Classic novels: which one was the biggest disappointment to you?

I picked up Swiss Family Robinson years ago and was appalled at how awful it was. Boring, male-centric balderdash. "Here's how I saved the world" litany of stupid stuff.

I have seen others here shyly admit something that "everyone" loves which they just plain hated. What is your nomination for Most Disappointing Classic Novel?

Wuthering Heights
The Turn of the Screw

Are two that immediately come to mind. . .

What is Wuthering Heights? Just want to know from a person. The Twilight books mention it a little bit, but what's a quick summery?

Definitely Wuthering Heights. I hated the characters and felt they had no redeeming qualities. I quit halfway through the book.

From Wikipedia: "The narrative tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them."

Also The Sound and the Fury. I couldn't get past the first few pages.

I'm sure there are plenty, but here are a few:
Wuthering Heights
Vanity Fair
The Red Pony
Lord of the Flies
The Catcher in the Rye

I actually liked The Mill on the Floss quite a bit (my wife says it's a harmless perversion), and I had heard that Middlemarch was much better, but I couldn't deal with it at all.

the first one i started vanity fair just cant do it x

The Turn of the Screw is the worst classic I ever read, or even tried to read. I only managed to finish it because it was so short. I'm afraid I couldn't even finish the audio version Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. (Though I think it was the narrator and not the story that was irritating me.) Also agree about The Catcher in the Rye, yet I loved Salinger's Franny and Zooey.

For me The Catcher In The Rye and How the Dead Live both of them were enough already.

The Grapes of Wrath annoyed the hell out of me. And I agree The Turn of the Screw was just crap. Oh, and jezooks, I hated The Scarlett Letter. Moralistic bs with a terribly telegraphed "twist."

>8 clamairy: LOL, you give me the books you don't like and I'll give you the books I don't like. I liked The Turn of the Screw and The Catcher in the Rye.

The Scarlett Letter, Moby Dick, Wuthering Heights, and (please don't stone me) I absolutely cannot abide Crime and Punishment.

Wuthering Heights
Little Women
Catcher in the Rye

The only book by Hemingway that didn't make me want to throw it across the room was The Old Man and the Sea.

Dune. And The Mists of Avalon. I had been told over and over again how good those books were, and when I read them, they... weren't.

#12 - Oh, I forgot about Moby Dick. That's on my list too. The only reason that Crime and Punishment isn't is that I found some interesting characters in there, but, yeah.

My bugaboo authors are William Faulkner and Theodore Dreiser. Although a couple of Faulkner stories are very nice and creepy.

The only book by Hemingway that didn't make me want to throw it across the room was A Moveable Feast. I loved, and found life changing, The Mists of Avalon and The Grapes of Wrath. My RL book club is reading Little Women next month, groan. I read March in preparation, so I may be able to force myself through it.

I'm not a Charles Dickens fan, but for some reason I want to like him, so I keep trying books by him. A Christmas Carol, nope. Great Expectations, ick. Oliver Twist, no luck. I'm going to retry A Tale of Two Cities someday, because I saw the movie in a social studies class years ago and really liked it. I just need to get past Dicken's long windedness...

Two I recently read and didn't like: Brave New World and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Didn't even finish Dorian.

Oh, Charles Dickens, how could I forget Little Dorrit, whom I wanted to strangle by the end of the book?

I'm one of those who likes Dickens, and two I particularly like are Bleak House and David Copperfield. But I can't get too pumped for Little Dorrit, The Old Curiosity Shop, or The Pickwick Papers.

I really disliked Lord of the Flies, but "most disappointing" has to go to The Sound and the Fury. I'm allergic to Faulkner after that one.

I've yet to get myself to try Wuthering Heights, and the comments here are encouraging me to continue that. :-) As far as I know, The Scarlet Letter is pretty widely despised, maybe because it is so frequently assigned in high school or the equivalent.

While I see the overall value, and found the oft-quoted chapters engrossing, The Brothers Karamazov was a slog for me. Guilty as charged.

Wow, our book club almost picked The Sound and the Fury last time, sounds like I dodged a bullet, lol!

Catcher in the Rye I read this when I was the main character's age, and still thought he was a whiny egocentric little ****.

Dune LOVED all the movie versions, thought the book was boring as hell.

Mists of Avalon felt like a butchery of the Arthurian mythos. Couldn't get past the hockey "wicca in medieval England" vibe.

Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck's editor needed to grow some balls and cut about half the novel. This problem is still prominent, see, for example Steven King.

I actually rather enjoyed Brave New World and Lord of the Flies. To each his own I guess.

I enjoyed Lord of the Flies as well. Reread it just recently and still like it. I found myself thinking about my boys and wondering what if...

>#6, Jim53 ~ I hated Middlemarch! It was just so boring! I did finish it but it was quite the chore.

>#21, Atomicmutant ~ I am a huge fan of Russian lit and love Dostoevsky but I agree with you, that book was a slog! Easily my least favorite of his works. There were moments and characters I really liked but I found the book as a whole to be incredibly tedious. I loved Crime and Punishment however.

And I agree with the comments about Faulkner. I tried, I really did. I read Light in August and The Sound and the Fury and in the end, I decided he was not for me.

The Kristin Lavransdatter series was disappointing for me. I grew up and live in a very Scandinavian area and these books are highly touted as a must read so I read them but the only feeling they inspired in me was annoyance. Kristin was such a whiny, ungrateful character, I don't know how she became such heroine.

How could I forget...anything by Jane Austen.

One word.
Ulysses
Torture.
Pure.
Unadulterated.
Torture.

Great Expectations and David Copperfield, very strange since I loved Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol

Luckily, I read many of the above books before I was really paying very much attention to what I was reading, as I was reading for pure escapism. I loved Thomas Hardy's books and I am sure I could not read them today. I loved Wuthering Heights and the other one when I read them...in junior high school I think, along with Gone With the Wind. I don't think I could read Gone With The Wind today for all of its "oh, I wish the south would live again" vibes.

I also think some of these books really can only be read if, and when, one knows the context in which they were written and originally read.

On the classic sci-fi front, my biggest disappointment has been Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End. Dull. Pointless. No real story, just an idea expanded into novel length via a series of tangentally-related vignettes. Asimov's Foundation has the same problem. (And it's not even that I dislike the authors; I loved Rendezvous with Rama and Asimov's Robots series.)

Couldn't get into Starship Troopers. Not sure why, loved the movie.

I haven't read a lot of the "most hated" listed above, and I've liked most of the classic lit I've read. I will admit that I found Tess of the D'Urbervilles dead depressing . . . but it's been so long since I read it that I hardly remember the plot line.

Oh, I'm hurting at all the great books mentioned so far but I have to agree with Wuthering Heights. What is the attraction supposed to be of a 'hero' I can actually smell through the pages.

#3 - Summary (WITH SPOILERS) - Heathcliff stinks, Cathy doesn't. They fancy the pants off each other. Cathy becomes 'posh' (in the real sense, not the 'posh spice' sense of wearing a lot of black and looking sulky, though she does quite a bit of that too). Cathy marries Edgar (don't ask) and Heathcliff elopes with Isabella(? - or Isabel? can't quite remember). They both have children who go on to repreat the whole tiresome affair. Everyone ends up dead, haunting the house and yelling for each other in the dead of night. Not somewhere you'd want to stay, frankly.

I have been able to get through some more sloggy books by using DailyLit.com. It's an awesome little service where you get a bit of a novel via a daily email. You can get just a few paragraphs or about a page or two. I've read Tess of the D'Urbervilles, David Copperfield, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Frankenstein, Anna Karenina and others this way.

I tried Middlemarch but I couldn't take it even in small bits.

See, now Middlemarch is one of the most fantastic books I've ever read. Didn't like Dorian Gray all that much, but Oscar Wilde's play are still hysterically funny, even on paper.

I think the age at which we read the book plays a huge part. I read Wuthering Heights as a youngin' and loved it. Plus, I had fallen in love with Olivier in that movie as a tween.

yes, Clam, I think the age at which you read the book is a big influence and I also think some "awful" books can be more interesting and worthwhile if read for a class where one learns about the times when it was written, and whether the author was breaking ground. But some books...I can't think of any way to "save" them.

Age plays a huge factor. How many great classics have been "ruined forever" because high schoolers blamed their teachers for assigning them? I have my own disappointments with a few classics, but I certainly do not think it's the fault of the books themselves. These are the works that passed Sturgeon's Law. It's me, not them.

#36 and some works, that might be considered good by others, just push our buttons or hit us at the wrong time.

I hated Wuthering Heights (as well as most romance books0 mainly because I hate heroines who can't make a bloody decision and just pine around letting men treat them like crap. But that's me, not the book.

#34 I definitely agree with you that age plays a part, though for me it often works more the way Phocion suggests - being put off by having tried to read the classics too young (and I completely agree about Middlemarch too - utter bliss. I take my hat off to anyone who fell in love with WH in their teens or tweens 'cos I'm now in my 50's and it's still way too advanced for me (probably at least half a dozen tries by now).

The annoying thing about classics you dislike though (and WH is the perfect example for me) is that, with a few exceptions, you know it's a good book and you, the reader, are the one at fault. Emily Bronte could write, there's no doubt about that, and I have the problem in failing to connect with her writing - so I hate the book twice over: firstly because I hate it, then because I know I shouldn't. Sigh.

Oh, add The Vicar of Wakefield to my list of classics that weren't the greatest.

Edited to add: I see that when I read it back in 1989 I gave 2 out of 4 stars, but for some reason I gave it 3 1/2 stars here on LT. I think I'll have to fix that.

32> LOVED the recap. Hated the book. I have a problem with books where noone has any redeeming qualities. I attempted a few years ago to read the Alice Hoffman reworking of Wuthering Heights called Here on Earth. Yeah it sucked too.

I am hurting here. I absolutely loved and still love Wuthering Heights and Tess of the D'Ubervilles. Jane Eyre I just couldn't feel,Rebecca I tried but not for me. Red Badge of Courage was tedious and such an unlikeable main character. However, that could just be the curse of being essential A-Level reading. The Scarlett Letter was alright but if I wanted to revisit the story I would watch the film again. I am currently trudging very slowly through Crime and Punishment but it has been nearly a year and a half and I have read at least 3 books a month in the in-between time. It will be done.

