Classics you couldn't finish

I loved Dickens as a teen - started by watching the bbc serialisation of Our Mutual Friend and then getting the book as I couldn't wait for the next Sunday's episode. (Oh the excitement of the 70's, I did the same with Jane Eyre and a few others... war and peace, come to think. Though I gave up on the epilogue of that.).
But I ran aground on the Pickwick Papers and Martin Chuzzlewit, neither of which I could get into, and couldn't finish A Tale of Two Cities... well, I knew how it ended.

I did try Eliot but didn't get on too well. I might (if I ever redevelop a reading habit) try Daniel Deronda and Romola again, now there's the internet for reading around. As a teen I was baffled by much in the latter iirc, I'd no idea who Savonarola was for instance which didn't help, but I seem to remember thinking it'd be interesting if I knew wtf it was about.

Anything by Jane Austen. I stopped trying about 15 years ago. Just nonsense.
i love Moby Duck though and Ulysses (Joyce) oh and all George Eliot novels , so not sure what that says about me.

@Phos @Beamur

I'm glad I'm not the only one that has problems with Tale of Two Cities!
I follow 'the royal reading room' on Instagram - an online book club set up during lockdowns - and it was one of the recent books.
I thought I'd give it another try & just got bored within a few chapters!
And I quite enjoy Dickens.

@petridishmystery

I'm impressed you've read Dracula so many times. I live alone & whenever I've tried to re-read it, every creak of the house is amplified... The photo of Bela Lugosi on the cover doesn't help!

I love the concepts and worlds created by Tolkien but can't read TLOTR. Oh my God the f-ing interminable songs.

Ditto

Loads! I've never finished any Hardy novel, Middlemarch, Old Curiosity Shop, Moby Dick...

I second the recommendation for Dickens on Audible though - I absolutely loved The Pickwick Papers read to me. I suspect Dickens works best like that, most of his novels were written as weekly chapters for magazines, I think, so read all at once they can be very verbose.

I'm another Dickens hater, and I can't get past the first two chapters of Catch 22. I have finished Ulysses though, and I love Thomas Hardy. I struggled through Heart of Darkness, though it took me months to finish and I hated every page. I think my most hated book at uni was 'The Faerie Queene' by Edmund Spenser, got I bloody hated it, it was even worse than bloody Beowulf. I can't abide any magical realism or goblinny shit either, so Tolkien and Gabriel Garcia Marquez can fuck off too.

Moby Dick here too! So very dull.
Love Dickens generally but Tale of Two Cities is very difficult to get into.
I did finish Clarissa but hated it.
Got bored with The Magus and Master and Margarita too..
Have to admit to never having read any Wilkie Collins.

I used to love the classics ( especially the Brontes) and Russian novels, but don’t have the brain space now. However I’ve never been able to get past the first few chapters of The Great Gatsby

Wuthering Heights
Dickens, although I like Wilkie Collins so maybe I should give Dickens another try.
Struggled through The Mill on the Floss, have finally admitted defeat with Middlemarch.
Had to do Tess of the d'Urbervilles for GCSE so that put me off Hardy for life.

I cry at the ending of the film. Every flippin' year.

I'm a Christmas obsessive so read the book, watch all the various depictions and have the book an audible too 😀

I’ve been trying to finish Pride and Prejudice for 34 years.

I must have another bash soon. It’s weird - I love Northanger Abbey, adore Persuasion…but I can’t get on with P&P.

Wuthering Heights.
Great Expectations (although I love the 1946 film version with John Mills as Pip).

All Thomas hardy with the exception of Jude the obscure - and possibly only finished that one as I knew it was leading to a bit of a finale for want of a better expression

A Christmas Carol is my favourite 'story' of all time however. Though not my favourite book. If that makes sense

And the Alastair Sim film (shown every Christmas) genuinely conveys the spirit of the book. Watch that and you don't need to read it.

A Christmas Carol is the one Dickens I do get on with!

I finished my first Dickens during lockdown. I have no desire to repeat the experience. One of my main claims to fame is that I got an excellent degree in English including writing an essay in my finals on Dickens without having read a single one of his novels.
But I am one of the few Mumsnetters with only one degree-so what do I know!

True. I love a lot of his work though. Little Dorrit was a non-starter for me though.

A Christmas Carol is my favourite 'story' of all time however. Though not my favourite book. If that makes sense.

Moby Dick. Call me bored shitless.

Yep. Failed to finish Moby Dick. Twice. Then bloody DH read it at me. Bastard.

Frankenstein. I still have my copy so I’ll give it another go as presumably it picks up but the start is so bloody boring.

On the other hand, Dracula is one of my favourite books and I re-read it regularly. I do struggle with classics tho, I’ve always wanted to read them (so I can feel clever) but they’re often so wordy, I find it hard to keep track of what they’re blithering on about. I have to be in exactly the right mood and at the right energy level to read one but once that happens, I’ll fly through it’s just not often the stars will align in that way.

Middlemarch. So boring. All the stuff about morals. Where was the plot???

I've read and enjoyed loads of these.

I couldn't get very far into Heart of Darkness, though, and I tried Ulysses and thought, "What the actual hell?"

OTOH love Trollope. I've just finished Dr Thorne and I'll take him (Trollope, that is, not the doctor) over Eliot and Dickens any day.