I guess I am in the minority but I actually enjoyed reading Stephen King’s Tommyknockers. Though I am not sure I’d consider it or anything else King wrote as a “classic”.
I think I would list Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson as one of the worst books I’ve ever tried to read. (And I’ve read the novelization of Hard Target–that’s right someone wrote a novelization to a Jean-Claude van Damme film.)
Saw the thread title and wondered if Theodore Dreiser would count. Well, if we’re listing more recent authors like Cormac McCarthy, then I would say Dreiser qualifies. As a terrible writer. As a writer who sounded old-fashioned and even at the time was scalded by reviewers. (Well, at least by Dorothy Parker.)
An American Tragedy was turgid prose at best. Made a great movie, though. And I say this as someone who slogged my way through Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy. As an aside, I generally hate poetry. But I actually like some of Thomas Hardy’s poetry. “The smile on her face was the deadest thing alive enough to die.” Or something like that.
Is there an edition that takes out all the action adventure, but retains all the fish? Cos I think I got that one.
Yeah, my Eliot hatred stems from MOTF at A Level too. Wretched drivel. Well, actually, “wretched drivel” was how I described the Wordsworth to which I was also subjected.
Never read Austen, don’t really intend to…
The classic that disappointed me the most was probably Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. I was sure I was going to love it and found it stitled, dull and infuriatingly repetitive. 75% of the book reads like this :
When that the eleven kings saw that there was so few a fellowship did
such deeds of arms, they were ashamed and set on them again fiercely;
and there was Sir Ulfius’s horse slain under him, but he did
marvellously well on foot. But the Duke Eustace of Cambenet and King
Clariance of Northumberland, were alway grievous on Ulfius. Then
Brastias saw his fellow fared so withal he smote the duke with a spear,
that horse and man fell down. That saw King Clariance and returned
unto Brastias, and either smote other so that horse and man went to the
earth, and so they lay long astonied, and their horses’ knees brast to
the hard bone. Then came Sir Kay the seneschal with six fellows with
him, and did passing well. With that came the eleven kings, and there
was Griflet put to the earth, horse and man, and Lucas the butler, horse
and man, by King Brandegoris, and King Idres, and King Agwisance. Then
waxed the medley passing hard on both parties. When Sir Kay saw Griflet
on foot, he rode on King Nentres and smote him down, and led his horse
unto Sir Griflet, and horsed him again. Also Sir Kay with the same spear
smote down King Lot, and hurt him passing sore. That saw the King with
the Hundred Knights, and ran unto Sir Kay and smote him down, and took
his horse, and gave him King Lot, whereof he said gramercy. When Sir
Griflet saw Sir Kay and Lucas the butler on foot, he took a sharp spear,
great and square, and rode to Pinel, a good man of arms, and smote horse
and man down, and then he took his horse, and gave him unto Sir Kay.
Then King Lot saw King Nentres on foot, he ran unto Melot de la Roche,
and smote him down, horse and man, and gave King Nentres the horse, and
horsed him again. Also the King of the Hundred Knights saw King Idres on
foot; then he ran unto Gwiniart de Bloi, and smote him down, horse and
man, and gave King Idres the horse, and horsed him again; and King Lot
smote down Clariance de la Forest Savage, and gave the horse unto Duke
Eustace. And so when they had horsed the kings again they drew them, all
eleven kings, together, and said they would be revenged of the damage
that they had taken that day. The meanwhile came in Sir Ector with an
eager countenance, and found Ulfius and Brastias on foot, in great peril
of death, that were foul defoiled under horse-feet.
Change the names, then lather, rinse, repeat for the best part of 800 pages :mad:. That book single-handedly used up my quota of the verb “to smite” and the expression " passing sore"
I was underwhelmed by The Iliad for the same reasons, although it struck me as a bit more varied. The Odyssey was great, though and very different.
War and Peace was also a slog, as was all of the, admittedly rather little, Dostoevsky that I have tried.
I’m currently reading Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain and… its another contender for the title. I’ve reached page 292 and it’s getting slightly better but the first 200 pages seemed to me painfully verbose and futile.
I’m with you on “Catch-22”. On a trip to China a few years ago, I didn’t bring enough reading material and ran out. Visited a huge, multi-floor bookstore downtown, and they had one row of English-language novels. Picked up a paperback copy of “Catch-22” for something like $20; and even though I was desperate for *anything *to pass the time, I couldn’t get beyond about 1/3 of the book.
This is the first example which popped into my mind for this topic. I read it in English class when I was about 16. It was kind of funny at first, but quickly became annoying. A major slog to get through. Don’t plan on ever reading it again.
Catch the 1962 Stanley Kubrick film adaptation starring James Mason as Humbert Humbert. Cool film.
Philip Roth, Portnoys Complaint. A misogynist talks about masturbation. Maybe there’s some other topic if you keep reading, but eventually I gave up.
I really enjoyed both Moby Dick and Heart of Darkness. But I disliked a lot of the other books mentioned in this thread, too.
