I bet this has been done before, but what classics/modern classics have really left you baffled as to why they're so popular?

[Twinklemegan]

Brave New World for me

Wuthering Heights to an extent, though I might need to try it again

I know there are others, but can't think at the moment.

Vernon God Little (is that a classic?) have tried to read it twice and failed.

Also tried to read Wings of a Dove because I loved the film - unreadable.

Couldn't see what the fuss over Vernon God Little was about either. Didn't like it's tone or it's 'humour' and didn't find it funny either, just rather smug.

Oops Shakespeare, maybe it was the huge amount of his plays that I was taken to see before puberty that is the reason. But still think he is totally over-rated, a snap shot of England at a particular time but the comedies are bawdy tales of mistaken identity and the tragedies are interminable tales of incest, murder and misgovernance.

Boring...

Sits back to wait for backlash

Agree with all the people who think Wilkie Collins better than Dickens.

I love Shakespeare (Macbeth is genius) but I can understand people not enjoying his work. I can't bear Dickens. I've tried many times.

I think most of the older books you mention are superb. Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Dickens' novels etc but then I love 19th century fiction. Catcher in the Rye is very good. Catch 22 I haven't read. Nor have I read things like The Lovely Bones but the 19th century was the golden age of novel writing.

As for the Shakespeare dismissal.....I wouldn't know where to start.

Oh God, I see someone pointed out I posted under the wrong topic - I never noticed until now! Very embarrassed emotion

I had to read a lot of Thomas Hardy's novels at college, hated them all and have never gone back to him. Should I try again?

Surprised to see "Waiting For Godot" on this list - I think it is a work of dramatic genius!

I totally agree with "Attonement" though - I loathe Ian McEwan; have read "Attonement", "Enduring Love" and "The Cement Garden" and hated all of them passionately. He is just so knowingly "clever" and smug and I can't find myself actually caring about any of his characters: he just leaves me cold. DP loves him though and it is a bone of contention between us.

"Middlemarch" I've commented on before on MN and got told off. I found it unreadable to be honest and have never tried again.

Dickens - yawn.

"Wuthering Heights" - I don't actively dislike it but I really don't think it's all it's cracked up to be.

Jane Eyre - the second half is superb but the first half is just dullsville.

Somebody mentioned "Notes On A Scandal" and I agree. I thought it was cliched, stuffy and badly written.

"The Accidentals" by Ali Smith as well - I don't think anybody has tried classing it as a modern classic, so technically it shouldn't be on this thread - it is, however, total crap.

White Teeth
Atonement
Oryx & Crake

"The Heart of fricking Darkness."

I hated that book. Dunno why, tried to persist with it for ages (I never give up on a book i've started, it's a principle thing) but I eventually sacked it off and feel much better.

Oh god, I had to study that for A level!

The Great Gatsby.

I'm fully ready to be yelled it - did it at school AND university and was the only person in either class who didn't think it was the world's best book. All that irritating floating around in white dresses!>?? Ick.

The Golden Notebooks - snooooooozerella, and so dated too.
White Teeth, Vanity Fair and The Lovely Bones.
Wuthering Heights - loved it when I first read it at about 17, but by 24 when I read it again I loathed it.

But love Catch 22, almost all of Dickens and Middlemarch.