# 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:** 7
**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 20, 2003, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/121 "2003-01-20T08:35:43Z")
For some reason, I’m really enjoying this thread. So let me add **Plato’s Republic** , on the grounds that it contains some of the most blatant (and not very convincing) strawman arguments ever seen in a book (or at least until Ayn Rand came along). It’s philosopical wanking – of the highest quality, to be sure, but still wanking nevertheless. ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2003, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/122 "2003-01-20T13:31:47Z")
It sounds to me like part of the problem is being forced to read these books as part of an English Lit curriculum, versus reading them on your own. I read _To Kill A Mockingbird_ on my own when I was 13 or 14, and loved it. A couple of years later I had to read it in school, in 10th or 11th grade. I can remember at the time thinking that if I hadn’t read it before that I’d hate it. The teacher just sucked all the enjoyment out of the book. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![FallenAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@FallenAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallenAngel)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2003, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/123 "2003-01-21T00:58:02Z")
Anything and everything by the following: Jane Austen Nathaniel Hawthorne Charles Dickens JRR Tolkein Isaic Asimov I hated Tolkein and Asimov so much that I was well into my 20s before I discovered there was such as thing as enjoyable sci-fi and fantasy. Now for the Misc: Anything non-satirical by Steinbeck. His “serious” books like Grapes and Mice are so horrid and just Beat. You. Over. The. Head. About. Whatever. Point. The. Author. Is. Trying. To. Make that they’re insulting. The Old Man and the Sea. I love and adore Hemingway, but his mind and talent were in such obvious decline by the time this horrid thing came out that I seriously believe the Pulitzer and Nobel committees gave him the awards to make up for slighting him in the past. To Kill a Mockingbird. Um. Yuck. So contrived and Steinbeckian I wanted to hurl it across the room. It was one of my mom’s favorite books, and I tried to like it for her, but I just couldn’t. Moby Dick. It was really horrible. Boring characters, a plot so weak it couldn’t sustain a novella, much less a coffee table book-sized novel. Stranger in a Strange Land: I love Heinlein and think of him as one of the great writers of the 20th Century. That being said, Stranger is terrible, and I’ve read both versions. Other than a couple great quotes from Jubal, the entire book could have been scrapped, and it pains me that this is RAH’s most beloved and recognized work. Any Mark Twain novel. I love the man’s essays and short stories, but I hate his longer works. It felt as though he just wasn’t up to the task and forgot to pack his sense of humor before starting the trip. That’s all for now. More as they come to mind. ---
**Author:** ![furthur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecccb3/32.png) [@furthur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furthur)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2003, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/124 "2003-01-21T01:17:00Z")
Wuthering Heights. I wanted to commit physical violence on Heathcliff and Catherine both. Spoiled, rotten brats who deserved to die, and I cheered when they did. And heavens knows, they weren’t the only unlikable characters. What was his name? Linton? The puling little maggot who constantly whines? And of course everyone’s named the same darn things, reversed, so it takes painful re-reading to keep track of the horrid characters. Most Henry James – the man is emotionally constipated, who knows, maybe was physically as well and that explains it… And I’m not any too fond of _Clarissa,_ either. ---
**Author:** ![Sock\_Munkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Sock\_Munkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sock_Munkey)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2003, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/125 "2003-01-21T15:25:27Z")
Wow, I thought I was the only one who hated Stranger in a Strange Land. After the first 2 parts of the book the man from mars just stops being likeable. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2003, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/126 "2003-01-21T16:46:54Z")
_Gravity’s Rainbow_. I read Paul Fussell’s _The Great War and Modern Memory_ (which I loved) and Fussell spoke very highly of _Gravity’s Rainbow_. The plot points Fussell described sounded interesting, so I thought I’d give it a whack. I got about half a page into it and had to give up. Call me shallow if you wish. ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2003, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/127 "2003-01-21T16:58:04Z")
Hooray! Another vote for _Gravity’s Rainbow_. You’re not shallow **Rocketeer** , just pragmatic. As I posted earlier in this thread, I painfully read my way through the entire book. A total waste of time and energy. ---
