so which 'classics' have you never read?

[iwastooearlytobeayummymummy]

For me it's Wuthering Heights and the Russian stuff: War and Peace and Anna Karenina
Also never read Madame Bovary, but I'm sure I've started it before now
I love Margaret Attwood but have not got round to the Hand Maids Tale yet ( but it is beside the bed)

I havent read any of the old classics but the one i want to read is Don Quixote

had forgotten about Graham Greene - yes I like

Have tried and failed with Jane Eyre 4 times over the past 10 years, will try BelligerentGhoul's tactic. Love Jane Austen and laugh out loud at more of her lines than any other author. Like Dickens but you do need some serious investment of time for most of his stuff. Moby Dick is hard going - try reading in graphic novel style first to get the plot and characters and then you can really appreciate the language of the original.

Personally I rank Winnie The Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner as bona fide classics, they are so original, AA Milne was a genius with the English language. Can't get on with his mate JM Barrie's Peter Pan though.

I don't understand 'classics' that people say are funny, like Scoop and a lot of Kingsley Amis. Just find it turgid and dated.

As for the nineteenth-century lot, I have tried: Eliot, Tolstoy, Stendhal, most of the Brontes, etc. Dull, long, dense (in a bad way), can't be arsed with the archaic language. Oddly though, although I can't do most Hardy I LOVE Jude the Obscure.

Have tried v hard with Graham Greene but only like Travels With My Aunt, and quite like Brighton Rock but found it hard work.

On more modern 'classics', what do people think about Beryl Bainbridge? I've tried a couple and am baffled by the rave reviews; dated, stiff, unfunny, stuffy.

Thank goodness it's not just me!

I did an English Lit degree too, and dread any 'literature' questions at the Pub Quiz as all my science studying palls look to me for the answers and are not at all impressed by the response 'I didn't actually have to read the books - just the criticism.' But jeez, it's not like any of them split the atom or anything!

I can't stand Dickens - he's just what you get if you pay by the page IMVVHO.

Love Brontes and Austin, though think Bronte love is as much because I'm an exiled Northerner missing the hills as anything!

I'm trying Tolstoy now, but good grief is it hard going. Also used untaken leave to try and read the Count of Monte Cristo, and instead ended up watching old Buffy DVDs

I just cannot bring myself to read anything by Dickens it all just seems incredibly boring and miserable.

Loved Wuthering Heights but preferred Jane Eyre. Currently reading Far From the Madding Crowd (Hardy), which I struggled with at the start, but once the characters actually start talking rather then it just being lengthy descriptions of Dorset countryside it gets much better!

Have just finished 'Birdsong' which was a struggle - don't think it's ever taken me 3 months to finish a book before but worth it in the end.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin...just don't get it at all.

Next on my list is The Hobbit, which I have my reservations about but am determined to read before the film comes out (if only so I can ascertain how much Richard Armitage action we're going to get in the film version [grin!])

Some books are a struggle, aren't they?

It took me 8 years to read The Master and Margarita .

Worst for me was Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott, groan...loved Tess of the D'Urbervilles though what a drip she was. Emma by Jane Austen was tolerated once you realized the inside line going thro' the plot. Can't abide anything by Tolkein after being forced to read it at eleven (The Hobbit) by overbearing old school headmaster who should never have got the job...
Modern classics anyone? Angela's Ashes grueling but excellent.

Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace is a classic, for my money. Also Wolf Hall. And probably Money.

I tried seven times to read Catch 22 and finally succeeded last year (def worth it). I didn't manage to read Lord of the Rings until I was 30 and took that and nothing else on holiday with me to France where there was no alternative. Anything by Marquez utterly defeats me and I've tried to read Hard Times 3 times now and still haven't managed.

I have had Madame B in the living room on the showing-off-bookshelf for about a decade and have never even attempted it.

feral, I started and gave up on Love In The Time of Cholera several times over several years but read it eventually and it was worth it ? it was a decade ago but it is still with me (in a good if melancholy way).

Bugger Dickens, and Madame Bovary, I say.

Sorry but I feel the need to defend the spelling of Jane AustEn. If people love her, please, please spell her name correctly! I make spelling errors all over the place but to do so with Jane's name is surely sacrilege? :)

I didn't even get past page three of Moby Dick. I know somebody who claims it is the best book they have ever read - I don't believe this and think they just believe that it makes them sound clever.

Marquez - god yes. Had to read him as well. At both A-Level and at Uni. No-one writes to the colonel - no, and I don't bloody blame them either!

Proust

I also hate Dickens.

Ha! I will remember and quote this conversation next time my best mate is extolling the virtues of Marquez and telling me that Love in the Time of Cholera is the best book ever blah blah blah...

I MIGHT try it again when I'm on maternity leave and immobile on the sofa with a child stuck to me. Then again maybe I'll just stick to crappy crime novels and Buffy box sets and let my brain turn to mush!

I liked Love in the Time of Cholera but unfortunately can remember nothing at all about it! I think there may have been a boat ride involved, yes?

I'm only dipping in and out of this thread, but how would one misspell Austen?

Madame Bovary : read it and SO wanted to slap her !!

Dickens : had to read "Hard times" for A-level and never has a book been so aptly named ! Not going to bother with any of his stuff ever again - life is too short.

War & Peace : got about a third of the way through and then just wanted them all to die of consumption and be done with it !

Oh god - Love in The Time of Cholera - yawn (and I liek a bit of misery in a novel). Yes there was a boat ride - and that's about all I can remember, too.

And The Unbearable Lightness of Being - don't even get me started on Milan Kundera... Does anyone actually read them for fun?

(even though I can't type)

AustIn...

Not a 'classic' but I think many people would like to brand it a modern classic - Never Let Me Go. God, I hated it and just wished they'd all hurry up and get chopped up tbh.

And The Remains Of The Day - okay..you love her...either tell her or shut the fuck up then, will you?