# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/101 "2019-03-25T13:48:41Z")
For the _Iliad_, at least, it depends enormously on the translation. The version that’s in the Britannica Great Books is so dry that if you drop your cell phone in a puddle, you can fix it by putting it in a plastic bag with the book. But I’ve read other versions that make it the gripping adventure tale that it’s supposed to be. I expect that this is probably also true of most other translated works. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/102 "2019-03-25T13:50:09Z")
James Joyce. **A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man**. Awful melodramatic dreck. I have no idea why Joyce is considered one of the greats of 20th Century English. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/103 "2019-03-25T13:54:02Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > How about Gabriel Garcia-Marquez’ “Love In The Time of Cholera”? ZZZZZZZZZZZ I remember it got rave reviews, everybody thought it was nearly the equal of _A Hundred Years of Solitude_. I read _Cholera_, thought it was OK but that was about it, and remember absolutely nothing about it. While I remember a great deal of _Solitude_ despite not having read it in decades. I can still quote that marvelous first sentence almost verbatim. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/104 "2019-03-25T13:56:14Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > _Moby Dick_ was similar, in that I kept giving up after the same _percentage_ of the book, since each page was tolerable but then when nothing happens after several pages it also gets discouraging. I read _Moby Dick_ on my ‘experience the classics outside of school’ phase. The book got so boring that I started skipping sentences, then paragraphs, then entire chapters. FFS, that book was horrible. I fought my way through _Mutiny on the Bounty_. I compared it to swimming through wet cement. Incredibly dry and boring. I had to fight to read every word of the damn thing. _Confederacy of Dunces_ was horrible (is it considered a classic?). I’ve heard people go on on how wonderfully funny it was, but I never cracked a smile. ---
**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 25, 2019, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/105 "2019-03-25T14:08:16Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > For the _Iliad_, at least, it depends enormously on the translation. The version that’s in the Britannica Great Books is so dry that if you drop your cell phone in a puddle, you can fix it by putting it in a plastic bag with the book. But I’ve read other versions that make it the gripping adventure tale that it’s supposed to be. I expect that this is probably also true of most other translated works. I first read the Iliad in junior high. I had just read Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of The Odyssey and loved it, but his translation of The Iliad hadn’t come out yet. I tried reading Richmond Lattimore’s translation (my mother used it for her college course), but I hated it. When Fitzgerald’s translation came out a few years later I immediately picked it up, and loved it. Robert Fagle’s translations of The Iliad and the Odyssey for Penguin are pretty good, too. I have them on audiobooks, and just listened to them. I also just listened to the audiobook edition of Fitzgerald’s translation of The Iliad, and it still holds up. My gripe is that they changed all of Fitzgerald’s transliterations of the Greek back to the traditional ones, and I don’t like it. When Fitzgerald rendered “Ajax” as “Aias” it was harder to think of him as a can of cleanser. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/106 "2019-03-25T14:11:00Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > I find it so strange that I agree with your summary of the book while totally disagreeing with your opinion of it. You are kind of right about there being a big reveal at the end, too. Although that is not the best part of the book, for me - I just really enjoy the sheer absurdity and how Yossarian creates and reacts to it. **Catch-22** is one of my favorite books, but I think it benefited from being read during the 1960s/Vietnam War/Cold War, when the never-ending absurdity resonated more. (Not that things are less absurd now, its just a different kind of absurdity.) ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/107 "2019-03-25T14:33:46Z")
Hated Catch-22. Don’t think I even finished it. The Sun Also Rises got a pretty negative review from me. Just very boring. Sci-Fi classic They Dying Earth by Jack Vance was another one I had tough time getting through. Those are my worst rated “classic” books. Of course there are many I’ve read that I didn’t love but aren’t among the worst. David Copperfield, however, (along with most of Dickens) I adore. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/108 "2019-03-25T14:33:57Z")
The only book I never got through on a school assignment was Lord of the Flies. ---
**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 25, 2019, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/109 "2019-03-25T14:59:56Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > David Copperfield, however, (along with most of Dickens) I adore. I would never have guessed. 😉 ---
**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 25, 2019, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/110 "2019-03-25T15:04:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > For the _Iliad_, at least, it depends enormously on the translation. … I expect that this is probably also true of most other translated works. That’s a good point. I’ve often wished for a website or other reference that would spell out the pros and cons of the different translations available for a book I’m interested in reading. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/111 "2019-03-25T15:09:19Z")
I think it must have been Fitzgerald’s translation of the Iliad that I enjoyed, though it did take me a while to figure out that “Aias” was his writing of “Ajax”, and that “Aiantes” was the plural (there being two warriors by that name). **Barkis is Willin’** , my only gripe (and it’s not a small one) with _The Dying Earth_ is that nobody in those books seems to be good or heroic. Oh, there are a few, but certainly not Cugel, who gets an entire two novels devoted to him. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/112 "2019-03-25T15:11:52Z")
