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Admit it - what's the classic book that everyone raves about but you despise?

192 replies

EverySingleStar · 21/09/2009 00:57

I probably have more than one but The Great Gatsby is definitely up there. shudder violently Shall add more later

OP posts:
GetOrfMoiLand · 21/09/2009 09:47

Thumbwitch - Fanny Price is worse than Emma imo. Couldn't bear mansfield Park because of her, the milksop.

ChopsTheDuck · 21/09/2009 09:48

pride and prejudice.

I don't like it at ALL. And it is one of my set books this year.
I'm not keen on Dickens neither, but at leas the is readable.

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/09/2009 09:48

One of my GCSE set books was Lord of the Flies. Like Maryz teachers, it was picked apart and over analysed to the point that I grew to loathe it.

CJCregg · 21/09/2009 09:58

OrmIrian - I like loads of books, honest, but that's a different thread!

Another vote for Fanny Price.

Midnight's Children - have tried to read it so many times, never get past chapter four.

pofacedandproud · 21/09/2009 10:02

I think Wuthering Heights if fucking wonderful. Gothic yes, but like Florence and the Machine, Gothic, mad and brilliant.

pofacedandproud · 21/09/2009 10:02

Thredworm are you the Red Worm?

Bucharest · 21/09/2009 10:05

Anything involving a bonnet and a shawl.
And Cold Comfort Farm.

Thredworm · 21/09/2009 10:06

Yes, am she. I can't remember why I dislikes it so much, but I think I remember that their arguing just seemed to go on and on in a rather paralysed and repetitive way that was depressingly like the tedious dysfunction of real life but not enough like the economy and progression I wanted from the story.

ErikaMaye · 21/09/2009 10:10

Pride and Predjudice.

Little Women.

Lord of the Flies.

UGH

OrmIrian · 21/09/2009 10:11

Ha! See I knew you were a freak CJC Midnight's CHildren is probably the best book IN THE WORLD! so there

pofacedandproud · 21/09/2009 10:15

Well I haven't read it since I was 17 Thready, so may have a different take on it post virginity.

I suspect I would enjoy Austen rather more these days, though having read them don't really feel I have time to re-read.

Thredworm · 21/09/2009 10:17

Yes, perhaps I just read it when I was too jaded and unvirginal.

OrmIrian · 21/09/2009 10:19

I must admit that love stories leave me fairly cold these days. Different when I was a teenager when it all seemed so like amaaazing and real

BalloonSlayer · 21/09/2009 12:33

Agree with a lot of recommendations here, but what about Frankenstein?

He creates something, rejects it because he's made it ugly, then we have endure reams and reams of tedious self-pity and soul searching bewilderment at the fact that his creation is now a bit upset by all of the above.

stepaway · 21/09/2009 12:42

To kill a mocking bird. shudder.

Merrylegs · 21/09/2009 12:44

Oh lots of these listed here I have loved -
Great Gatsby, Lovely Bones, Norwegian Wood, Frankenstein - love these books.

And am just re-reading Great Expectations and forgot how funny it was.

Blah, you all have no taste.

(Agree, 'The Island' was Really Bad, though).

FlyingMonkey · 21/09/2009 13:45

On The Road. I lost the will to live reading that...

choosyfloosy · 21/09/2009 13:52

Many great loves of mine listed here...

...but up with Wuthering Heights I will not put. I know I should re-read it post school but I just can't face it. Dull, dull, dull.

Bucharest · 21/09/2009 15:19

Not a classic (although you'd think the bliddy woman had reinvented the wheel to hear people talk) and not terribly adult either, but I never like to lose the opportunity to have a pop at Twilight.....
"why are you looking at me?"
"well, you're quirky and I fancy you"
"OK"
"But I'm a vampire"
"Oh, that's OK"

Ad nauseum for another 1500 pages.

yawn

Don't mind WH quite as much as other bonnety things. At least there's a bit of angst in WH instead of all that "ooooh how can I find a husband" crap.

bibbitybobbityhat · 21/09/2009 15:20

Perfume by Patrick Suskind

cyteen · 21/09/2009 15:25

Middlemarch. I ploughed grimly on through 80 pages before realising that each and every one felt like a lifetime spent sitting in a darkened room eating dust and listening to muted crying from down the corridor, and that there was seemingly another thousand pages to go before the end. After that it went in the bin. GASH.

Treadworn · 21/09/2009 15:27

You are dissing my Very Favourite Book. When it finished I felt that everyone I cared about had died at once.

cyteen · 21/09/2009 15:45

I was supposed to read it for my 3rd year at uni. My tutor on that particular course nearly wept too. Especially after the exchange we'd had about Wordsworth.

As Bob Hoskins might have said, the Victorian classics? I shit 'em.

OrmIrian · 21/09/2009 15:52

Well I think that the Victorian classics need to be introduced in childhood. In the same way that the CHinese use to bind feet. Leave it after the age of about 12 and it's too late

katechristie · 21/09/2009 16:04

woman in white.
took me 3 years to read it. A woman I was at college with raved about it and I felt i really must get to the end, as I was obviously missing something and once I finished it I would understand why she loved it (and hopefully feel a bit more intelligent to boot). achieved neither. still wondering why on earth I persevered. - it did come in handy however, as during the 3 years I was asked at an interview what I was reading at the moment, given I'd put reading as a hobby - so I casually replied "woman in white" wilkie collins - feeling super intelligent for that one minute!