Name a "Classic" novel you just couldn't get through, no matter how hard you tried.

[Bicoastal]

My bete noire is "Tom Jones," by Henry Fielding.

It's SUPPOSED to be a bawdy romp, and one of the earliest comedy masterpieces written in the English language, but I've been trying for several years to get past the first few chapters before getting fed up and rereading a Bryson book.

Perhaps someday, if I have a few months to kill, I'll start it and actually finish it, or at least make it past Tom's early years. Until then, THIS Tom Jones will have to suffice.

[DarkTirade]

1. I've had to read one or two of the Jane Austin or Bronte sisters books

I can't even remember which. But I just couldn't slog through them.

They needed more action. Like a carriage chase. With exploding horses. Or something.

[TZ]

Well I *had* to read those for AP English

But I agree..BLEAH!!!
The one I've tried and tried is Ulysses by James Joyce....

[DarkTirade]

26. Yeah, I don't remember which English class I had to read them for.

But on the flipside, at least they were better than A Seperate Peace.

Good gods that book was just... bleh. It wasn't even a powerful enough book for me to assign bad words to describe it. It was just bleh.

[TZ]

33. I liked A Separate Peace

but I had an AWESOME teacher that semester...Maybe that's why

[DarkTirade]

34. And I had a horrific english teacher that year.

And for some reason the letter they sent to everyone in that class telling them to get that book and read it before the semester started never made it to me. So the first day there was a quiz and I'd never even heard of the damn book. I had to read it quickly and try and remember everything when I retook the quiz a few days later.

This was the same english teacher that tried to read TOO MUCH into a lot of things. So to mock her, when we did a section on poetry, I wrote poems about monkeys. She thought they were deep and esoteric.

I was writing about (*&%ing monkeys.

[ashling]

44. Same here

I wish I could remember her name

[ashling]

43. I felt like I had been tied to the tracks

and was going to be run over by the train of consciousness.
:rofl:

[ashling]

79. How's that for a metaphor cocktail?

[no name no slogan]

31. Oh Christ. The Brontes are the reason I wasn't an English major

I could not stomach ANY of that British Romantic-era crap. And unfortunately, I had to take it if I wanted to be an English major at my college.

Instead, I majored in PoliSci. Fat lot of good that did me!

[Darth_Kitten]

57. The Bronte novels are just fine........

masterpieces.

Masterpiece Theatre material. Yum!!

[orleans]

112. you majored in polisci? well what are you waiting for??

GO RUN FOR OFFICE, DAMNIT!

[pnwmom]

115. They're competely different. Jane Austin is witty and funny.

The Bronte sisters are more dark and gothic.

So if you disliked one, you might still like the other.

[Darth_Kitten]

125. like the dark and gothic.

:D

[pnwmom]

143. I liked both, for different reasons.

But Austen is the one I keep reading.

[terrya]

2. "Middlemarch" by George Eliot.

I tried...I tried to read it. I gave up after a couple of chapters.

[MassLiberal]

28. if you can hang in there for a few chapters

Middlemarch is incredible! But it is slow to start, I agree. :-)

[terrya]

42. I'll try it again soon.

Thanks. :-)

[ThomCat]

62. I really enjoyed that.

And I really don't like soap operas. :shrug:

[hippywife]

3. Les Miserables.

The first third or so of it was fine. Then it veered off and got to be too much of a struggle to plod through.

[EstimatedProphet]

4. The Great Gatsby

Just couldn't do it

[TZ]

5. What?

Thats one of my favorites of ALL the classics!!!:wow:

[DarkTirade]

6. Yeah, I found that one a bit hard to muddle through too.

But that may have been just because I had to read it for school... so I automatically started out disliking it before I even read it. :P

[Nevernose]

91. It's a different book after high school.

And after college.

15 or 20 years ago, I thought it was the worst book ever written. Now it's one of my favorites.

[Enrique]

121. same here

it took me a few tries, but I eventually got into it. It might be the time passing.

[EstimatedProphet]

123. That's probably what it is

It just couldn't keep my interest in high school. My tastes have matured now, so maybe I should try it again.

