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Which classic author or book can you not stand, and why?

87 replies

Caligulights · 13/12/2004 23:30

Following on from what your favourite book is, who or what do you find unreadable?

Mine are DH Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway - turgid, turgid, turgid, and I've never been fond of the Brontes who strike me as depressing - the only one I like is Anne. I've always hated Charlotte since I found out she dissed Pride and Prejudice and since I tried to read Villette and failed.

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ItllBeLonelymumThisChristmas · 18/12/2004 19:31

Oh the Three Musketeers is lovely (though perhaps when you are a teenager and into chivalry and wise-cracks. I stayed up night after night until one in the morning reading that book.

tex111 · 18/12/2004 19:29

Moby Dick, Catch 22 and The Three Muskateers. Have tried many times over the years but they all went to the charity shop recently. Was so disappointed in Catch 22 after hearing people (mostly guys, I admit) rave about it.

ItllBeLonelymumThisChristmas · 18/12/2004 19:27

Well I would watch Paul McGann watching paint dry so maybe I would give it a (the TV programme) a go if I came across it again, but never the book. Sorry.

OhComeLetUsADiorHim · 18/12/2004 19:21

It's lovely, heartwarming, and the baddies get what they deserve! Helps that I loved the BBC production, AND it had two of my fave men in it! (Paul McGann and Stephen MacIntosh)

ItllBeLonelymumThisChristmas · 18/12/2004 19:12

No Our Mutual Friend was my A level text and I preferred to be forced to write essays on Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton rather than read more than ten pages of it.

Hmm....maybe 10 pages wasn't giving it much of a go?

OhComeLetUsADiorHim · 18/12/2004 19:09

LonelyMum - 'Our Mutual Friend' is lovely though. Most Dickens books are full of coincidences that finally bring the characters together. I think he is a bit like Stephen King in that his books make great television/films, but are not very reader friendly.

ItllBeLonelymumThisChristmas · 18/12/2004 19:06

That's easy: Charles Dickens wrote the most tedious drivel of anyone I can think of and I have never completed one of his books.

Also, still ploughing through Middlemarch and wishing I hadn't bothered starting. Don't know why I am continuing to be honest.

OhComeLetUsADiorHim · 18/12/2004 19:04

Peasant!

(I did say horses for courses though!)

WigWamBam · 18/12/2004 18:51

Dior - I know all about the fact that Austen is meant to be full of ironic wit and humour. I just didn't enjoy it or feel it was particularly witty or insightful.

Sorry if I flabberghast you by my obvious lack of culture and appreciation of one particular author .

expatkat · 18/12/2004 18:40

What is with you Forster haters? I loooooooooove his work across the board.

But James Joyce's Ulysses--yuckety yuckety yuck. Rubbish. However, Virginia Woolf's stab at 24 hours in the life of someone, i.e. Mrs. Dalloway, is one of my favourite novels. Apparently she wrote it in reaction to Ulysses, which she also detested.

I really want to like Moby Dick, but I just can't get through it or anything else by Melville or Hawthorne. I'm not wild about those 19th c. Americans. . .much prefer the Brits.

littlemissbossy · 18/12/2004 18:34

Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd, had to read this at schoolzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

feastofstevenmom · 18/12/2004 18:32

but WWB is in honourable company dior - as Charlotte Bronte famously didn't really fancy Pride and Prej much

OhComeLetUsADiorHim · 18/12/2004 18:31

WWB - dry and lacking in humour??! Irony is the key with Jane Austen. She does not provide a punch-line, but lets the reader smirk at the character, which is really clever IMO. Gosh, I'm flabbergasted, but horses for courses and all that.

feastofstevenmom · 18/12/2004 11:15

ooh loved the Fatal Englishman by Sebastian Faulkes, but couldn't get on with Charlotte Grey (which I think a lot of MNetters love!). Just felt she was a bit of a wet lettuce, trailing over occupied france with her main motivation being to find her fella, rather than patriotism. felt it was a bit of an insult to the real life SOE women.

wordsmith · 18/12/2004 11:12

Moby Dick. was supposed to do it at college but couldn't get past the first couple of pages.

On the other hand my favourite book is Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. Does that qualify as a classic yet

feastofstevenmom · 18/12/2004 11:01

yep agree about EM Forster. Passage to India - good. Maurice good. but Room with a View - romantic slush. and after seeing Howards End on TV, really couldn't face up to trying to read it

WigWamBam · 18/12/2004 10:59

No, I started with Pride and Prejudice, and I'm afraid I couldn't see what all the fuss was about ... I thought it was dry and dull, lacking in spark and humour.

Original poster
Caligulights · 18/12/2004 10:29

I can't understand anyone who doesn't adore Jane Austen. Unless they read Mansfield Park first!

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jinglebelljodee · 18/12/2004 09:38

Oh and Phillip Pullman - couldn't have cared less about what happened to Lyra by the third book.

jinglebelljodee · 18/12/2004 09:25

JoolsTide! ???? Am spluttering over my porridge, Mockingbird is my fave!

MariNativity play, LOL! Thought for a second you were dissing the lovely CSL, laughing out loud about elves!

Already been said - Dickins, James Joyce = Zzzzzz.

WigWamBam · 18/12/2004 09:11

Howard's End was E M Forster - very overrated.

Can't stand Henry James' Portrait of a Lady, Wilkie Collins The Woman in White and (sorry, ks) Madame Bovary. I also detest D H Lawrence and Jane Austen - I know she's supposed to be lively and ironic but I'm sorry, she just bores me rigid.

I do like Hardy though ...

AllIWantForXmasisPoo · 16/12/2004 19:15

Whoever it was that wrote Howard's End. Just wrist-slashingly boring. Film was just as bad. Flatly refused to do it for my English A Level, and plumped for Anthony Trollope instead. And I got to within 50 pages of the end of Middlemarch and gave up. Realised that reading was supposed to be FUN!

donnie · 16/12/2004 18:35

I really detest DH Lawrence - all that bloody earthiness and fecundity....just cannot bear him, and I think his poetry stinks too. Sorry!

Socci · 16/12/2004 17:55

Message withdrawn

DingDongDinosaurOnHigh · 16/12/2004 17:42

Yes, I thought the Wind in the Willows was a tad overrated...