# whats the worst "classic " book/author you read or tried to read **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 24, 2019, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440 "2019-03-24T04:37:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**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:** [March 27, 2019, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/181 "2019-03-27T11:24:00Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Knowles and Fowles. Fowles and Knowles, damn them. I refuse to read any novels by authors whose names end in -owles. > ^This. It was a crime against the novel, and a pointlessly depressing wretched waste of time. > > _The Magus_ has gotten such hype, and once you try to read it, the entire thing consists of nothing but onion layers of hyping _itself_. It keeps promising the big payoff but never gets there. It manipulates the reader to hope, after 400 pages of playing you for a fool, the big payoff is just around the corner. It never comes. In fact, the author couldn’t even be bothered to write an ending for the novel, so it has no ending. It just stops, because fuck you, that’s why. It isn’t a novel, it’s the writer’s sadistic abuse of the reader. Not only that, but he revised the damned thing and republished it in 1977, twelve years after its initial release. the republication shows his improving abilities as a writer (he had started working on the original twelve years before its 1965 publication), but apparently it’s still as annoying. > [@](#): > > The book ends indeterminately. Fowles received many letters from readers wanting to know which of the two apparently possible outcomes occur. He refused to answer the question conclusively, however, sometimes changing his answer to suit the reader. The novel ends quoting the refrain of the Pervigilium Veneris, an anonymous work of fourth-century Latin poetry, which has been taken as indicating the possible preferred resolution of the ending’s ambiguity > **[The Magus (novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magus_(novel))** > > The Magus (1965) is a postmodern novel by British author John Fowles, telling the story of Nicholas Urfe, a young British graduate who is teaching English on a small Greek island. Urfe becomes embroiled in the psychological illusions of a master trickster, which become increasingly dark and serious. Considered an example of metafiction, it was the first novel written by Fowles but his second novel to be published. A revised edition was published in 1977. > In 1999, The Magus was ranked on both ... ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/182 "2019-03-27T11:28:51Z")
I’ve read and actually enjoyed (to varying degrees) most of the books mentioned here, but _Atlas Shrugged_ is basically the “Dianetics” of literature - contrived, stilted, preachy and vile. I was also forced to read multiple Thomas Hardy novels for high school English and I really wish I hadn’t (although I rather like some of his poetry). > [@Superdude](#): > > I think I read “Catcher In the Rye” at the wrong time of my life. If I’d read it when I was Holden Caulfield’s age, I might have enjoyed it. Or at least sympathized with him. I was in my 30s, and wanted to slap him instead. Every man should read _Catcher in the Rye_ twice in his life: once at 15 because Caulfield really understands the curdled truth underlying the thin pretense of civilization adults maintain to justify their own banal lives, and once again in his 30s to discover what a whiny immature little shit Caulfield really is and what a whiny immature little shit he was too at age 15. ---
**Author:** ![EarlGrayHot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e480ec/32.png) [@EarlGrayHot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EarlGrayHot)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/183 "2019-03-27T12:21:40Z")
A novel written by Balzac (I have blocked even the actual title) , a renowned French author. I tried reading it (for Senior English class, of course) and I HATED it. I finally told my teacher I just couldn’t do it and she claimed it would mean a bad grade and implied I would never get into college if I didn’t read it. I said I didn’t care. Ultimately, it didn’t stop me from getting into college but I never regretted putting it down. SO VERY BORING. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/184 "2019-03-27T14:02:23Z")
> [@squidfood](#): > > With all the _Catcher in the Rye_ comments, I wonder: is there anyone commenting who’s first reading of the book was, say, 1965 or earlier? I disliked the book as well, but I wonder - Since the 1960s, counterculture has become mainstream culture, and (especially after 1980) the emo / goth / “too smart for school” trope has become trite and mainstream. Hence we read it now and just roll our eyes at the emo kid. But back then - when there was a heavier emphasis on conformity, etc. - was it a revelation? I call that the “Maltese Falcon” effect. The first time I saw _The Maltese Falcon_, I thought it was a cardboard mashup of every stilted detective-slash-noir cliche ever. Then I realized that of course it was; it _created_ them. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/185 "2019-03-27T14:15:59Z")