[alphafemale]

124. - - - Gasp! - - -

Try it again.

Granted, there is not really a single character worthy of admiration in the entire story.

But still...

My heart will always weep for Gatsby. Fraud that he was, even to himself.

[DS1]

7. The Old Man and the Sea

[ThomCat]

64. That really seemed to be a pointless book to me.

I just don't get anything positive out of it. So I'll definitely second you on this one.

[DS1]

66. Thank you

There was so much over-discriptive drivel about a single waterfall scene, I couldn't read it any more. I took the failing grade over reading that piece of crap.

[truedelphi]

141. My fish didn't even get much out of it.

[hyphenate]

70. self delete

Boo-boo!

[Kutjara]

88. I can't stand most of Hemingway's stuff.

Much of it is such overblown macho nonsense, it makes my teeth hurt.

[Arugula Latte]

144. Me too. It leaves me completely cold.

He just writes the dialogue, and you're supposed to guess how the characters feel about each other, I guess. There's never a clue. Or maybe I'm too dense to pick up on them.

[barb162]

100. At least that's a really short one.

Did it in high school. When the teacher gives a test on it, you read it.

[lost-in-nj]

8. The only classics I read

were the ones for school....
my taste and attention span are not sophistacated enough anymore for that...

I did LOVE the Illiad and the Odyssey...
really



lost

[deucemagnet]

9. I have an unabridged copy of "Frankenstein" I've tried to read...

...a few times. The language always seems to get the better of me after a few chapters.

[Bicoastal]

11. The narration is the problem with that one, not the language.

At the begninng, some random dude in the Artic is narrating. Then he picks up Dr. Frankenstein, who begins narrating HIS story. But smack in the middle of this narration, he runs into his creation, the monster (now educated), who starts narrating his own story.

And then finally, when the Monster's story starts dealing with a secondary character who has their OWN story to tell, you kinda zone out.

[DarkTirade]

23. It's a flashback within a flashback within a flashback within a flashback...

kind of like the intro to the movie Serenity. Only instead of just a few minutes of it, it's a whole frikkin' novel.

And there's no cute little brunette girl kicking everyone's ass in Frankenstein.

Although the book could be improved by an addition like that... :P

[crim son]

10. I am a lover of the classics and find all the Brontes, Jane Austin,

Thackeray, Dickens, Trollope, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and yes, Henry Fielding, to be a delightful romp in the park. Lots of others too. But, is it James Fennimore Cooper who wrote "The Last of the Mohichans"? That guy bores me beyond tears and into coma.

[FloridaJudy]

56. Have you read Twain on Cooper?

You're in exalted company.

[MassLiberal]

77. Twain on Cooper

is one of the funniest things I've ever read!

[sarge43]

118. Second that.

Twain at his snarkiest best.

[crim son]

78. No, but I'm gratified to hear he agreed with me.

I love Mark Twain!

[MassLiberal]

81. you can read what he said

here: http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/projects/rissetto/offense.html

Twain is so brilliant. :-)

[seemunkee]

93. I hated JFC

I was an English major and that was one of the few novels I couldnt get through.

[samdogmom]

12. Moby Dick. The biblical allusions did me in.

As an atheist--I just couldn't get through it--I found it overwhelming. I wish there was an abridged version for non-believers (the plot seems interesting).

[crim son]

13. Have you read the original fairy tales? (Grimm's, HCA)

They're so chock-full of good Christian values that it's hardly bearable.

[steelemagnolia]

15. Moby Dick and Old Man and the Sea are mine too eom

[KansDem]

159. I tried reading Moby Dick in junior high...

Got through the first several chapters before deciding it was time to move on...

[musette_sf]

14. "Ulysses"

(James Joyce)

[TheCentepedeShoes]

16. I had never read Ulysses

Picked up a copy at the library "brown bag" sale. Just couldn't get into it, donated it back to the library.

[joeybee12]

27. Oh, God, yes!

I feel stupid because I get none of it, even after I'm told what it's about I read and still don't get it!

[TZ]

29. Don't feel stupid

My mother is an Ex-English teacher and I am as well read as any and I could NEVER get past the first five pages of Ulysses!!

