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

[EverySingleStar]

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

[MrsJohnDeere]

Wuthering Heights

[bodeniites]

War and Peace cant remember a thing about it

[nighbynight]

All of Tolkein.
Great Gatsby I have tried but find it rather tedious.

[Wiggletastic]

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene - totally ruined by terrible English teacher.

All other Graham Greene's are genius.

Just tried to read Human Stain by Philip Roth - just far too smart-arsed for his own or his readers good IMO.

Ditto The Secret History - I did finish it but it was pretentious crap.

[McDreamy]

To Kill A Mocking Bird

[bamboobutton]

not a classic but The Tenderness of Wolves was such a chore.

kept waiting for it to get good and for the wolves to appear and show their tenderness but it never happened. it was a very confusing book.

[LightShinesInTheDarkness]

Mmmm - fascinating thread! Love reading all these.

But what is a classic? Is anything written in the last 20 years a 'classic', or does a book have to stand the test of time before it can be properly described as a classic.

And can you see a classic coming? I wonder which of the books we are reading now and discussing here ('The Island', 'The Lovely Bones', 'Labyrinth') might later be described as classics. Actually, I reckon very few of them - they are popular and best-selling, but not classics.

Maybe a new thread beckons - what are the classics of the future?!

[OrmIrian]

Unbearable lightness of being was a total dud. Unbearable dullness of reading twas named in our house.

[jeee]

Anything by Jane Austen or Salman Rushdie

[OrmIrian]

Also Book or Laughter and Forgetting.

[nickelbabe]

Catcher in the Rye: hands down.

dreadful. never read anything else where i just couldn't give a toss about what happened to the main character.

[giveloveachance]

got to be Wuthering Heights. found it sheer tedium, couldn't bear to watch the tv adaptation either.

[globex]

Anything by Conrad. Maybe not girly enough - I seem to remember the boys who loved Conrad hate Virginia Woolf. Bah!

[Thredworm]

I like Conrad. I'm afraid of Virginia Woolf, very, but I don't dislike her.

[mackerel]

Anna Karenina. In fact, Tolstoy in general. Lord of the Rings too. I really remember enjoying The hobbit as a child but having read it to my DS I'm wondering why. It was unbelievably turgid, slow and dull. I hated White Teeth too, although not a classic.

[PlumpRumpSoggyBaps]

Same as mackerel re Tolstoy. And Dostoevsky. And Lord of the Rings.

I can't keep hold of complicated or stupid names in my head so have to keep checking back, which kind of interrupts the flow.

And The Bell, by Iris Murdoch. Did it for O-level and have never yawned so much in my life. Fortunately I have now blocked it out of my memory.

[OrmIrian]

I love Iris Murdoch, Virginia Woolf and Conrad.

[MadHairDay]

Love To Kill a Mockingbird.
Agree about school set books wrecking them - to this day I can't stand Far from the Madding Crowd by Hardy or The Rainbow by Lawrence.
Also thought the Lovely Bones was crap

[Bleh]

I am shocked by some of the books listed here, as I love Tolstoy, Marquez, To Kill a Mockingbird and Catch 22.

I do, however, hate with a long and abiding passion, Wuthering Heights. The Kate Bush song is so much better.

[overthemill]

love anna karenina, to kill a mockingbird, conrad etc but hated Lord of teh Rings (even the film sent me to sleep)

[flyingcloud]

Wuthering Heights - have tried so many times and failed. I am thinking of trying the audiobook route.

On The Road - supposed to be a 'beat generation' classic, but really just dull and self-indulgent.

I listened to the audiobook of Anna Karenina and LOVED it. Slightly tedious in parts, but found the social commentary much easier to palate in listening to a story form.

Off to start a new thread about audiobooks I think.

I do love most of what has been mentioned here though (although am a bit at some of these "classics" - agree with Lightshines that those books are just popular, but not classics).

[minimu]

I may need a name change after this. I think I am too thick for Shakespeare. I hang my head in shame

[OrmIrian]

All of Walter Scott - and beleive me I have tried.

[tvaerialmagpiebin]

Another vote for Middlemarch. Blee. Although I do recall a vaguely amusing like - "Causabon wearily tossed himself in a corner"

You can tell I did it from GCSE can't you

Also Catch 22 and Catcher in the Rye. I just never got the point of Holden Caulfield. Oh, and I tried hard to see all the drama and passion in Wuthering Heights but just thought Heathcliff was a controlling bully and I got the Cathys mixed up.

I think Time Traveller's Wife is a marmite book, isn't it?

[4littlelions]

The Idiot, an absolute struggle