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What are some of those 'classics' in literature that you can't figure out WHY?


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I'm not surprised at all the disdain for Catcher in the Rye, but it is one of my favorites. I always wonder if people love or hate the book, or they love or hate Holden Caulfield. It is such a fine line between cult and classic.

 

Every piece of classic literature I've read has been appreciated for what it was. That being said, I still can't get through Lord of the Rings...

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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.

 

Highschool? Wow, we had to read this in 6th grade. I loved it!!! (but growing up on an Island in the PNW will do that ;))

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I'm not surprised at all the disdain for Catcher in the Rye, but it is one of my favorites. I always wonder if people love or hate the book, or they love or hate Holden Caulfield. It is such a fine line between cult and classic.

 

Every piece of classic literature I've read has been appreciated for what it was. That being said, I still can't get through Lord of the Rings...

 

LOTR! :eek:

 

Next someone will mention Dune. (I'm fully aware that there are many out there that don't appreciate Dune.)

 

I don't think they're 'classics' though. Are they? That might be another thread - what is a classic?

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I checked Island of the Blue Dolphins out of the library today. I may need to make it tonight's read-aloud, just out of spite :D

 

Or maybe Old Man and the Sea :tongue_smilie:

 

Notes from Underground?

 

Bill (off to read)

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LOTR! :eek:

 

Next someone will mention Dune. (I'm fully aware that there are many out there that don't appreciate Dune.)

 

I don't think they're 'classics' though. Are they? That might be another thread - what is a classic?

 

DUNE!?!??!?!?!?

 

WHAT!!! *clutches her pearls in horror*

 

 

 

No one has listed a book I don't think should be a classic. (except maybe Goodnight Moon...I thought we were talking about Literature)

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In fact I've rarely read a "classic" that I didn't find had some merit, was thought-provoking, or taught me something. But I think there's a difference between learning something from literature and enjoying it, KWIM? I can't say I really enjoyed Catcher in the Rye, but it was a thought-provoking book, and for me, that's enough.

 

For myself, I don't need to identify with a character to enjoy a book. Perhaps that is what some of us are pointing out in this thread-characters that were disliked soured us on an entire book. I guess I like books even better when their characters are not straightforward, good or bad, but complex and nuanced.

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Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary had horrible endings with the title characters killing themselves. They seemed a bit more nasty and killy towards adultresses than sympathetic.

 

:iagree: And Hardy . . . it seems to me that while he *may* be saying that they couldn't help themselves (at least in Tess), the adultery has some pretty awful consequences. In Tess of the D'Urbervilles, she comes unhinged. Henchard's betrayal and adultery in The Mayer of Casterbridge pretty much ruins everyone else's lives.

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I think all the Hemingway hate on this thread is because he's a writer whose works, in my experience, appeal more to men. In my mind, I lump him in with Updike, among others...

 

For me, it's because he never seems to have discovered subordinate clauses. It's like he wrote it to be telegraphed. Definitely a great example of economy with words, though! So even though I don't particularly enjoy his books, I get why they're classics.

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I think that one was 1984.

 

I liked Island of the Blue Dolphins but I never understood why it rated "required reading." Same with Stuart Little.

 

Your right! My bad, since I read it in the 80's I just sorta skipped that it was a title. Obviously I haven't read that one ;).

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Now Frank Norris? Oy vey!

 

Bill (who is beginning to understand why Hemingway.....)

 

Well, I did say I understood why it is a classic and an important book. It does haunt me. And I can picture the scenes in my head still, 20+ years after I read it. It is a great book. It just scares me. Does that make sense?

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I'm not surprised at all the disdain for Catcher in the Rye, but it is one of my favorites. I always wonder if people love or hate the book, or they love or hate Holden Caulfield. It is such a fine line between cult and classic.

 

Let me put your wondering to rest. I hate the book. It is a string of obsentities tied together with the random conjunction. I found my internal dialogue laced with swear words (against my will - I tend to internalize speech patterns of others - great for learning languages, not so good in this case) for days later. I felt personally violated having to read such a string of obscenities and wanted to clean my brain with bleach afterwards.

 

Yes, I also found the character entirely unsympathetic, but the writing... I know that's supposed to be Holden's way of talking/thinking, but I don't care. I don't want that in my head. Just like I don't want to listen to rap or those violent movies where people drop the f-bomb every other word and call it dialog. I don't mind the occasional swear-word placed in a book for emphasis, but this was relentless.

 

I am absolutely sure there are other books that deal with adolescent alienation that are 5000 times more worthy of being called a classic. I have no problem with people who enjoy this book, but I am still upset that I was forced to read it. I don't think I feel that way about any other book I've read, assigned or otherwise.

