DarcyB Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 For me...Kafka's Metamorphosis I hated that book with some strong hate, and I think I only hate Clockwork Orange more LOL What are other books that are considered 'classic' literature that you just can't understand why they are? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forget-Me-Not Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 James Joyce and his 'stream of consciousness' writing. Makes me want to poke my eyes out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyFourSons Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Madame Bovary I just can't care at all about the heroine, even when she kills herself I feel no sympathy for her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Moby Dick Wuthering Heights Anything by Hemingway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 I agree with James Joyce and Madame Bovary. I've never read Kafka or Moby Dick and have no plans to do so. Hemingway is rather hit-or-miss for me. I hate, hate, hate Beowulf though I do like the Rosemary Sutcliff children's version. Other classics I dislike: Ethan Frome, Anna Karenina, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and everything I've ever read by Arthur Miller. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k2bdeutmeyer Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Kafka. **Shudder** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jujsky Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Ethan Frome Moby Dick Heart of Darkness Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yellowperch Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Oh, I love these threads. I usually just read them. But I must defend Wuthering Heights. What a great, tragic, beautiful, lyrical, dense, gorgeous tale. And utterly new in its day--the unreliable narrator, the unlikable heroine, the crazy hero. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KristinaBreece Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Moby DickWuthering Heights Anything by Hemingway So glad I'm not the only one! 2 of my brothers are MAJOR Hemingway fans. I'm just not impressed. :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 How could I forget Don Quixote??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K&Rs Mom Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 James Joyce and his 'stream of consciousness' writing. Makes me want to poke my eyes out. :iagree: Kafka too. I have a personal hatred for Dickens' style, but I know a lot of people love it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmrich Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 I will chime in with the children's literature classics that I don't like - Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz. I read those and just think what were those guys smoking? Each is a great story but each dive into some really weird and crazy stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gooblink Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 How could I forget Don Quixote??? No way! That was one of my all-time favorites! :) "The Stranger," by Camus. *yawn* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirch Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Eh, there are plenty of classics I don't enjoy or like (chiming in with the Hemingway non-fans here), but I still get why they're classics. I get that I might not enjoy it but that it may still be great writing, profound commentary on life or human nature or whatever, or it may have been new and ground-breaking when written. I don't always particularly enjoy Picasso's cubist works, but I get why they're considered artistic masterpieces, kwim? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Peregrine Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 (edited) Robinson Crusoe. shudder Wind in the Willows. Is that considered a classic? Horrid. Edited February 22, 2011 by Miss Peregrine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yellowperch Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 There are certain authors I don't like or don't get--Faulkner, for example, though one day I'll give him another go--but I see why their books are classics. Then there are those that I don't like or get--Joyce comes to mind--and I don't see why they are considered great, but I suspect it is an Emporer's New Clothes thing. But maybe I'm just obtuse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barry Goldwater Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Catcher in the Rye Moby Dick As I Lay Dying Anything Steinbeck... (FWIW, I loved Wuthering Heights! Ducking now!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommymilkies Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 I also LOVE Wuthering Heights. But I just abhor Shogun and Anna Karenina. I just can not for the life of me see what's appealing in them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msjones Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Catcher in the RyeMoby Dick As I Lay Dying Anything Steinbeck... (FWIW, I loved Wuthering Heights! Ducking now!) I don't think I've ever seen Steinbeck show up on a list like this. He's my favorite American author. What do you dislike about Steinbeck? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarcyB Posted February 22, 2011 Author Share Posted February 22, 2011 Eh, there are plenty of classics I don't enjoy or like (chiming in with the Hemingway non-fans here), but I still get why they're classics. I get that I might not enjoy it but that it may still be great writing, profound commentary on life or human nature or whatever, or it may have been new and ground-breaking when written. I don't always particularly enjoy Picasso's cubist works, but I get why they're considered artistic masterpieces, kwim? Sure -but I still don't get why Kafka's book is 'classic'. I just don't get it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aggie Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 I will chime in with the children's literature classics that I don't like - Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz. I read those and just think what were those guys smoking? Each is a great story but each dive into some really weird and crazy stuff. :iagree: Kirch : "Eh, there are plenty of classics I don't enjoy or like (chiming in with the Hemingway non-fans here), but I still get why they're classics. I get that I might not enjoy it but that it may still be great writing, profound commentary on life or human nature or whatever, or it may have been new and ground-breaking when written. I don't always particularly enjoy Picasso's cubist works, but I get why they're considered artistic masterpieces, kwim?" Yes, this is true. The stories or manner of writing may not be to my taste, but that doesn't make them less worthy to read. That said, I'll never read Great Expectations again. blech :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 "The Stranger," by Camus. *yawn* Oh, I'd repressed that one. Actually, I can't stand any of those existentialist French guys- Camus, Sartre, Fanon, etc. Ugh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Florida. Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Moby DickWuthering Heights Anything by Hemingway I came to the thread planning to list the bolded titles. Never even tried to read Moby Dick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homeschoolmom Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Moby Dick anything by Hemingway (I don't like his stilted writing style and his topics do nothing for me). No love for Wuthering Heights? I love, love, love WH. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan in TN Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 I really enjoyed Robinson Crusoe (one of the best conversion scenes in literature although I understand the tedium) and Wuthering Heights (although I just want to slap all the characters). Classics that I just don't "get" - my fault or ?: Catcher in the Rye Crime and Punishment The Sound and the Fury Tess of the d'Urbervilles (anything by Hardy) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sevilla Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 James Joyce :shudder: Reading Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man ranks as my all-time least favorite literature activity. I'm not a fan of Hemingway either, though I did visit his house in Cuba and see the boat from 'old man and the sea'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littlebug42 Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 The Lord of the Flies - Blech! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs Mungo Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Ooooooh!!! I do not get my Internet until Thursday! I am typing from my phone while checking off boxes. I cannot defend each of these works right now. BUT I will say that many of them are considered classics because they were innovative, a first of their kind, or they are so typical of a time period or genre in literature that later became important. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlsdMama Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 DD says to add Hunchback of Notre Dame. She wasn't a fan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plagefille Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Oh, I love these threads. I usually just read them. But I must defend Wuthering Heights. What a great, tragic, beautiful, lyrical, dense, gorgeous tale. And utterly new in its day--the unreliable narrator, the unlikable heroine, the crazy hero. I agree. LOVE that book. Mostly because it was so weird and crazy. Otherwise I agree with the dislikes of everything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wendi Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 I agree with James Joyce and Madame Bovary. I've never read Kafka or Moby Dick and have no plans to do so. Hemingway is rather hit-or-miss for me. I hate, hate, hate Beowulf though I do like the Rosemary Sutcliff children's version. Other classics I dislike: Ethan Frome, Anna Karenina, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and everything I've ever read by Arthur Miller. That's funny; Anna Karenina is one of my favorite novels! I love how real the characters are, and the sweet romance between Levin and Kitty. Wendi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barry Goldwater Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 I don't think I've ever seen Steinbeck show up on a list like this. He's my favorite American author. What do you dislike about Steinbeck? Why am I the only one asked to defend my Classical Stuntedness and Cement-headedness???:tongue_smilie::lol: I loathed Of Mice & Men. The Grapes of Wrath...esp. the ending...seemed...too much, too, shocking for shock's sake? After all that endless suffering...That's not quite right...I dunno, it also felt like it...JUST ENDED...just stopped. Didn't like... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wendi Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 I can't remember now why "Lord Jim" is a classic, but I hated it. :thumbdown: Wendi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrapbookbuzz Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 I will chime in with the children's literature classics that I don't like - Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz. I read those and just think what were those guys smoking? Each is a great story but each dive into some really weird and crazy stuff. My daughter was in a production of Alice in Wonderland last year. It wasn't until then, that I had more than a passing interest in Alice. I agree with you here, in that I wondered what Lewis Carroll had been smoking when this was written! Some classics that I just don't get are: The Red Badge of Courage. The language I found too foul to go beyond the first chapter. Lord of the Flies. Ugh. Animal Farm. Ugh again. I am not, in any way, a Jane Austen fan; her characters irritate me. :tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ester Maria Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 To be honest, for most of them, I could argue the "why" - whether due to artistic merit alone (which in itself is, I understand, quite a problematic and often intangible category), their formal qualities, or fitting so well to a certain historical sensibility or, for this of that reason, "speaking" at some point in history either to a largue number of people or to very influential circles which led them to be promoted, etc. The "great books" (as much as I loathe that pretentious label) are a mix of all kinds of works, some of them entering in due to popularity, others due to school system of the social elites which promoted them throughout generations, others due to controversy, others simply due to having survived with time... and thus the "landscape" we get is, well, interesting. :D Now when it comes to personal taste, rather than a sort of intellectual understanding of the formation of canon and all that's good and bad about it, there definitely are those I dislike, or even cannot fathom what's possibly, on the formal and artistic level, so great about them - Hemingway and Salinger being maybe good examples. More often than not, Hardy's prose doesn't speak to me either (poetry maybe :)), I never particularly liked Schiller, or Goethe's Werther, and Ibsen I just find so blown out of proportions of its actual "worth". Then Ionesco, are you kidding me? That's some of my greatest tortures from school and university days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Moby Dick is one of my most favorite books of all times! And it deals with such big themes - the obsessive struggle of Captain Ahab against the whale is so symbolic of the struggle that many have against their own nemesis (or would it be nemeses?). Most, if not all, classics are about so much more than just the "story". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newbie Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Island of the Blue Dolphins 1984, dont think it should be a high school classic. Save for college lit. I dont know if this is a classic, I am hoping not, but One Hundred Years of Solitude, should be banned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeannie in NJ Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 anything by Hemmingway or Steinbeck. Also I have tried to read Scarlet Letter several times but just cannot get interesed in it. By the way, I love Moby Dick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoneyFernDotOrg Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 James Joyce and his 'stream of consciousness' writing. Makes me want to poke my eyes out. DITTO. As an English major in college it was horrible to sit through everyone talking about how fabulous Joyce is. I disagree. I will chime in with the children's literature classics that I don't like - Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz. I read those and just think what were those guys smoking? Each is a great story but each dive into some really weird and crazy stuff. Sometimes I think in order to be a classic the writing needs to be so convoluted that it requires some very smart person with leather patches on their elbows to tell us what to think about it. NOT. I have a book that I use (among other books!) in my AP lit class called Beowulf on the Beach, and it posits that, among other things, there is really only one story that keeps getting re-told, and if you figure out that story you will understand all of the other ones. I think this is daunting to authors who want to stand out, so the turn the main character into a bug for no reason, or send them into alternate realities, just to keep it interesting, and what is interesting varies from person to person. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ester Maria Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Awww, Joyce, how could I possibly forget that one? :D Another one on the list, definitely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarlaS Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Bram Stoker's Dracula. I got about halfway through, and started wishing the count would just bite everyone already. :tongue_smilie: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jayne J Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Finnegan's Wake The Catcher in the Rye. Blech. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mejane Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Moby Dick is one of my most favorite books of all times! And it deals with such big themes - the obsessive struggle of Captain Ahab against the whale is so symbolic of the struggle that many have against their own nemesis (or would it be nemeses?). Most, if not all, classics are about so much more than just the "story". Or it could just be a very long story about a whale and a crazy fisherman. ;) Only half-kidding. Sometimes I think themes are assigned to works by readers and then the author says, "Yeah, that's exactly what I meant!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*Inna* Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Moby DickWuthering Heights Anything by Hemingway :iagree: How could I forget Don Quixote??? I LOVED Don Quixote! :001_smile: Anything Steinbeck...:iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choirfarm Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 :iagree::iagree::iagree: I started to read this to my daughter this year and after a few pages I just couldn't stand it anymore. I have no earthly idea why this is considered a classic. Yuck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choirfarm Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 My daughter was in a production of Alice in Wonderland last year. It wasn't until then, that I had more than a passing interest in Alice. I agree with you here, in that I wondered what Lewis Carroll had been smoking when this was written! The Red Badge of Courage. The language I found too foul to go beyond the first chapter. Lord of the Flies. Ugh. Animal Farm. Ugh again. I am not, in any way, a Jane Austen fan; her characters irritate me. :tongue_smilie: Grin.. boys LOVED Pride and Prejudice, thought Red Badge of Courage was great..liked Lord of the Flies and their favorite book of all time so far is....Animal Farm.:) Sorry!! I happen to like them all as well. I don't remember the language being that foul in Red Badge..but the brutality was something else.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Girl of the Limberlost. Wind in the Willows. Sheesh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slartibartfast Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 (edited) Ooooooh!!! I do not get my Internet until Thursday! I am typing from my phone while checking off boxes. I cannot defend each of these works right now. BUT I will say that many of them are considered classics because they were innovative, a first of their kind, or they are so typical of a time period or genre in literature that later became important. :iagree: A lot of them made important statements, were innovative, were voices of their time and many other things. Although I don't like *all* classics I don't think I have questioned whether or not something *should* be a classic after I have read it. I loathe Madame Bovary (just using that for an example since I hate that book) but I don't think anyone could take issue with Flaubert's skill. He is a Realist, Flaubert doesn't paint pretty pictures. As much as I loathe the book...I don't deny at all that it is completely brilliant and flawless in execution. Just because one didn't like a book doesn't mean it shouldn't be a classic. I am stunned by what people do not think should be classics. Edited February 22, 2011 by Sis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thescrappyhomeschooler Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Madame Bovary I just can't care at all about the heroine, even when she kills herself I feel no sympathy for her. :iagree::iagree::iagree: As a French major in college and a graduate student in French Literature, I was supposed to have read this book for 3 different classes. I could NEVER make it through to the end. She could have done herself in in the first 5 pages and I would have been okay with it. BORING! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXMary2 Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Moby Dick Don Quixote Both of those make my eyes and brain bleed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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