Classics you couldn't finish

[Tambatamba]

For me, Dracula. As compelling as it was, I had to stop reading it because I found it so sad and depressing.

Loads! Dickens, Tolkien, Jude the Obscure because it’s so depressing. I found Frankenstein really hard to get into.

Middlemarch - tedious beyond belief

I also skimmed through probably half of A Tale of Two Cities. I tried, and my husband raves about it, but I was bored stiff (and I like other Dickens)

My Sons Story by Nadine Gordimer is the worst book I’ve ever picked up though. Not sure it’s a classic as such but it is a Nobel laureate work and as such I thought it might be good. It’s dreadful. Give me Disgrace by Coetzee anyday (even if that one did make me angry)

Crime and Punishment
Anna Karenina

I guess the Russian classics are not for me.

I can race through Wilkie Collins and Dickens no problem but those heavy Russian novels defeated me.

Bleak House.... I have read and actually enjoyed a few Dickens but BH was just toooo many people to wrap my head around. I watched the TV show and that was brilliant. 🙂

Several are sat in my kindle. Have no excitement to read them but thought I'd try, but after several years... There's other stuff I'd rather read.

Moby Dick... barely made it past first few pages. Treasure Island...nope.

All George Elliot except for Daniel Deronda and that's just because I did English Lit at uni and was on the set list. Every line of plot or dialogue seems to then be extrapolated into something meaningful about the human race etc.

Catch 22 here too. It's an easyish read and witty but just never draws me in enough to keep going.

Daniel Deronda - never made it past the introduction
Most of Dickens apart from David Copperfield. Too verbose, annoying with his grotesque characters and his attitudes to women, esp the fallen variety.
Wuthering Heights
Looked at the length of Moby Dick and thought 'Nope. not reading all that about a whale, ta.'
Hardy. So bleeding miserable.

Middlemarch - the TV adaptation is on IPlayer and highly recommend that.

Anything I have tried by Dickens, and Middlemarch by Eliot. It isnt just that I cant finish them, I cant get past chapter one!

Little Dorit (Dickens) - unrelenting misery

It’s all that endless stuff about the landscape which finished me off. Got halfway through both.

I love how different everyone is - so many posts about not enjoying this. I couldn't put it down, thought it was hilarious and bleak and wonderful.

Yes, people keep telling me this!

OTOH love Trollope. I've just finished Dr Thorne and I'll take him (Trollope, that is, not the doctor) over Eliot and Dickens any day.

I've read and enjoyed loads of these.

I couldn't get very far into Heart of Darkness, though, and I tried Ulysses and thought, "What the actual hell?"

Middlemarch. So boring. All the stuff about morals. Where was the plot???

Frankenstein. I still have my copy so I’ll give it another go as presumably it picks up but the start is so bloody boring.

On the other hand, Dracula is one of my favourite books and I re-read it regularly. I do struggle with classics tho, I’ve always wanted to read them (so I can feel clever) but they’re often so wordy, I find it hard to keep track of what they’re blithering on about. I have to be in exactly the right mood and at the right energy level to read one but once that happens, I’ll fly through it’s just not often the stars will align in that way.

Yep. Failed to finish Moby Dick. Twice. Then bloody DH read it at me. Bastard.

Moby Dick. Call me bored shitless.

True. I love a lot of his work though. Little Dorrit was a non-starter for me though.

A Christmas Carol is my favourite 'story' of all time however. Though not my favourite book. If that makes sense.

I finished my first Dickens during lockdown. I have no desire to repeat the experience. One of my main claims to fame is that I got an excellent degree in English including writing an essay in my finals on Dickens without having read a single one of his novels.
But I am one of the few Mumsnetters with only one degree-so what do I know!

A Christmas Carol is the one Dickens I do get on with!

A Christmas Carol is my favourite 'story' of all time however. Though not my favourite book. If that makes sense

And the Alastair Sim film (shown every Christmas) genuinely conveys the spirit of the book. Watch that and you don't need to read it.

All Thomas hardy with the exception of Jude the obscure - and possibly only finished that one as I knew it was leading to a bit of a finale for want of a better expression

Wuthering Heights.
Great Expectations (although I love the 1946 film version with John Mills as Pip).

I’ve been trying to finish Pride and Prejudice for 34 years.

I must have another bash soon. It’s weird - I love Northanger Abbey, adore Persuasion…but I can’t get on with P&P.

I'm a Christmas obsessive so read the book, watch all the various depictions and have the book an audible too 😀