[joeybee12]

39. I even "got" "Remembrance of Things Past"...but never

Joyce. Glad to know I'm not alone!!!! :hi:

[ThomCat]

65. Oh yes. Ulysses is truly unreadable.

x(

I can't believe this was ever popular, or scandalous. You'd think the sheer unreadability would prevent anyone from caring what it said.

[acmavm]

72. I wondered how far down the list I'd have to go until someone mentioned

this monster. Either Joyce has some serious mental hangups about capitalization and punctuation, or he had some damn good drugs.

[Critters2]

84. Ditto.

Made my brain hurt.

[Strawman]

92. Yeah, that's the first one that came to my mind as well

[Arugula Latte]

105. "I love Joyce! She's my favorite author!"

(Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School)

[XemaSab]

17. LOTR

:hide:

[Cabcere]

18. I got through maybe thirty pages of The Hobbit

and found it horribly boring and badly written. :shrug: People keep telling me that I should go back and try to read it again now that I'm a little older, but I really have no desire to subject myself to that again. *dons flamesuit* :hi:

[Dr. Strange]

24. That was me in Junior High.

I tried to read The Hobbit, but I couldn't get into it.
I may try again some day with my son.

[Cabcere]

30. Me too, actually - it was for eighth-grade English class.

:crazy: :hi:

[TZ]

25. Hmm...

You shant recover from that one, my friend..:P

Actually I couldn't get through either the Hobbit or LOTR for a long time either. With LOTR, if you can get past the first 100 pages or so it gets much better.:hi:

[Cabcere]

32. Maybe it would've been better in Dobly?

:shrug: :P :hi:

[TZ]

36. lol!

Most likely. Did you notice that DuStrange and I responded almost simutaneously to your post? Scary. Maybe that means we are twins from different mothers.....:rofl:

[Cabcere]

37. I did notice that

Kind of freaky... :scared:

...in an awesome way. Maybe you two really ARE twins from different mothers! :rofl: :hug: :hi:

[Dr. Strange]

47. So wait,

we're twins from different mothers. And temeah and I are twins from different mothers.
So what does that mean for you and temeah?

Oh, and by the way Cabcere, you don't do Tolkien in Dobly.

[TZ]

52. hmm

Triplets separated at birth? I mean, we all seem to drink the milk of the same...er I mean similar senses of humor....:D

[krispos42]

89. Try getting the audio book

I rented the tapes once from the local library. And I found the story very interesting.

But...


The book takes 15 audiocassettes. The book-like case only holds twelve. So I listened to the first twelve, then went back for the last three.

"There's three more?" asked the confused librarian.

"Um, yeah, see here on the box? 1-12 of 15."

"Oh." Checks the computer "No we don't have those."

:banghead:

So I bought the book and tried to read the last three tapes worth. And the magic was gone. It sucked, and I never finished it.

But listening to it? That was good.

[hyphenate]

71. For years

I couldn't get past the first couple of chapters, and I'm a huge SF and fantasy fan. But about 15 years ago, I pulled out my copies and decided to give it another go, and then couldn't put them down. I don't know what made the first few chapters so difficult for me to get through, but I finally got around it. And I was glad I did.

On the other hand, over the past couple of weeks, I re-read the Chronicles of Narnia, and was really, really disappointed. I recall them fondly of when I was much younger, but now, the Christian allegory is so pervasive that I wanted to rip them apart. Of course, I didn't. I would never destroy a book.

Comparing Narnia to Harry Potter, though, is curious. The Chronicles are tightly written and show an almost perfect mastery of language and vision, but the HP work is more readable, more imperfect, and thereby more human. I can understand why HP is so popular--a reader becomes part of the story through Harry, while Narnia is less personal, less subjective.

[drmeow]

102. I had the same experience n/t

[hippywife]

129. I had trouble with

Tolkein's LOTR trilogy when I was in my early 20's but then picked them back up when I was a little older and couldn't put them down. That was about 20 years ago.

[asthmaticeog]

147. I got through the trilogy and enjoyed it, but I can NOT abide that dreary "Silmarillion" shit.

God what a chore that was to get through, for no payoff whatsoever.