> [@pendgwen](#): > > And this. We spent a huge amount of time in my senior year English class on it. … **Heart of Darkness** suffers from a vicious feedback loop where its simple prose and short length let it be dissected to death within the space of a few weeks of an English studies class. Similar short-lit books like **The Pearl** also fill this syllabus-ballast niche. I read it in a college class swiftly, the obvious spotlighted symbolism made itself easily apparent, and I appeased the teacher with the obligatory expected commentary in my essay. I got a 4.0 out of the class, which is the only pleasant memory created by that book. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/113 "2019-03-25T15:16:37Z")
Iphigenia in Tauris by Goethe. This book is painfully hard to read. It’s a character drama based on characters that exist as Goethe wish they existed… But not a single one of them reads like a real person. The story is bereft of action or intrigue, and it’s fairly crazy. I worry I just didn’t get it, but… it was _bad_. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/114 "2019-03-25T15:20:53Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > And since we are talking about “classic” books with scare quotes, I ought to mention the Aubrey-Maturin series of swashbuckler books by Patrick O’Brian. They are treated with almost as much reverence as C. S. Forester’s Hornblower series, but when I started working my way through them, I got stuck in the middle of book 2. It starts out well enough, but suddenly changes from a sailing adventure to a Jane Austen novel, complete with the intricate interplay of women in high society. If I wanted to read Jane Austen, I would be reading “Pride and Prejudice.” > > I really do want to get over the hump in that book because I’m certain the rest of the series is good. Funny you should mention that; I’m somewhere in my third (fourth?) reading of the series, and that’s where I got hung up this time around. I can confidently say that the first half of “Post Captain” is the most tedious and boring part of all 20 books. If you can grind through to the point where they get to Toulon, it gets better from there. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/115 "2019-03-25T15:23:20Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > James Joyce. **A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man**. Awful melodramatic dreck. > > I have no idea why Joyce is considered one of the greats of 20th Century English. Me either. _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ and \*Ulysses \*were both f\*\*king horrid. ---
**Author:** ![AllShookDown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d9b06d/32.png) [@AllShookDown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AllShookDown)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/116 "2019-03-25T15:32:41Z")
Freshman year of high school I was in some advanced reading unit and we were supposed to read Les Miserables. I don’t think I even made it through the first chapter. Dull, dull, dull. If you want to teach someone to hate reading, assign that. I’ll take The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask any day. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/117 "2019-03-25T15:42:36Z")
The books I remember annoying me most in grade school were _Of Mice and Men_ and _The Scarlet Letter_. (Not in class, there was _War and Peace_, but that’s probably largely because my father bet me I couldn’t finish it in a week, and so I skimmed through it as quick as possible). There were a few works and authors I liked even in English class. Shakespeare, anything by Saki, _The Crucible_. But for the most part, I was bored out of my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/118 "2019-03-25T15:46:00Z")
> [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](#): > > Jane Austen. What others have said plus she is really really spiteful. She never met a person she couldn’t snark about and she’s not as funny as she thinks she is. I enjoy the thought of an associate of Ms. Austen, pulling on her the Harry Turtledove thing (slightly akin to Bilbo’s farewell speech) – “My dear Jane, if you were half as funny as you consider yourself to be; you would be twice as funny as you in fact are.” ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/119 "2019-03-25T16:09:28Z")
Another vote for Catch-22. I literally not figuratively threw it away about half way through. I thought I was alone in my disdain for that book. I did finish the movie, FWIW. Somehow it was less annoying. I guess I can thank Hollywood for their usual hack job of adapting novels. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2019, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440/120 "2019-03-25T16:35:46Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Just in case you haven’t read what Mark Twain had to say: [Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/HNS/Indians/offense.html) I actually enjoyed Cooper a lot more after reading the Twain piece. If _A Confederacy of Dunces_ counts as classic, I nominate that. It is just _tedious_. If not, then the painful slog thru _The Alexandria Quartet_. The person who told me it got better the further you got into it was lying thru his teeth. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-classic-book-author-you-read-or-tried-to-read/831440.md?page=7)