Oh Jane Eyre, yes I enjoyed that one too. I didn't really like Llittle Women very much either but there were other books she wrote that I liked one about a girl named Polly. I must look it up

Oh man, I had completely blocked Little Women from my memory. Chock that up as one for my disappointing list.

I thought Jane Eyre was great stuff. I read it relatively late in life (in my forties), and with a consciousness of the time when it was written. I found the madwoman in the attic absolutely fascinating. As I read about her, I was thinking, this is just like Gollum: both an external character and a part of the protagonist with which he/she must come to terms in order to succeed. I also see Acheron Hades in The Eyre Affair in a similar role, the madman in Thursday's attic.

I've been trying on and off to read War and Peace. It just moves so darn slowly. I see some of the virtues, even at the slogging pace, but I'm finding it hard to stay excited about.

Lots on here that I hated as well, but agree that Wuthering Heights is the worst.

I also hated

The Turn of the Screw
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
The Grapes of Wrath
The Three Musketeers
The Caves of Steel
The Trial
March
The Tale of Genji
The God of Small Things
Canterbury Tales - yes, I admit it! I hated it!
Doctor Zhivago

Most of these I didn't finish. A few I stuck with and still hated.

I actually really enjoyed all the books I had to read for school. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies and Summer of my German Soldier are three standouts that I remember loving and I've reread the first two in recent years and still love them. The only one I don't remember enjoying was Wuthering Heights but my memory of it is vague and I bought a copy of it recently to reread and see how I feel about it now. These above postings do not bode well...

Little Women I didnt finish I wanted to throw that one across the room. Didnt mind Jane Eyre, Loved Middlemarch I guess because I did find some really funny parts sorry. Loved The Grapes of Wrath. I did start Vanity Fair its okay but something else caught my attention.

So I guess with everything to each his own. My Mother even made a comment on how fickle I am on things I like and things I dislike.

OK, I think The Tale of Genji is an example of a point of view I am trying to develop. It is not a good book in the sense that I really enjoyed reading it, or in the sense that it changed me in some important way, or even that it was really a wonderful example of good writing. It is interesting to read, at least parts of it, because it is the first novel written in Japan. It is a picture of a Japanese point of view that we don't get often. For that reason, alone, I think it is a worthwhile novel and is due some attention. Maybe that is an example of how I might think about a lot of these books listed here.

Thanks everyone for such an interesting list and discussion.

Wow, I reread Little Women recently and just adored it. Probably more than when I was little. Loved Rebecca too.

38: I'm twenty-two and still consider myself too young to take on James Joyce and his True Art in Incomprehensible tome. He holds the special place in my heart of being the only classics author I'm actually intimidated by; though, again, it's my fault and not his.

I loved Little Women (first read when I was 8 or 9, I think, and reread often -- but I love all Alcott. I also love Dickens and Austen and Hawthorne and the Bronte sisters (all of which have been mentioned as dislikes above). However, I keep trying to read Henry James -- it feels like something I should really enjoy -- and failing. As Photocion says, my fault, not his.

The differences among us are real eye-openers. I loved Little Women, too - just read it for the first time, and Rebecca, and all of Jane Austen, and Tess and The Trial and The Three Musketeers, and others mentioned here, and I wasn't disappointed by ones like Brave New World.

I do have sympathy with those dumping on Ulysses; it's a tough slog. In Beowulf on the Beach the author suggests that if you take all of Joyce's "look at me, I'm a genius" writing out of it, there's a good book in there. Some would say there would be nothing left. :-)

Finnegans Wake is either all "look at me, I'm a genius" or the best literary joke of all time.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy: Gentleman

Dull, supposed to be humorous but not even vaguely amusing. I find that, with a very few exception, humor rarely ages well. Tragedy, on the other hand, tends to be timeless.

Oooh, the worst one ever - I couldn't get past the first sentence, much less the first page.

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett

"I have received your esteemed favour of the 13th ultimo, whereby it appeareth, that you have perused those same Letters, the which were delivered unto you by my friend, the reverend Mr Hugo Behn; and I am pleased to find you think they may be printed with a good prospect of success; in as much as the objections you mention, I humbly conceive, are such as may be redargued, if not entirely removed?

And, first, in the first place, as touching what prosecutions may arise from printing the private correspondence of persons still living, give me leave, with all due submission, to observe, that the Letters in question were not written and sent under the seal of secrecy; that they have no tendency to the mala fama, or prejudice of any person whatsoever; but rather to the information and edification of mankind: so that it becometh a sort of duty to promulgate them in usum publicum."

ARRRRRRRRRRRGH!

I read novels from all three Brontë sisters (Emily, Anne, Charlotte) this year and found myself wondering what Emily had in mind when she wrote Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre is clearly meant to be a best-seller and Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is meant to provide moral edification and, perhaps, spur some legal reforms, but WH seems as if it's daring the reader to dislike it. It's like a 19th century literary version of an Eminem album: a middle finger directed at everything considered proper and right. And that's as far as I'll go in my defense of WH for now.

