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Classic or renowned novels that you didn't enjoy?

164 replies

AlpacaTheBags · 03/01/2022 13:19

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?

OP posts:
DeckardK · 03/01/2022 20:58

Wow, I love Wuthering Heights - the writing, the story...the misery! And Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities is a wonderful book, and A Christmas Carol is the best story of all. My favourite book is Bram Stoker's Dracula so I am struggling with a lot of your answers Grin

How anyone can enjoy Mansfield Park though I will never know...

Nomoreusernames1244 · 03/01/2022 21:01

Wuthering heights. Had a boyfriend who loved it, i did try but hated it.

The hobbit and LOTR. It was recommended to me for years as “you like that sort of thing”. Boring. Boring. Boring. Pages and pages describing one tiny detail.

Toomuchtoodo · 03/01/2022 21:10

I read ‘Jane Eyre’ as an 11 year old and absolutely loved it, I could hardly breath I thought it was so romantic.

Reread it as an adult and felt that the Jane/Rochester relationship was sickeningly abusive; I hated him and was desperate for her to escape.

ChiefInspectorParker · 03/01/2022 21:20

This reply has been withdrawn

Message from MNHQ: This post has been withdrawn

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 03/01/2022 21:44

I did reread Jane Eyre last year, and enjoyed it - but I can see what you are saying about the relationship between Jane and Mr Rochester, @Toomuchtoodo - though I do think it becomes more equal when he is blind and needs her, and she has more of her own power, due to,her experiences and her inheritance.

Woodlandwater · 03/01/2022 21:53

Wasn't dickens written to be serialised rather than a novel? Which is why they are so tedious to plough through as a book?

I hated wuthering heights. Probably because I read it at 12 after Austen and wanted it all to be ballrooms in Bath and not slogging about on a moor. I do like the song though!

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 03/01/2022 21:58

That makes sense, @Woodlandwater.

Linnet · 03/01/2022 22:20

I have never managed to read Jane Austen, I just find them boring and tedious and wish they wouldn’t pussyfoot around what they are trying to say all the time.

I manage to watch tv or film adaptations ok, but I just can’t read them.

ChessieFL · 04/01/2022 07:23

I hated Catcher In The Rye, but I was about 39 when I read it so not the target audience!

Hated Mansfield Park when I read it for A level as I thought it was really boring, but enjoyed it more when I read it a couple of years ago.

My controversial one is Agatha Christie. I’ve read three (and apparently three of the best) and I dread to think what the others were like. The prose was so simple and full of exclamation marks that I felt I was reading YA, and often the deductions were just lucky guesses. I think I’m about the only person in the world who doesn’t like her though! Maybe I should try again.

Nathlash · 04/01/2022 07:58

@Melassa

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.

But Bring Up the Bodies is the sequel to Wolf Hall. You were reading in the right order.
AdamRyan · 04/01/2022 08:07

To kill a mockingbird. I have read it several times and just find it very tedious indeed

War and peace - its just too long

Deathraystare · 04/01/2022 09:53

@Viviennemary

Re Middlemarch - you and me both! It was a bookclub book. I tried it by audio but it was no better. Ditto Wuthering Heights. I wanted to slap both characters!

prettyteapotsplease · 04/01/2022 12:49

If I remember rightly, @Deathraystare Middlemarch has been named as a title which has broken many a book club and frankly I'm not surprised.

quicknamechange4000 · 04/01/2022 12:56

The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye. So forgettable. Found Tolkien tedious too.

I absolutely love Wuthering Heights and am surprised it has so many mentions here! The characters and dialogue gripped me the first time and I still love to re-read it. It never gets boring.

IsFuzzyBeagMise · 04/01/2022 13:11

@PersonaNonGarter

Madame Bovary - a book so dull that I immediately judge anyone who likes it.

The Magus - fortunately, this seems to have fallen out of fashion but it just isn’t worth it.