[Cabcere]

19. Anything by Thomas frickin' Hardy.

x( I had to read Return of the Native and Tess of the D'Urbervilles for AP English, and UGH. :puke: IMO, the characters were stupid and obnoxious, and the writing style was even worse. How on earth any of that drivel reached "classic" status is beyond me. :shrug:

(Incidentally, my mother, who is a trained journalist and a teacher of creative writing classes, felt the same way about The Mayor of Casterbridge.)

[terrya]

46. One of the books on my to read list is Hardy's "Jude the Obscure"

I hope I didn't make a mistake buying it. :-(

[Cabcere]

51. To be fair, I haven't read that one

so I don't know - it might very well be better than the others. :shrug: And of course it's just a matter of personal opinion. :) (Also, keep in mind that I was 17 when I read the other books, so it's entirely possible that if I were to go back now and try to read them again, I might feel differently.) :hi: Let me know what you think of it, OK?

[terrya]

55. I will

Granted, I have about 60 books on my to read list. But down the road, I'll let you know. :-)

:hi:

[TZ]

53. I liked Tess of the D'Urbervilles

However, it is VERY depressing and I understand that most of Hardy's writing is like that (I never read "Jude the Obscure")

[Mz Pip]

82. Be prepared

to be depressed for two weeks at least.

[pitohui]

137. yes, a very tragic story

i think "jude the obscure" is actually quite a modern story in many ways

[LibertyLover]

83. Hardy was the first one I thought of when I saw the OP heading

I had to read "Jude the Obscure" in 11th grade. It made no sense to me at all. I finally got the Cliff Notes for it so I could pass the test. Ugh. Horrible book. I found out years later that one of my best friends absolutely adored it and voluntarily read all of Hardy's work. Not only that but on several of her trips to England she visited Hardy country. She is also a big Jane Austin fan and has visited Austen country many times, including becoming friends with Jane's descendants. Me, I'll read good history books on the Napoleonic wars and the Regency, the Victorian and Edwardian periods of English history - just don't make me read their literature.

[lunatica]

146. Thomas Hardy was the reason

I gave up on 'The Classics'. He just pissed me off and I decided that morons choose the classics just to put on airs. I also hated reading Dickens unabridged books (although the abridged ones are OK). By the time I finished reading the paragraph-long sentences I had no idea what the original message was and I had to go back to read it again to find it!

I hated Tolstoy's War and Peace until I finally made it past the first chapter and realized the 3000 characters that were in the beginning weren't in the rest of the book! It turned out to be a wonderful book.

[Tikki]

20. Hardy's.....Tess of the d'Urbervilles..

I'll probably try again, though.



Tikki

[democracyindanger]

21. Invisible Man.

Just couldn't do it.

[YankeyMCC]

22. I'm not sure if these fall into your category of "Classics"

but there are only two that come to mind "Dune" and "The Centaur" by Updike

"Dune" I think I should maybe try again, although I did try twice the last time I think was early in High School.

"The Centaur" I only just tried, the first Updike book I ever read, last year and it was just to convoluted in the perspective or POV of the characters, I just couldn't follow the characters well enough to care about them.

[Dr. Strange]

49. Yes, try Dune again.

Everyone needs to read Dune at least once in their life.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

35. You have to be ready for certain books

I tried to read Pride and Prejudice when I was twelve, because I'd heard that it was a famous book. I couldn't get past the first chapter.

Ten years later, when I'd been in love a couple of times, I tried it again and understood the emotional undercurrents.

[rug]

38. The Heart of Darkness.

What a horror.

[Fenris]

60. Heart of Dullness.

[MrScorpio]

40. Canterbury Tales

Chaucer can kiss my ass

[DarkTirade]

50. Those can be fun if you can get into them

but if you can't... it's just not worth the effort.

[Fenris]

61. My favorite book ever.

I find a lot of it laugh out loud hilarious.

[CBHagman]

74. Chaucer would appreciate that sentiment!

Saith Mr. Scorpio:

Chaucer can kiss my ass.