I'll bring the knives out for Joyce, though. I didn't care for Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man when I read it in high school, but figured I just wasn't getting it. I reread it this year and still found it tiresome. I get a lot of what Joyce does in the book, such as the way the style changes with the main character's maturation; and it does have some lovely parts. But none of this saves it from the fact that Stephen Daedalus is such an insipid, pompous, dull little wanker that forcing your reader to experience an entire novel in his head has got to count as some form of sadism.

Perhaps it's because it's been years since I've read it (and need to revisit), but wasn't Wuthering Heights supposed to be the deconstruction of girls-want-bad-boys trope? Actually showing what would happen if a woman tried pining for a terrible, abusive man?

I understand there's a bit of a misaimed fandom, especially in recent times due to Meyers not doing the research herself, but perhaps we were supposed to find Heathcliff and Catherine's relationship destructive and their characters unlikable. A bit of a wake-up call to impressionable girls, if you would?

I don't think I've seen any book maligned so much on LT as Wuthering Heights. Fortunately I have not read it and very likely never will. Surely the teachers who teach this book have some reason for it.

57 looks like a good guess.

WildMaggie, I somewhat with your statement, "humor rarely ages well. Tragedy, on the other hand, tends to be timeless."

I think, especially when we read humor from previous centuries, it's very difficult since we don't always know what they were talking about.

I remember reading a line Byron wrote, in one of his letters (if I remember correctly) about a mutual friend of theirs being "a Methodist." It was a bit confusing until I later read that, in Byron's day, being a "Methodist" was slang for being "gay."

But all the suffering folks have done with WH is worthwhile in that it sets up the fabulous group therapy session for the WH characters in one of Jjasper Fforde's Thursday Next books (can't remember if it was the second or third).

After Jane, my next favorite Bronte is Villette, especially the storm sequence.

Morph, I actually enjoyed Clinker, by regarding it as unintentional (or in some cases, semi-intentional) comedy. I found it one of those things that's so gruesome that it's fun.

being a "Methodist" was slang for being "gay." Too funny, I'll have to remember that one.

Years ago my book club read both Wuthering Heights and Here On Earth and it lead to an interesting discussion. I've never understood women who like the "bad boys". Why would you intentionally go after someone who's bad for you? But there were several surprising women in this group who did just that - successful, religious, good mother women who pined for the bad boys. I gather Heathcliff is based on the charming, creative, intelligent total a**hole Bronte brother, so I can understand Emily's writing a book about someone who was so important in her life, someone she hated but can't help loving. It's the American way to root for the underdog, and Heathcliff does start out that way, but for someone to keep the attachment after he's matured into such a ruthless character - well that's what the spousal support group connected to Alcoholics Anonymous is for.

#60 -- Oh, I love that scene!

Oh Joyce, you do warm my heart sometimes! I get so sick of hearing young girls saying that some guy or other is 'boring' because he's 'too nice'. For most healthy-minded girls, the first time they get unintentionally involved with a 'bad guy' will be enough to put them off for life - the ones that doesn't work for are in deep trouble and my heart aches for them. And that's exactly way I don't like WH.

But, really, wasn't that the message: Bad-boy love is destructive and will end you? People should not blame Brontë if the message went over girls' heads.

Yes, Phocion, I think that was the message, and I think girls and women got so seduced by Heathcliff that they ignored the message. In fact, I think Bronte did I fine job or presenting it, while Meyers with her vampires does not. On the contrary, throughout the book she makes her bad boy irresistible and her yearning female into a psychotic in need of meds.

Thanks, Booksloth.

#64 Oh yes, no doubt that's at least part of the message (though I think Bronte glorifies the whole 'unrequited love' thing) but if you've got the message already there's not much fun in reading about it. I know that's my fault, I know it's a great book and I'm not blaming Bronte at all.

Phocion, you make a wonderful point. When I first read it, I thought it was going to be this grand sweeping romance with star-crossed lovers because that's how it has always been portrayed but what I found instead was a romance between two horrible people, self-destructive, indulgent, cruel people. I don't think of Cathy as being much better than Heathcliff in a lot of ways. She didn't do quite the damage he did because...well...you know, I don't want to give anything away... but she was not on a good path. I think if you can look at it as more of a cautionary tale or not even that, just looking at it as a story of destructive love, a dark, dark story instead of a great romance, maybe it wouldn't cause such negative reactions. It's not a Jane Austin story where the bad guy isn't really all that bad and the love of a good woman will make him fit for society, this is a story of two terribly selfish people whose relationship destroys everyone in it's path. I can't say I loved it because it was so different than what I was expecting but I do find it infinitely more interesting than anything by Jane Austin wrote or other typical romance novels.

just looking at it as a story of destructive love, a dark, dark story instead of a great romance

That's what I thought when I kept seeing the movie Never Let Me Go advertised as a great love story. I'm sure Ishiguro had no such intention, but fortunately it was the ads that were off, the movie did a good job of reflecting the books real message.

Just an FYI, I loved Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and still reread 'The Dead' every once in a while. Ulysses was torture because I was in grad school and not getting enough sleep when I tried to work my way through it.

The Diary of a Nobody, George Grossmith - I just can't see why people claim to find it so amusing. I'm sure there are more good laughs in Wuthering Heights.

ETA - I didn't mean to imply that Grossmith was a 'nobody', by the way, but I'm too lazy to rearrange it now.