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Let me put your wondering to rest. I hate the book. It is a string of obsentities tied together with the random conjunction. I found my internal dialogue laced with swear words (against my will - I tend to internalize speech patterns of others - great for learning languages, not so good in this case) for days later. I felt personally violated having to read such a string of obscenities and wanted to clean my brain with bleach afterwards.

 

Yes, I also found the character entirely unsympathetic, but the writing... I know that's supposed to be Holden's way of talking/thinking, but I don't care. I don't want that in my head. Just like I don't want to listen to rap or those violent movies where people drop the f-bomb every other word and call it dialog. I don't mind the occasional swear-word placed in a book for emphasis, but this was relentless.

 

I am absolutely sure there are other books that deal with adolescent alienation that are 5000 times more worthy of being called a classic. I have no problem with people who enjoy this book, but I am still upset that I was forced to read it. I don't think I feel that way about any other book I've read, assigned or otherwise.

 

:iagree: This post summed up my perspective too... I even tried it again on my own in college, but...no way.

 

To the OP's question, I cannot, no matter how I try, justify CITR being considered a classic.

 

And to Steinbeck...I just read East of Eden (I'm an adult now)...Loathsome characters, grim, dark plot, nothing redeeming or thought provoking...dark and grim is fine, if there's a point...finished it on a grudge, because EVERYONE SAYS STEINBECK'S A GENIUS...sorry, still no sale for me...feel robbed of my time.

 

It's not just hate from sophomore year literature...Since we started HSing 11 yrs ago I've been revisiting lots of my own education; history, mathematics, literature, with new-found zeal and interest, filling in a lot of gaps, and gained new appreciation for LOTS of stuff that I missed as a slack-jawed teenage mis-fit...but not J.D. Salinger, and not Steinbeck. I'm done with them.

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I liked Island of the Blue Dolphins but I never understood why it rated "required reading." Same with Stuart Little.

 

With children's literature, I think that there's a lot less of a clear canon of classics. Books like Island of the Blue Dolphins aren't as in fashion today (for better or worse - I enjoyed the whole O'Dell backlist myself...). For people of a generation before me, there was yet another set of "great" children's books that made up the common required reading lists. Adult classics also come in and out of style, but the change is a lot less sweeping than with children's books, where one generation's beloved treasure can become completely lost by the time their grandchildren are getting assigned readings.

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Well, I did say I understood why it is a classic and an important book. It does haunt me. And I can picture the scenes in my head still, 20+ years after I read it. It is a great book. It just scares me. Does that make sense?

 

Maybe :D

 

Speaking of scared, my poor sweet son just drifted off to almost certain nightmares, as we chose to read Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.

 

Most chilling!!!! :001_huh:

 

It did get the 2010 Newberry Award. That jury must include some pretty sick puppies :tongue_smilie:

 

Bill

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Maybe :D

 

Speaking of scared, my poor sweet son just drifted off to almost certain nightmares, as we chose to read Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.

 

Most chilling!!!! :001_huh:

 

It did get the 2010 Newberry Award. That jury must include some pretty sick puppies :tongue_smilie:

 

Bill

 

Seriously! If a book wins a Newberry Award, I usually just skip it. The Tales of Desperaux was a horrible book.

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Seriously! If a book wins a Newberry Award, I usually just skip it. The Tales of Desperaux was a horrible book.
Not a Newbery, but the same author... I found The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane to be nothing short of vile; "loathed" simply doesn't come close to expressing the depth of my feeling about that book.

 

We liked The Graveyard Book though.

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We liked The Graveyard Book though.

 

The little-man is liking it too. Although the film version of Coraline (book by Gaiman) was the only movie we have ever watched that scared my son. It really (really) freaked him out. Why I do not know, as he seems scared of nothing....but Coraline. And those button-eyes.

 

I told the librarian my son likes "funny books" so this is what I get?

 

Bill

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The little-man is liking it too. Although the film version of Coraline (book by Gaiman) was the only movie we have ever watched that scared my son. It really (really) freaked him out. Why I do not know, as he seems scared of nothing....but Coraline. And those button-eyes.

 

I told the librarian my son likes "funny books" so this is what I get?

 

Bill

Wow. I haven't shown Coraline to my 9 yo, though she has read it (and Stardust... which is not for little kids). The film would be way too intense for her.

 

Eta: Have you read The Magic Pudding?

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Wow. I haven't shown Coraline to my 9 yo, though she has read it (and Stardust... which is not for little kids). The film would be way too intense for her.

 

Eta: Have you read The Magic Pudding?

 

I have not read The Magic Pudding, never heard of it actually. Should we?

