I had the opposite reaction – I loved it. There are several “Great Books” that I loved in high school – The Odyssey (Fitzgerald translation), A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, Gulliver’s Travels., Lord of the Flies (which I read in one sitting)
Of course, it wasn’t all great stuff. I found Dickens’ Hard Times an awful slog. I didn’t like James Agee’s A Death in the Family, and I REALLY couldn’t stand John Knowles’ A Separate Peace. Then I had to read it again in college. I knew that my wife Pepper Mill was the perfect match when she told me that they made her read this book in high school, too, and she hated it. Speaking of “coming-of-age” stories, I don’t like Catcher in the Rye, either.
As for the second part of your question, I find that I like a lot of Steinbeck. I liked Of Mice and Men and his obscure The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights. I’m going to have to look up his recently uncovered Werewolf novel, if I can
His writing is simple and direct, with much well-researched detail. That’s always an attractive combination. The plight of the Okies is pretty depressing, but you have to admire their grit and determination, and there are occasional bright spots. Steinbeck wrote elsewhere about the troubles of migrant workers, and the problems continue to this day.
Loved it, but I didn’t have to read it for a class. That keeps cropping up, doesn’t it? If you’re reading it for class, then there are deadlines and you have to be ready to discuss it, etc. If you like the book, then discussing it is fun but if you’re being led by the nose it can backfire.
My parents were Depression era folks so maybe I identified more with the characters. How did people survive, I wondered, especially if they had a criminal record. I liked Travels wth Charley, Of Mice and Men, The Pearl, and other Steinbeck books as well.
I wonder about that. Travels has been challenged, you know. Oh well, they forgave the Coen brothers for Fargo.
I agree. I met a guy in college who said that if you imagine the rising action and denouement, etc. you’d have an upside down V. But he said some professor showed how part of the action leveled out, making it form an A. Sometimes the discussion points out things you missed or didn’t connect. Teachers have also at times helped me see things and I’ve said, “Wow. But I still don’t like the book.”
The three great novels of American Lit, which we had to read for junior year, also included Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn. Hated them both as well. I expected to like Huckleberry Finn but I think the dialog was too distracting.
“Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you’s gwyne to git well agin.”
Loved it, identified with a poor young boy being smitten with a rich girl who has no use for him.
There are a lot of books that I think are good but not fantastic, like Gatsby and Catcher. But usually if I don’t like a book I put it down. So I can’t conclude it’s a bad book because who knows? Maybe if I’d pressed on, I would have gotten through the introductory set up, the plot would have started developing, and I would have found it to be a wonderful book. I’m looking at you Don Quixote, said by some to be the greatest novel ever written.
What would fit the mold: movies. The first movie I think of: The Big Chill. I paid to see it, I was with friends, so I sat there disliking it from start to finish.
I’ve walked out on a movie maybe 2-3 times. Another time, a group of us went and everybody but me left. The movie was Jim Carrey in “The Cable Guy.” I thought the ending explained why he was that way, showed that the film makers weren’t just yanking my chain, and it didn’t make it a great film, but at least it wasn’t as insulting to my intelligence.
I always wanted to like this book–it is well known and praised by many.
But the titular “catch 22” concept appears in so many places that it becomes wearisome, and the dialog is all a bit off, surely by design.
From Wikipedia: “Much of Heller’s prose in Catch-22 is circular and repetitive, exemplifying in its form the structure of a Catch-22. Circular reasoning is widely used by some characters to justify their actions and opinions.”
As a descendent of Dust Bowl refugees, The Grapes of Wrath has always had a resonance for me because it was similar to the stories my grandparents told me. When I taught Independent Studies most of my students were children of Latin Americans who came to California for similar reasons. Of the High School literary canon, Grapes of Wrath garnered the most enthusiasm, followed closely by (for boys) All Quiet on the Western Front. I think they liked that the villain was a teacher.
Concerning Tolkien and the LOTR trilogy. I’ve heard of lots of folks starting and quitting before they got half way through ‘Fellowship’. And perhaps to a degree Tolkien is at fault here. As an author he did a number of things “wrong” if one views his work as an attempt to create a page-turning fantasy thriller. But I also think the readers’ expectations who quit too soon are also partly to blame here. In professor Tolkien’s defense, he never intended the books to be page turners filled with suspense - although there are definitely such moments - but rather an attempt to recreate the spirit of a saga and the entire world and backstory in which it took place. Readers are well rewarded for slogging through the first half of Fellowship in my view, as the action and direction of the plot picks up notably after the hobbits get to Bree.