Obviously Mr. Scorpio's been reading the Miller's Tale. :rofl:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miller's_Prologue_and_Tale

[steelemagnolia]

132. Ugh! I need a pint just thinking about that one & Beowulf eom

[SoxFan]

41. Anything by Joyce

[datasuspect]

130. i second that emotion

anything by joyce.

with the exception of his love notes that his family still will not release in entirety.

he was quite a saucy, randy fellow.

[Bongo Prophet]

45. Gravity's Rainbow. And sadly, joyce's Ulysses. n/t

[Redneck Socialist]

90. I've tried Gravity's Rainbow twice

Can't do it man, can't do it.

[truedelphi]

142. Have to say, "Gravity's Rainbow" gets my all time

Best book in the category of impossible to read.

Everybody said, read it, read it, and I just couldn't.

[triguy46]

48. Ulysses. Though, Nora, the biography of Joyce's wife is excellent.

[FloridaJudy]

54. War and Peace

I've given it about four tries now, and I always get bogged down in the middle. I wind up being infuriated with those over privileged twits, and screaming "Ha! Try living as a serf for a while!", just before I fling it at the wall.

Oddly enough, my grandparents - who actually were serfs - loved that book. Me, I react to it the way I imagine African Americans feel about Gone with the Wind. And don't get me started on Anna Karenina.

I adored Dead Souls, though, probably for that very same reason

[femmocrat]

67. My choice as well.

It was just too much work! LOL

But I loved Anna Karenina.

[Fenris]

58. "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka.

I cannot begin to describe how stupid and boring I found this book. It was so short, too!

And yet, I ate up every word of "Ulysses." :shrug:

[Critters2]

85. Anything by Kafka!!

Makes me want to stick sharp things in my eyes, which I don't think is the effect Kafka was going for.
But I'm not sure.

[av8rdave]

59. Anything by Homer

Honest, I've tried...many times.

[1gobluedem]

63. The Sound and The Fury

Or anything else by Faulkner. I give up halfway through the first page and just begin hunting for periods.

[Scooter24]

108. I was going to suggest that...

My god Benjy's chapter was rough. I must have read it 4 times.

[MassLiberal]

128. it's a great book

but you have to read it with a class, I think, so that someone can explain to you what's going on and how to read it. Once you get the basic story and what Faulkner's up to, the book is brilliant. But I agree that it is impossible to read on your own!

[reyd reid reed]

68. Moby Dick

I just haven't been able to finish it...I don't know why.

:shrug:

[Critters2]

86. I love this book!! Couldn't put it down! nt

[hyphenate]

69. Geez

There were a lot of "classics" in HS that I abhorred. I didn't mean to, but analyzing a text is the most boring, most pedantic, most moronic waste of time, I think. I think learning how to analyze, how to look at a piece of writing from an objective point of view is fair enough, but there is just so much waste at the HS level on analyzing old books that are less appealing than others. In fact, sometimes I think they pick the most boring books just to torture us.

Great Expectations
Tale of Two Cities
Red Badge of Courage
The Crucible
Silas Marner
Little Women or many others by the Bronte sisters
anything by Emily Dickinson
any Shakespeare--I love Shakespeare, and will happily watch almost any presentation done, but read it, without visualizing it? have mercy on my soul!
The Scarlet Letter
Johnny Tremain (yeah, probably you're asking, who? Exactly my point)



Now, don't get me wrong--there were some I actually loved. Among those which I did love were

Death Be Not Proud
A Separate Peace
Nicholas Nickelby (a Charles Dickens novel which I actually loved. I think with Tale of Two Cities it was a matter of when we were supposed to learn it. If it had been later in HS than junior high, I might have appreciated it more)

[Sentath]

113. Shakespeare

I was forbidden to explain the good parts to my english class ):

[TZ]

122. You didn't like The Crucible?

I thought that was wonderful social commentary. And I loved Johnny Tremain (which I think I actually read in Elementary School or early Jr. High School)

[hyphenate]

135. The Crucible is like Shakespeare

If done as a play, it's fascinating to watch, but it's utterly irredeemable as a text, IMO. Growing up in Massachusetts, we studied a lot of history in our state, and the Salem Witch Trials and the Revolution were very sad times in our chronology. I know in The Crucible that Miller was using the subject matter for political allegory, and that's fine when you are older and able to discern finer points in text, but like so many other literary works, they fall on deaf ears when you don't have the maturity to understand them.

