There was a brief period when Penguin Classics published (at least in the UK) a set of classic poetry in translation that consisted of multiple extracts from all the standard translations of the work in question. With The Iliad being one of the works in question. Probably exactly what you’re looking for.
An awful lot of the choices in the thread are ones I had no real problem with. Catch 22? Perfectly readable. The “fish” stuff in Moby Dick are the good parts, etc.
That said, I bounce off Austin and find Dickins not someone I seek out. Henry James varies enormously.
But the real killer is probably Walter Scott. Set Ivanhoe at school, I was only one out of two in a class of thirty who finished it. And I hated it. I know someone who was set Waverley as the first book in an English literature degree on the grounds that “if you can finish Waverley, you can finish anything.”
Steinbeck’s best books were his slice of life “tortilla flats” " cannery row" those i loved
but travels with Charley was his best book that ive read …
he captured the mid-60s at its essence and foretold many trends that happened in society like the fall out from the suddem mobility of America only for people to realize we as a whole were pretty rootless to begin with and the increasing nostalgia people wanted from the “good old days” even though he knew it was mythological bunk he and others still wanted the romanticied version to be true …
And his chapter where he went to see the segregation protests in new Orleans still resonates to this day
I haven’t seen “Watership Down” here yet either. I got through a couple of chapters and said to myself, “Yep, it’s a story about rabbits.”
The late 1970s animated movie was, however, very good, and was definitely an allegory of the Soviet takeover of East Germany. IDK if the book was, because like I said, I didn’t get that far.
I’m sure it’s a perfectly fine piece of classic literature, but I was never able to make it through Little Women. I made it as far as the part where one of the girls is forced to throw out her pickled limes, at which point the book goes on and on and on about the horrible little Irish children getting ahold of them…it was completely nonsensical to my 5th-grade self. Between that and the endless parade of people demanding to know if I had gotten to the part where Beth dies, I put it back on the shelf. It seems to have followed me through two moves, complete with the bookmark.
You aren’t alone, many people hate it. I was a quiet shy teenager in high school and I cared so much about what a few girls tought yet never once spoke to them so Ethan Frome spoke to me in a JAlfred Prufrock kinda way. That was love as I understood it, rather than the classic over the top crap like Romeo and Juliet.
Nothing happens in their relationship. Like my 16 year old love life.
I do most of my reading via audiobooks while I run, and if a proper swashbuckler doesn’t swash and buckle, then it gets much harder for me to run. