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.

Love quite a few of the novels mentioned in this thread but I couldn't finish Our Mutual Friend. I was 400 pages in and he was still introducing new characters with daft names.

I couldn't get very far with Nostromo either.

I read a good comment a while ago (Grayson Perry or someone of that ilk). It was to the effect that there should be a notice in places like the National Gallery that says 'You aren't obliged to like everything in here.' It's the same with classic books - they come freighted with the expectation that you read them and like them because they're classics.

Just remembered that one classic novel I couldn't finish was The Mystery of Edward flipping Drood. Being a world-class numpty I hadn't realised that it was an unfinished novel and I got all the way to the end of the text before I found out. That was sooooo frustrating.

It's such a good point - it is possible to appreciate something without liking it. I recently had this very conversation with my ds in the Rijksmuseum (he was so bored 😂)! I am able to appreciate Wuthering Heights, despite my dislike of it - American Psycho is another I feel like this about, although my feelings are much stronger than dislike (appalling book), I can still appreciate that it is clever.

@Random789 I don't disagree with anything you wrote about how Daniel functions in relation to Gwendolen, but I think taking 2/3rds of the novel to writhe about establish this unbalances it. Perhaps I would also be more tolerant/appreciative if leaving decades between rereadings, but as I generally revisit the novel every other year, will continue to heathenishly skip all the Mirah Sue and Mordecai and Zionist maundering business 😁

I accept this low tolerance for Abrahamic existential wailing and gnashing of teeth indicates little hope of my ever making it through the Big Russians....

Lol, yes @clowniform . I thought after posting that I had misfired a bit in relation to your post. I realised after I hit post that I absolutely agree that the Abrahamic existential wailing () is massively less readable than the gripping Gwendoline bits. I think your post just reminded me of something completely different, a really silly rewriting of the novel 'from Gwednoline's standpoint', by someone who evidently thought they were achieving the same sort of progressive recentering of Eliot's novel as the Wide Sargasso Sea had achieved for jane Eyre. But who in fact just wrote some sort of romantic bilge that was waayy less progressive than the orininal novel, which does centre Gwendoline thoughout because it centres her (or eliot's) authorship of her own redemption via a proxy messiah.

I think I have a medical issue known as HT-DDRS (hair-trigger Daniel Deronda ranting syndrome), which makes me go off on one every time I half-remember some thoughts about a novel I had a decade or more ago. It was unfortunately triggered by your perfectly reasponable take on DD.

Loathe all Dickens.

Loathed Middlemarch.

Loathed Jane Eyre and can't get past the first chapter of Wuthering Heights.

LoTR took me three attempts to get through but I did eventually manage it. It was okay but not as fun as The Hobbit.

Love Wilkie Collins.

Love all Austen.

It’s an interesting point. I do sort of agree. But…I firmly believe in the canon. Just because I don’t like something, that doesn’t mean it isn’t great. It just means I’m not bright or perceptive enough to understand it. I agree with Harold Bloom on this.

Also, I read for more than simple entertainment. I want wisdom, guidance, comfort, connection, beauty, etc. The classics are classics for a reason. The brightest, sharpest minds of every generation have admired Homer and Dante and Chaucer and Shakespeare and Milton. And if you commit yourself to them, and plug away even when it’s hard, they will repay you.

Possibly because Dickens was one of the first soap writers I think, or so I read once. For stuff like Bleak House he got paid in instalments so had no immediate incentive to wrap it up, as chapters went out in magazines.

@istara , I'm old and have similar feelings about the same books. I'm wondering what sort of age you are. I was definitely out of step with people my own age.

@Footle I'm on the younger end of Gen X (so ancient, now we're up to Alpha!) Despite my Dickens antipathy I very much enjoy many older novels and don't like much contemporary stuff. I definitely prefer to read pre-2000 in most cases.

Other authors I've liked over the years include Agatha Christie, Elinor Glyn, P G Wodehouse, Mrs George de Horne Vaizey, Victoria Holt, Jilly Cooper, Tove Jansson. And some of the vintage Mills & Boon writers like Anne Mather and Charlotte Lamb. Plus a lot of childhood stuff like Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl (his adult stories are something else!), Nicholas Fisk.

Anything you like/recommend? Or advise steering well clear of?!