Personally, I spent my high school years reading material my HS teachers thought beneath us--Huckleberry Finn, Sherlock Holmes, Rick Brant, mythology, other mysteries and SF (Asimov, Heinlein, Brunner, Ellison), which were far more interesting to me. They weren't beneath us, and in fact, some of them were thought provoking in ways that the so-called "classics" were. In fact, nowadays, some of the books I read on my own are considered classics, and kids are finally enjoying some of that work. One of the authors I enjoyed in the 1980s was Madeleine L'Engle, who wrote A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and Swiftly Tilting Planet, and many other young adult fictions which surpass many of the classics in ideas, imagination and literary superiority. In fact, her novels also embrace a Universalist theocratic tone, which can be compared to C.S. Lewis's Narnia series with their Christian bias.

I think it's fine for kids to read any and all of the classical literature they want to, but writing boring reviews and analyzing so much of it hurts the desire to read in many cases. I think that part, with tests centering less on the ideas behind the works and mostly on the details of the work, damned many of the classics for me.

[GirlinContempt]

157. Little Women isn't by either of the Brontes

and bears no resemblance to any of their works.

[BuelahWitch]

73. Silas Marner, Old Man and the Sea, Ulysses, Pilgrim's Progress

But I loved Little Women and Johnny Tremaine...

[KG]

75. Atlas Shrugged. Siddhartha. Grendel.

[China_cat]

76. House of the Seven Gables.

Started it in 10th grade and still can't get past page 7 without falling asleep, 48 years later.

[Release The Hounds]

80. Great Expectations

[WildEyedLiberal]

96. Ditto - made it through one hundred pages, and I still had zero interest

So I decided to stop wasting my time. I didn't mind A Tale of Two Cities but Great Expectations put me to sleep.

[baldguy]

87. Gilgamesh

[krispos42]

94. "The Stand" and "Catch-22"

Tried reading "The Stand" about, hmmm, three times, separated by a few years each. Get about 2/3rds of the way through, then just realize I've been having my eyes move over words without comprehending the whole.

Yet I devour the "Dark Tower" series. Go figure.

"Catch-22" had all these hilarious parts that I could not integrate into a story, Major Major M. Major regardless.

My tastes ran (and run) towards science fiction anyway.

[last_texas_dem]

101. I loved the first third to first half of _The Stand_

but was disappointed by the climax, and just found the second half of the book O. K. If the whole thing had been as enjoyable to me as the first half it would probably be my favorite Stephen King book, but it just didn't hold up for me. I've never tried the unabridged version of it, though, so I'm not sure if that would be better or worse. I've never read "The Dark Tower" series, either, but hope to one of these days.

[Sentath]

114. Much Worse

1066 pages to do .. nothing

[leeroysphitz]

95. The Last Of The Mohicans.

What a snooze.

Edited for stupidity.

[Arugula Latte]

104. Oh god. That one put me in a coma.

All I remember is something about someone stepping on a twig, which gave away his presence to someone else ... Isn't the twig snap a requisite scene in all of Cooper's work? :boring:

[Arugula Latte]

145. Okay. Here is Mark Twain talking about the twig thing in regards to Cooper:

"A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of a moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. Another stage-property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was the broken twig. He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around. Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred other handier things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can't do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leatherstocking Series ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series."

[kath]

154. Oh, man. Twain is SUCH a hoot!

[steelemagnolia]

131. Yet, the movie with Daniel Day Lewis was so friggin awesome

That's the only way I got through that story: watching the movie. ;-)

[leeroysphitz]

139. I'm with you. That film was great. n/t

[last_texas_dem]

97. My pick would be _The Red Badge of Courage_

I read about half of it when assigned to read it as a junior in high school. I fell asleep trying to read it at least two or three times, which is crazy considering I have long been an insomniac who takes quite a while to fall asleep! Another one I didn't get through was The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner, but I didn't really give it a fair shot, either. It was the last book I was assigned to read for English in May of my senior year of high school, so you know how that goes... A couple of people in my family love Faulkner, though, so perhaps if I approached it with a more open mind it might be a better book than I thought. I just wasn't "getting" it and gave up on it very quickly.

