# The "Great Books" that you want poo all over and then wrap it up in a bag, then down the chute. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 11, 2011, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379 "2011-08-11T21:28:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/141 "2011-08-14T01:06:01Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > I would like to read “Madame Bovary” sometime. Is this good, or another impenetrable dull antique? I read where Flaubert took ages to write it, trying to find exactly the right words for every sentence, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s enjoyable to read now. I enjoyed Madame Bovary. It’s a good - if sad - story, and the translation was quite readable. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/142 "2011-08-14T01:27:34Z")
Just for the record, I loved **war and Peace** and **Moby Dick** , neither of which I thought rambling. But I couldn’t stand **Pride and Prejudice** or **a Separate Peace**. Or, to give one not yet mentioned, James Agee’s **a Death in the Family**. It’s not that I’m down on death as a literary topic. I’ve read plenty of stories with belevable reactions to death in them. But Id prefer death to mucking through one of the books I’ve mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/143 "2011-08-14T02:21:08Z")
> [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](#): > > I didn’t enjoy _Heart of Darkness_, nor did I enjoy _Silas Marner_. Based on my notebooks from both of those, I think I disliked \*Silas Marner \*more. It didn’t help that, after _Heart of Darkness_, we read _Things Fall Apart_, which I absolutely loved. > > But _Silas Marner_? Bleh. I’m convinced that _Silas Marner_ isn’t mentioned more because so many people have blocked the trauma of reading it from their brains. Ditto what many have said about _Gatsby_ and _Catcher_. OTOH, I loved A Confederacy of Dunces, though I had to get about a third of the way in until I appreciated it. I’m not sure why I lasted that long – usually I give up sooner. I dislike most of what I’ve read written before the late 19th century. They may be interesting historical milestones of literature, but they are not enjoyable reading to me. Call me a Philistine, but I include Shakespeare and Dickens in the shallow end of the enjoyment pool too. English literature survey courses really should be offered by history departments. ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/144 "2011-08-14T08:57:14Z")
The Scarlet Letter. I hated it so much I was planning on rewriting it-- Hester would tell the Indians about the hole in the wall of the Puritan fort, then after the massacre was over run off to live with them. ---
**Author:** ![JessMagic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c0e974/32.png) [@JessMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessMagic)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/145 "2011-08-14T10:40:05Z")
> [@cwthree](#): > > I was going to make this very statement, but you beat me to it. Yeah, I burned you good! Thanks for the back-up, though. Oh, another one - The Great Gatsby. Horrible. I like this game! ---
**Author:** ![Melysnl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@Melysnl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melysnl)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/146 "2011-08-14T11:03:51Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I’ll never understand why they teach ONLY “classic” books in high school English and literature classes. It turns so many people off reading. It bores lots of students to death. Why do they do it this way? They never teach anything remotely current. If this is an attempt to make some kind of point about important issues being “timeless” or something, it’s bullshit. Just stop. Assign a few books written in the past twenty years. PLEASE. I guarantee your students will be more enthusiastic. I say this all the time. It’s so awesome to know that other people get it too. I love to read but have never been a fan of any of the classics. I’m lucky because my mother put good books into my hands when I was younger. Otherwise, I would hate reading as many other people do who’ve never been exposed to entertaining books. I’m over anything written by Faulkner, Morrison, or Dickens. I can barely stand Shakespeare. I get it but I don’t like it. The English curriculum needs a massive over haul. When will that happen? I’m not counting on it. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/147 "2011-08-14T12:33:57Z")
I do love Shakespeare now but I hated him in high school, his work was taught in such a boring fashion. We only read the plays, never saw them acted out on stage or screen, or even read them out in class. And we just had the histories and tragedies. I think I had MacBeth, Julius Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet. The latter might appeal to a high schooler, but some parents protested when our teacher wanted to take us to see Zefferelli’s film version, because the was a two second nude scene. I didn’t get into Shakespeare until I saw one of his comedies, Measure for Measure. It’s a play like that that is needed to hook young people. Sex in the dark, cross-dressing, dirty jokes, corrupt government official that gets his comeuppance. I saw some more and re-read some of those from school I’d had and finally began to appreciate how good a playwright Shakespeare was. Kind of like Steven Spielberg or Cecil B. DeMille, he KNEW what the average Joe wanted to see in a show. ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/148 "2011-08-14T13:11:08Z")
I’m a bit over-reverential for the classics, very few I’d feel like slating - That said, one book that really made me think this is complete shite, and an egregious case of the emperor’s new clothes, was Nabakov’s Pale Fire. Such a laboured structure and so so unfunny. He has such a stellar reputation as a prose stylist that it’s like people cannot contemplate him writing a clunker. Henry James is grueling, as has been mentioned a few times. Not gotten much out of the couple of his I’ve picked up. Proust, who was writing around the same time, is more rewarding IME. I’ve read the first two volumes and they’re not easy, but exceptional once you can get into a rhythm of reading them. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/149 "2011-08-14T13:32:43Z")
