# "Must Read" books that you read...but just didn't get... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 5, 2001, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337 "2001-07-05T13:01:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![StephenG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@StephenG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StephenG)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2001, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/21 "2001-07-05T23:55:12Z")
Just to be different, but I kind of enjoyed _Catcher in the Rye_ and _All Quiet on the Western Front_. (I was 10 when I read the first one, and 14 the first time I read the second one.) And if enjoyment in too strong, I at least understood them and didn’t regret the time spent reading them. I very much enjoyed _Huckleberry Finn_, and I’ve read it at least three times. I agree, phonetic writing can be iritating for long periods of time … but there’s more to the book than just that. I like the little I’ve read by John Updike (mostly short stories). Both _The Grapes of Wrath_ and _The Scarlet Letter_ were assigned reading, so I wasn’t really allowed to enjoy them (kidding! :D), but they weren’t bad. They made sense to me. (Although _Grapes_ was definitely on the low end of that.) I agree about _Lake Wobegon Days_ – the rest of my family loves Garrison Keillor, but I’m on a different wavelength. I struggled through _The Odyssey_ and _The Aeneid_ in highschool, and still regret those. I’m working on _Tale of Two Cities_ right now, and I’m hoping it’ll be worth the effort. I’ve read _Sense and Sensibility_, _Emma_, and part of _Pride and Prejudice_, and I’ve decided that I can’t stand Jane Austen. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/22 "2001-07-06T01:07:03Z")
With “The Odyssey” it depends greatly on the quality of the transalation. There are literally dozens. Some try for a novel like presentation, some try to present it more in an oral style, while others take the “poem” part of epic poem waaaayyyy too seriously. There are at least two versions in which the story is told in couplets. It sounds like Dr. Seuss does the Odyssey, but without the wit. As far as the others listed, I liked or loved _The Grapes of Wrath_, _Oliver Twist_, _Catcher in the Rye_, _Huckleberry Finn_, and _All Quiet on the Western Front_. I don’t mind in the least regional dialect. Two of the books my students (AP 5th grade) read each year (_Shiloh_ and _A Day No Pigs Would Die_) are told in first person regional dialect, in the case of _Pigs_, by a barely literate, but very smart, narrator. My students seldom have a problem with the dialect, and once they get into it, almost none. On the “must read” list that I absolutely hated: Anything by James Joyce. Don’t really care for Faulkner’s novels either, but I like the short stories. I like Hemingway a lot, but he is only for those who like minimalist prose. Can I add some lyric poems? I hate, hate, hate “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer and “If” by Rudyard Kipling–come to think of it, I pretty much dislike all of Kiplings poetry, though I like his prose. ---
**Author:** ![Qwertyasdfg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ecc23a/32.png) [@Qwertyasdfg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwertyasdfg)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/23 "2001-07-06T01:18:06Z")
I hated “The Catcher in the Rye.” Most of the Dickens I’ve read was pretty “ehhh.” Take “A Tale of Two Cities” or “Great Expectations”: great stories but Dickens doesn’t know how to get to the god damned point. Teachers say “you need every detail,” but I really didn’t see the need for Pip to tell me about his confusion as to what “of the above meant.” That sort of excess typical of Victorian writers really pisses me off. ---
**Author:** ![snac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90db22/32.png) [@snac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snac)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/24 "2001-07-06T03:43:19Z")
“Howard’s End.” “Oh, you’ll LOVE it! What a wonderful book!” they said. “A true classic,” they said. “Great characters, fascinating plot,” they said. “Such background!” they said. “A fine period in history, and so well done!” they said. So I read it, and “How do you like it?” they said, and then they told me how disappointed and shocked they were by my answer… I also did not like “Like Water for Chocolate,” though it started out with great promise: another highly recommended book where my opinion clearly took me down several notches in the eyes of a few friends and relatives. Then again, I like Faulkner very much, liked Catcher in the Rye, loved Huck Finn till close to the end, and found All Quiet extremely moving (much more so when I read it as an adult than when I read it in eighth grade). ---
**Author:** ![Home\_of\_the\_Braves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Home\_of\_the\_Braves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Home_of_the_Braves)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/25 "2001-07-06T03:51:13Z")
Am I the only person who _liked_ \* Tess of the D’Urbervilles \*? I couldn’t get enough of that book! My anger at the stereotype of women at that time kept me reading. BTW, the Polanski version of the book is good. In reference to Updike, try \* A Prayer for Owen Meany \*, it ROCKS! BTW, _don’t_ go see “Simon Burch,” which is based on OM, it SUCKS! As an English major, I have read my fair share of books. Other books I just didn’t get or just didn’t like: - Beloved Paradise Lost Alas, Babylon Cannery Row A Separate Peace Huckleberry Finn Heart of Darkness All Quiet on the Western Front Wuthering Heights Great Expectations \*. I could go on, but I’m sleepy. ---
**Author:** ![snac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90db22/32.png) [@snac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snac)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/26 "2001-07-06T04:22:43Z")
Sleepy, yes; John Irving, not Updike, wrote Owen Meany. But we’ll forgive you. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/27 "2001-07-06T04:43:58Z")
**Cranky** , really, you’d rather undergo something as pleasant as a red-hot poker than to read Faulkner again? I’m disappointed. To be honest, if he were still alive, I’d hunt the bastard down and kill him! Cannot stand his stuff at all. Then there’s Flannery O’Connor, who is simply Faulkner in drag. And I generally can’t stand anything labelled as “Russian Realism.” ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/28 "2001-07-06T05:00:30Z")
I will confess that I picked up _Portnoy’s Complaint_ when I was 9, because somehow I had gotten the impression it was pornography. I had already become quite popular in the neighborhood by reading aloud from the dirty parts in _The Godfather_ (Hey, if you’re a bookwormish kid with glasses, you have to find your niche somewhere), and was hoping for another big hit with _Portnoy_. The disappointment of _Portnoy’s Complaint_ has never left me, and I haven’t had the heart to pick it up again. **whiterabbit** , I agree with everything you said about _Heart of Darkness_. I read it in college, and couldn’t believe what a racist piece of trash it was. And to add insult to injury, or more insult to insult, it was so pointless it made my eyes bug out. “Kurtz had committed horrible sins. They were so horrible, mere words cannot describe them. Therefore, I will simply repeat that they were horrible. Very horrible. Oh, how horrible they were. But I can’t give you any details, because it is just too horrible to think about.” Although not a literary classic, _The Alienist_ was one of those books that everyone was raving about. I read it, and, to borrow from Mr. Conrad, was horrified. Reviews kept mentioning what astonishing historical research had gone into this book. To me, it seemed as if Mr. Carr had caught about 10 minutes of a PBS special on quaint old New York. The history mostly consisted of “Let’s go to Delmonico’s. I’m hungry, let’s go to Delmonico’s. Ah, living in history really gives me an appetite, let’s go to Delmonico’s.” I was also mesmerized (in that car wreck sort of way) by the fact that the Alienist built up a staff that had a representative of every possible downtrodden minority. How horrible it was that some of the staff were not allowed to particpate in the joys of eating at Delmonico’s. The horror … the horror … I love the smell of Delmonico’s in the morning… The only decent thing that came out of _The Alienist_ was a party game we invented called “TR Ex Machina” in which we rewrote the endings of classic books so that Teddy showed up on the last page to save the day. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/29 "2001-07-06T05:03:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > \*\*_A Confederacy of Dunces_. If ever there was a clearer literary case of the emperor having no clothes, I’ve yet to see it. Maybe Bret Easton Ellis comes in a close second. > > Maybe I was just too far removed culturally from the time depicted in the book, or maybe the point was just lost on me. I could see the humor in some individual vignettes throughout the book, but as a whole, it stank to high heaven. Ignatius Reilly was less comical than he was unappealing. \*\* Wow, that’s one of my favorite books. A place I used to work at had a box where people could drop off old books for other people to read, and someone left it there. Decided to give it a shot, and less than a page in I was hooked. I think it’s an amazing story that works on at least 3 levels. ---
**Author:** ![Fairy\_Princess\_Kitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@Fairy\_Princess\_Kitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fairy_Princess_Kitty)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/30 "2001-07-06T06:07:36Z")
As I Lay Dying Faulkner _shudder_ I’m terrinly sorry but I refuse to respect a book where an entire chapter consists of “My mother is a fish.” The Great Gatsby I could not find a purpose to this book at all, I hated it, put me to sleep in class daily. Although I must admit that I was about 12 or 13 at the time. The Odysssey The vast majority of the CAMS class of 2003 agrees with me on this. I read the first hundred or so pages of this book just to give it a fair chance, I kept thinking that it might be interesting or make some sort of sense. No luck. We passed out copies of the SparkNotes before the test. Kitty ---
