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Original poster

Classics you couldn't finish

211 replies

Tambatamba · 05/09/2023 05:07

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

OP posts:
MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 05/09/2023 08:19

Carebearstare12e · 05/09/2023 08:17

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

Show quote history

I cry at the ending of the film. Every flippin' year.

VeronicaBeccabunga · 05/09/2023 08:20

Wuthering Heights
Dickens, although I like Wilkie Collins so maybe I should give Dickens another try.
Struggled through The Mill on the Floss, have finally admitted defeat with Middlemarch.
Had to do Tess of the d'Urbervilles for GCSE so that put me off Hardy for life.

Chiswickgal · 05/09/2023 08:24

I used to love the classics ( especially the Brontes) and Russian novels, but don’t have the brain space now. However I’ve never been able to get past the first few chapters of The Great Gatsby

Beamur · 05/09/2023 08:31

Moby Dick here too! So very dull.
Love Dickens generally but Tale of Two Cities is very difficult to get into.
I did finish Clarissa but hated it.
Got bored with The Magus and Master and Margarita too..
Have to admit to never having read any Wilkie Collins.

alwayscrashinginthesamecar1 · 05/09/2023 08:37

I'm another Dickens hater, and I can't get past the first two chapters of Catch 22. I have finished Ulysses though, and I love Thomas Hardy. I struggled through Heart of Darkness, though it took me months to finish and I hated every page. I think my most hated book at uni was 'The Faerie Queene' by Edmund Spenser, got I bloody hated it, it was even worse than bloody Beowulf. I can't abide any magical realism or goblinny shit either, so Tolkien and Gabriel Garcia Marquez can fuck off too.

Squirrelsnut · 05/09/2023 08:38

Loads! I've never finished any Hardy novel, Middlemarch, Old Curiosity Shop, Moby Dick...

I second the recommendation for Dickens on Audible though - I absolutely loved The Pickwick Papers read to me. I suspect Dickens works best like that, most of his novels were written as weekly chapters for magazines, I think, so read all at once they can be very verbose.

SammyScrounge · 05/09/2023 08:40

DrFosterWentToGloucester23 · 05/09/2023 06:56

Dubliners by James Joyce

Ditto

Carebearstare12e · 05/09/2023 08:42

alwayscrashinginthesamecar1 · 05/09/2023 08:37

I'm another Dickens hater, and I can't get past the first two chapters of Catch 22. I have finished Ulysses though, and I love Thomas Hardy. I struggled through Heart of Darkness, though it took me months to finish and I hated every page. I think my most hated book at uni was 'The Faerie Queene' by Edmund Spenser, got I bloody hated it, it was even worse than bloody Beowulf. I can't abide any magical realism or goblinny shit either, so Tolkien and Gabriel Garcia Marquez can fuck off too.

I love the concepts and worlds created by Tolkien but can't read TLOTR. Oh my God the f-ing interminable songs.

MenopauseSucks · 05/09/2023 08:42

@Phos @Beamur

I'm glad I'm not the only one that has problems with Tale of Two Cities!
I follow 'the royal reading room' on Instagram - an online book club set up during lockdowns - and it was one of the recent books.
I thought I'd give it another try & just got bored within a few chapters!
And I quite enjoy Dickens.

@petridishmystery

I'm impressed you've read Dracula so many times. I live alone & whenever I've tried to re-read it, every creak of the house is amplified... The photo of Bela Lugosi on the cover doesn't help!

MaggieBsBoat · 05/09/2023 08:42

Anything by Jane Austen. I stopped trying about 15 years ago. Just nonsense.
i love Moby Duck though and Ulysses (Joyce) oh and all George Eliot novels , so not sure what that says about me.

ErrolTheDragon · 05/09/2023 08:45

I loved Dickens as a teen - started by watching the bbc serialisation of Our Mutual Friend and then getting the book as I couldn't wait for the next Sunday's episode. (Oh the excitement of the 70's, I did the same with Jane Eyre and a few others... war and peace, come to think. Though I gave up on the epilogue of that.).
But I ran aground on the Pickwick Papers and Martin Chuzzlewit, neither of which I could get into, and couldn't finish A Tale of Two Cities... well, I knew how it ended.

I did try Eliot but didn't get on too well. I might (if I ever redevelop a reading habit) try Daniel Deronda and Romola again, now there's the internet for reading around. As a teen I was baffled by much in the latter iirc, I'd no idea who Savonarola was for instance which didn't help, but I seem to remember thinking it'd be interesting if I knew wtf it was about.

ErrolTheDragon · 05/09/2023 08:48

MaggieBsBoat · 05/09/2023 08:42

Anything by Jane Austen. I stopped trying about 15 years ago. Just nonsense.
i love Moby Duck though and Ulysses (Joyce) oh and all George Eliot novels , so not sure what that says about me.

Moby-Duck is the one about bath toys and ocean currents. I think I'd be more likely to read that than Moby-DickGrin

Bibbetybobbity · 05/09/2023 08:50

Anna Karanina. I forced myself to finish, but by the end I was just reading the individual words out of sheer stubbornness. Never again. And Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I was so excited for its release but couldn’t follow the plot to save my life even though I love her other books…

kerstina · 05/09/2023 08:52

Lord of the rings. Also Life of Pi but when I saw the film I did like it so will maybe try again one day. Also Harry Potter but I am sure I would have loved them if I was a child as I loved the faraway tree.

Nonplusultra · 05/09/2023 08:53

Love in the Time of Cholera - I just cannot settle with it. I tried it again in Lockdown and still couldn’t.

I pushed myself through so many of these as a teen and now I have less patience. But then I get FOMO because some of the best books are slow burners. I’d struggle to articulate why Portrait of a Lady is worth the time but it was sublime

MrsMitford3 · 05/09/2023 08:53

ah @MrsDanversGlidesAgain glad to have found another Alaistar Sim fan-the best Scrooge-not Christmas without it!!!

XiCi · 05/09/2023 08:54

So many of my favourites on here 🤣. In fact Anna Karenina, War and Peace, 100 years of solitude and Tale of two cities are the only books I've read multiple times.

Agree Catch 22 was awful though and didn't get anywhere near finishing it

Also, more of a modern classic, but Brick Lane was just a total bore fest and abandoned half way through

Jackienory · 05/09/2023 08:57

I can’t read Dickens- I find him verbose- same for Tolkien

Totally agree: it’s like being back at school.

LunaNorth · 05/09/2023 09:00

Dickens was verbose because he was paid by the word - he wasn’t daft.

alwayscrashinginthesamecar1 · 05/09/2023 09:00

Oh god I'd forgotten Henry James. Has anyone managed to finish 'The Golden Bowl'? I take my hat off to you if you did!

ViolettaVonVargon · 05/09/2023 09:04

Tom Jones. I failed to finish it for A levels and University, I did finish Clarissa though

EvelynKatie · 05/09/2023 09:23

Also Catch 22 - it's been sat on my shelf ever since I attempted it for the first time and just can't bring myself to try again!

Wotchaz · 05/09/2023 09:29

Love Dickens, it’s rare I don’t finish a fiction book but Les Miserables (in English!) got the better of me.

JayAlfredPrufrock · 05/09/2023 09:31

Middlemarch.

And I gave up on A Suitable Boy and watched the film 🫢

RicherThanYews · 05/09/2023 09:31

I'm just here to make sure nobody says Shakespeare 🥸 he's The Man. I concur with other posters though, fuck Charles Dickens.