# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/61 "2003-01-17T07:35:28Z")
Short stories by Flannery O’Connor. Puke, puke, puke. Especially the one about the family killed by the one guy telegraphed into the story via a radio broadcast, or something. But I did enjoy when the killer killed the godawful self-righteous philosophizing grandmother. I think the title was A Good Man is Hard to Find. Appropriate, really, since there wasn’t a good man to be found in the story. My middle school read The Giver when I was in 6th Grade. My friends and I agreed that that one sucked on toast. I found Walt Whitman’s The Learned Astronomer personally offensive. Walden (or at least the selection I read) was utter tripe. My experience with Stephen Crane’s story about the guys in a lifeboat gave me an insight into what it would be like to be lost at sea. In one college course we had to read The Tale of Kieu, which was translated into English apparently as Vietnam’s revenge for the Vietnam War. I simply couldn’t read it, and I vocally admitted it during a discussion. Blech. Oh, and Sindbad from The Thousand and One Nights was a jerk. ---
**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 17, 2003, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/62 "2003-01-17T09:07:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RikWriter \* > \*\*You ever see “Shadow of the Vampire?” \*\* It’s on my list of flicks to see. But on that note, I did enjoy **Dracula** (the book). Yes, it’s an odd format, but there’s a certain historical charm to it, and some of Stoker’s descriptions are wonderfully colorful. (Conversely, avoid his **The Lady of the Shroud**. At the risk of spoiling it for everyone, the main plot thread goes “She’s a vampire! She’s a vampire! She’s a vampire! She’s…oh wait, no she isn’t…”.) I didn’t mind **Walden** but thought it was too self-indulgent, and I liked **The Old Man and the Sea**. I did have the same negative reaction to **Gravity’s Rainbow** as **Algernon** , however. Bleah. ---
**Author:** ![Banger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@Banger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banger)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/63 "2003-01-17T09:29:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cy Coe \* > \*\*Sister Carrie by…I don’t remember. Which is a good thing, because if I KNEW who wrote it, I would find their corpse and grow numerous clones of them so I could kill them repeatedly via industrial “accidents”. \*\* Theodore Dreiser wrote **Sister Carrie**. Begin the cloning. ---
**Author:** ![eenerms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cdc98d/32.png) [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/64 "2003-01-17T10:40:05Z")
The Deerslayer, Moby Dick(except for the first few lines) Last of the Mohicans, and gasp…Lord of the Rings:p ---
**Author:** ![lout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a6a055/32.png) [@lout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lout)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/65 "2003-01-17T10:56:29Z")
Notes from the Underground pretty much invented “black humor” and is my favorite of all Dostoyevski’s works. I can’t think of a more profound portrayal of the psychological/philosophical condition of modern man. ---
**Author:** ![Fish\_Cheer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fish_cheer/32/17179_2.png) [@Fish\_Cheer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish_Cheer)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/66 "2003-01-17T12:29:33Z")
[Mme Bovary](http://www.litrix.com/madameb/madam001.htm). :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Reuel\_Miller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b5e925/32.png) [@Reuel\_Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reuel_Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/67 "2003-01-17T12:58:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by eenerms \* > \*\*The Deerslayer, Moby Dick(except for the first few lines) Last of the Mohicans, and gasp…Lord of the Rings:p \*\* Oh good… I am not the only one on the planet that can’t stand the Lord Of The Rings books. I _loved_ “The Hobbit”. My uncle bought it for me because on the inside cover it stated that J.R.R. name was John Ronald **Reuel** … and so there was another person in the world with my name (besides Moses’ father-in-law). This was, of course, before the internet. The Hobbit started me on fantasy fiction. Since then, I have loved the genre. 90% of my book collection is fantasy. But damn I hate LOTR. I have tried to read it countless times (I have a big all in one book + appenixes). I can never get past the first time they meet the elves in Rivendale… Thank goodness for the movies… I know they are not true representations of the book, and that vast subplots and stories have been altered… and other subplots have been added… but at least they are entertaining… whew… ok… \ Do your worst… ---
