# Classic Books Which Live Up To Their Reputation **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [December 19, 2022, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763 "2022-12-19T02:44:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![dirtball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dirtball/32/18772_2.png) [@dirtball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirtball)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/61 "2022-12-20T02:44:41Z")
And the part where the war movie runs backwards, with the bombs coming up from the ground and going back into the planes, which fly backwards to the air base. And the bombs get shipped back to the factory, where they’re disassembled. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/62 "2022-12-20T02:48:07Z")
I’ve queued up Breakfast of Champions from him as my next book. I hope it is good as well. His sense of humor in Slaughter was so scathing and cutting, just loved it. ---
**Author:** ![dirtball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dirtball/32/18772_2.png) [@dirtball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirtball)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/63 "2022-12-20T02:53:18Z")
Make sure you get _Mother Night_ in there somewhere. It’s a personal favorite of mine, for whatever that might mean coming from some random goober on the internet. But I’m a random goober who’s had KV in his top five favorite authors list for fifty-plus years. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/64 "2022-12-20T02:58:09Z")
> [@susan](#): > > This is a lovely thread about Moby-Dick. It includes the helpful suggestion to read it like your friend Ishmael’s blog. This is the real ship that was part of the inspiration for the novel. In some ways it’s a much more horrific story than the one that Melville wrote (starvation, cannibalism, murder, and men literally going mad!). > **[Essex (whaleship)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship))** > > Essex was an American whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799. On November 20, 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., the ship was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale. About 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) from the coast of South America, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in three whaleboats with what food and water they could salvage from the wreck. > After a month at sea the crew landed on the unin... Melville also used this real whale for inspiration: > **[Mocha Dick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mocha_Dick)** > > Mocha Dick (/ˈmɒtʃə dɪk/; died 1838) was a male sperm whale that lived in the Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century, usually encountered in the waters near Mocha Island, off the central coast of Chile. American explorer and author J.N. Reynolds published his account, "Mocha Dick: Or The White Whale of the Pacific: A Leaf from a Manuscript Journal" in 1839 in The Knickerbocker. Mocha Dick was an albino and partially inspired Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. > Mocha Dick survived many skir... I read Moby Dick first and found out the real stories later. I think it’s better that way. The real stories then add to Melville’s story and you end up with a much more enjoyable experience. I think if you researched the real stories first and then read Melville’s work you’d be comparing what he wrote vs. reality and you wouldn’t enjoy the book as much. Just my 2 cents though. ---
**Author:** ![lum\_s\_husband](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lum_s_husband/32/3698_2.png) [@lum\_s\_husband](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lum_s_husband)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/65 "2022-12-20T03:02:03Z")
None of Hammett’s novels: _Red Harvest The Dain Curse The Maltese Falcon The Glass Key The Thin Man_ are read enough today. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/66 "2022-12-20T03:04:14Z")
**Nineteen-Eighty-Four** is cliche now, but it really is a great book. I mean, kind of incredibly so. I prefer it quite a bit to Animal Farm. I only read 1984 once, but I think about it quite often. I ended up living in China and I saw some of the character-types there. Here, too, of course. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/67 "2022-12-20T03:25:06Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > With the caveat that you have to find a good translation of them. The first time I attempted Homer, it was a translation by one of those classical scholars of the “embalmer” school, who believed that Greek and Latin were dead and who intended to keep them that way, and who turned them into an absolute slog. Later, I found better translations and very much enjoyed them. Agree. I first read Homer when we were assigned The Odyssey in junior high – the entire poem. Fortunately, it was Robert Fitzgerald’s blank verse translation, and I devoured it. I liked it so much that I wanted to read The Iliad – only Fitzgerald hadn’t translated that, so I was stuck with Richmond Lattimore’s translation which was – well, – awful. It reminded me of the translations from Latin that I was doing in first year latin. The only other easily available choice was W.H.D. Rouse’s prose translation. But I’d had the Epic Poetry version, and wasn’t going back. Fortunately, Fitzgerald’s translation of The Iliad came out shortly after I’d had to re-read his translation of the Odyssey, and I bought it and devoured that, too. Later I got his translation of the Aeneid. More recently, I got the Robert Fagles translations of both the Iliad and the Odyssey on audio. For some bizarre reason Penguin audio only released a butchered, horribly abridged version of the poem. Even having Derek Jacobi reading it didn’t entirely make up for that. But they released the full Odyssey, with Ian McKellan reading it, which is great. By the way, if you’ve never read it, look up Christopher Logue’s translation – hat there is of it – of the Iliad. Easily the weirdest, most off-the-wall translation you’ve ever read, but weirdly faithful. I first read his translation of Book 16, under the title The Patrocleia. I later found out that he translated more of it, and got a copy of the most complete version released. It’s worth it just to read Achilles’ prayer to Zeus rendered in the form of the Christian “Our Father”. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/68 "2022-12-20T03:48:10Z")
I read Les Miserables in 1999 and I thought it was amazing. I had not seen the musical or anything else at that point. I do dislike the extended “Paris is so great” sections of the book, but the core story is fantastic. I’m not sure who translated my copy, but the English translation seemed great to me. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/69 "2022-12-20T04:39:22Z")
_Jane Eyre._ A great classic that happens to be an absolute potboiler. I think I first read it in college but not for a class, and couldn’t put it down. This completely defied my expectations of what a Bronte sister’s work would be like, since I was tormented in high school by _Wuthering Heights_ (still hate that book) and assumed wrongly that the whole family’s output would be similar. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/70 "2022-12-20T09:58:01Z")
Bram Stoker’s _Dracula_ is a pretty good book. The worst section was reading the dialect of the old sailor, but overall I still think it’s a compelling story. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/71 "2022-12-20T10:05:13Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Instead, I’d probably recommend something more accessible, like Madame Bovary (which I don’t really LIKE, but think important.). For French literature, **Flaubert** ’s _Madame Bovary_ has to be on the list, although I personally prefer his _Trois Contes_ (Three Tales) and _La Tentation de Saint Antoine_. Then, **Hugo** ’s _Notre-Dame de Paris_ (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame). As for poetry, _Les Feuilles d’Automne_ (Autumn Leaves) and _Les Contemplations_, but first and foremost **Baudelaire** ’s _Les Fleurs du Mal_ (The Flowers of Evil). **Verlaine** ’s _Poèmes Saturniens_, too. Apart from the 19th century, **Montaigne** ’s _Essais_ are still incredibly modern and insightful, **Rabelais** ’ _Gargantua et Pantagruel_ is a riot, hilarious and incredibly inventive linguistically and **Voltaire** ’s _Candide_ has held up well. I was also surprised to find **Racine** ’s _Berenice_ delightful. It should be the very epitome of what I dislike, but it was actually a very impressive read. Honorable mentions to **Laclos** ’ _Les Laisons Dangereuses_ and **Montesquieu** ’s _Lettres Persanes_. For the 20th century, I’d nominate **Céline** ’s _Voyage au Bout de la Nuit_ (Journey to the End of the Night), **Gracq** ’s _Le Rivage des Syrtes_ (The Opposing Shore) and **Perec** ’s _La Vie Mode d’Emploi_ (Life a User’s Manual). Perhaps also **Yourcenar** ’s _L’OEuvre au Noir_ (Zeno of Bruges) and **Butor** ’s _La Modification_ (Second Thoughts). ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/72 "2022-12-20T10:18:30Z")
dont forget there’s a continental op short story collection too … i had it but it fell apart … due to it being so hot when I Left it outside ---
**Author:** ![epbrown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@epbrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/73 "2022-12-20T10:51:44Z")
**The Big Knockover** is one of my favorites; the title story is where someone organizes the robbing of _every_ bank on Chicago’s Bankers Row at once. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/74 "2022-12-20T12:12:17Z")
I don’t know what kind of reputation it has in general. Still, I will defend and talk up Watership Down as a beautiful and emotionally draining literary classic until I stop running. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/75 "2022-12-20T13:08:27Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > There’s an example that, for much of my life, I would have said didn’t deserve its reputation. But to be fair, I can’t honestly say I really read it. Sometime in my teens I cast my eyes over all three volumes (I can hardly believe I really stuck with it to the end), mainly because my friends were reading it, and Tolkien was “cool.” But whereas _The Hobbit_ was a fairly simple and fun story, LOTR was an epic on a scale I was completely unused to, and I totally failed to get it. I read all the books in my junior high years and really enjoyed them. On the other hand, they don’t feel old enough to be classics. Even though they were written a few to several decades earlier, Tolkien’s works seem like they fit in more with writers like Stephen King (The Dark Tower), George RR Martin (Song of Fire and Ice), and Catherynne Valente (Fairyland) as opposed to Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, or James Joyce. In other words they’re something I’d read for fun as opposed to something I’d read because it was assigned by my high school English teacher. ---
**Author:** ![LVBoPeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/858c86/32.png) [@LVBoPeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVBoPeep)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/76 "2022-12-20T13:54:10Z")
I also hated Wuthering Heights in high school but when I read in my 30s and realized it’s not about a romance at all that I learned to like it. Like, not love. I do love Jane Eyre, it is tied with Lonesome Dove as my favorite and re-read or re-listen to it (Thandie Newton version is excellent) on a regular basis. I love Dicken’s tv/movie adaptations- I go through most of them every year around Christmas but the only novel of his I could get through was Great Expectations. At first, was a chore but it all started to come together in the middle and it was an example of a book that didn’t catch me in the beginning but was intensely rewarding to finish. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/77 "2022-12-20T14:21:47Z")
> [@LVBoPeep](#): > > I also hated Wuthering Heights in high school but when I read in my 30s and realized it’s not about a romance at all that I learned to like it. Like, not love. I do love Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights is one of my wife’s faves - which I really dislike. Just don’t care for any of the characters. And JE is one of my all-time faves. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/78 "2022-12-20T14:45:08Z")
Two of the great adventure books are really all they’re cracked up to be. The Count of Monte Cristo has never been done justice by a movie. It’s a tremendously complex and layered tale of injustice and revenge, and the revenge elements are glorious; but the book has, as an additional theme, the idea that seeking vengeance destroys the vengeful, no matter how just their cause may be. The adaptations I’ve watched or read leave out that part. Treasure Island has Long John Silver as one of the all-time great villains. Robert Louis Stevenson writes him masterfully. As a reader you’re just as seduced by his charms as the protagonist, young Jim Hawkins. Even after you see Silver commit treacherous murder and realize how evil he is, he eventually comes back around–and damned if you’re not seduced by him again. It’s a book well worth reading. For classics that don’t stand up, consider _The Three Musketeers_. It’s full of heroism and derring-do; but it’s also got the protagonists committing armed robbery and rape. I find it hard to square the general light tone of the book with the brutal and undeserved violence they commit. In science fiction, I find that a lot of the classics don’t hold up. Worst among them, IMO, is **Foundation** , a plodding, didactic story whose male characters are two-dimensional and whose female characters are little more than dress models. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/79 "2022-12-20T14:50:44Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > whose male characters are two-dimensional and whose female characters are little more than dress models. I wouldn’t quite put it that way… Rather, I’d say that none of the characters really had any gender. Swap half of the "he"s for "she"s, and the characters would all still be equally two-dimensional, and the story itself wouldn’t be changed at all. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/80 "2022-12-20T14:55:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Rather, I’d say that none of the characters really had any gender. You could say that, but I think you’d be wrong. 99% of the characters were male, and the 1% that remained mostly walked onscreen to twirl in a futuristic dress, or were referenced as the housewife who would benefit from a nuclear laundromat that could fit in a closet. The book was rife with gender dynamics, and as flat as the male characters were, they had far more personality than the female characters. (I don’t have a copy of the book at hand, but if you do, I encourage you to count the total number of women with any dialogue at all–I think it’s less than two.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763.md?page=5)