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.

Wuthering Shites.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame. What a slog that was.

The Custom of the Country. Have to read it for my degree. Tried reading it and can't get into it at all, so I tried the audiobook. That's 14 hours long and just as dull.

Oh, I loved that! Undine is so deliciously awful and her social climbing and conniving…

Love Dickens!

I've stopped with War and Peace - was going to do the chapter per day thing but didn't keep it up. It started off surprisingly strong but the battlefield bits are very dull to me.

Not sure if it's a classic as such, but Wolf Hall. I have tried and tried and tried. Everything about it says that it should be right up my street but I can't do it.

Never finished Tess D'Urbervilles either.

I think that the world is divided into two sets of people: those who prefer ‘Jane Eyre’ and those whose souls sing with ‘Wuthering Heights’.

I’m a ‘Jane Eyre’ girl.

Loved ‘Middlemarch’, ‘Tess’ and ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’, all Austen (my English teacher listened to me slagging off Fanny Price and then asked me why I had so little compassion for an abused child - brought me up short) and ‘Bleak House’ makes me howl for Lord Dedlock as well as Jo. I find ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ oppressive.

But how I despise (and couldn’t finish) ‘Moby Dick’, ‘Catch 22’, Tolkien and anything by an Amis. Misogynistic bores. In fact, books by women are more fun. Try Nancy Mitford and Stella Gibbons: so much more cheerful!

I think that the world is divided into two sets of people: those who prefer ‘Jane Eyre’ and those whose souls sing with ‘Wuthering Heights’.

WHAT?! #teamAnne

@crumpet Take of Two Cities made me really cry too. I read it whilst breastfeeding just because I had it on my Kindle app and it really grabbed me. I hadn't anticipated the ending at all so I just broke my heart for that selfless act.

Anything by Dickens - just tedious.

Also Thomas Hardy - I don't need seven pages of description to visualise a field and some sheep, thanks Tommy.

Some young people get married.
Do not invade Russia in winter.

HTH 😉

Thanks! That’s exactly what I needed! Saves about 15 years of my life 😆

I enjoyed most of Dickens, but Hard Times... why? Unrelentingly depressing and really quite boring too.

I've tried a couple of George Eliot books. Nothing happens.

Another Catch 22.

Loved Dracula.

Oh god Wolf Hall, I had forgotten about that one! I really wanted to love it but its so repetitive and dull. I loved Catch 22 and Dracula. I did enjoy Jane Eyre, it's a great novel but just a little bit joyless imo.

Read all of Hardy's novels, but "Tess" was the only one I struggled to get through. Baffled by its popularity.

OMG . . .

Middlemarch
Ulysses
Frankenstein

Studied English literature at uni and work in a literary related field. Took me a long time to realize that books are like people- you cannot possibly get on with or be interested by all of them and what they have to say.

😂

I think that the world is divided into two sets of people: those who prefer ‘Jane Eyre’ and those whose souls sing with ‘Wuthering Heights’.

It was more about doomed souls really.

I’m a ‘Jane Eyre’ girl.

🤐

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was indeed a masterpiece.

Often forgotten and overlooked, sadly.

Wuthering heights took me several attempts. (I like Jane Eyre, @Lovecleansheets you might be on to something !)

I had Oliver Twist out of the library for over a term in about y10, the librarian wouldn't let me return it until I finished it

I read the first few pages of Mrs Dalloway three times, still didn't have a clue what was going on, and gave up !

Lord of the thing rings. Never made it past the birthday party

I didn’t finish this either. Ditto Les Miserables.

The Tenant of Wildfowl Hall is excellent, but Villette is even better.

The people who prefer Wuthering Heights to Jane Eyre need to be rounded up and helped.

I agree! Why do Charlotte and Emily get all the glory? #teamanne all the way.

One thing I hated about that recent film about Emily was that it was all Emily is one with passion and soul! Charlotte is bossy and controlling and Anne is a total non-entity. Surely you can celebrate the genius of one sister without having to make out that the others weren’t any good. I would say Emily is the least talented of the three as a novelist, though I quite like her poetry.