For fun: Your Dread "Classic"

benbradley

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Many of these were on my "have to read them" lists but I read very few of them in high school (they weren't necessary, it turns out, for the GED test I finally took). I actually somewhat enjoyed "Of Mice and Men" but the one I really didn't get was "The Old Man and The Sea." WTF was that supposed to be about? (Of course I was an "emotional retard" in high school and there were a lot of things I didn't get - maybe if I read it now...)
I hate a lot of classics. My compy died, so I'll have to relist them
...
*Animal Farm by Orwell was so horrible after an awesome 1984.
I actually enjoyed Animal Farm on my first reading as an adult. I sought it out after reading 1984 for the second time. It has some interesting quotable sections and "slogans" and such ("Four legs good, two legs bad"), and someone here on AW uses a quote from it in their sig.
*Nemsis, Foundation series, etc. by Asimov. I don't know why I don't like him.
I've always been a big SF fan but I never enjoyed Asimov's novel-length fiction either.
 

Phantasmagoria

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Joyce, Joyce, Joyce

Last but not least, the dreaded Awakening by Kate Chopin. I hated it SO much. Flames. Flames, from the side of my head, heaving, breathless, heaving breaths...

Blondchen, say it aint so! :O I loved the Awakening, lol. Also loved the Lord of the Rings, which seems quite unpopular in this thread (once I got past Tom Bombadil, anyway)! But I have to say- "Ulysses" by James Joyce? Totally my Dread Classic. I haven't attempted to read it in awhile, so maybe I'd feel differently now, but it just struck me as sooooo pretentious.

I read a quote once on Joyce that reinforced this suspicion, and I wish I could remember it exactly because it was hilarious- something to the effect that Joyce was proud one day because he had produced seven great words- now, if only he could figure out what order he should put them in...
 

darrtwish

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I hated Lord of the Flies and wanted to burn To Kill a Mockingbird. Couldn't stand either one.
 

Blondchen

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Blondchen, say it aint so! :O I loved the Awakening, lol. Also loved the Lord of the Rings, which seems quite unpopular in this thread (once I got past Tom Bombadil, anyway)! But I have to say- "Ulysses" by James Joyce? Totally my Dread Classic. I haven't attempted to read it in awhile, so maybe I'd feel differently now, but it just struck me as sooooo pretentious.

Let me repeat: I hated it SO much. Flames. Flames, from the side of my head, heaving, breathless, heaving breaths...

But I love Joyce, so I guess we're even. ;)
 

AmandaAcidic

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I hated To Kill A Mocking Bird. I enjoy reading classics and trying to expand my literary status, but I couldn't stand this book. I felt like clawing my eyes out the entire time in class.
 

aruna

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In descending order, most hated first:

Wuthering Heights. Absolute dysfunction masquerading as love.

The Sun Also Rises. Empty people having empty conversations.

The Great Gatsby. Pointless beyond belief.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The Emporor's New Clothes, like everything else by Joyce (nothing of which I have read, but I KNOW IT!!!!)

On the other hand: For Whom the Bell Tolls is my favourite all time classic, Robert Jordan my favourite all-time hero. NO Mary Sue!
Loved Jane Eyre and Villete.
Recently read Great Expectations, and enjoyed it.
Adored To Kill a Mockingbird
 

mab

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You're all breaking my heart- I love C18th/19th writing so I loved most of the classics listed here.

What I do hate, though is Joyce's Ulysees. Pretentious nonsense. I'm not too keen on a lot of DH Lawrence. Bowels this, bowels that. Hmm. I guess a lot of 'modern classics' get up my nose. I do like Gatsby though.

Oh, are we allowed poetry? I vote wordsworth, although I love the other romantics. He's such a chore.
 
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I'll decline to pass judgement on books I've tried to read and just never managed to finish.

One classic that I got through and fucking hated (sorry for the swears, but damn...) with every fibre of my being was Jane Eyre.

Charlotte, you oughtta be truly, deeply ashamed of that half-assed deus-ex-machina coincidence-as-a-piss-poor-plot-device shit you got going on.

I really, really hate that book.

No, really.

I mean it.
 

Samantha's_Song

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I'm glad I'm not the only one! i never got as far into it as to find any plot or actual story, it was the writing that put me off, it was dull and boring and had about as much passion as a limp dick does :D


I'll decline to pass judgement on books I've tried to read and just never managed to finish.

One classic that I got through and fucking hated (sorry for the swears, but damn...) with every fibre of my being was Jane Eyre.

Charlotte, you oughtta be truly, deeply ashamed of that half-assed deus-ex-machina coincidence-as-a-piss-poor-plot-device shit you got going on.