FWIW, I did enjoy Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, A Separate Peace, and Catcher in the Rye quite a bit; all books that I've noticed, from when these types of threads come up, have their fair number of non-fans on this board. It's interesting the different books that people love and hate.

[barb162]

98. War and Peace

[pnwmom]

116. Yeah, me too. That and War and Peace. n/t

[cbayer]

99. The Bible

Genesis just put me to sleep.

[Arugula Latte]

103. Crime and Punishment.

Zzzzzzzzzz. :boring:

[drmeow]

106. I've always found it fascinating

how much people's tastes in books can differ. I remember reading Silas Marner in HS and loving it - then I read that it was right after Moby Dick on a list of the most boring books ever written! I bought Moby Dick but later noticed that is was an abridged version and I wanted to try to read the full version (I figured if I loved the second most boring book, maybe I'd also like the most boring).

Started a Hardy book about 3 times (can't remember what it was) but was far to bored to cope - I think the farthest I managed to force myself to read was 5 chapters
Loved Jane Austin
Didn't think much of Wuthering Heights
Could not even get past the first few pages of Little Women
Was riveted by The Last Temptation of Christ ... twice
Was a big fan of Fitzgerald in HS but don't know if I could get through it now
Actually loved The Old Man and the Sea but don't think I enjoyed anything else by Hemingway (and the earth moved)
Not really a classic but could not get past the first 2 pages of The Satanic Verses
Loved Crime and Punishment and the Stranger
Brave New World was a hit but by then I'd become a pretty big SF fan
Read War and Peace on a bet - didn't actually read it, though - did a sort of speed reading where I read the words but didn't try to absorb anything. Couldn't read Anna Karenina
Despite some eager anticipation ;), could not read Lady Chatterley's Lover no matter how hard I tried
Never tried Joyce - heard too many bad things and escaped that punishment in HS
Tried to read The Vicar of Wakefield (supposed to be a "warm and amusing story" but simple could not see any warmth nor find anything amusing.
I, too, can't actually read Shakespeare but can listen to him.
Have enjoyed a lot of Edith Wharton and Margaret Atwood.

Lots I've read and either liked or didn't like but now I don't remember. Thinking of joining goodreads.com to keep track of what I read.

I mostly stopped reading "heavy" books when I went back to school - being a PhD candidate I wanted to escape into what I called brain candy and not have to work when reading for leisure (after all, it took me three tries each a year apart before I was able to slog through the pivotal paper by the chair of my committee). Then the next few books I tried to pick up were the Hardy book, Little Women, and The Satanic Verses. Ugh.

[drmeow]

107. Oh, and - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

TORTURE!

[BurtWorm]

110. Totally agree with you on that.

Awful, awful book.

:boring:

By the way, Moby Dick is not boring, as far as I'm concerned.

[Doc_Technical]

109. "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand.

I read about 60% of that bore and I couldn't take
it anymore.
What a nothing novel filled with strange people.

[pnwmom]

117. Not sure I'd rate that Rethug screed as a "classic."

So you're off the hook.

[BurtWorm]

111. You have to approach it on its own terms.

It's not a movie. It was written for a different pace of entertainment.

[sarge43]

119. A Portrait of The Artist as A Young Man

I managed to wade through until I came to the Jesuit's harangue.

[Enrique]

120. David Copperfield

a friend had been raving about it for years so I made a number of attempts at it, but the farthest I ever got was 100 pages. I thought to myself, I can see this bit is supposed to be clever or witty or insightful, but I simply don't care. I didn't particularly like the kid and I don't think it's going to change if I keep going.

[Beetwasher]

126. "The Plague" By Camus

Just couldn't finish. That was probably about 20 years ago and probably the last book I ever picked up to read that I couldn't finish. I HATE not finishing books.