They may have done it better arguably, but Zamyatin’s place in the curriculum is entirely justified by the fact that he not only came first, but was almost prescient when it came to “describing” what 20th-century dictatorships would look like. I agree with your assessment of Lem, though.
As for Henry James, I consider The Turn of the Screw as one of the best “ghost” story ever, one that also has real artistic merit to boot. His other stuff, I didn’t care much for.
After re-reading the thread, I realized that I haven’t included The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Under the Volcano and Heart of Darkness. After some deliberation, it’s fine. It takes some kind of distinction to make it to a “worst of” list and these books don’t have it. They were just : “Well that’s a wrap, I guess. Next.”
Oh, God, a Separate Peace. I had blotted that from memory. I had to read it in high school, then again in college. I loathed the book. my wife, pepper mill, also had to read it in high school, and also hated it.
I’m not sure that I’d like it any better if I were to re-read it today.
Oh, and Henry James – I’d forgotten him, too. I had to read A Turn of the Screw in High School, and found it torture. But then I had to read The Beast in the Jungle in College, and found it infinitely worse. The titular Beast is metaphorical, which doesn’t bother me. But the whole point of the book is that Nothing Happens, and the problem is that the book is written in that turgid, bloated, infinitely-long sentenced Henry James Prose, and it takes so damned long to Not Happen.
It is appropriate at this point to bring up Edith Wharton on Henry James. She might have indulged in a little parody here, but, I suspect, not much:
From a Backward Glance by Wharton.
Available many places, including here – https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2012/08/when-henry-james-asked-for-directions-by-edith-wharton.html
Jean-Paul Sartre Being and Nothingness. I got an A in my undergrad philosophy course in spite of Sartre. After reading a page I’d have no idea what I’d just read, but I’d turn the page and keep going.
I have never made it through that book.
I have tried on multiple occasions, figuring that there must be something spectacular about it that one only gets after finishing the whole thing, but I also lack the patience.
The book is a one-tricky pony, with the slightly-off-kilter rambling tone and focus on the silliness of every single thing layering on as if the book were some sort of literary fugue with its theme surfacing forwards, backwards, and in different keys.
No, I don’t have patience for “Catch-22”
And I barely had patience to finish “The Catcher in the Rye,” which seemed so incredibly dated by the 40’s slang that was supposed to make it edgy and cool. It was a let-down.
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.
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.
For those who dislike Steinbeck, I assume this stems from The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row (both of which are long, hard slogs) - if you haven’t read Of Mice and Men, do. It’s far more accessible and better-written (IMHO). And much shorter.
As others have already mentioned, Wuthering Heights is the one for me. I’ve had a half-read copy in my nightstand for about 3 years now and am really struggling to find the motivation to continue with it. I even started again at one point as I had left it too long to remember what had happened. And even the second time through I’m finding it really hard to follow, in a way that Dickens or Hardy isn’t.
Granted that a lot of posts in this thread (including mine) are about struggling with classics even as an adult, but a good chunk of the time it can be about trying to read them too young or with the wrong motivation (i.e. because you have to, not because you want to). And a common problem seems to be excessive verbiage - I can only assume editors weren’t really a thing until the 20th century, does anyone know this for a fact?
I can’t tell you folks how wonderful it is to see all this disdain for Catcher in the Rye. I didn’t read it until I was in my 40s, and I gave up about two-thirds of the way through.
As a reasonably well-read person, I’d come across plenty of references to it along the way, mostly going on about how Holden Caulfield sees through all the phoniness around him.
What bullshit. He doesn’t see through anything. Anything he doesn’t like, he calls it phony. And I’ll join the line of Dopers who’d love to slap that smarmy fucker silly.
I never had to read The Sun Also Rises, but read it anyway, sometime in my 30s. You’ve summarized my thoughts about the book quite succinctly.
Yikes! Thanks for the heads-up!
I really couldn’t get into Patrick O’Brian’s books. I LOVE C.S. Forester’s Hornblower novels, and have re-read them numerous times.* But I can’t freakin’ stand O’ Brian’s books. I originally hadn’t bought them because even the paperbacks seemed ludicrously overpriced. after the movie came out, I borrowed the first three (chronologically) and worked my way through them. “Worked” is the right term. I found reading them a chore, whereas I sail through (pun intended) Forester with no effort.
*Forester wrote a great many other books, too, including some WWII fiction (along with a slightly fictionalized account of the Bismarck), some other Napoleonic period war fiction, one book about about an American Hornbloweresque captain (The Captain from Connecticut), some random historical and naval fiction (including, arguably, the African Queen), and two murder mysteries. I find it all readable, with the exception of his NON-fiction account of the Naval Encounters in the War of 1812.
I’ve read all of the above. I thought Grapes was worth the read, but it is long, and given the subject matter, I can see how it would be a slog for a lot of readers.
But when did Cannery Row become long? I don’t expect everyone to like it as much as I did, but it’s quite short - IIRC it’s about the same length as Of Mice and Men.