 

Never in a million years, even if I had pre-screened the film would I have ever guessed Coraline would have scared him. He is the opposite of the sensitive type, I didn't think it was scary, he has seen "worse" (and laughed all the way through), but Coraline spooked him.

 

Bill

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Has anyone mentioned Thomas Pynchon? The Crying of Lot 49? Argh.

 

(Yes, I read it in high school, and yes, since homeschooling a highschooler and re-reading many classics, I've come to appreciate many of them in a way that I couldn't as a teenager, but... I will not be assigning this. ) :)

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NYRB?
New York Review (of Books) Children's Collection. Here it is. A single, extraneous racial epithet was removed from the text (nothing is substituted), but the original is included in the preface which can be viewed in the "Look Inside" on Amazon.

 

ETA: This edition has all the original artwork.

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New York Review (of Books) Children's Collection. Here it is. A single, extraneous racial epithet was removed from the text (nothing is substituted), but the original is included in the preface which can be viewed in the "Look Inside" on Amazon.

 

ETA: This edition has all the original artwork.

 

It looks familiar. I will order it from the library. Thanks!

 

Bill

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Bram Stoker's Dracula. I got about halfway through, and started wishing the count would just bite everyone already. :tongue_smilie:

Awww that's one of my favorite books. I've probably read it over 30 times. My copy is all taped up because it was literally falling apart. It's such a classic tale of good versus evil, nobility of the human spirit and courage in the face of overwhelming odds. Even though I already know what's going to happen, I still get emotionally involved in the story. Plus the good guys win at the end. :D :thumbup:

 

 

I LOVED Don Quixote! :001_smile:

 

:iagree:

 

 

I love Don Quixote too. I've only read it in Spanish, but I love the writing and use of the language in the book and Sancho Panza is a great character. :) hehehe

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Oh, I'd repressed that one. Actually, I can't stand any of those existentialist French guys- Camus, Sartre, Fanon, etc. Ugh!

 

What!! :glare::D

I'm only to post #22 and already all the French existentialist have been blasted!! :lol:

 

Love the books, love that an anarchist friend of mine took me to see a small production of No Exit when I was 16.

 

Those guys changed my life.

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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.

 

Oh my gosh.. 100 Years drove me nuts!! I like a lot of his other work, and I did finish it, but I always felt like doing jumping jacks and yell "Hurry up!! Hurry up!!"

 

It seems like I hear a lot of people say they don't like Island of the Blue Dolphins. Why is that?

I have beautiful memories of my dad reading it to me and both of us crying at the end.

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I refuse. Papa was a giant, and I'm about to fix myself a drink in his memory. It seem like the right thing to do :tongue_smilie:

 

Bill

 

Step back from the absinthe, Bill.

:lol::lol::lol:

 

 

I checked Island of the Blue Dolphins out of the library today. I may need to make it tonight's read-aloud, just out of spite :D

 

Bill (off to read)

 

I liked it. :)

 

I liked it too. I remember checking it out of the library when I was in elementary school and I loved it. :)

 

The little-man is liking it too. Although the film version of Coraline (book by Gaiman) was the only movie we have ever watched that scared my son. It really (really) freaked him out. Why I do not know, as he seems scared of nothing....but Coraline. And those button-eyes.

 

Bill

 

 

Never in a million years, even if I had pre-screened the film would I have ever guessed Coraline would have scared him. He is the opposite of the sensitive type, I didn't think it was scary, he has seen "worse" (and laughed all the way through), but Coraline spooked him.

 

Bill

 

Coraline freaked me out too and I'm 39! lol It's the eyes. I remember seeing The Stepford Wives when I was a kid and at the end of the movie where Katharine Ross meets her robot that is going to kill her and you see those eyes, it FREAKED ME OUT. I had nightmares about those eyes for YEARS!

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Finally a woman of taste :D

 

It never fails these threads trash my favorite authors. Painful! Painful!

 

Kafka

Faulkner

Joyce

Camus

Hemingway

Conrad

Dostoevsky

Shakespeare

Steinbeck

Garcia Marquez

 

Where does the madness end? :tongue_smilie:

 

Bill

 

 

LOVE Camus, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Marquez, and Shakespeare. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

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The modern TV equivalent is Mad Men- all these people I know rave about how great the show is but when I watched a couple of episodes I couldn't stand it.

 

This completely floors me, because I've always assumed you were a Mad Men fan due to your avatar! It looks like the "Mad Men yourself" thing you can do on their website.:tongue_smilie:

 

(I'm a huge MM fan, but I get why other people don't like it. It took me getting through the first four episodes to get hooked.)

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These threads are both fun and frustrating to read. :001_smile:

 

I love Don Quixote and The Wizard of Oz. I have been struggling to get through Catcher in the Rye since Christmas. I keep putting it down out of boredom.