[TZ]

127. Try it again. I think its worth it. Makes you think.

Also "The Stranger" by Camus is very good. Both are highly depressing books, though.

[Beetwasher]

133. I Might, If Only Because

I hate not finishing books.

[Arugula Latte]

152. I tried to get through that one twice.

Something about a village facing away from the ocean ... It seemed hot there and it bugged me that the village didn't embrace the ocean. :rofl:

[azmouse]

134. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

I've read all his other novels and loved them.
This one just didn't interest me.

[pitohui]

136. i can't think of one, isn't that pitiful?

i am not called easily entertained by my friends for nothin, i guess, because no matter how dull the work, i have always been able to plow my way through it eventually if i do try

i honestly can't think of one where i didn't finish if i was determined to -- i've thought of those few i started where i didn't bother, but in none of those cases was i actually trying

this isn't so bad a thing with classics, but i've also persevered and finished reading some real genuine crap for no better reason than i had already started reading it (the infamous potboiler discussed in DU: fiction a year or so ago, where the punchline is hitler's cut-off head in a box bouncing down the swiss mountainside, springs to mind -- i guess it was a "the boys from brazil" rip-off and they were going to clone hitler from the head, oh just never mind, trust me it definitely wasn't worth reading 600 pages for that punchline!)

[PassingFair]

138. Dr. Zhivago.

Couldn't get past the names.

Couldn't get past the writing.

Couldn't get the picture of Omar Sharif out of my head.

:puke:

[fizzgig]

140. walden

holy crap did that book ever bore to to tears...i could not deal with it. but somehow i wound up with two copies of it :shrug:

of course, i haven't touched it since high school, so maybe i should give it another shot

the good earth was far too dense, as was in cold blood...it was like trying to drink mud through a straw

[amitten]

148. War and FREAKIN' Peace.

Oooh...how I despise that book. It's like trying to rock-climb in rollerskates. Just a boring waste of an impossible chore.

[NNadir]

149. The Sound and the Fury.

- Faulkner.

It was a tale told by an idiot.

[zanne]

150. I get impatient with Faulkner.

He describes everything down to the...last...little...detail. I feel like saying "Spit it out"!

[pink-o]

151. Some of the old, dusty tomes that we can't stomach today

..can be excused because they're anachronisms. Writing was very, very different before our culture became acclimated to watching movies.

My biggest pet peeve is the pretentious crap that's been written in the last 15 years--the totally unreadable schlock masquerading as literature.

I read the first chapter of "The Corrections" by Jonathan Frazen. What a bunch of self-loving blather! Nothing is worse than experiencing someone's artistic output and being able to discern that wink-wink-nudge-nudge, doesn't my brilliance thrill you poser-ness that bleeds thru it! I had the same reaction to Dave Egger's "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius." Took it with me to Italy, left it in the hotel room in Florence after forcing myself to make it thru the first third of it.

And you notice how books like that are published in larger volumes--just in case you didn't suss out that these were "serious" works of art??? When an artist has to tell you how to perceive his/her work in any way, that artist has failed. Good art/writing/music just pulls back a curtain and reveals a subjective picture that excites you and makes you want to participate in the interpretation.

[BurtWorm]

160. I tend to agree with you about "moderns" and "ancients."

Dom Delillo's Underworld gave me no good reason to keep reading it.

[Phillycat]

161. I agree with you in a lot of ways...but I loved The Corrections.

I'm with you on Heartbreaking Work...and Infinite Jest by Foster Wallace falls into the same category. Pretentious bullshit.

[Myrina]

153. Atlas Shrugged

Yawn.

:hide:

[graywarrior]

155. Madam Bovary.

Tried it twice. Torture.

[AgadorSparticus]

156. I suffered through 300 pages of Les Miserables and just could not go any further.

And the last 290 was just sheer will.

[GirlinContempt]

158. These threads are always so depressing

[Vidar]

162. Joyce's "Ulysees".

[Iggo]

163. Ulysses -- James Joyce

First few pages got me going (I was probably 14 yrs old), but it got reeeaaalll tedious after that.

[clyrc]

164. Finnegan's Wake

I can actually read most of Joyce, but not Finnegan's Wake.