The problem here is that this is not one book. This is (at least) 66 short works written by a plethora of authors. As such, the quality is uneven. For example, the Book of Job really is poetry of the highest order by ancient standards; I read a chapter in church a while back, and I had people come up to me saying they had no idea how beautiful it was. Then you have the Book of Ezekiel, where we see nonconsenual S&M perpetrated by what could be UFOs. This stopped my Mom’s Bible study cold.
Wuthering Heights: a tale of two horrid, rotten, selfish people who really deserve each other. I couldn’t stand them and couldn’t wait for it to end.
You know, all you Catcher-bashers are missing out on a damned funny book. And I don’t mean so bad it’s funny; I mean funny for real.
That said, I also thought Gatsby was boring. I found it especially disappointing because I’d read nonfiction about the 1920s, and Fitzgerald was referenced so often, I foolishly thought any story of his would be as exciting as the real-life exploits of Clara Bow, Dorothy Parker, Valentino and so forth. Instead it’s basically another Scarlet Letter: people waiting and waiting and doing nothing. Gimme Evelyn Waugh any day. Sebastian Flyte? That’s the guy you want to party with.
I hated Catcher in the Rye but I loved The Great Gatsby. “It’s an old clock” is probably the funniest single line of literature I’ve ever read.
I had to read oodles of plays in college and for some of them, the only salvation was getting 4 or 5 people together and just setting aside an hour and a half for a read-through. Mandragola seems boring as hell and the words and sentences all run together in your head but out loud you start to find the funny.
Oh, I so agree. I really don’t understand those who find Heathcliff a romantic figure when he’s pretty much a raging asshole for his entire life, and Cathy is likewise a total psycho hosebeast.
And see, that’s exactly why I like it. Not for any identification with a depressed teen.
I’ll also mention that I couldn’t finish *Catch 22 *by Joseph Heller. I don’t know if it’s a “great” book, but it’s pretty popular. I think it was supposed to be funny, but I didn’t get it. The same is true for Christopher Moore’s Lamb, which I know is not at all a “great” book in the history of literature, but is very popular and is also lost on me.
Thirded. I just listened to this recently, and was left absolutely baffled. I cannot fathom how this is considered a great tragic romance, or anything similar.
The Grapes of Wrath is top on my list. I was an English major in college, so I’ve read my fair share of literature, but this was one that I could never get through. I read the first 100 pages or so, skipped to the last 20 pages and still got a B on the exam. I also hate anything by Charles Dickens. His stories and characters are interesting enough but I loathe his writing style. You’re allowed to have more than one sentence per page, Charles!
Oh, let me dredge it back up for you - it’s an extended flashback revolving around the title character, who is that sad old man. Spoiler box to cut for length: [spoiler]Ethan is married to Zenobia (Zeena), who is sickly in health and a mean-spirited woman as well. Her cousin, Mattie, lives nearby and helps care for Zeena. Mattie is pleasant and attractive, and Ethan falls for her. Zeena says she needs a better caretaker and plans to replace Mattie with someone else. Ethan finally expresses his feelings for Mattie and kisses her. He tries to get together the money for the two of them to run away together, but when someone tells him what a good man he is for caring so well for his wife, he feels guilty.
Ethan is supposed to take Mattie to the train station, but they stop to go sledding, and she proposes a suicide pact where they drive the sledge into a big tree. He finally agrees, flinches upon thinking of his wife right before impact, but manages to steer right into the tree.
Both survive. He’s left with a bum leg and other injuries. Mattie is paralyzed, and her personality grows bitter. Zeena, meanwhile, has recovered from whatever made her sickly - not to mention becoming a more pleasant person - and looks after Ethan and Mattie.[/spoiler]
I think part of the reason that I hated the book in high school was all of the unrelentingly gray imagery symbolizing feeling trapped in your lot in life seemed to lead to a very dull method of teaching it, for some reason. I understand that it’s touchy to use adultery as a way to spice up a drab setting for high schoolers, but some effort to tie it into things like “being stuck in a small town” would have helped.
Thanks for making me hate a book in advance! 
My pleasure. 
I had to share the pain; that particular book has been dogging me since high school, along with Silas Marner, Billy Budd, and some of Hemingway’s works.
I had a British lit class taught by the same instructor, and loved it; most of the American lit class’ works were a chore to read in comparison. I eventually decided that we just hadn’t had enough time as a nation to write enough high-school-acceptable books to pick from.
Now that I’ve thought of it, I’m thinking the plot of Very Bad Things may have been based on Ethan Frome.
Agreed. I laughed out loud reading it.
I wonder if the 1939 movie version glossed over the ugliness and most people remembered the movie than the book. It was presented as more of a romance, with the swoony Laurence Olivier as the dashing brooding hero, and had a ‘happy’ ending. Thus setting up generations of silly women who want to be pursued with a love that lasts beyond death, that want to be swept up by a handsome, determined bad boy. They don’t see brutality and obsession, they see “oh, he is my very soulmate, how he loves me!”