# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/101 "2022-12-21T02:06:58Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Paradise Lost. Its just so. . . .textured. The language juat overwhelms. Every word the best possible word for that spot. So much to discuss. One of our midterm questions was on four lines from PL. I could have written pages and pages. ---
**Author:** ![Jaycat.again](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat.again/32/11525_2.png) [@Jaycat.again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaycat.again)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/102 "2022-12-21T03:03:20Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I did not enjoy War and Peace at all. It did not live up to its reputation in the least. There is not one single sympathetic character in the entire screed. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/103 "2022-12-21T03:10:30Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > One of our midterm questions was on four lines from PL. I could have written pages and pages Right? My American history prof said that Melville’s daughters deliberately erased all the annotations he left in Paradise Lost. No idea if that’s true, but if so, wouldn’t that have been something to see? ---
**Author:** ![3AxisCtrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/ecd19e/32.png) [@3AxisCtrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3AxisCtrl)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/104 "2022-12-21T03:24:19Z")
I’m not sure what reputation it possesses, but I think _The Razor’s Edge_ (W. Somerset Maugham) is a remarkable book - one that repays multiple rereadings. ---
**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 21, 2022, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/105 "2022-12-21T04:25:13Z")
_Catcher in the Rye_ lives up to its reputation of being crap. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/106 "2022-12-21T04:56:24Z")
It’s been thirty years I’ve been meaning to re-read the mid-20th century version of the open frontier classic, _On the Road._ I’m sure the benzedrine-feuled run-on sentences may have curdled somewhat, but I recall the exhilaration in the writing, the hunger for experience and living slightly on the edge. As to how much that spirit resonates today is debatable I spose. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@epbrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/107 "2022-12-21T12:09:38Z")
Easily my favorite classic book (and one of Bill Murray’s, btw - he made **Ghostbusters II** to get a film version made). It’s way ahead of his more famous **Of Human Bondage**. ---
**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 21, 2022, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/108 "2022-12-21T12:55:16Z")
> [@Jaycat.again](#): > > There is not one single sympathetic character in the entire screed. It might have been my translation as well, which was dry and uninspired. Having said that, I think it was Constance Barrnett, who also translated the copy of Brothers Karamazov I read…and Karamazov was terrific. ---
**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 21, 2022, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/109 "2022-12-21T12:56:41Z")
> [@lum\_s\_husband](#): > > _Catcher in the Rye_ lives up to its reputation of being crap. X1000 I kind of hated it when I read it about two years ago. I can even pretend I am a late teen and still…this guy…he’s just too whiney and bitter and pathetic. I do get some aspects of its fame, but I really did hate Catcher in the Rye. Was Salinger just over-rated? ---
**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 21, 2022, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/110 "2022-12-21T14:14:45Z")
I can tell you that it didn’t go over well for a group of 16 and 17 year olds. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/111 "2022-12-21T14:49:07Z")
_Catcher in the Rye_ shows up inevitably in these threads. It was perfect for an era of postwar existentialism, particularly as a new voice for sad, self regarding teenagers, and it’s survived on that for a long while, but for those of us who are older it understandably does not resonate at all. That said… go look it up on Goodreads, and there are still a **lot** of people who are reading it right now, and who love it, largely because it’s about a kid who’s dealing with the loss of his brother, and all the shitty, unreliable adult figures around him, and who still feels love and protection for his sister… and that part of the book is done quite well, regardless of how you feel about the whining. Like a lot of books, I don’t think it’s benefits from being. required reading… I think readers have to come to it. Maserschmidt, Who Hasn’t Read That Book in Years Because He’s Done with Salinger and All That ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/112 "2022-12-21T17:08:05Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Right? My American history prof said that Melville’s daughters deliberately erased all the annotations he left in Paradise Lost. No idea if that’s true, but if so, wouldn’t that have been something to see? I think your history prof may have gotten a couple of different things mixed up. Milton’s daughters probably _did_ sell off some of their father’s books without his permission, and it’s likely that many of his annotations were lost that way, but they would have been annotations on other people’s books, not his own. AFAIK, we have no solid evidence that Milton’s daughters had anything to do with the manuscript of _Paradise Lost_ at all, let alone that they erased anything. (He was already blind when he wrote PL, and there is a tradition that he dictated it to his daughters, but no solid evidence supporting this.\* The one partial manuscript of PL that we do have is a “fair copy” – a version prepared by a professional scribe as a last step before sending it to the printer – so it doesn’t show any revisions or annotations from earlier in the writing process. It would be lovely if we had them, but it isn’t a sign of deliberate erasure on anyone’s part that we don’t; _most_ seventeenth-century manuscripts do not survive.) - IIRC, some scholars have argued that it is just plain impossible, on the grounds that the oldest daughter seems to have had some sort of physical and / or mental disability, and the other two were too young. I’d tend to disagree on both counts – we don’t really know the nature of Anne’s disabilities, and even the youngest would have been in her early teens, which doesn’t strike me as too young to take dictation. But at any rate, we simply don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/113 "2022-12-21T17:25:53Z")