I first read TGG in high school and didn’t like it. (Not hated it, just didn’t see the point). I re-read it later for a book club and realized that I was too young to read it as a teenager and that my teacher had done a crap job teaching it. I had zero frame of reference for the book (knowing more about NYC SES and more about NY geography would have helped so much. Just hearing that the people were rich didn’t really explain enough) and I was also young and hopeful and had a bright promising future ahead of me. TGG works so much better after some of your dreams have died.
That said, I loved the Grapes of Wrath (which was also taught by the same crappy lit teacher). But for whatever reason, I really got into that one.
I’ve never been able to work through Dickens. So many words. So very many words. No periods.
I read Moby Dick the same year that the Moby Dick Big Read came out:
so I read along with the audio. Also, someone said to read it like a blog where the blogger is really, really, really into whales. So sometimes, he talks about his recent whaling trip. And sometimes, he just gets caught up in a discussion about whale spines (really into whales) and so, you read it anyway - cause he’s a nice guy and a good writer and sooner or later he’ll get back to what happened next on the trip.
I actually do look like that portrait, as many people have told me. I even tend to dress that way.
As I mentioned above, I admire his prose. When it comes to putting words together, I hope to write as well as he did.
It’s the subject matter that tends to put me off. I go back every now and then to reread some of his works, hoping I’ll find what other people see in them. I mostly liked For Whom the Bell Tolls, but didn’t particularly care for A Farewell to Arms. I couldn’t see the appeal of a deserter knocking up a nurse and then fleeing to Switzerland so they can shack up together and drink Glühwein.
It took a major effort for me to get through The Sun Also Rises. What a self-indulgent snoozefest!
There are two reasons—or two kinds of reasons—for reading a book:
Entertainment value: the enjoyment you get while you’re reading it.
What you gain from it: what stays with you after you’ve finished it. Maybe it’s taught you something, or left you with memories of its world or characters or situations, or made you a better person in some way.
Ideally, a book will provide its reader with both kinds of value; but for it to be worth reading, it has to give you enough of at least one or the other to repay the time and effort spent reading it.
I’d skip all of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”. A book with no redeeming literary merit, made famous by prurient sex. At least they didn’t make us read it at high school.
“A Message to Garcia” is baseless political propaganda that is without literary merit. It idolizes applying an unknown solution to an undefined problem.
“Mateo Falcone” supports the ‘Faith, Family, Flag, Firearms’ cult. Perhaps it is a racist screed by a French author.
That is a great novel, and nothing, not even a textbook can better show the exodus from the dustbowl. But it could depress a hyena.
Here are some listed "Great books; that are a real slog, most due to them being terribly dated; The Divine Comedy The Prince Leviathan
Several Shakespeare plays, Titus Andronicus, e.g. The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha (some translations aren’t bad) Paradise Lost The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (outdated and terribly biased) Capital by Marx Silas Marner Scarlet Letter
Many of those are enshrined in history as important books- and they are. But not for reading.
anything by James F. Cooper. bad bad bad.
Moby Dick- man, great and bad all at the same time.
I agree with some of these, but disagree significantly with others. De gustibus non disputandum est
The Divine Comedy – The Inferno is great. Dante describes the eternal torments of famous villains and his political enemies, and shows great creativity. What’s not to love? I agree that the Purgatorio and the Paradiso are snore-fests, though.
The Prince – I’ve re-read it numerous times. It’s not the amoral book it’s been made out to be, and it’s not ruthless. But it is very practical, and it’s surprising that he thought some rulers had to be told such obvious stuff. It’s pretty short, too. I have an audiobook edition (read by Fritz Weaver), and it’s only 3 CDs long.
Leviathan – read the first quarter or so, then threw in the towel. It’s interesting when he starts defining his terms, but it quickly becomes pretty boring bookkeeping, especially when you disagree with him.
