Classic or renowned novels that you didn't enjoy?

[AlpacaTheBags]

I do generally enjoy the classics and I'm trying to read more of them this year but I finally read Jane Eyre last year and I didn't particularly enjoy it.

It took me 4 attempts to get through Pride and Prejudice, though I liked it in the end but I loved Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park and had no trouble getting through them.

I struggle with Hardy and I had to give up on Tess but perhaps I just haven't found the right Hardy for me.

Which classics didn't you enjoy?

@DuckonaBike

I read Wuthering Heights as a teenager and was really disappointed.

Later on I concluded that I had read it too young and tried again as an adult. Nope, it was still shit. It’s well written of course but the two main characters are just too annoying!

If you want to give Hardy another go, have you tried Far from the Madding Crowd?

It's known as Wuthering Shite here. Killed for me by the aggressive over-analysis demanded by my uni professor. I'm pretty sure I never actually made it to the end of the book and still turned in a passable essay.

@PhoboPhobia

I’ve always avoided classics. Not sure why but I don’t particularly enjoy anything set far in the past and also I worry they will be a huge disappointment.

I think the most ‘classic’ thing I’ve read is A Christmas Carol and I do love that.

Well you won’t know if something will be a disappointment until you try it

I find the language of the Brontes and Dickens too long-winded to get through. I persisted with Middlemarch and enjoyed it eventually, even though it is long-winded at times.

Some other writers of the same period did write straightforwardly though, often those with a scientific education.

I also hated On the Road, as well as anything from the Beat Generation.

Classics wise I dislike Dickens, except for the excellent Tale of Two Cities. Jane Austen I used to like when I was younger but find it hard to plough through nowadays. I agree re Middlemarch, I think I made it to chapter 3. Hardy I find unremittingly depressing, all his protagonists are so unlucky and seem to meet unpleasant fates. I don’t think there’s one book with a happy ending. I ploughed through Far from the Madding Crowd after watching the film on telly in my teens and read Tess and Jude the Obscure at a later age and vowed never to read another. So grim!

Anything by the Brontes is usually fairly bleak, although I enjoyed Villette, probably because it’s not set in a cold and draughty house somewhere and the tone was a lot lighter. Jane Eyre I detest, which I attribute in large part to having to do it for O level all those years ago.

Foreign literature wise Dostoevsky I can’t bear, Milan Kundera I could read to a point then he just got boring. War and Peace has far too many characters. I made the mistake of putting it down halfway through to go travelling, when i came back I couldn’t remember who was who anymore. That said I loved Vikram Seth’s aSuitable Boy because of the plethora of characters, probably because they were a lot more fun than Tolstoy’s.

Ooh here’s a controversial one: I absolutely hated I Capture The Castle which I think judging by previous threads is one of MN’s most widely loved novels. Anyone else or just me?!

@Viviennemary

I absolutely loathed Middlemarch. The most boring long winded piece of padded out writing ever. Only managed a couple of chapters. And it's considered by some to be the best novel ever written in the English language.

Maybe if you'd actually read it?

I really disliked Catcher in the Rye too. I read somewhere that introverts don't like that kind of book, where you're inside someone's head looking out.

I didn't like Dostoyevsky, but that might have been to do with having to read them for a course. I particularly didn't like the way that everyone had different names, I got quite easily confused. But then later I thought that it must also be a nightmare for non-native English speakers to read some authors as we do the same with a few English language names where the formal name and the nick name are not obviously related, like Richard/Dick, Sarah/Sally or Margaret/Daisy.

I loathed The Goldfinch- tedious and in need of a MASSIVE edit.
Midnight's Children - never got past page 20.
Don't really like Dickens but love Hardy and Austen.

I adore a good classic novel but I found Middlemarch very heavy going and dull. I wouldn't read it again.

I found Don Quixote funny at times but less than fabulous.

Jane Eyre is my all time favourite - I guess I also read it at the right time iyswim which I think is an important factor.

I've also tried a few times to read Ulysses but never got past page 3. I found my eye was just moving across the page but my brain was thinking of something else entirely, like what to have for dinner.

I did Wuthering Heights for both O and A levels, so I've read it about six times, and can confidently say that I hate it.

I love Austen and a variety of Victorian novels, but have never really got on with Dickens. I actively hated Hard Times which I had to study at school because of the baffling anti-union plot.

At school when I was about 8 my teacher forced very strongly encouraged me to read Children of The New Forest. I was quite bright and an able reader but I remember it being very tedious , boring, and quite a trauma. It seemed to take forever to get through it.

Exactly the same happened to me, only I was 11 and the book I was forced / encouraged to read was Great Expectations. Such a slog. I thought I hated Dickens until I had to read A Tale Of Two Cities at uni and loved it.

These threads always go heavy on Wuthering Heights and Catcher In The Rye, but I love both of those!