I agree with many posters about Thomas Mann, but it is not _Death in Venice_ that is really tedious, that at least is mercifully short, not even _The Magic Mountain_ (which is not short at all), if you want to get bored to death, read _Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen_ (Points of view of an apolitical person, in case somebody ever bothered to translate it into English - which I doubt). And so wrong as wrong can be. _Catcher in the Rye_: showed me the meaning of _so what?_ in all its depth. Could have had that easier. Books I was unable to finish: \*Jude the Obscure, Moby Dick \*(have not given up yet… since 1990), _Wuthering Heights, El Quijote, Sense and Sensitivity_. I did not like _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ at all when I had to read it in school, but when I re-read it on a long railway journey I loved it and have read it perhaps ten times since back to back. That is maybe where my hope for _Moby Dick_ comes from. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/186 "2019-03-27T14:22:55Z")
I’m a simple man and I dislike things for simple reasons: Greek classics: Don’t know how to pronounce the names, making the characters unrecognizable. Sorry Xestaphones or Xylophoneatris or Xanaxacryea or whoever! Might want to try “Ann” or “Mary” next time. Huckleberry Finn: Don’t need 7 ways to spell words, Mark, just one or two will do, understand? The purpose of language is communication and spelling “going” 7 different ways in the same book is not “communication”, it’s “pretension”. ---
**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:** [March 27, 2019, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/187 "2019-03-27T15:17:03Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Huckleberry Finn: Don’t need 7 ways to spell words, Mark, just one or two will do, understand? The purpose of language is communication and spelling “going” 7 different ways in the same book is not “communication”, it’s “pretension”. > [/QUOTE=Mark Twain] > IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech. > > I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding. The first time I tried to read _Huck Finn_, in childhood, the dialogue and spelling were too much for me; but when I was older they didn’t present that much of a problem. (This might be a book where a good audio version is the best way to experience it, although when I tried to listen to the version narrated by Elijah Wood, I gave up on it because I didn’t think he was doing justice to Twain’s humor.) ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/188 "2019-03-27T15:24:53Z")
Yeah, it was a 9th, 10th grade reading assignment. Just did not care for it - if you’re going to write a book in English, use English! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Emcee\_1980](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b38774/32.png) [@Emcee\_1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emcee_1980)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/189 "2019-03-27T15:35:11Z")
_Catcher in the Rye:_ for reasons stated ad nauseum. Pretty much anything by Hemingway as well. I have to mention his short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” just because I hate that title, and that fact that the woman in the story actually utters that sentence during what is supposed a very tense and difficult conversation, and not in an attempt to add levity. ---
**Author:** ![Emcee\_1980](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b38774/32.png) [@Emcee\_1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emcee_1980)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/190 "2019-03-27T15:43:04Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Huckleberry Finn: Don’t need 7 ways to spell words, Mark, just one or two will do, understand? The purpose of language is communication and spelling “going” 7 different ways in the same book is not “communication”, it’s “pretension”. Huck Finn took me some years to appreciate. _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ was way more up my alley as a young reader. Tom was a slick little SOB, and young me was amused by his antics, especially since I was an extremely well-behaved young man on the outside with a rebellious streak deep in my soul. Somehow, I suppressed the rebel until college. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/191 "2019-03-27T16:05:19Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > I, too, hated The Great Gatsby in high school. When I revisited it a decade or so later, I actually quite enjoyed it. I only read it as an adult. Never could find a reason to care about any of those people. Maybe it made more sense at the time Fitzgerald was writing it. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/192 "2019-03-27T16:08:18Z")
> [@Emcee\_1980](#): > > Huck Finn took me some years to appreciate. _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ was way more up my alley as a young reader. Tom was a slick little SOB, and young me was amused by his antics, especially since I was an extremely well-behaved young man on the outside with a rebellious streak deep in my soul. Somehow, I suppressed the rebel until college. Huck Finn would be a lot better if Clemens hadn’t brought Tom Sawyer back into it in the later part of the book. Tom and his games only belong at the very beginning, when Huck is moving beyond all that. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/193 "2019-03-27T16:08:20Z")
