I’ll mention The Magnificent Ambersons by Thornton Wilder. Welles did a creditable job (even before the studio butchered it), but he didn’t actually capture the theme of the book all that well. George Minifer is shown to be an egotistical asshole who refuses to change with the times, and suffers greatly for it.
Sleazy, anti-Catholic and written like it was published over a century later, this was by far the best book I ever had to read in college. I re-read some of it decades later and its mix of elements - including high adventure and diabolism - were still fascinating to me.
That, and the “romance” with Irene Alder. Who also showed up in only one of the stories, and while she might be the only woman Holmes ever showed any genuine interest in, there’s no indication that she felt likewise, and she ends the story marrying another man.
And I’ve tried to read Frankenstein, but it’s just too slow. I got maybe a third of the way through it, and it still felt like nothing had happened.
I like Boccaccio’s Decameron (also not a novel). It was extremely influential on Italian literature and beyond that.
I stumbled across this old thread, on much the same topic:
Yeah, those were included to hype those books. By no means are they “classic”. This makes the list suspect.
Huckleberry Finn. Roughing It. - Twain.
I concur.
Yeah. Also Pilgrims Progress, and The Last of the Mohicans.
Proust isn’t bad, IMHO, but Rand is garbage. Silas Marner is a bit of a slog.
I actually found the digressions in Les Miserablés fascinating (and they are way more than 15 pages - probably 20- 25% of the book). The first time I read an abridged version which eliminated the digressions but unfortunately eliminated some of the story as well. I then read an unabridged translation but kind of skimmed over the digressions. On later re-readings I read through everything. The information contained in the digressions is not essential to the plots (there a many plot lines and character arcs) but do add a lot of useful background.
Ont he other hand, while I have also read 1984 many time I always skip the excerpt from The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism…
Oh, definitely. I meant 15 pages on that one topic, not counting musings on the church hierarchy or taxes or how buttons are made.
Whack-a-Mole was suggesting books that don’t deserve their reputation in that post. Are you suggesting Pilgrim’s Progress and The Last of the Mohicans don’t deserve their reputation as classics?
If yes, I concur.
Likewise the sections of Notre Dame de Paris (aka The Hunchback of Notre Dame), which were long digressions about the view of Paris from a certain place, twenty years before the present story, and all the buildings that were no longer there. IIRC, little or nothing to do with the story, just bringing the plot to a grinding halt for no apparent reason.
And of course, the chapters and chapters and chapters about whale anatomy in Moby-Dick.
A good digital edition of any of these books could have an editor’s note saying, “You can skip over this section without losing anything essential to the main plot. But if you want to read it, click here.”
and the little bit of attraction wasn’t even romantic …holmes was intrigued as she had outsmarted him a bit (aka girls can be smart too …wow! )
great expectations lived up to its rep as a moralistic slog of about not much at the end
Absolutely. I accept that to be classic many people found something in it over periods of many years. The diversity of responses suggests everyone has their personal favourites and dislikes which others view completely differently.
Yep. Not well written and a drudge to read.
I believe mark twain wrote a few essays about J.F Cooper’s works and the world pretty much agrees with him
The Last of the Mohicans is a great story; just a lousy book.
This is a lovely thread about Moby-Dick. It includes the helpful suggestion to read it like your friend Ishmael’s blog.
I am not sure how well regarded it as high literature but I find The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum to still be an entertaining read.
I continue to be amazed that so many people read those essays and conclude that Twain didn’t like Cooper’s works. Am I the only one who recognizes the sarcasm? Everything Twain accuses Cooper of, Twain himself did to an even greater degree.
I wouldn’t say it was entirely aromantic… He seems to have a stronger reaction to Alder than he does to the few men (Moriarty, Mycroft) who have also outsmarted him. Holmes was probably about 95% aro, but very, very few people are 100%, and if there was anything that would arouse that 5%, it’d be a woman who outsmarted him.
Yes. It changed my life when I was 20 and has been my bible for 52 years.
Slaughter-House Five
I read it last year and when I was done, I just kind of sighed and thought, “Yeah…that was terrific.”
It’s everything. The opening few pages about Kurt Vonnegut’s experience with the massacre just killed me. He thought he was writing a whole book about the massacre…but what can you say? He came out, saw many killed people…and then that was it?
The main part of the book was just awesome. In one part, aliens ask our main character if Earthlings have any religion. He tries his best to explain Christianity to them. They go away and come back. Their takeaway?
“Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected.”
I loved the entire book.