I've been reading on another thread about how wonderful The Diary of a Nobody is, but when I read one of the reviews on the main page I have to say, not my kind of nobody, thanks. He sounds a bit too much like Ignatius J Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces, my least liked book ever.

Just for perspective, I feel I need to confess: I am such a dork. Or maybe I need to say - I was a dork when I read Wuthering Heights. I saw it as a great, unsuccessful love and felt terribly sad for both of the main characters. A big tragedy. I did not see them, then, as self-centered idiots. I think I could see that now were I to read it again, from the perspective of a senior citizen. Hahahah

I am sure I would have missed the point in Never Let Me Go too but perhaps I'll watch the movie and see what the result is.

I'll keep you posted.

#42, polly, the book you're thinking about is An Old Fashioned Girl with the title character being named Polly. It's one of my favourite of Alcott.

I'm with you maggie1944. I loved Wuthering Heights when I first read it as a teenybopper, fell in love with it and read everything Bronte that I could get my hands on. I thought the two characters were star-crossed lovers too and the whole thing terribly romantic.

But when I read it again a couple of years ago, after reading all the negative threads here on LT, I found I still loved it. I love Emily's writing, it's so atmospheric, the moors seem to come alive so vividly, the creepy house, the characters, are all so beautifully drawn by Emily's craft. And perhaps it's just the contrariness in me, but I love the story because of Heathcliff and Cathy, they're so strong-willed, determined, selfish - so completely opposite to what we think of as a hero and heroine. Nothing wishy-washy about them.

As for a classic I was disappointed in? Pilgrim's Progress!! Ugh. Ick. Phitooey!!!

Although it was well written, the title character in Jane Eyre completely lacks charm. She spends most of the time regarding herself as morally and intellectually superior to every other character, moaning she has no educated friends to talk to, and describing her 'austere' dresses in vivid detail.

American Psycho is by far the dullest book ever written. Considering the main character is a brutal serial killer, that says a lot.

Well, luckily one person's most hated books can still comfortable be another person's best loved ones, and we can all still babble on contentedly.

Someone tell me why they still make kids read The Red Pony? I get why they read Of Mice and Men and The Pearl, but The Red Pony?

#76 I couldn't agree more. I worship at the feet of the great Mr Steinbeck but I don't think The Red Pony is suitable for someone even of my age, never mind a child.

I am not sure about "The Red Pony" though I find it an interesting study in groping for a sense of importance and purpose in wildly different ways (but wanting the same goal).

It seems so "American" in its longing for "significant", I especially feel for the grandfather who simply doesn't know HOW to tell his story so that people will relate to it.

I'm a fan of the movie, made by the usually low-budget Republic Pictures - it emphasizes the aspirations in some of the most eye-popping technicolor possible - and with blaring Aaron Copland musical scoring.

Katylit: You beat me to the punch in directing Polly to An Old Fashioned Girl. I like it too, but the first half and the second half are really two different books, aren't they?

I have read Little Women many times, so as a consequence, I have never felt the need to read Pilgrim's Progress.

MerryMary, that's why I was so pleased when Pilgrim's Progress was one of the books in my first year university English course, 'cause I'd read Little Women so many times and thought, finally! I'll read the book they're always talking about. But even my beloved, wonderful, could-do-no-wrong English prof couldn't improve PP for me. I still found it a slog from start to finish.

I love the differences we all have, one's enjoyment is another's horror. The spice of life.

#79 & 80 - It's been a long time since I've read Little Women, so MerryMary, when I read your post my mind began reeling trying to remember how LW was an allegory of PP. Wha??? Then katylit saved me. :)

Francis Polliniʻs Night was so impressive that it was almost impossible for his next book to live up to my expectations. His Glover was the disappointment,
but was still a good novel, if you could free it from the
"his next one will be tremendous!" syndrome.

The same pattern with Richard Yatesʻs Revolutionary Road > (whatever was the next -- I donʻt even remember the title!) He did write a very good one later, on a mental patient shuttling in and out of institutions and therapies. (Forgot the title of that one, too!), but it was well done.

Thucydidesʻs {Peloponnesian War is disappointing
if you read Herodotus first; that is, if you go into T. with the idea "H. was a great historian and T.
is regarded as even greater, and also more knowledgeable about his topic." Your head may regard T. as greater, but your heart wonʻt.

#76 - 78, you guys just reminded me that I also The Red Pony for school. I'd completely forgotten. It's even hazier in my mind than Wuthering Heights. All I remember is the quote 'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth' related to it somehow.

I seem to agree with one half of the masses! I hated Tristram Shandy - hated it! So proudof myself for finishing it.

Also couldn't get on with The Scarlett Letter, Catcher in the Rye or the Grapes of Wrath - the later I still haven't finished and really must.

On the other hand I love Dickens and Vanity Fair and adored The Sound and the Fury. Wuthering Heights falls somewhere in the middle ground I think!

#83 You've obviously, very wisely, blanked out the trauma.

#70 haha Yes I completely forgot about this one. This is a perfect example of prim and proper British snobbery at its best.

Hate all Hemmingway. Love all Faulkner I've read (people really don't like The Sound & The Fury? It's genius.) Love: Middlemarch, Vanity Fair and Ulysses.

