# "Great Books" that no one seems to like...what are we missing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [July 29, 2021, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575 "2021-07-29T06:26:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2021, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/221 "2021-08-02T19:55:43Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > he couldn’t get past his own war experience that was dominated by men. Not to mention his many years at the all-male Pembroke College, Oxford. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2021, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/222 "2021-08-02T20:00:08Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > He’s the only one for whom the Ring has no power over, which says something. He has an entirely different kind of power. He is the embodiment of Nature or the natural world, and the rings don’t give power over that. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2021, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/223 "2021-08-02T20:08:07Z")
Also a reasonable argument. We will of course never have a definitive answer; we can only collect reasonable arguments. Bombadil \> all is one of those arguments. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/224 "2021-08-03T01:39:37Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Since you mention such gender analyses— that is an interesting question; how do all the other epic works mentioned in this thread fare ( Mahabharatam, Odyssey, Kalevala, Paradise Lost, etc etc etc) Tolkien was writing in the what? 1940s? A lot different than 2000BC or whenever. People on r/fantasy always like to babble that Tolkien was writing before females were major characters in fantasy, writing it, etc. To which I always reply: do Jirel of Joiry and the Oz books ring a bell? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/225 "2021-08-03T04:06:45Z")
Between 1937 and 1949. JRRT likely never saw those Jirel of Joiry stories. But here is the thing- previously in fantasy, women were- evil crones, damsels in distress, princesses to be rescued, babes to be lusted over and flung over the hero’e brawny back like a sack of loot. JRRT women were _none_ of those things. They were strong, confident, powerful women. Eowyn killed the Witch-King- which even Gandalf was powerless to do. Galadriel defied Sauron. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/226 "2021-08-03T04:15:27Z")
So which of those was Jirel? And I don’t care if Tolkien never read them. The point is: they were there. Tolkien’s females are barely there. Basically tokens. It doesn’t matter if Galadriel is the most powerful being in the history of the universe - she’s barely in the book. Let me ask you: which mainstream fantasy have you read with token males? Sure, maybe you can name one. Maybe two. How about 10? Now ask me how many fantasy books I’ve read with token females - if they’re even there. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/227 "2021-08-03T04:36:09Z")
> [@kitap](#): > > So which of those was Jirel? Did you read them? Let us look at the [Bad Ways to Pick Up Barbarians: C. L. Moore’s “Black God’s Kiss” | Tor.com](https://www.tor.com/2017/03/22/bad-ways-to-pick-up-barbarians-c-l-moores-black-gods-kiss/) The big Man Guillaume, wants her for her “biting, sword-edge beauty”. She gets revenge by going to a Lovecraftian hell, where she gets her wish of revenge:_Guillaume drops, dead. Too late Jirel realizes why she felt “such heady violence” at the very thought of him. There can be no light in the world for her now he’s gone, and she shakes off Gervase to kneel by the corpse and hide her tears under the veil of her red hair._ “She only lived for the one man who could tame her!” Geez. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/228 "2021-08-03T04:53:20Z")
> [@kitap](#): > > Tolkien’s females are barely there. Basically tokens. It doesn’t matter if Galadriel is the most powerful being in the history of the universe - she’s barely in the book. Oh, please! Look it’s the tale of a quest. The questers are male, as probably would have been the case in patriarchal times of the type portrayed. From the get go that means others in the book can only be “side characters” met along the way. Eowyn has a small but important role, and not only that it is _not_ the classic, highly limited female fantasy role of the type DrDeth mentions, but instead a role as a woman who will not accept being pigeonholed, and instead goes off to battle, where she kills a key bad guy. Galadriel similarly - she is more stereotypical in that she is more the princess-ey enchantress/wise woman but nonetheless is portrayed as having (extreme) agency and personality and is by no means a mere signpost along the way. Don’t get me wrong, LoTR is not a book to read if you want good thorough female characters but let’s not go overboard in our criticism. ---
**Author:** ![Dancer\_Flight](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dancer_flight/32/7601_2.png) [@Dancer\_Flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancer_Flight)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/229 "2021-08-03T05:15:59Z")
I don’t know if it is considered widely to be a Great Book, but I absolutely could not get through Tess of the D’Urbervilles in high school (IB English). The only assigned book I never finished. My mom even bought me the cole’s notes for it so I could get enough of the gist to fake it. There was a highly appropriate pithy quote about Thomas Hardy which sparked a thread here: [https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-thomas-hardy-is-like-eating-a-pillow/508416/6](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-thomas-hardy-is-like-eating-a-pillow/508416/6) From what I read of the book (I got a few chapters in before giving it the Dorothy Parker treatment), I agree with Fenris here: > [@"Reading Thomas Hardy is like eating a pillow."](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-thomas-hardy-is-like-eating-a-pillow/508416/13): > > Tess of the Duhuberviles is the single worst thing ever written. It’s like a fart in prose. > > And not a silent, odorless fart, it’s like a loud stinky sulpherous fart that destroys one’s appetite in the same way that Tess can destroy one’s love of reading for months. > > I hated Tess-the-Character. I hated Hardy-the-Writer for writing about Tess. I loathed our teacher for making us read Hardy’s writings about Tess. > > Frankly, we would have been better off reading any generic Harlequin Romance novel–at least the pacing, prose and dialogue would have been improved and the plot would have remained pretty much the same. -DF ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/230 "2021-08-03T05:49:28Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > but let’s not go overboard in our criticism. Not possible ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/231 "2021-08-03T06:04:03Z")