I set myself the challenge of rereading Madame Bovary last year. I had studied it years ago at university. I enjoyed it. It starts slowly, but gains pace as the story progresses. I found Emma's self-destructive spiral sad and fascinating. And there are many beautiful passages. Like many classics, it requires patience.
Annaghgloor · 04/01/2022 13:16

@PersonaNonGarter

Madame Bovary - a book so dull that I immediately judge anyone who likes it.

The Magus - fortunately, this seems to have fallen out of fashion but it just isn’t worth it.

The Magus is self-congratulatory, sexist self-indulgent twattery (and I do like other John Fowles’’ novels), but I love Madame Bovary. I read French, though — is it possible you had a bad translation?
ApplePippa · 04/01/2022 13:35

I really really wanted to love Wolf Hall. In theory, it should ticks a lot of boxes of things I generally enjoy, but I just became bogged down with it. I tried the audio book as well, because sometimes that's easier that wading through pages of text, but my mind kept wondering.

Strangely, I loved the TV version. I can't think of any other book where I have enjoyed a screen adaptation better - usually its the other way round!

TheWildHunt · 04/01/2022 14:45

My controversial one is Agatha Christie. I’ve read three (and apparently three of the best) and I dread to think what the others were like. The prose was so simple and full of exclamation marks that I felt I was reading YA, and often the deductions were just lucky guesses. I think I’m about the only person in the world who doesn’t like her though! Maybe I should try again.

I started reading her before end of primary and then my teens were a mix of classics bought by my DP and historical books/novels bit of sci from school library. DDad was similar read her in his teens that's why there were books around the house. One of my DMum's friends who worked in my primary school had all her books and used to lend me some and I think she'd started reading her in her teens.

I've read some since as an adult and just thought they were the less good stories certainly the less famous ones but manybe it's a reading age issue.

I now tend to watch the TV adaptations though only like Joan Hickson Miss Marple and David Suchet Hercule Poirot - though I did liked the recent Kenneth Branagh Murder on the Orient Express which apparent if I was a true Agatha Christie fan I shouldn't have.

mewkins · 04/01/2022 15:00

@MuesliNameChange

Ugh yes like a PP said, On the Road. I've blocked out the details but just recall it being constantly both tedious and exhausting the whole way through
On the road was a massive disappointment.
JaneJeffer · 04/01/2022 15:05

Cold Comfort Farm is another MN favourite that I hate.

RainingYetAgain · 04/01/2022 20:59

Nomoreusernames1244
You are so right about the Hobbit and LOTR. Mind numbingly boring. The books just go on, and on and on.
The films were no better- I got bored in 10 minutes.

Draggedalong1 · 04/01/2022 21:29

Oh I was delightedly surprised by Voltaire who I thought would be deadly but candide is snappy and cool. Also like Austen, it’s like the Jenny holder, joan Collins chick lit of its day. I think the fascinating thing is that we cannot get into the mindset of the time so we are starting from a strange perspective.
Went to a david Bailey exhibit and what was obviously shocking and fresh in the 60s is still ok now but nothing like as surprising. And we just can’t see it with that background of poverty, rebellion, freshness etc. Coming as we do from a totally different world. That’s why I think classics are fascinating, you have to will yourself back into their time. Dd doing a poet ( lo chead) at school and didn’t get the poems because she doesn’t know what things are ( candlewick, Lino! That were super mundane at the time)

Gremlinsateit · 05/01/2022 11:13

@WeeFae

Did not enjoy The Secret History by Donn Tartt, think I missed the "wow" about it.
I agree, it looked like it was going to be interesting for the first few chapters and then it was just ridiculous and dull. Everyone I knew was wild for it. Didn’t she get a record-breaking advance? - maybe it was sold on a couple of chapters and an outline.

The Little Friend was worse and I didn’t bother with The Goldfinch.

BachAndByte · 05/01/2022 11:26

A Room With A View.

Nothing seems to bloody happen other than everyone wafting about a bit and getting angsty. Give me something with an actual plot.

The film was equally dull.

inheritancetrack · 05/01/2022 11:58

Read a great biography of Proust but reading his seminal novel was dire. Gave up after a 30 pages

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