I really, really hate that book.

No, really.

I mean it.
 
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Oh, and don't even get me started on that "Reader, he only married me when he was blind because I'm so ugly and yeah, he's a bigamist but that's okay because I luuuuurve him," crap! :rant:
 

katiemac

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The Grapes of Wrath. But Of Mice and Men is one of my favorites.
 

Clio

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I agree with whoever mentioned Victorian lit. I just can't get into it.

It's very 'curate's egg'. No matter what people say, some Victorian literature is just plain awful. However, some is exquisite. And that's not just a matter of taste. There are some very convoluted plots and poorly structured works. Anyone who has slogged through any of Disraeli's novels would groan. I took four months to wade through Coningsby. Now, if only someone in the British Government had taken him on one side and said, 'Don't give up the day job, Benji, old boy!'
 
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Clio

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I'm not too keen on a lot of DH Lawrence. Bowels this, bowels that. Hmm. I guess a lot of 'modern classics' get up my nose.

Sorry to double post - I still can't get my multiple quotes thingy to work.

I loathe Lawrence. I know exactly what he is trying to say, but Oh, my god! - the way he chooses to say it.... And as for that bloody poem of his, Something geraniums and godly mignonette, or whatever it was....

He is an author that should be seen and not read - he dramatises very well.
 

rugcat

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I pretty much like every one of the classics that have been mentioned here as books people hate. Some I love, some not so much, but they all have something of enduring value to them.

The one thing they all have in common is that they're complex books that ask a lot of the reader.

Some people hate jazz, and only listen to rock. Jazz is complex; it takes some effort. I love rock, but it's just one aspect of music, easily accessible.

Just because a book is a classic doesn't necessarily mean it's great, but come on. Pride & Prejudice boring? Wuthering Heights dysfunctional? We've already had a thread about LOTR being a terrible book.

And just for the record, Heart Of Darkness is a work of transcendent genius. So those of you who hate it can ignore all of my stated opinions about literature in general.
 

aruna

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James Joyce. Oh, James Joyce.
I am the only person in the world who "just doesn't get" his style.

Nope. I don't either.

Just because a book is a classic doesn't necessarily mean it's great, but come on. Pride & Prejudice boring? Wuthering Heights dysfunctional?

I didn't say the book was dysfunctional. I said the "love story" in it is. She is still a brilliant writer, as is Charlotte.
 

rugcat

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I didn't say the book was dysfunctional. I said the "love story" in it is. She is still a brilliant writer, as is Charlotte.
I stand corrected. And yes, that love is dysfunctional with a capital D. Of course, if they had their heads on straight, there wouldn't have been much of a story.
 
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I can never resist correcting people who say WH is a love story. It sure as hell doesn't fit with any definition of love I know!

It's a story of passion (in the true definition of the word; suffering), obsession and hatred.

I mean, no one ever seems to raise the subject of Heathcliff digging up Cathy's body fifteen years or so after she died just to see her again, do they?

Love? Ha!
 

Calla Lily

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I hate WH with an enduring passion, but it's still better that Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Boooooring. (I went through a Bronte Sisters phase in college and read all their books. I only want some of that time back. :))
 

mab

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All this Bronte-bashing is making me cry. Tenant of Wildfell Hall was totally ahead of its time. I have some issues with how she chose to structure it (double frame narrative -WTF?) but it was revolutionary to show such a strong female character defying the sexual mores of the day.

*and breathe...*

I am a heathen in my own way...I did a module in Renaissance Literature which I have basically blanked out, I didn't get it, I didn't enjoy it...I may as well have spent the time sat quietly in a dark room. Donne, Kyd, Webster, Jonson, Milton and their ilk were probably geniuses but if someone mentions them I panic and wonder what the hell they were on about. Its only in the C18th things start to make sense for me.

(Shakespeare is in his own category of course, I like him. To watch, not to read though)
 
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I'm conflicted. Love Wuthering Heights, hate Jane Eyre with a passion. I'd happily burn every copy if I could.
 

aruna

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I'm conflicted. Love Wuthering Heights, hate Jane Eyre with a passion. I'd happily burn every copy if I could.

I'm the other way around!;)

Whatever one may think of the books, we have to admire the passion and courage of the sisters to do something so very masculine as ***GASP*** WRITE NOVELS!!!!

For their time they were revolutionary. And they did not have an easy life.
Remember, it was their brother Brandon who was the favoured one in every respect, and he was the one who never published a word!

I went to schoolin Yrkshire near where they lived, and I remember visiting their home on a school trip.