**Author:** ![White\_Lightning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@White\_Lightning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/White_Lightning)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/31 "2001-07-06T10:47:08Z")
I’ve read _Crime and Punishment_ probably about 10 times, and may read it again soon. I _love_ Dostoevsky. It just seems so real to me. I love the spare Russian style. _Great Expectations_ is the only Dickens I can stomach. His stylistic turnoffs seem less prohibitive there than in his other works that I have read, and the story seems to be so compelling that it drives the novel. Gotta go with _Heart of Darkness_ as a no-no. Couldn’t finish it. Same goes for all the Faulkner I’ve experienced. And getting off the “classic” path, whoever mentioned _Infinite Jest_ by David Foster Wallace is right on the same page (ho ho ho) with me. I’ve started it 3 times, and after the first 50 pages I can’t imagine reading 1000 of that drivel. Well, it’s not fair to call it ‘drivel,’ I’m fairly certain that I’m just missing something. I just don’t _get_ it. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/32 "2001-07-06T12:01:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Atreyu \* > **I wanted to throw Tess of the D’Urbervilles into the fire while I was reading it, but didn’t because it was required reading for a college lit course.** You and I are brothers. I had to read it in High School. It was the single worst book I have ever read. Bad charaterization. Bad plotting. Bad pacing. It’s a f\*cking Harliquin Romance novel with pretentions of grandure. If I could have the neurons that hold the memory of reading Tess of the D’umberviles I would do so. It did for reading what Jonestown did to kid’s drinks. That said, I also hated Catcher in the Rye. I just wanted to slap the kid. It was far better written than Tess, but man…whasshisname is the dumbest, most irriating character I’ve ever read. Both books made me utter the “8 Deadly Words” early on.[sup]\*[/sup] Fenris [sup]\*[/sup] The “8 Deadly Words”: I don’t _care_ what happens to these characters. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/33 "2001-07-06T14:10:53Z")
> [@](#): > > That sort of excess typical of Victorian writers really pisses me off. Exactly. The Victorians should have written in a style that didn’t exist until long after they were dead! This sort of ignorance masquerading as criticism pisses **me** off. ---
**Author:** ![Lockz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Lockz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lockz)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/34 "2001-07-06T15:11:13Z")
This is the ONE book out of five years of high school that I just could not finish. I got about halfway through it, and couldn’t go on. Fortunately it was the last book we had to do in my final year, so it wasn’t worth much. Another useless book I read was ‘I heard an owl call my name’. (I don’t know how to do the bold/italics, so quotes will have to do.) I know some people probably think that it had a meaning, or whatever. I couldn’t stand it, but I at least finished the thing. I’ve read Catcher in the Rye, and the Great Gatsby. They’re not too bad, I could get through them. Both books have characters that had twisted outlooks on life, just a different thing from the usual, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/35 "2001-07-06T15:28:10Z")
The Cat in the Hat I must be missing something. There’s these two kids, and it’s raining outside, and this cat in a hat comes to play, and they make a mess, but clean it up before their parents get home? I’m hurtin’ here. Someone explain to me what I don’t get. Does the cat represent the Republic of Ireland or something? Maybe the two kids are supposed to be Lenin and Trotsky. Sometimes a book is just too deep for me; I’m man enough to admit that. TV Guide Ok, I hear this is supposedly a really great book - Homer Simpson admits to having read it, and if he’s going to read a book, he’ll only read the best (why else waste his time?). So it looks sort of useful, but there’s no value in rereading it, since all of the information is even more time-sensitive than Uncle Tom’s Cabin! Maybe someone wants to know someday in the future that the Honeymooners were on at 8 pm, but I don’t understand the utility. Qwest Dex White Pages Lot of pronouns, not many verbs or adjectives. Pretty dry. What am I missing? ---