Several Shakespeare Plays – depends on which ones you mean besides Titus Andronicus. Several plays are great. The most recent one I read – Coriolanus – I’ll agree aren’t among his best.
Don Quixote – I’ve got the Penguin translation, but haven’t started it. I’m waiting for sometime when I have a year free.
Paradise Lost – Okay, I agree with you on this one. I’ve tried reading it, and I find it awful
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – I read it. I agree it’s dated, but it was written at the time of the American Revolution. What do you expect? There’s been a ton of scholarship since. It is eminently readable, though.
Das Kapital – I haven’t even tried this one yet.
Silas Marner – Haven’t read
Scarlet Letter – not my favorite, but readable
anything by James Fenimore Cooper – I’ll agree that I have not been able to push my way through any of Cooper’s books. And he was one of the most popular writers of his time. He took an old, persnickety character from one of his early books – Natty Bumppo from The Pioneers and wrote a book about him when he was young and played by Henry Cavill and turned him into Superman, and people loved that. Then he wrote three more books with him as a superhero. But he did it all in that early 19th century heavy prose. Mark Twain famously wrote two essays lampooning his style (most people are familiar with “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” , but he also wrote a sequel. Wikipedia says it’s not as funny, but I find it hilarious), but I think a lot of the problem is the revolution and streamlining in the language that took place between Cooper’s time and Twain’s. Edgar Allen Poe is similarly wordy.
Moby Dick – disagree here. I loved Moby Dick when I read it. Again, though, it’s early 19th century style might throw a lot of people off. Or the switching between the straightforward narrative and the excursions into natural history and the discourses on metaphysical themes. But I loved that part.
I tried that approach in high school. I was supposed to read Tess of the d’Urbervilles but just could not get through it, so I watched the 1979 film version instead. (I had to rent it on VHS to do so.)
I like Titus Andronicus. It’s Shakespeare’s chainsaw movie. Don’t read it for Deep Thoughts. Just enjoy the gore.
We had to read Moby Dick in high school. I hated it. A few years later, I was browsing in a bookstore, and saw a copy. I bought it on a whim, read it cover-to-cover, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a lot more fun if you don’t have to write an essay on it the next day.
The entire chapter of Moby Dick titled “white” [/big toilet flush sound effect]
I had to read the book in high school American Lit class. I was doing okay with it, tolerating the 19th century language well enough…but then I hit chapter 42 and the nice strong first person narrative we’d been experiencing suddenly turned into… a meandering, aimless, reverie about what the color white may or may not symbolize? I don’t really know to call it. But I’m afraid Melville lost this particular reader precisely at that point.
I haven’t read all the replies yet, so maybe this point has been beaten to death by now, but many of the “great books” are “great” because we were told they were great in HS or undergrad English courses and we never really questioned it. The truth is that assigned books in HS English classes are usually assigned because a) they are easy(ish) to analyze and b) they have been used as teaching tools for so long that there are loads of teaching resources available for them. Since everyone leaves high school having read them they sort of become “great” by default.
Let’s use Catcher in the Rye as an example. While reading the book students can analyze the themes of grief, individual vs. collective responses to outside events, and how socio-economic background or ethnicity effects (or doesn’t effect) pain and loss. In CitR I have my students track how many times Holden mentions Allie vs. Phoebe, the number of negative things he thinks and the number of positive things he thinks, and analyze how he’s so resistant to change (which is why he loves the museum). He distrusts adults but clearly wants to protect children. CitR is a great teaching tool when discussing and analyzing very human themes.
But as a story I think it sucks. I find it boring and Holden Caufield is a whiny, miserable teenager with few redeeming qualities (which is another thing to analyze). I would never read it fun or pleasure but it’s a great teaching tool which is why it’s become a standard staple in English classes which, of course, has helped its reputation as a “great book.”
The same can be said of Grapes of Wrath (a total snoozefest from a great writer) or The Old man and the Sea (same) or The Great Gatsby. (As an actual entertaining story? Gag me. But it is fun to analyze and a great way to get students to discuss race and economic privilege and similar social issues.) I love both Steinbeck, Hemmingway, and Fitzgerald but those three books, staples of high school English classes all over the country (I have a classroom set of The Old Man and the Sea on my shelf right now), are boring as hell.
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