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Original poster

Admit it - what's the classic book that everyone raves about but you despise?

192 replies

EverySingleStar · 21/09/2009 00:57

I probably have more than one but The Great Gatsby is definitely up there. shudder violently Shall add more later

OP posts:
Libra · 25/09/2009 19:45

Sons and Lovers (far too much fondling of flowers)

Wuthering Heights (pull yourself together!)

Mansfield Park. I adore anything else by Jane, but loathe Fanny Price.

scottishmummy · 25/09/2009 19:30

anything by ian McEwan i find his writing turgid.like a literary quagmire

Leln · 25/09/2009 19:23

Anything by iris Murdoch....
The Sea, The Sea is completely impenetrable whilst The Bell is like religious community meets chick lit.
Arghh

JulesJules · 25/09/2009 11:19

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OrmIrian · 25/09/2009 10:13

Or even Wells!

OrmIrian · 25/09/2009 10:13

Bishop's Palace in Well cad.

LeylaKier · 25/09/2009 00:20

Has anyone mentioned The Hunchback of Notre Dame yet? Esmerelda in the Disney version was feisty. In the original she was a typical cardboard sappy Victorian pretend female. As for Cossette in Les Miserables - same diff. Women written by Victorian men (cue Tess etc) NOT very believable.

MinkyBorage · 24/09/2009 23:34

yes custy, my sentiments exactly re Catcher in the rye, : piss easy read. fucking pointless

MrsMcJnr · 24/09/2009 22:33

Mansfield Park - sooo borring!

Cadelaide · 24/09/2009 22:19

....but anyway, was it local?

Cadelaide · 24/09/2009 22:17

oops, 12th night, I always do that

Cadelaide · 24/09/2009 22:15

Oooh, Orm, where was that? My niece played Olivia, may have been the same one?

notnowbernard · 24/09/2009 22:13

The Great Gatsby - started a thread on here about it on whether to persist. Had to abandon, just could not get into it at all

Tortington · 24/09/2009 22:11

ooooh brave

Cadelaide · 24/09/2009 22:10

Any Jane Austen.

There, I said it.

Tortington · 24/09/2009 22:07

tess - hated it

mary barton - hated it

Tortington · 24/09/2009 22:04

catcher in the rye

piss easy read. fucking pointless

Aspire2Iron · 24/09/2009 22:00

Little Women. Hated it.

OrmIrian · 24/09/2009 21:15

Indeed we do

I love Shakespeare though. Sorry. I do know what you mean about the in-the-know titters in the audience Most of it isn't LOL funny anyway. I took my eldest 2 to a performance of The Tempest last summer - it was fantastic - they loved it which might have had something to do with it being outdoors and a really ham it up no-holds-barred performance. Brilliant.

PortBlacksandResident · 24/09/2009 20:48

Yes i also enjoyed 'the mayor of casterbridge' it was my first grown up novel i.e. not boy meets girl, happily ever after etc.

OrmIrian - i think we always seem to agree on this sort of thread - you may not have noticed .

TheFoosa - my GCSE English teacher took us to a couple of Shakespeare plays and actually guffawed during the 'funny' bit - presumably to show how he understood them. ....

MinkyBorage · 24/09/2009 20:10

Another Catcher in the Rye here. A male friend told me you have to be a pubescent boy to 'get' it.

RedLentil · 24/09/2009 20:07

The Handmaid's Tale. If I wanted to read an essay I would read one. I have had to mark dozens of essays on it just to compound my hatred of it.

I love The Mayor of Casterbridge and Hardy's poetry but I find the other novels very hard going.

Cyteen, I may need to weep too about your rejection of Middlemarch. Off to consider ways of saving your mortal literary soul ...

OrmIrian · 24/09/2009 19:48

No I love Tolkein too portsblack. And Pratchett.

JeMenFous · 24/09/2009 19:46

Captain Correlli's Mandolin

Yuk yuk yuk!!

tvaerialmagpiebin · 24/09/2009 19:36

Oh I LOVED The Handmaid's Tale. It was one of those not-quite science fiction stories that stayed with me for ages. I liked all those sorts of things like Z for Zachariah, Mrs Frisby and the rats of NIMH, the Nevil Shute one about the nuclear aftermath - On the Beach?