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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:
OrmIrian · 22/09/2009 14:29

I love Iris Murdoch, Virginia Woolf and Conrad.

PlumpRumpSoggyBaps · 22/09/2009 14:26

Same as mackerel re Tolstoy. And Dostoevsky. And Lord of the Rings.

I can't keep hold of complicated or stupid names in my head so have to keep checking back, which kind of interrupts the flow.

And The Bell, by Iris Murdoch. Did it for O-level and have never yawned so much in my life. Fortunately I have now blocked it out of my memory.

mackerel · 22/09/2009 14:16

Anna Karenina. In fact, Tolstoy in general. Lord of the Rings too. I really remember enjoying The hobbit as a child but having read it to my DS I'm wondering why. It was unbelievably turgid, slow and dull. I hated White Teeth too, although not a classic.

Thredworm · 22/09/2009 14:01

I like Conrad. I'm afraid of Virginia Woolf, very, but I don't dislike her.

globex · 22/09/2009 13:59

Anything by Conrad. Maybe not girly enough - I seem to remember the boys who loved Conrad hate Virginia Woolf. Bah!

giveloveachance · 22/09/2009 13:44

got to be Wuthering Heights. found it sheer tedium, couldn't bear to watch the tv adaptation either.

nickelbabe · 22/09/2009 13:42

Catcher in the Rye: hands down.

dreadful. never read anything else where i just couldn't give a toss about what happened to the main character.

OrmIrian · 22/09/2009 13:26

Also Book or Laughter and Forgetting.

jeee · 22/09/2009 13:26

Anything by Jane Austen or Salman Rushdie

OrmIrian · 22/09/2009 13:26

Unbearable lightness of being was a total dud. Unbearable dullness of reading twas named in our house.

LightShinesInTheDarkness · 22/09/2009 13:24

Mmmm - fascinating thread! Love reading all these.

But what is a classic? Is anything written in the last 20 years a 'classic', or does a book have to stand the test of time before it can be properly described as a classic.

And can you see a classic coming? I wonder which of the books we are reading now and discussing here ('The Island', 'The Lovely Bones', 'Labyrinth') might later be described as classics. Actually, I reckon very few of them - they are popular and best-selling, but not classics.

Maybe a new thread beckons - what are the classics of the future?!

bamboobutton · 21/09/2009 17:57

not a classic but The Tenderness of Wolves was such a chore.

kept waiting for it to get good and for the wolves to appear and show their tenderness but it never happened. it was a very confusing book.

McDreamy · 21/09/2009 17:46

To Kill A Mocking Bird

Wiggletastic · 21/09/2009 17:44

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene - totally ruined by terrible English teacher.

All other Graham Greene's are genius.

Just tried to read Human Stain by Philip Roth - just far too smart-arsed for his own or his readers good IMO.

Ditto The Secret History - I did finish it but it was pretentious crap.

nighbynight · 21/09/2009 16:18

All of Tolkein.
Great Gatsby I have tried but find it rather tedious.

bodeniites · 21/09/2009 16:17

War and Peace cant remember a thing about it

MrsJohnDeere · 21/09/2009 16:06

Wuthering Heights

katechristie · 21/09/2009 16:04

woman in white.
took me 3 years to read it. A woman I was at college with raved about it and I felt i really must get to the end, as I was obviously missing something and once I finished it I would understand why she loved it (and hopefully feel a bit more intelligent to boot). achieved neither. still wondering why on earth I persevered. - it did come in handy however, as during the 3 years I was asked at an interview what I was reading at the moment, given I'd put reading as a hobby - so I casually replied "woman in white" wilkie collins - feeling super intelligent for that one minute!

OrmIrian · 21/09/2009 15:52

Well I think that the Victorian classics need to be introduced in childhood. In the same way that the CHinese use to bind feet. Leave it after the age of about 12 and it's too late

cyteen · 21/09/2009 15:45

I was supposed to read it for my 3rd year at uni. My tutor on that particular course nearly wept too. Especially after the exchange we'd had about Wordsworth.

As Bob Hoskins might have said, the Victorian classics? I shit 'em.

Treadworn · 21/09/2009 15:27

You are dissing my Very Favourite Book. When it finished I felt that everyone I cared about had died at once.

cyteen · 21/09/2009 15:25

Middlemarch. I ploughed grimly on through 80 pages before realising that each and every one felt like a lifetime spent sitting in a darkened room eating dust and listening to muted crying from down the corridor, and that there was seemingly another thousand pages to go before the end. After that it went in the bin. GASH.

bibbitybobbityhat · 21/09/2009 15:20

Perfume by Patrick Suskind

Bucharest · 21/09/2009 15:19

Not a classic (although you'd think the bliddy woman had reinvented the wheel to hear people talk) and not terribly adult either, but I never like to lose the opportunity to have a pop at Twilight.....
"why are you looking at me?"
"well, you're quirky and I fancy you"
"OK"
"But I'm a vampire"
"Oh, that's OK"

Ad nauseum for another 1500 pages.

yawn

Don't mind WH quite as much as other bonnety things. At least there's a bit of angst in WH instead of all that "ooooh how can I find a husband" crap.

choosyfloosy · 21/09/2009 13:52

Many great loves of mine listed here...

...but up with Wuthering Heights I will not put. I know I should re-read it post school but I just can't face it. Dull, dull, dull.