I haven’t read it since High School but at the time I really enjoyed the story of MacBeth. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/114 "2022-12-21T17:45:45Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > I think your history prof may have gotten a couple of different things mixed up. Milton’s daughters @MandaJo said _Melville’s_ daughters (Herman, I assume). ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/115 "2022-12-21T18:11:58Z")
@Thudlow_Boink is correct. It’s Melville’s thoughts on Milton that would be interesting, especially all the gender stuff through the monk/bachelor lens. “Benito Cereno” is probably my favorite thing ever, but it’s not well known enough for lists like this. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/116 "2022-12-21T18:21:04Z")
As I recall, the hutch does were fairly useless (from a wild rabbit standpoint) but the ones from Woundwort’s warren were brave and resourceful. Although Adams denied it as a direct influence, it seemed obvious that much of the book was formed by his military experience in WWII and resulting views – the band of companions, the warren content to let members get slaughtered in return for free food, the fascist warren of Woundwort (and its doe collaborators assisting Bigwig), etc. That sort of view and warrens acting as national stand-ins would lend itself to male leadership regardless of the true natural order in rabbit life. Adams also wrote the book based off of stories he told his daughter while they were traveling so it’s possible much of the foundation was laid before he started reading about rabbits at all. This wouldn’t excuse if he directly used Lockley’s work as a defense for the all-male cast (predominately) but it doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the book as a story. After all, even Adams points out that the gang was a bunch of idiots for taking that long to consider that they were starting a warren without any does. All that said, this is the first I’ve heard of its reputation being “tarnished” in any significant way. People have always pointed out the lack of significant female characters but the book remained beloved regardless. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/117 "2022-12-21T19:36:02Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > All that said, this is the first I’ve heard of its reputation being “tarnished” in any significant way. “Tarnished” may have been the wrong word. But ISTM that over the past decade or so—certainly since Le Guin’s Cheek by Jowl was published in 2009—there has definitely been a more widespread awareness that the apparent “naturalism” of Watership Down, and its repeated appeals to Lockley’s nonfiction study of rabbits to sound more authoritative, are misleading. It’s part of a general increased recognition of [longstanding sexist bias in the study of animal behavior,](https://www.wired.com/story/sexist-pseudoscience-biology/) where human gender stereotypes color researchers’ impressions and reports of what nonhuman animals are actually doing. Adams wasn’t just telling a particular adventure story that focused on male characters and an imaginary non-naturalistic masculinized-militarized setting (the “Nazi rabbits” of Efrafra warren): he was misrepresenting the whole nature of sex roles even in what he described as “normal” and “natural” forms of rabbit behavior. Female readers may tend to notice this more strongly than male ones, natch. > [@Jophiel](#): > > it doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the book as a story. Oh definitely, I’m not arguing that it should. I’m just saying that recognition of its fundamentally sexist assumptions is a bigger part of popular awareness about the book than it used to be, AFAICT. ---
**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 21, 2022, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/118 "2022-12-21T19:57:54Z")
Of course, many animals do have fundamental gender roles of sorts that we would probably call “sexist” in humans. If Adams got it wrong, that might be simply an error of fact, rather than any indication of sexism on the author’s part. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/119 "2022-12-21T20:04:33Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I’m just saying that recognition of its fundamentally sexist assumptions is a bigger part of popular awareness about the book than it used to be, AFAICT. Possible and I suppose it would depend a lot on who you’re talking to and the circles you travel in. I do notice that the 2018 mini-series adaptation doesn’t deviate significantly from the book except to make Strawberry a doe and Strawberry is a pretty third-tier character (if you’re going to do a token gender swap, Strawberry would be a prime candidate). I suppose that’s nominally better than the 70’s film with Violet, the doe who exists only to be eaten by a hawk ten seconds later. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/120 "2022-12-21T20:07:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Of course, many animals do have fundamental gender roles of sorts that we would probably call “sexist” in humans. If Adams got it wrong, that might be simply an error of fact, rather than any indication of sexism on the author’s part. Per the Le Guin quote above, didn’t he directly contradict the same source he cited, which referred to warrens as matriarchal? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763.md?page=7)