**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 17, 2003, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/68 "2003-01-17T13:13:16Z")
Following that, I should probably confess that I didn’t like _The Hobbit_ very much. I read it again recently, and wondered why the dwarves were there at all. I mean, it’s a series of events in which the dwarves get into trouble and Bilbo (or occasionally Gandalf) rescues them. And then Thorin gets all huffy at the end. Geez Louise, what an ungrateful jerk. LotR was a much better developed book, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Caffeine.addict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f475e1/32.png) [@Caffeine.addict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caffeine.addict)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/69 "2003-01-17T18:09:37Z")
I always enjoy reading this type of discussion since it often boils down to a matter of taste. Some of the classics that some people have mentioned I love and some of them I hate. I enjoyed **On the Road** , Tolstoy and **One Hundred Years of Solitude** , which may be my favorite book of all time. That being said, I hate a lot of the same books that others here hate. I despised **The Scarlet Letter** , How many pages can he go without having any dialogue? For that matter, how many pages can you fill with one sentence? I disliked Thomas Hardy’s **Mayor of Casterbridge** , that was the first book I ever used Cliff’s Notes to get through. I hated **Pride and Prejudice**. I found it dull and the characters uninteresting. The one Garcia Marquez book that I haven’t enjoyed is **Autumn of the Patriarch** , I’ve tried to read it maybe four times, in both English and Spanish. I can never get past page 90. I like Garcia Marquez but I just can’t seem to get into this book. ---
**Author:** ![Adam\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Adam\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adam_P)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/70 "2003-01-17T18:51:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ralph124c \* > \*\*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! \*\* I don’t know what “buffaloed” means and I don’t really give a shit but somebody has to step in and defend Joyce, the guy who changed art and literature forever and it may as well be me. There’s an inordinate amount of Joyce-bashing on these boards, mostly by people who haven’t made the attempt to understand ULYSSES or have tried to read it cold, i.e. just picking it up off the shelf and reading it rather than reading it with a book like ULYSSES ANNOTATED or Homer’s ODYSSEY at hand, both of which are neccesary to understand this book. How many times does it have to be said? ULYSSES is an update of Homer’s ODYSSEY. Each chapter is a metaphoric retelling of the characters and events in the ODYSSEY with, for example, Bloom as Ulysses, Molly as Penelope, the Dublin prostitutes as the sirens, and on and on. But that only scratches the surface of this utterly amazing book that effectively turned the last 2,000 years of literature on its head. The puns are MEANT to be dumb–it’s a comic novel that attempts to reproduce the degraded language of everyday life in all its silliness and dumbness. Long live Joyce and his “cute”, “silly” puns. ---
**Author:** ![l1I235](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@l1I235](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/l1I235)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/71 "2003-01-17T18:53:16Z")
Add me to the anti-_The Scarlet Letter_ club. At times I tend to prefer Fanny Burney too, **jr8** ---
**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 17, 2003, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/72 "2003-01-17T20:17:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Adam P. \* > **There’s an inordinate amount of Joyce-bashing on these boards, mostly by people who haven’t made the attempt to understand ULYSSES or have tried to read it cold, i.e. just picking it up off the shelf and reading it rather than reading it with a book like ULYSSES ANNOTATED or Homer’s ODYSSEY at hand, both of which are neccesary to understand this book. How many times does it have to be said? ULYSSES is an update of Homer’s ODYSSEY.** I seem to recall saying in my original post that that was exactly what annoyed me most about _Ulysses_. I can enjoy, say, _Huckleberry Finn_ as a good yarn without needing to understand all the various things of which the river and the journey are symbolic. _Ulysses_ as a stand-alone story is stilted and awkward in places. If you have to spend more time reading the footnotes than the text itself (and in the annotated version I read, the footnotes came every two or three lines), it’s not worth the effort. You’re welcome to it. FWIW, I enjoyed _Dubliners_. Not hugely, but I read it without the same general annoyance I got from _Ulysses_. ---
**Author:** ![airdisc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e19adc/32.png) [@airdisc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/airdisc)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/73 "2003-01-17T20:42:52Z")
Wow, 70 responses, and no mention of the atrocity that is _shudder_ **Julius Caesar** by Shakespeare? Next time I see that awful waste of paper, it will find itself meeting the same fate as Steve Buscemi’s foot in Fargo. ---