**Author:** ![TwungTister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TwungTister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwungTister)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2003, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/128 "2003-01-22T16:06:09Z")
**Madame Bovary.** Flannery O’Connor, **The Life You Save May Be Your Own** _Bovary_ and _I Give You Oscar Wilde_ change points of view inexplicably. A character is speaking in the first person, then Emma or Oscar goes on via the omniscient person, as if the narrator were telling things he couldn’t possibly know about. As for O’Connor, she’s the female Hemingway. A Thing Happened. So What. ---
**Author:** ![zeldarae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f14d63/32.png) [@zeldarae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zeldarae)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2003, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/129 "2003-01-22T16:21:31Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by FallenAngel \* \*\* Stranger in a Strange Land: I love Heinlein and think of him as one of the great writers of the 20th Century. That being said, Stranger is terrible, and I’ve read both versions. Other than a couple great quotes from Jubal, the entire book could have been scrapped, and it pains me that this is RAH’s most beloved and recognized work.] Here, here! My husband and I just had this discussion last night. Right now I am re-reading The Sixth Column and just last week re-read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. The only good Heinlin is his earlier works - the so-called young adult books. ALL of his later stuff with the incredibly well-built, strong, yet sub-serviant to the male make me want to puke. I think the worst is To Sail Beyond The Sunset. YUCK!! As to Asimov, The Foundation Series just gave me a big headache. My husband loves it. I’ve tried to muck my way through but can’t do it. Now, Fredick Pohl is another matter. I love him. ---
**Author:** ![zeldarae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f14d63/32.png) [@zeldarae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zeldarae)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2003, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/130 "2003-01-22T16:24:21Z")
Oops, left out an important word. I was refering to the female characters when I was complaining. ---
**Author:** ![Engywook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bc8723/32.png) [@Engywook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engywook)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2003, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/131 "2003-01-22T17:18:23Z")
Anything by Eudora Welty. I think that’s a guy thing. In a literature for writers class at Columbia, all of the women in the class found her work profound and moving. Most of the gents (myself included) thought the syntax was convoluted and incomprehensible. Object lesson in how not to write. Isaac Asimov’s **I, Robot**. I usually think complaints about dialect are silly, but I can’t get through a book where people say “Jumping Jupiter!” **Great Gatsby** is something I somewhat enjoy when I read it, but strangely I’m unable to remember _anything_ about it. No great urge to read it again. **Watership Down** - There’s something I don’t get here. It’s not a difficult book. And it resonates deeply with everyone. Except me. I can’t stay interested. Virginia Woolf’s **To the Lighthouse** - painfully boring. There’s a widespread opinion that only misogynists hate Virginia Woolf. Not true… but I wonder how many closet VW haters there are? In general, I can’t parse sentences that are too long (standard paragraph length is about my limit) - or I’ve never found it worth the effort. So I just can’t read Henry James. Or Proust. And I had trouble with **Richard III** because there are too many characters, and half of them are named Anne. The WWII era movie (Ian McKellan, I think?) has made me want to give Dick 3 another shot, though. ---
**Author:** ![S\_Puppy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@S\_Puppy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/S_Puppy)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/132 "2003-01-23T15:00:19Z")
One The Road - Just bored me to death Frankenstein - Tried three times but never could make it through that thing. Really enjoyed Lord of the Flies but I was 12 when I read it so maybe that made a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/133 "2003-01-23T15:14:29Z")
**Lord of the Rings**. I tried and just can’t get through it. Too painfully boring. And, I liked other fantasy stuff as a kid. ---
**Author:** ![PigArcher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@PigArcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PigArcher)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/134 "2003-01-23T17:52:22Z")
The Hotel New Hampshire and everything else **Irving** wrote. The man couldn’t create an interesting character if his life depended on it. Everything written by **James Joyce** Catch-22 Tender is the Night by **Fitzgerald**. The Great Gatsby is okay but overrated. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/135 "2003-01-23T18:27:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sturmhauke \* > \*\*Catcher In The Rye sucks, Holden Caulfield is a moron. Dickens is long-winded, overly pedantic, and generally boring. \*\* I think I’m in love… Jane Austen wrote dull, simpering, whiney, boring novels. The only use I’ve found for them is to induce coma. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/136 "2003-01-23T19:08:02Z")