 

Wind in the Willows...oh, how I want to like this book! Every year, I drag out our copy (beautifully illustrated by Michael Hague) and try to read it to my kids. I don't think I've ever made it past the third page. It's just really difficult for me to read aloud for some reason. Maybe I should try to read it to myself.

 

How can anyone not like Island of the Blue Dolphins? Of course, I haven't read it years, but I have nothing but good memories of reading this as a child.

 

I can understand not liking Goodnight Moon. I tried to read it to my two oldest kids when they were toddlers, and I just didn't get it. With my youngest, though, I gave it another go, and she loved it...which made me appreciate it.

 

The other side of this coin, though, is how my oldest DD has poisoned me against Little Women. I liked it as a child, but DD couldn't stand the complete "goody-two shoesness" of all the girls. I thought she was crazy, so a picked it up and read the first two chapters. How did I not remember that? Even Jo was unbelievably good.

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Please-I have to ask-what do you dislike about Trumpet of the Swan? It's an absolute favorite here. We've listened to E. B. White read it at least 5 times.

 

:iagree:Trumpet of the Swan is a wonderful book! It's also memorable for me because it is the only book that made my ds7 cry for a moment when he thought Louis' father died and he never cries! Not at Old Yeller (which bugged me, I thought everyone cried! :lol:), not at any other book.

 

And, I don't often say something like this, but Stuart Little is better as a movie. ;)

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I've read the classics. Many, many of them in an attempt to improve myself, blah, blah. And I've tried, really tried, to like them, but most of them were meh. I loathed Melville~Moby Dick and Bartelby the Scrivener. I enjoy Hemingway and Fitzgerald but are they old enough to be classics?

 

Although the film version of Coraline (book by Gaiman) was the only movie we have ever watched that scared my son. It really (really) freaked him out. Why I do not know, as he seems scared of nothing....but Coraline. And those button-eyes.

Bill

 

This movie disturbed my then 10 and 16 yo but the 7 and 5 yo loved it. I've yet to figure out how to predict what will bother an individual kid.

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And in the Picture Book category... I'll Love You Forever. I detest this book, I really do. It's makes my skin crawl. The first few pages are ok, but then mom turns into a creeper, and I just cannot read it to my children! We've been given the book repeatedly as gifts, and it's always on the top loved kids book lists, so I know I am in the minority here, but, Yuck!

 

Yep - I find it quite creepy, co-dependent, and would shiver every single time someone came into the bookstore asking where we kept it so they could give it as a new baby gift. :tongue_smilie:

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Hands down, Lord of the Flies and Old Man and the Sea. Both of them are just painful. And in the kids picture book category - Goodnight Moon. I'll probably be shot for that one, but it is repetitive and dull.

 

Which makes it perfect for the preK crowd :) My boys still love it and can quote it, 5 years later.

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As far as Metamorphosis, it's an excellent example of existentialism, one of the first. He did a masterful job of evoking senselessness, helplessness, absurdity, etc. It also raised interesting questions regarding what it means to be human--both on the part of the suffering Gregor, hideous on the outside but remaining human on the inside, AND his family, who remain human on the outside, but in varying degrees grow hideous on the inside. .

 

I got the humanity part of it, and perhaps the translation does leave something to be desired. If it was the first of it's kind, it explains more about why it's considered a classic, but do you realize NONE of this was touched on by my college professor who was trying to teach it? It was painful for me to read, I hated it, and couldn't understand why it fit into the syllabus of literature we were doing, and left me hating it almost as much as Clockwork Orange (as I mentioned). I *hate* very few of the classics that I've read, but those two stuck out for *hating*. I get why Clockwork Orange was considered classic, but I think the movie pushed it up the rung a few times because of how disturbing it turned out to be, but I could never put my finger on the Kafka.

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LOTR! :eek:

 

Next someone will mention Dune. (I'm fully aware that there are many out there that don't appreciate Dune.)

 

I don't think they're 'classics' though. Are they? That might be another thread - what is a classic?

 

I think, in their field, they are classics. I do consider LOTR to be classic literature in general, but definitely within the sci-fi realm. As with Dune (well, the first couple of books..there rest he seems to go off on a drug-induced weirdness to me).

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I have not read The Magic Pudding, never heard of it actually. Should we?

 

Never in a million years, even if I had pre-screened the film would I have ever guessed Coraline would have scared him. He is the opposite of the sensitive type, I didn't think it was scary, he has seen "worse" (and laughed all the way through), but Coraline spooked him.

 

Bill

 

It did mine, too, Bill. The boy who seems fearless of so many characters, is completely freaked out by the movie and refuses to touch the book now.

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