I sheepishly have to admit that I LOVED "The Swiss Family Robinson"...I had four brothers and a dad that insisted we know everything from how to field a hard ground ball to how to adjust the carburator on the tractor.

It was the Disney movie version I disliked...pirates, indeed...

I am sorry to see so many people disappointed with Grapes of Wrath. Maybe living in his neck of the woods and frequently seeing migrant workers in the fields gives it more meaning to me.

On 87:

Iʻm far from loving all of Faulkner and hating all of Hemingway, but a sort of test I ran on the two of them years ago made me think that H. was something
of a "slick" writer*, whereas Faulkner, like his style or not, was a deadly serious writer.

The substance of the "test" was to read Ch. 1 of both
F.ʻs Light in August and H.ʻs The Sun also Rises --just casually tying to decide which novel to take home for weekend reading. I unhesitatingly chose Light in August as the one it would be more worth speedning a weekend on. (Not that I finished it in one w eekend!). Didnʻt read "Rises" until about 20 years later. Good, but not iup to the standardʻs of Light in August.

*slick: Ironicaly, in real life, it was Faulkner who
made more attempts at slick writing -- hunting stories, published in the Saturday Evening Post

I'm so glad Kathy Acker's Literary Madness (3 novels . . . ) isn't a classic!

On 91:

Speaking of ʻnot-quite-classics", I remember in
Llbrary School, the Humanities teacher said that
the once famous Jalna series was "very trashy".

I took a dislike to the teacherʻs critical abilities, because the Jalna saga was a great favorite of my mother, and even I thought she (the teacher) was under-rating it.

#89 I live very near "Steinbeck country" and it's possible to have compassion for migrant farm workers and not like The Grapes of Wrath. It's not the message I don't like, it's the way it's conveyed. Too heavyhanded and condescending. Still, points for bringing the subject up.

I think the Steinbeck book is an excellent example of a book which, in its context, makes sense; but, it does not age well. Knowing how little most people in the US of A knew (in the 1950s) about what happened to the fine farming folks of Arkansas, Kansas, Texas, etc. during the Great Depression, I believe the book is a piece of gold. But that was then. This is now. And if I were to pick it up now, I expect I'd think it was a melodrama.

Given we're still feeling The Recession That Would Not Relent, if someone reads this book and finds it too melodramatic, it's clear they have not felt the blunt of economic turmoil or cannot sympathize with those who have.

I absolutely love Wuthering Heights, though that may be because I read it when I was quite young, probably around 12. I've come to see how truly unappealing the main characters are, particularly Heathcliff, but I've never seemed to be able to dislike him. I also like all of the Jane Austen novels apart from Emma.
However, I absolutely despise Lord of the Flies and The Catcher in the Rye, both of which I've recently had to read for an English class, unfortunately.

Lord of the Flies was so gawdawful that I had to force myself to finish it.

A Tale of Two Cities still makes me angry. I want to burn every copy before impressionable children can stumble across them and think this is good writing.

For Whom the Bell Tolls stank on ice. See comment above for desired disposal.

I just thought Grapes of Wrath was super boring. I couldn't force myself to read another page.

What I dislike is the attitude that "Hey, it was written at least fifty years ago, so it must be good!" What I dislike just as much is how public schools seem to be pushing crummy kid lit instead.

That's kind of how I feel about Jane Austin. Not that I dislike them perse, they're perfectly fine I guess but they are basically romance novels masquerading as literature simply because they're old.

>99 DeusExLibrus:, 100 Oh yeah! Like being asked to read that horrible pot-boiler Uncle Tom's Cabin because it's "significant." It's gawdawful, and if its equivalent was published today, the English teachers would be out en masse with torches and pitchforks.

Jane Austen's sisters are busy cluttering the shelves of the bookstore via Harlequin and its many imitators. Eccchhh.

I am scratching my head a bit. Reading Uncle Tom's Cabin as "good literature" is silly. No one thinks it is good writing, or a good novel, or at least, no one I've ever heard talking about it. But as a snap shot of how people thought at that time; as an example of what people considered when they thought about slavery and the society in the southern states; what people's world view was at that time leading to one of the most important events in US history and just understanding what leads to war... not to mention the role of women in creating public opinion then...the book is a gold mine of value.

I struggle with whether I like books when I can't find any one in them I like, or even believe, but I do know I have read books which I didn't like as entertainment but I was very glad to have read it for a variety of other reasons.

>102 maggie1944: Being required to read a text because it was significant when it was written is of questionable utility. A synopsis and an acknowledgment of the significance of the work in the context of its times seems to make more sense, given that most people will not become scholars in need of immersion in the nitty-gritty of another time's pop culture.

I am not at all glad I had to read the entire book. It was a ghastly chore to read it when I already knew the basic story from a synopsis handed out to the class and was, in the textbook I was reading, shown the quite startling number of ways it was significant in 1851. That was plenty good enough for a high-school class.

But I am perfectly willing to be in the minority!

ooops, an oversight on my part: I in no way whatsoever wish to visit high school students with reading books which are not, in themselves, attractive to people of that age and time. I agree that more Shakespeare has been ruined because of high school teachers than can be accounted. And so on.... I would have perhaps excerpts available but not the whole thing.

