and the king there is equally dumb), here's what I see -- the king, in front of his people and Cordelia's two suitors, says to his daughters I will divide my kingdom based on how much you say you love me. And he was surprised it turned out as bad as it did?

Some sitcom (and I think it was Seinfeld) said that all of Dickinson's work can be sung to The Yellow Rose of Texas.

#481 I don't think I'm usually an apologist for Shakey, and I hate the comedies too - but I feel I have to point out that the word 'comedy' isn't really being used in the way we mean it today. Yes, there were some 'jokes' thrown in, though humour rarely travels well down the ages, but the term as it applies to Shakespeare is really more of a catch-all for anything that wasn't a tragedy or a history. And the very term 'tragedy' kind of implies that it's not going to turn out well for the protagonist. Hate them by all means, but I don't think you can really knock them for being what they say they are. That's a bit like criticising the histories because they are all set in the past.

To be honest...

There is not a book I haven't at least found a sentence I could extract an idea from...

It's all fodder for me.

I do have a leaning towards lyrical prose...

And everyone is a critic.

Get over yourself, already.

Oh dear, not another one!

No, I will not get over myself, thank you very much. :-D

In the spirit of being one of those terrible critical individuals with a negative opinion about a book or two, I'm going to throw The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn out there as a classic I simply couldn't finish. I wanted to like it, but even with multiple tries I could never make it past the third chapter. It's too bad, really. Mark Twain is so entertaining in his essays. I just couldn't get past the narrative voice. Grammatically incorrect, rambling diction makes my skin crawl.

>487 kabrahamson: I got a little further than you. About half way through, but I got really tired of the "go down the river, something happens, go down the river, something happens, go down the river, something happens" plot along with the annoying accents, yes.

#487 I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it, kabrahamson. There seems to be a bit of an influx of this from new members (or a? new member) over the last couple of days. Ignore it and it'll go away.

And if we're on grammatically incorrect, rambling diction, I'm going to throw Their Eyes Were Watching God into the pot. I don't ask for easy books but if a story is good I still want it to carry me along without having to google unfamiliar words or expressions every other page.

Other than a goofy, very weak, ending I thought Huckleberry Finn was better than "the original", ie, The Odyssey. But I have to agree with Kabrahamson about Twain's shorter works. His essays, and his short stories especially, are a scream.

I'm curious, simply curious. Throughout LT, there is a tremendous amount of Hemingway bashing. I haven't read too much Hemingway recently, but I kinda enjoyed the dreary The Sun Also Rises and I recall enjoying some of his short stories. What makes him so bad? Misogyny? Style?

He was very sexist! Also the macho nonsense got old real fast. But i really loved The Old Man and The Sea. 8^)

I would rather have my eyes pulled out by birds than read some of the classics my children have had to read. I didn't like them when I had to read them. Some that come to mind: Beowolf, Atlas Shrugged, Animal Farm, 1984, The Old Man and the Sea, Of Mice and Men and so many others. I told this to my son's lit professor and I have told my son my opinion. Some of them he really liked and some he agreed with me.

Great Thread !

I agree with lots of posts going way back on Moby Dick ! Almost 500 pages with no female characters! Combine that with dense prose straight out of an encylopedia that doesn't advance the plot, add obtuse and archaic vocabulary words and UGH. It is considered a classic because it was one of the first American Novels, but if it were given to publishers today, it would not be published. Don't even try the abridged version. Maybe we won't be reading it in 50 yrs?

Faulkner is another American writer I just don't get. I struggled to make it thru The Sound and the Fury and lets not even talk about As I lay Dying They are considered classics because he was one of the first to use a nonlinear plot and tell a story from multiple points of view, but I could barely discern the plot, characters and sequence of events! I support English majors reading William Faulkner but to try to get a teenager interested in reading to become a lifelong reader PLEASE don't force him on them. Supposedly Toni Morrison was influcened by him, and not surprisingly I am not a fan of her either, depressing.

However, I appreciate the fact that I read these because it helps me identify what type of reader I am; it helps me understand literay history; makes me well rounded, and allows me to particpate in intelligent discussions!

I agree with everyone that said Moby Dick and Walden.

You know what would be fascinating? If we had the same thread but the only people who could comment were the people who green-light books for publishing. It would be brilliant to see what books never would have been published if they hadn't had the good fortune of being written at the time and place that they had been.

#495 But wouldn't that apply to most books? They're all a product of their time and place.

494: Of all the authors I was required to read in high school, the one I really liked was William Faulkner. As I Lay Dying is one of my favorite books. Funny how tastes differ.

Pretty much every book I was forced to read for English class in high school. There's just something about being forced to read a book at a set pace that sucks all possible enjoyment from the experience; even books I might have otherwise enjoyed.

Agreed with others above that Moby Dick was the absolute worst, along with Billy Budd. I can only liken the experience to gouging my eye out with a rusty spoon - how anyone can stand reading Herman Melville is beyond me.

The other stand out awful novel in my mind is The Scarlet Letter, which made me want to strangle something more than once as I (tried to) read it.

I could turn this into a very long list, but I'll leave it at those two which were by far the worst.

Yes, funny how tastes do differ and funny how forced reading is sucha turn off. Moby Dick is probably the most revered of all American novels.

I've never met a classic (that I read voluntarily) that I didn't like!

some clues from a British survey: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/7925720.stm

501: Grisham? Really??

"A further 41% of respondents confessed to turning to the back of a book to read the end before finishing the story and 48% admitted to buying a book for someone else and reading it first."

Oooh. Guilty on both counts.

I hated "Johnny Tremain". I don't get why that book is so popular. I also didn't really like "Of Mice and Men". So many people seem to love it but I didn't really enjoy it.

I agree, Johnny Tremain isn't much of a book, nor is it much of a classic.

I know The Oresteia is a classic.

Anything in between these, I don't have a clue!

Catcher in the Rye. I read this one on my own because my high school English teacher was the only one who didn't include it in her tenth-graders' syllabus and all of my classmates who had other teachers and had to read it for class LOVED it. Turns out she knew what she was doing. I was a really angst-ridden teenager, and even I wanted Holden Caulfield to shut up and grow up. I do have to give credit where credit is due, however, and applaud J.D. Salinger for making so many teenagers want to read more.

# 505 -

I agree. I absolutely wanted to do smack down on Holden Caulfield. I have NO idea what anyone finds appealing about an entire book of self-righteous whining.

Others I tried and found to anything BUT classic:

Don Quixote. Awful, just awful.
Moby Dick. I tried, I really did but I gave up 3/4 of the way through.
The Hamlet. His writing is.... gray... The plot is gray... the characters are gray....
Shakespeare. ANYTHING by Shakespeare. I would rather clip my nails.
Great Expectations. I'm fairly certain this was written just to torture people in h.s.
Lord of The Flies. Maybe because I was forced to read it...?
Atlas Shrugged. So did I. WTF?
I'm sure there are more but I've blocked them out.

Now, there is one classic I adore and reread yearly. Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.