> [@"Reading Thomas Hardy is like eating a pillow."](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-thomas-hardy-is-like-eating-a-pillow/508416/13): > > I don’t know if it is considered widely to be a Great Book, but I absolutely could not get through Tess of the D’Urbervilles in high school (IB English). The only assigned book I never finished. My mom even bought me the cole’s notes for it so I could get enough of the gist to fake it. > > There was a highly appropriate pithy quote about Thomas Hardy which sparked a thread here: [https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-thomas-hardy-is-like-eating-a-pillow/508416/6](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-thomas-hardy-is-like-eating-a-pillow/508416/6) > > From what I read of the book (I got a few chapters in before giving it the Dorothy Parker treatment), I agree with Fenris here: > > > [@"Reading Thomas Hardy is like eating a pillow."](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-thomas-hardy-is-like-eating-a-pillow/508416/13): > > > > Tess of the Duhuberviles is the single worst thing ever written. It’s like a fart in prose. > > > > And not a silent, odorless fart, it’s like a loud stinky sulpherous fart that destroys one’s appetite in the same way that Tess can destroy one’s love of reading for months. > > > > I hated Tess-the-Character. I hated Hardy-the-Writer for writing about Tess. I loathed our teacher for making us read Hardy’s writings about Tess. > > > > Frankly, we would have been better off reading any generic Harlequin Romance novel–at least the pacing, prose and dialogue would have been improved and the plot would have remained pretty much the same. > > -DF Most of the lit I read in high school was really depressing. Including Tess. And like, why? Poetry was really the lone exception. But why isn’t there fun stuff to read? Surely reading Thurber’s piece on his college days would be more enjoyable than some depressing short story. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/232 "2021-08-03T07:14:34Z")
Well argued ---
**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/233 "2021-08-03T13:52:05Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > On a more general note, it’s interesting that some posters have said some great literature must be read when older, after having more life experience. I disagree some; great art can teach us about emotions and experiences we haven’t encountered yet. If we enjoy literature more when we are older after having more life experience, part of that experience is having read the literature we read when we were younger. ---
**Author:** ![AliInfree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@AliInfree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AliInfree)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/234 "2021-08-03T14:54:09Z")
I think the time of life aspect should kick in with _On The Road_ which I read at 15 and nearly quit high school to hitchhike around. I get that this doesn’t work for everyone. Still, I wonder why high schoolers read _Romeo and Juliet_ given that it has gang fights and teenage suicide. I quit reading most fiction in my 20s for nonfiction, and I have not missed it. Still, some of my brain wants to read _Ulysses_ and _Moby Dick_. Although I would rather go back and read Hammett’s and Chandler’s short stories. ---
**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:** [August 3, 2021, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/235 "2021-08-03T15:26:28Z")
@kitap, @DrDeth, @Princhester, et al: to avoid hijacking this thread further, I’ve started a new thread to discuss Tolkien and women if anyone wants to continue this discussion: > [@Tolkien and women](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-and-women/947972): > > Continued from thread [“Great Books” that no one seems to like…](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575) to avoid hijacking that thread further: I don’t know whether Tolkien was familiar with either of those works, but they’re not the same kind of thing he was writing. The tradition Tolkien was writing in was not one with a lot of strong, active female characters. The Oz books actually are a good example of fantasy fiction with strong, powerful female characters (and this was deliberate on Baum’s part); but, again, if Tolkien even r… ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ukulele_ike1/32/4613_2.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike1)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/236 "2021-08-03T15:42:15Z")
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s _One Hundred Years of Solitude._ I quit about halfway through when I realized he was going to give all the male characters the same name. If you think Kerouac is a lousy writer because you hated _On the Road,_ try _The Dharma Bums._ I think it’s the most Kerouacky of the Kerouacs. ---
**Author:** ![Yodalicious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yodalicious/32/8195_2.png) [@Yodalicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yodalicious)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/237 "2021-08-03T15:42:40Z")
I wouldn’t say I disliked Dune, but I certainly didn’t love it. It took me three tries over many years to get thought it. I really liked the story, in fact, I’d say I love it. However, I didn’t like the way it was told. There is very little suspense when Princess Irulan, and others, are telling me what is going to happen in the upcoming chapter. I’m by no means a writer, so I can’t say what I would do differently. Except getting rid of those chapter intros. I’m really, REALLY looking forward to the movie in October. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/238 "2021-08-03T16:03:35Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > Bombadil \> all is one of those arguments. Another is that Tom Bombadil didn’t really fit. Maybe he should have been the center of a freestanding work, completely walled off from LOTR. Like Farmer Giles of Ham. Except maybe not funny. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/239 "2021-08-03T18:48:05Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > I read _ **Gormenghast** _ (Mervyn Peake) when I was young, had good eyesight, and read everything. But … even then, I couldn’t see the point. Same here. When I see a review of a book that says it is just like Gormenghast, I know to stay away. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575/240 "2021-08-03T21:12:50Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > Another is that Tom Bombadil didn’t really fit. Totally agree. If I recall correctly, JRR had written the TB story well before he started the sequel to The Hobbit. Originally the story that became the LOTR was supposed to be lighter, like the Hobbit, and JRR decided to insert TB. Later, after he switched to the meatier plot he couldn’t bring himself to remove TB. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books-that-no-one-seems-to-like-what-are-we-missing/947575.md?page=13)