After reading through the whole thread and not finding it: **Les Miserables.** Should have ended when Fantine died. Cossette was a simpering idiot and Marius was too stupid to live. I wasted an entire summer reading that drek. Someone mentioned the funny bits in Shakespeare earlier and it reminded me of Mike Nelson’s reaction to the “clowns\*” in **Hamlet** in his book **Mind Over Matters.** > [@](#): > > Next you are struck perhaps, by how–like all those before and after–the clowns in Hamlet are simply not funny. They both have absolutely tin ears for comedy. Listen to this joke from Act V, Scene 1: > > CLOWN: What is he that build stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter? > > _Kind of a promising setup, if you look at it through the lens of seventeenth-century Europe and the Black Death and all…but then…_ > > OTHER: The gallows-maker, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants. > > Now, the first time I read that, I didn’t even pause on the Second Clown’s response. I just assumed the First Clown was going to dismiss it and come back with the real answer, something like, “Nope. A something something something, because he’s a something something something.” And whatever that response would have been, it’d be funny, because they’re both clowns after all. But that’s the _whole joke_, and believe me when I say that’s their _best_ joke. It’s all downhill from there, even as clowns go. > > The First Clown, believe it or not, gets a big kick out of it, though, and when he’s done laughint a hearty Ed McMahon laugh, says, “Ooooh, I like thy wit well.” The exchange has the feeling of one of those wedding toasts that the groom’s old fraternity brother might make. “I wish Beth good luck with the Todd-Monster. I just hope she knows a good place to get baby spinach at two in the morning on a Sunday!” And then three guys at one table laugh uproariously. “Dude, I like thy wit well!” yells one of them. \*Before the Shakespeare buffs come out to get me, yes I _know_ that “clown” meant “common person” in the plays. The definition of clown has changed over the years, though, and now people expect clowns to be funny. Or scary. ---
**Author:** ![InTransit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47774/32.png) [@InTransit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InTransit)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/137 "2003-01-23T23:08:34Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by SpazCat \* **Les Miserables.** Should have ended when Fantine died. Cossette was a simpering idiot and Marius was too stupid to live. I wasted an entire summer reading that drek. [quote] Thank you, SpazCat. Then, there was the whole bit about how I should feel sorry for Eponine. Why? Wasn’t she the catty little girl? Anyhoo… Annie Proulx’s “Shipping News” bored me (even though people seemed to luuuuuurve it and it won the Pulitzer), and try as I might, I can’t stand “Lord Jim”. Read it in 12th grade, hated it. Gave it another go as a freshman in college, still hated it. Because apparently I can’t learn, we read it again in lit class (jr. year now) and I STILL couldn’t stand it. ---
**Author:** ![senor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@senor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senor)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2003, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/138 "2003-01-23T23:30:54Z")
Hola! I have noticed that all the books everyone hates fall within a category called “book report books”, books we were forced to read by the school system during our high school years. I remember “Silas Marner” well plus Dickens, Hawthorne, plus any bullshit drivel that Shakespeare ever wrote. Fortunately, I never read “Catcher in the Rye”. I had my own issues during the teen years, I didn’t need to read about some 1930s-1950s bubblegum fuckup named Holden Caufield. The most god awful story that was deemed a “classic” was ‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson. It was a depressing story from a depressed woman (who committed suicide). SENOR ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/139 "2003-01-24T00:55:49Z")
_Call of the wild_. The first novel I read, and the reason that I’m generally turned off by novels, and prefer one-page epics. Very, very rare I admit. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2003, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923/140 "2003-01-24T16:05:39Z")
I’m not sure if this would be considered a classic, but since someone else mentioned a Roald Dahl book, I will too. I like almost all of Dahl’s books but it seems to me that I’m the only one who really can’t stand his Willy Wonka books (even though I love the movie): **Charlie and the Chocolate Facotory** and **Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator** (SPOILERS for both) My God, I felt that the second book had no plot at all. The first half, with the business about the President and the Space Hotel USA was boring. I was glad when they finally got back to the Chocolate Factory, but then it got boring again when the old people, save Grandpa Joe, took the vitamins that made them young. As for the **Chocolate Factory** , it was better than it’s sequel but I didn’t like Willy Wonka’s character at all. Maybe I’m spoiled by Gene Wilder’s performance in the movie. What bugged me most of all was how Willy Wonka never answered anyone’s questions. He was just a mean little nasty man that ruined the books for me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classics-that-everyone-says-are-good-but-you-cant-stand-at-all/148923.md?page=8)