I just want to state I think there are books which are valuable to read beyond just reading for enjoyment and personal satisfaction.

I also grow tired of the argument that because something is old it is irrelevant. I've heard the discussions that Moby-Dick is too out-of-touch with today's reality, which is particularly hilarious. Blah blah "Dickens doesn't age well," "Shakespeare's English is too difficult to understand," "It's too long," "Paid by the letter," blah blah.

There is no relationship between quality and older works. What people tend to forget is that these are the works that survived because of their quality (on top of popularity and some propaganda); the works that were held back by Sturgeon's Law are now either out of print or obscure, and typically their quality reflects why.

One of my English teachers in high school made a decision for our last book-read that I think should be pushed more often: choose between two. We had Dracula and Frankenstein; if you did not care for one, you had another choice. Do this more often: Pride and Prejudice or Wuthering Heights; Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina; etc.

>#102, Maggie ~ I too have read books that I didn't particularly like but still found value in. A good example would be some of the Russian stuff I've read. I read a lot of Soviet era lit, most of the novels I read are intelligently written, full of devastating satire and longing and grief but every now and then, I run into something that is just pure government propaganda. They are written with absolutely no heart, no artistry, no depth and no conscience and while I don't like them, I find them fascinating on a historical and sociological level. I wouldn't want to read a lot of them, I don't seek them out but when I do hit on one, I stick it out and it adds to my understanding and appreciation of the culture and psychology of that era and in that way, have a sort of value even if it's not an artistic one. I never had to read Uncle Tom's Cabin though, my sons did and both hated it, I don't think either of them got much out of it but I'm sure it does reach some of the kids.

I just want to state I think there are books which are valuable to read beyond just reading for enjoyment and personal satisfaction.

Seconded! I didn't at all enjoy reading The King James Bible, but it's a foundation text of the modern Western world and so I did. I am astonished at how much of our mental furniture comes form that translation! Almost always unacknowledged, even unknown, to the people possessed of the furniture, too.

I detest Dickens. But I am glad I've read the books I've read.

#105 Moby Dick out of touch? Now they just call it OCD.

I didn't have to read Uncle Tom's Cabin but I voluntarily did last year and loved it. I was very impressed that she wrote it at the time she did and was pleased with my country that we could be moved enough by it to want to end slavery. I was assigned The Grapes of Wrath in college, also loved it. I can't see any way it could be considered boring. I hate some Dickens and like others. Count me as one of the few who enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities.

There are all kinds of different ways of enjoying books and literary merit is only one of them (though I think it's a very important one). Another way is to enjoy the book either for its historical significance (eg Uncle Tom's Cabin, which pretty much changed the world) or for its setting within that history.

Jane Austen's books, for example, can be read by someone with no historical knowledge as fluffy romances (albeit well-written ones), whereas they are something very different when you know more about the context. I'm not knocking anyone for not liking Jane - if there's one thing I cannot bear it's the attitude that having different taste makes you some kind of moron - but her books are actually full of politics and cultural observations that are fascinating to a historian. You can read in a textbook about the economic position of women from the regency to the 20th century and what entailment was all about but P&P gives you a much better understanding of women's economic dependence on their husbands, fathers or even ancestors long gone.

Yes, I loved Uncle Tom's Cabin if only for its significance and political importance, probably could not live at all if Grapes of Wrath didn't exist and count A Tale of Two Cities as one of my favourites by Dickens.

@ 101&102; I am so pleased to read that opinion. I was given a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin and was left reeling with the style of writting. As a piece of history , and which such social importance, I appreciate it. But as a novel it was poor.

As I watched this thread grow, and started typing a reply of some books I stopped reading early, I realized that I really can't 'officially' complain about any, because I simply refuse to continue a book I do not like, (or even a class that forced us to read a book I did not like in college) - and I usually determine this within 20-30 pages. At such a short reading, I feel it's unfair to criticize a book as 'bad' or even a 'big disappointment' - as how can I be disappointed with something I wasn't much hinging my hopes on in the first place? I would at most say simply "not for me." I can comment on books hated in high school, as that is truly the last time I couldn't escape from a book (note : my college allowed us to drop classes up to a day before the final without any penalty - and I did this repeatedly with classes outside of my major that bored me): Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace, The Stranger and The Centaur. I especially loathe the last of these - as I remember half the novel talking about his skin disorder.

Thanks, JPB, for your comments. I laughed out loud about remembering a book which was largely about a skin disorder. And, I also admire a little humility in front of the great big universe and all that it could offer us, were we only able and willing to play along. I don't know if you'll know what I mean...but your post cheered me up this morning.

#113 - You're welcome!

As to why I loathed each of those books:

The Stranger - To me it seemed written to establish a mood, or create a reaction, vs. trying to tell a story - and that it also tried too hard to 'seem aloof/cool' (the book itself). The height of literary arrogance (at least to me) - I hold it as the most annoying book I ever read to completion.

