# Classics that everyone says are good but you can't stand at all... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 16, 2003, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923 "2003-01-16T05:06:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/21 "2003-01-16T16:31:48Z")
Hamlet. No foolin’. There just isn’t a single damn sympathetic character in the whole thing. By the end everyone’s dead and I’m thinking, “Thank God”. ---
**Author:** ![Legomancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/779978/32.png) [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/22 "2003-01-16T16:32:30Z")
**A Confederacy of Dunces** - tried twice and just couldn’t do it. I have a hard time reading books where the main character is an utterly unlikable asshole _even and especially if he’s intended to be one_. Every time someone tells me something about it to get me to read it, it sounds completely dreadful to me (inspired by a mention of it in a pit thread at the moment). ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/23 "2003-01-16T16:40:00Z")
This man’s reputation is beyond me…ULYSSES is torture! Leopold Bloom is incomprehensible, and the "stream of consciousness"narrative is a good cure for insomnia. Joyce has buffaloed just about every professor of English Literature…he is: -boring -cute (with incomprehensible puns) -long winded (he takes a chapter where a sentence would suffice) All in all a horrible writer! ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/24 "2003-01-16T16:50:50Z")
I love Pynchon, \* The Great Gatsby \*, and Sallinger in general (although I think \* Catcher in the Rye \* is one of his weaker works), but count me as chief among the Hawthorne-haters. He’s a boring, long-winded prude. ---
**Author:** ![Banger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@Banger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banger)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/25 "2003-01-16T16:51:01Z")
Dickens sucks ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Daniel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Daniel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daniel)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/26 "2003-01-16T16:53:46Z")
The Moonstone. Something else too that I can’t remember the name of . . . had a bit about “Og, Son of Beorl” . . . I think it began with an M . . . something about a house/estate being sold . . . a deformed boy named Philip who became deformed by falling off/under a horse . . . fuck, what was it called. ---
**Author:** ![Daniel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Daniel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daniel)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/27 "2003-01-16T16:57:04Z")
**Mill On The Floss!!!** ---
**Author:** ![scout1222](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@scout1222](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scout1222)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/28 "2003-01-16T16:57:14Z")
Just adding my votes to what’s already been mentioned: _Red Badge of Courage_ _Great Expectation_ _House of the Seven Gables_ ---
**Author:** ![Banger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@Banger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banger)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/29 "2003-01-16T16:58:51Z")
> [@](#): > > a deformed boy named Philip who became deformed by falling off/under a horse **Point Counter Point**? ---
**Author:** ![Banger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@Banger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banger)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/30 "2003-01-16T17:16:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Daniel \* > \*\ ***Mill On The Floss!!!** \*\* D’oh! For the record, I’m pretty sure that in **Point Counter Point** , Philip Quarles was lame due to a horse accident as a child. So much for taking a stab at it 😛 ---
**Author:** ![wnorthr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecccb3/32.png) [@wnorthr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wnorthr)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/31 "2003-01-16T18:53:43Z")
I’ve tried 3 times to read One hundred years of solitude by Gabrael Garcia Marquez. I’ve read other stuff by him that I liked but I just can’t get more than halfway through that one. ---
**Author:** ![zeldarae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f14d63/32.png) [@zeldarae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zeldarae)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/32 "2003-01-16T19:13:09Z")
William Faulkner. I’m supposed to love his stuff, being from the south and all, but talk about pages long sentences. I read Cathcer in the Rye when I was twelve and commiserated with Holden. I read it again in my twenties and thought him to be spoiled and whiney. I loved The Grapes of Wrath. Just re-read it last year. As to A Confederacy of Dunces, I think you have to have grown up around the New Orleans area. I’m from Baton Rouge, about an hour up river. It’s one of my all time favorite books. I don’t think it will translate well onto the big screen. ---
**Author:** ![Legomancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/779978/32.png) [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/33 "2003-01-16T19:17:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by zeldarae \* > \*\*As to A Confederacy of Dunces, I think you have to have grown up around the New Orleans area. I’m from Baton Rouge, about an hour up river. It’s one of my all time favorite books. I don’t think it will translate well onto the big screen. \*\* Raised in New Orleans from age five, lived in Louisiana for twenty years. Can’t stand the book. Being from Louisiana doesn’t change the fact that the main character is an obnoxious asshole who I wouldn’t want to share a bus ride with, much less a novel. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/34 "2003-01-16T19:32:58Z")
Tess of the Unspellable The Scarlett Letter Grapes of Wrath (but I like Mice and Men and East of Eden) Seperate Peace (I like Dickens and Austen). ---
**Author:** ![Lizard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/35 "2003-01-16T19:41:50Z")
**Moby Dick**. My God. Even now, _years_ after I bought my copy, I can’t read it. I’ve never even got past page 2, or about 5 sentences in. **Beloved** , by Toni Morrison. Holy shit did I ever hate, hate _hate_ this piece of dreck when I was in high school! The dialect Morrison wrote most of the main dialogue in was so strong I couldn’t figure out what people were saying half the time. Why she was so feted for this and her other drivel I’ll never understand. Her themes were tired and cliched, her characters incoherent. “Sethe” reminded me of Kizzy from _Roots_, hopped up on meth. But when I was 14, **Catcher in the Rye** made perfect sense to me. Seeing how many people here dislike it, maybe I should read it again. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/36 "2003-01-16T19:59:31Z")
_Emma_ by Jane Austen. Meretricious rubbish. Fanny Burney’s _Evelina_ is a far better example of the genre, but bloody Jane Austen is the one everyone loves. I really tried to read _Ulysses_, but, since I was reading the annotated version, I got really irritated about the fact that every frickin’ line seems to be some allusion to 1) the bits of the _Odyssey_ that no one remembers, 2) the really obscure works of Oscar Wilde, or 3) Joyce’s own early works. The language didn’t bother me at all; I just hate books that require you to have read 27 other books in order to understand them. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/37 "2003-01-16T20:17:56Z")
I’ve tried to read _Moby Dick_ four times. I get forty pages or so into it (when does the first existentially unconnected essay begin?) and put it down every time. Also, I’m a movie geek who thinks Bergman’s “towering classic” _The Seventh Seal_ is actually quite a bore. Interesting structurally and referentially, but devoid of human life. Give me Fellini’s _8½_ any day. ---
**Author:** ![Sauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/38 "2003-01-16T20:20:08Z")
_Tess of the D’Urbevilles The Deerslayer_ In _Tess_, which I had to read in college, the main character gets raped and has a child. I had no idea this happened in the story until suddenly the child is next to Tess, working in the fields. I had to go back and re-read an entire chapter (and then read between each line in that chapter) to figure out she’d been raped. The pregnancy and birth was never mentioned, as I recall. Although I truly hated _The Deerslayer_ when I read it, it was almost worth the agony when I read, years later, Mark Twain’s scathing review of that work. I laughed out loud. ---
**Author:** ![Realhoops](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8dc957/32.png) [@Realhoops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Realhoops)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/39 "2003-01-16T20:24:24Z")
The Cat in The Hat. I hate that cat. And his hat. ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/40 "2003-01-16T20:33:23Z")
Catcher in the Rye is a classic because all the hippies liked it. Hippie books suck. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923.md?page=3)