I've read very few "classics". But those that I have managed to finish, I have enjoyed. So, my favourites are Pride and Prejudice; Northanger Abbey; Jane Eyre; The War of the Worlds; The Woman in White; The Moonstone; David Copperfield; The Lord of the Flies; Brighton Rock.

I've attempted to read many others but have given up. I've never managed to finish anything by Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy or Emily Bronte and have only ever read one Dickens. Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children was another one that I tried twice but it failed to engage me.

Moby Dick, so tedious!

I read Middlemarch and got to the end - it took some doing but I did wonder why I'd bothered.

Wuthering Heights - I like melodrama but was much more interested in the second generation than Heathcliff and Cathy who seemed very off in many ways even when I was a young teen.

Catcher in the Rye couldn't finish though I didn't try reading till an adult - moving in with DH who had a copy so maybe I was wrong age.

Crime and punishment and Anna Karenina couldn't get into and finish but since I've now come across versions of Jules Verne I can't get through having read and loved stories previoulsy I wonder if I need to look at different translations.

Interesting to see how differently we view novels. Wuthering Heights is one of my favourite ever novels but so many people hate it. I didn't like Jane Eyre but so many adore it. It's really interesting to see what people do and don't enjoy and why.

I didn't care for On The Road either and I had to give up on Mrs Dalloway. I'm not a fan of stream of consciousness style books.

Laska2Meryls I'm reading Persuasion right now. I'm only two chapters in and struggling with it but I'll persist. That it's your favourite gives me some hope.

I'll try the Hardy novels that some have suggested. Thank you for that.

Dracula - I did finish but was disappointed with but was very surprised by but loved Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

War of the Worlds was also a bit disappointing - but I knew if first through the musical version and that was more impressive than the orginal story - though watched recent BBC adapatation and that was absolutely awful somehow.

War and Peace: gave up.

Enjoyed Mrs Dalloway and thought The Hours (book version, film good too) was brilliant.

@SimonedeBeauvoirscat

Ooh here’s a controversial one: I absolutely hated I Capture The Castle which I think judging by previous threads is one of MN’s most widely loved novels. Anyone else or just me?!

Me too. It's rubbish.

I love Wuthering Heights though.

Lord of the Flies I didn’t really like, I just found it a bit irritating. There were others of the same ilk I read at around the same age (so early teens), I think maybe Coral Island for example, I ploughed through them all but didn’t like any of them.

Joyce is a mixed bag, some I liked others (like Ulysses and a Portrait) I found a bit self indulgent.

Atwood I had a phase of reading them all, loved the Robber Bride for example, but then I got to Alias Grace and I couldn’t get on with it. I’ve actually bought the Handmaid’s Tale but have no inclination to pick it up.

I also bought Cloud Atlas, what a pile o’ shite! I think my tolerance for getting to the end of a book I’m not enjoying has definitely decreased. I also have the Hilary Mantel trilogy, I started on Wolf Hall as it was the first I found then couldn’t go backwards to Bringing up the Bodies. It’s still sitting there. I love the historical context but find the prose quite rambly and I no longer have the patience for that.

Emma by Jane Austen. In fact anything by Jane Austen.

I also have the Hilary Mantel trilogy, I started on Wolf Hall as it was the first I found then couldn’t go backwards to Bringing up the Bodies.

I struggled so much with Wolf Hall, I was just so confused - I just couldn’t figure out most of the time who was saying/doing what and everyone seemed to be called Thomas

For context, I’ve got a degree in English but I just couldn’t get my head round the writing at all, but I’m clearly missing something!

Wuthering Heights for me too, every character was either an utter shit or a complete drip. Rochester in JE is an utter shit as well. I did quite enjoy "Wildfell Hall" though, I thought it very "modern" as the story of a woman fleeing domestic abuse.
I agree that those kids must have had a pretty miserable upbringing. Bramwell became an alcoholic didn' t he?

Can't be doing with Wuthering Heights. Or Dostoyevsky. Henry James. Most famous books by American men.

Love Austen, Tolstoy, Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, Hardy.

Such differences are healthy!
Gatsby is definitely in my top 10, Emma, Persuasion, Jane Eyre and Frankenstein are not quite but up there in my mind. Atwood is a bloody genius as is Joyce (although Ulysees took me about 8 attempts.

I positively hated Middlemarch and Tess- soooo pointless- despise Tristram Shandy- ridiculous- hated Catcher in the Rye- whiny- and dislike most of Dickens (except Oliver Twist and David Copperfield). The absolute worst of worst has to be Under the Volcano- torrid and I remember the essay at uni almost killing me.

I gave up after , I think, the 2nd Lord of the Rings, but I thought they were okay. On the Road/ Brighton Rock/ The Road to Wigan Pier didn't light any fires, I was just bored.