> [@Emcee\_1980](#): > > Huck Finn took me some years to appreciate. _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ was way more up my alley as a young reader. Tom was a slick little SOB, and young me was amused by his antics, especially since I was an extremely well-behaved young man on the outside with a rebellious streak deep in my soul. Somehow, I suppressed the rebel until college. Our family had at home, _Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_; as a kid, I sort of gathered it to be implied that they were a “two-fer”. I read _Tom Sawyer_ aged probably about nine (parentally encouraged thereto); frankly, found it dull. The comedy passed me by, and / or it seemed to me weak. Feeling this way about “Tom”, I had no wish to tackle _Huckleberry Finn_, which I envisaged would just be “more of the same”. Not being in the US, nothing by Twain was required reading in my formal education – for a long while, all I “knew” about _Huckleberry Finn_ was that it was supposedly the companion volume of you-know-what… At 19 or 20, I decided that I might as well give “Huck” a go; though I entered in, expecting only boredom. I was surprised and pleased to find it un-put-down-able, and in my perception very different from Tom’s tedious antics – discovered it to be a scathing indictment of attitudes and abuses in the pre-Civil War South; and also, often hilariously funny. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/194 "2019-03-27T16:13:53Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Every man should read _Catcher in the Rye_ twice in his life: once at 15 because Caulfield really understands the curdled truth underlying the thin pretense of civilization adults maintain to justify their own banal lives, and once again in his 30s to discover what a whiny immature little shit Caulfield really is and what a whiny immature little shit he was too at age 15. The problem with Holden isn’t that he’s a whiny immature little shit. It’s that he _doesn’t_ understand anything. There’s a big difference between _seeing_ that stuff is phony, and merely _calling_ stuff ‘phony’ because you don’t like it. And Holden just does the latter. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/195 "2019-03-27T16:15:14Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Huck Finn would be a lot better if Clemens hadn’t brought Tom Sawyer back into it in the later part of the book. Tom and his games only belong at the very beginning, when Huck is moving beyond all that. Maybe a total “conversion experience” on my part – conviction by the time I was getting near the end of the book, that Twain could do no wrong as regards this particular work; but I found Tom’s nonsense about pretending that they were heroes on a perilous mission a la Monte Cristo, to free and spirit away the prisoner Jim, wonderful laugh-fodder. (Plus, as per your words above, it being pointed up that Tom is still fundamentally a kid – Huck has been going through a rough initiation into the ways of the adult world.) ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/196 "2019-03-27T16:15:37Z")
By far the most loathsome “classic” I was ever forced to read in school was Chip Delany’s _Dhalgren_. I didn’t even have the excuse of youth - I was coaching our school’s Academic Decathlon team that year and that was the novel assigned. All of SF to choose from and they picked that steaming pile of crap. Outside of that one, Dickens could disappear tomorrow and the world would be a far better place. ---
**Author:** ![Emcee\_1980](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b38774/32.png) [@Emcee\_1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emcee_1980)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/197 "2019-03-27T16:20:05Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Huck Finn would be a lot better if Clemens hadn’t brought Tom Sawyer back into it in the later part of the book. Tom and his games only belong at the very beginning, when Huck is moving beyond all that. Very, very true. It’s been awhile since I’ve read it, and forgot about that. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/198 "2019-03-27T16:58:35Z")
_The Hobbit_ by Tolkien. Just an overrated, sprawling, dreary 400 pages. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/199 "2019-03-27T18:17:38Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > I call that the “Maltese Falcon” effect. The first time I saw _The Maltese Falcon_, I thought it was a cardboard mashup of every stilted detective-slash-noir cliche ever. > > Then I realized that of course it was; it _created_ them. That pretty much described my response to the first time I watched _Citizen Kane_. As for _Catcher in the Rye_, I never cared for it even when I was a teenager myself. Having grown up in poverty I had a hard time relating to Holden at all and disliked him immensely. I found myself relating better to _Old Yeller_ and _Where the Red Fern Grows_. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/200 "2019-03-27T18:31:37Z")
Best thing about _Citizen Kane_ was [this _Peanuts_ strip](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/405464772686871978) (click on the strip in the upper left): Lucy: “What are you watching?” Linus: “_Citizen Kane_.” Lucy: “I’ve seen it about ten times.” Linus: “This is the first time I’ve ever seen it.” Lucy: “‘Rosebud’ was his sled.” Linus: “_ **AAUGH!!** _” I saw it once, back in college IIRC. It wasn’t bad, IMHO, but I wouldn’t bother seeing it a second time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440.md?page=11)