**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 17, 2003, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/74 "2003-01-17T20:46:02Z")
I’ve got nothing against **Julius Caesar** , but don’t get me started on **Tempest**. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/75 "2003-01-17T22:09:42Z")
I kind of liked The Catcher in the Rye. (I mean he kills me, he really does.) One thing that disappointed me, (and is probably the reason that a lot of people didn’t like it,) is because I kept expecting something big to happen. I read it because I heard that several assassins (or serial killers?) had been found with it; so I wanted to see if there was something in there that had caused them to do the things that they had done (OK, my knowledge on this is pretty vauge). I kept expecting Holden to flip out and kill people, but he never did. Other than that I liked it OK. Just my $.02. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/76 "2003-01-17T22:27:47Z")
OK, I can see all y’all hating on some of m,y boy Willie’s plays, like **A Winter’s Tale** or **Timon of Athens** , but **Hamlet**? Julius Caesar\*\*? Ditto with James Joyce. **Ulysses** wasn’t meant to bve a beach read; Joyce wove a multilayered tale that recapitulates Homer’s **Odyssey** in 1904 Dublin and along the way expands the boundaries of English literature. But I gotta go along with the Hawthorne bashers. **The Scarlet Letter** is just a painfully obvious novel where the characters are just playing out a preordained pageant of guilt and retribution. It is a genuinely dull book. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/77 "2003-01-18T01:18:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lout \* > \*\*I am quite amazed at how many people here seem to hate “Moby Dick,” which is, in my opinion and in the opinion of most literary types, probably the greatest novel ever written by an American. > > Moby Dick has everything you could possibly ask for in a novel: > > Great theme, great characters, beautiful poetic writing, humor, tons of information, etc., etc. > > I estimate that I’ve read Moby Dick about 10 times and will continue to read it for the rest of my life. > > Of course, I’m not dissing anyone who hates this book; there is no reason to expect uniformity of views on aesthetic experience. > > \*\* I for one could not agree more: I absolutely _love_ Moby Dick. It is a story about obsession, written obsessively. Theology, symbolism, whaling info … it has it all. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DarkVixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@DarkVixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarkVixen)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/78 "2003-01-18T01:30:05Z")
Where the Red Fern Grows, I was bored and I like dogs ---
**Author:** ![mogiaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mogiaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mogiaw)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/79 "2003-01-18T01:39:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wumpus \* > \*\*_Supposedly_ the first English translation of Proust was quite poor, and there’s a more recent one that’s better. > > Having given up on Proust after reading the first few chapters of Swann’s Way, however, I wouldn’t know. \*\* Yeah i started reading Remembrance of Things Past and it was a crock of sh\*t but the next day i read a review of In search of Lost Time the newer apparently more faithful translation. mogiaw ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/80 "2003-01-18T01:41:49Z")
All these suggestions are well and good, but they don’t really alter the fact that **Wuthering Heights** is The Most Overrated Classic Ever. It is presented in Literature classes as the definitive Gothic romance. This is kind of like saying that sulfuric acid is the definitive mouthwash. One of the most irritating things about the book after a while is how none of the supporting characters can ever simply leave, but instead must inevitably sicken and die. A supporting character in **Wuthering Heights** has the lifespan of a mayfly; they come in, fulfill their function, then keel over almost immediately. After a while it’s not even funny. The days of the Gothic romance novel were numbered when drinking absinthe went out of fashion. Without its influence, the genre simply can’t be read in the proper frame of mind. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923.md?page=5)