The others - Growing-up stories never did anything for me, even when growing up. To me, from an early age, the real world was: "Make friends, both boys and girls; have fun with both; enjoy whatever hobby I wanted to, as it was my time to spend, do well in school to get into college; figure out a career path that will provide some financial stability; find someone to love and stay with them" There was no "crisis of being" that seemed to be implied by these books. My 1970s-era secondary school seemed intent on believing one existed, and had us read book after book to help us "get through the troubles of growing up." They took it all so seriously and it is likely that my distaste for this type of book may be rooted (at least partially) in how much I hated my secondary school acting in our collective 'best interest' in trying to help us cope with problems that many of us were not facing.

I am trying to fill the holes of my apparently feeble education by reading some of these classics. I am presently reading Dracula and finding it much more readable than I imagined. When I'm looking for what next to read I pop over to the 1001 Books to Read forum.

I too loved Uncle Tom's Cabin it really shed alot of light on the way of thinking for that period of time.

I'm with >110 Booksloth: Booksloth on Jane Austen. The intelligence, wit and insight reward re-reading, and the snapshots of that time give reason to appreciate our time more, however much farther we have to go.

>105 Phocion: Phocion's idea of giving a choice to students seems like an improvement over take it or take it.

Being a fan of trying to understand history - I feel it is imperative to be exposed to the written word in its time to see how it reflected human culture. Therefore, I have no problems forcing kids to read what is "atrocious" to modern sensibilities.

But then I would read examples of bad literature from penny dreadfuls to Sears' catalogs just to see what was important at the time.

JPB - The Stranger really wasn't 'trying' to be that way, Camus was an existentialist, he was that way. I loved it, btw, and thought it captured that belief system/philosophy perfectly.

Here's the big one, it's considered the first novel, or some such thing. Don Quixote. Tried it twice. I'm sure it has much to say about the time period, but I just couldn't continue.

#119 - to each their own. But as far as existentialism goes, having read a few for my degree in Philosophy (including a whole bunch of Kierkegaard), I found them to have some very clear thoughts, but to be rather pompous a**es in their private (and some of their public) writings. Maybe it was the nature of the beast; to express such 'radical' (for the time) thought, they had to be. Who knows. Either way, I did not like The Stranger. But I am glad you did. :D

You're not the only one Citizenjoyce - I couldn't finish Don Quixote either. It bored me to tears and I found the prose to be circular. Crazy.

#129, 122 ~ I did finish it but I didn't really enjoy it. That was back when I had to finish any book I started no matter how bored I was, it was a pride thing I guess. I have since gotten over that. As you said, Bookmarque, it was just so...circular...I might have enjoyed it if it had been about a third or a fourth of it's size...maybe. I had a similar experience reading The Good Soldier Švejk, it had it's clever moments but it just went on and on, telling basically the same story, in the same way over and over again. That one I did quit reading.

The Magus was like that. I got about 3/4 of the way through and called it quits. How many times can the same guy get fooled in the same way over and over and over? I wanted to drown him to put us out of our misery. It was like Fowles was chuffed with his own genius of an inside joke and had to keep replaying the moment...like talking to hear yourself talk.

#124 - Good call, Bookmarque, I had forgotten about The Magus. It certainly didn't help that he kept asserting how he had it all figured out just before the rug pulled out from under him, yet again.

Exactly! What a doofus. I still have the book, so if I'm feeling especially masochistic, I might try it again.

On 124-125:

I suppose youʻve heard the Woody Allen anecdote:

Asked what he would do differently, if he had his whole life to live over again, he answered:
"Possibly, I would pass up seeing (the film)
The Magus.*

*Another version , more complimentary to the film, has him saying, "I wouldnʻt see The Magus THREE times!"

Ulysses by James Joyce is without doubt the worst "classic" I've ever encountered. I've read it twice, studied it in university lit class, and can appreciate the genius it took to write it - but I hate it.

I couldn't finish that book! I got through 100 pages but then had to give up. I do not handle stream of consciousness novels very well, that's just a limitation I have. I am a slave to some kind of linear plot. As hard as I try to just relax and let it all flow over and through me I inevitably, subconsciously try to make some kind of sense to it and get ridiculously anxious when I can't.

I don't know if Infinite Jest would be considered a modern classic or not, but it certainly has a multitude of advocates and is one of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, the Guardian 1000 and Time's All-Time 100 Novels.

And it's title is marvelously accurate. Infinite, in that I will never finish it. And the jest is there in abundance; it's just that I resent being its butt.

To memory, Great Expectations, which is rather ironic.

Over the years, I've often thought that some of the "classics" I've had to slog through would have made excellent short stories.

Being one of those folks who insists on reading every blasted word the author wrote, and the editors/publishers allowed to remain in the final text--by the time I finished the ones that I found painful--I wanted to get out my blue pencil and start slicing and dicing!

However, some I've read again, and found an appreciation for. Others, I've read again, and wanted a gross of blue pencils!

I read Infinite Jest this year and it's without a doubt one of the best books I've read in my entire life. I really want to start reading it again, but feel like it's best to wait....if you've read it, you know why.

Wuthering Heights. I hated that book with a passionate intensity.

Romeo and Juliet There are some Shakespeare plays I like, this one just never grabbed me.

135: It loses a lot of its charm when If-You-Know-What-I-Mean Mercutio is killed, and the comedy turns into a tragedy.

That's a hard moment in the play, no question about it. He's such an interesting character; there's usually an "oh no" reaction in the audience when he's killed, even when people know it's coming.