My entry in these sorts of conversations has always been **Great Expectations.** My Grade 12 English teacher, a man who otherwise seemed to have taste and whose opinion I trusted, told me in advance of the major book study portion of the course, “You have to read this book before you die.” Or maybe I just heard him wrong and what he said was “If you read this book you will want to die” but his earnest expression suggested it was a positive review. Great Expectations is perhaps literature’s most cruelly ironic title. I went into the book expecting a terrific yarn and what I got was one hundred thousand pages of soul-flaying tedium. I tried, God how I tried, because I was expected to write a report on it. But Id’ get another 40 pages and realize I had not a clue what I had just read. The events and characters and descriptions started out being in English and then flowed together in a soup of bafflegab. It was like reading in tongues. After completing the book, which according to the calendar took a month (it should be noted that I can read a normal human novel in a day) but which felt like a hundred lifetimes, I looked at the book in dismay and realized I remembered nothing about it. Well, not quite nothing. Here’s what I remembered: 1. There’s this kid named Pip. 2. There’s an old guy Pip helps. 3. There’s this bitch Pip likes but she’s a bitch. 4. A whole bunch of shit happens. I tried reading it again a few years later and surrendered fifty pages in. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/150 "2011-08-14T13:34:40Z")
I think people who like Great Books of Literature are significantly atypical, and should not be allowed to teach English or reading above the third grade level. This would get rid of a lot of those boring book requirements, I think. How many HALO, WoW, etc. fiends do you think will be able to see Silas Marner, Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, etc., as anything other than the alien artifacts they clearly are? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/151 "2011-08-14T13:35:41Z")
> [@Dr.Girlfriend](#): > > Has anyone else here read the **dreck that is “Winesburg, Ohio”** or “My Name is Asher Lev”? I don’t know if they qualify as great books but I know I hated both of them when I had to read them in school. No accounting for taste, I guess, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who hated _Winesburg, Ohio_. What bugged you about it? ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/152 "2011-08-14T13:57:14Z")
D.H. Lawrence. Specifically, _Sons and Lovers_ and _Women in Love_. I do not have words for what a self-worshipping, smug, smirking, affected, pretentious, self-massaging, self-pleasuring _wankstain_ Lawrence was. It’s blindingly obvious that he thinks he’s sooooo daring and sooooo _real_ and _working-class_ and he’s bringing _gritty reality_ to the repressed middle classes who just aren’t going to be able to _handle_ his sheer _earthy genius_ and they’re going to be soooo _shocked!!!_ by his _sexual liberation_ and on and on and ON, and all the time, just like every other person in the world who works that hard to be shocking, he’s not shocking at all, he’s just terminally, drastically boring. When I was forced to read those pieces of wank, I was a sixteen-year-old virginal sheltered Catholic schoolgirl who was shocked by just about _anything_ including the news that one of my friends had given a guy a handjob. And I STILL wasn’t even the tiniest, most infinitesimal amount shocked by D.H. Lawrence. I was just bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored. I wanted to dig the little fucker up and brain him for inflicting this level of stupefying, mind-wrecking, utterly unjustifiable tedium on the world. My God, I think I’ve been storing that up for twenty years. Also, another vote for Nathaniel Hawthorne. ---
**Author:** ![ecoaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/85e7bf/32.png) [@ecoaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ecoaster)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/153 "2011-08-14T14:13:34Z")
**THe Bible**. What a snooze fest. Humanity would be better off without it. ---
**Author:** ![keeganst94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@keeganst94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeganst94)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/154 "2011-08-14T14:42:25Z")
I have been waiting the entire time for somebody to say that, ecoaster. I expected it on the first page, but I had to wait for 4. What? On the internet? Nobody insulted religion on the internet? Absurd. Also, I just read The Great Gatsby, and I can only thank god that it was at least short. So boring. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/155 "2011-08-14T15:30:37Z")
> [@keeganst94](#): > > Also, I just read The Great Gatsby, and I can only thank god that it was at least short. So boring. I agree. And it shouldn’t be. Think about what actually happened at the end. Does that sound boring? It seemed like the writer focused on the symbolism over the actual narrative, and that’s something I think does not make for good literature. I want to give my entry, but it was so boring that I’ve forgotten. I read it at the same time as _The Scarlet Letter_ and _The Old Man and the Sea_ for AP English–the latter being much better, despite having almost no plot. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/156 "2011-08-14T16:13:59Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#): > > D.H. Lawrence. Specifically, _Sons and Lovers_ and _Women in Love_. I do not have words for what a self-worshipping, smug, smirking, affected, pretentious, self-massaging, self-pleasuring _wankstain_ Lawrence was. Oh, I’d say you do have words … ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/157 "2011-08-14T17:40:33Z")
> [@ecoaster](#): > > **THe Bible**. > What a snooze fest. Humanity would be better off without it. There’s an updated version called “Good Snooze for Modern Man”… ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/158 "2011-08-14T18:49:00Z")
Another vote for _The Great Gatsby_. Try as I might, I couldn’t find any hint of a plot. It’s was just about the most pointless story I’ve ever read. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Girlfriend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.girlfriend/32/193_2.png) [@Dr.Girlfriend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Girlfriend)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/159 "2011-08-14T20:43:29Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > No accounting for taste, I guess, but I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who hated _Winesburg, Ohio_. What bugged you about it? You know, I’m having a hard time remembering exactly what it was, I just know I hated it. I think it was the way it was taught, we spent months on this book going over every paragraph. I was just totally sick of it by the time we finally finished it. Of course I was 14 or 15 when I read it, I might feel differently now. ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379/160 "2011-08-14T22:30:30Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Oh, I’d say you do have words … Not enough! Not nearly enough! On the other hand, I don’t have any feelings either way about _Catcher in the Rye_, which I think is slightly odd - everyone I know either loves it or hates it. I just sort of read it, went ‘That’s it?’ and forgot about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-books-that-you-want-poo-all-over-and-then-wrap-it-up-in-a-bag-then-down-the-chute/592379.md?page=9)