**Author:** ![Jules](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/41988e/32.png) [@Jules](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jules)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/36 "2001-07-06T16:26:21Z")
**On The Road**. There is no more acute form of torture than clawing and scraping to the end of this meaningless drivel and having all your worst nightmares realized–Kerouak had no feckin point to make, and you just wasted hours of your life that you’ll never get back. The only thing worse was that this was **my** selection for my book club to read, so I couldn’t blame anyone else for making me read it. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_A\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@Just\_A\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_A_Girl)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/37 "2001-07-06T16:56:30Z")
**Catch-22** - I’m reading it now, and I understand it…I just don’t see what all the hype is? Frankly, it’s boring!! **The Scarlet Letter** - Sweet mother of all that is good and holy…What an AWFUL book!! I couldn’t make myself finish it, and I make a point to ALWAYS finish books. Nathanial Hawthorne should be raped by a mad goat for writing that dull piece of garbage. I’ll second **Great Expectations** and **Huckleberry Finn**. I haven’t read anythning else by Charles Dickens besides the **Christmas Carol** (which is good from what I remember), so I can’t really judge him as an author. However, I’ve read a few titles by Mark Twain, and I remain unimpressed. I’ll defend **A Separate Peace** , **Uncle Tom’s Cabin** , **Catcher in the Rye** , **The Great Gatsby** and **The Odyssey**. I had to read all of them for school at some time or another (besides Catcher in the Rye) and I gotta say, I really enjoyed them. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/38 "2001-07-06T18:08:43Z")
The Pilgrim’s Progress. Can someone please explain to me why this is a great alligorical classic? I guess I’m too literal a person. I loved The Scarlet Letter. I had to read it in the 7th grade and started it with all the wariness of a 7th grader forced to read a classic. Imagine my surprise to find an adultering priest, a strong female lead and all the melodrama of today’s soap operas all rolled up into a book that was “good for me”. Not a classic, but a must read if the bestseller list is anything to go by: Angela’s Ashes. I’m sorry, but Frank McCourt’s mom was a stupid cow. Does anyone watch Just Shoot Me? In one show Elliot describes the book thusly-- We’re starving. Dad’s drunk. We’re starving. Dad’s drunk. We’re starving. Dad’s drunk. I expect flames for this. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2001, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/39 "2001-07-06T19:17:33Z")
Max, I think that was me who reccomended White Hotel. I didn’t know it was a must-read book or anything, I didn’t read it for school. My mom just gave me a bunch of books that she thought were pretty good and that I might enjoy. One of the books was this one. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I ended up becoming really awed by it. The first fifty are a bit odd. Actually the whole thing is, but I say give it another shot, for me, please? 🙂 If you don’t like it, hey, it’s fine, to each their own. I just wanted to stand up for it. Must-reads I didn’t get… The Catcher in the Rye. Yeah, I just wanted to slap that kid. Most irritating tone. The Great Gatsby. It was all right, I guess…I mean, I know it’s supposed to represent the American Dream. That doesn’t make it easy to relate to them. The Sun Also Rises. All right. You’re impotent. Get over it. Is it just me or do some characters have no real problems? ---
**Author:** ![Medievalist2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19adc/32.png) [@Medievalist2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Medievalist2)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2001, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337/40 "2001-07-07T06:49:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Home of the Braves \* > \*\* > As an English major, I have read my fair share of books. > > \*\* I’m an English major, too! Some “must read” books that I didn’t like were: Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple.” The “happy, happy, all are we” ending seemed inappropriate when compared with the bleakness of most of the novel. Richard Wright’s “Native Son.” I simply could not believe that Bigger Thomas bore no responsibility for his actions. John Steinbeck’s “The Red Pony,” “The Pearl,” and “Of Mice and Men.” I thought that all three of these books were morbid. Marjorie Rawlings’ “The Yearling.” Another morbid book - ugh. I agree with the people who criticized “Huckleberry Finn.” The book may have seemed enlightened when it was first published, but today many parts of it seem racist. I don’t like “Tom Sawyer,” either. I do like “The Prince and the Pauper” and “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” I also like some of Mark Twain’s essays. His essay on “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” is hilarious. I must defend “Paradise Lost,” the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Aeneid, “Great Expectations,” and “A Tale of Two Cities.” I loved all of these books. Some other “must reads” that I did like were “Beowulf,” the “Canterbury Tales,” the “Second Shepherd’s Play,” the Decameron, the Divine Comedy, Shakespeare’s plays, and Macchiavelli’s “The Prince.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/must-read-books-that-you-read-but-just-didnt-get/71337.md?page=3)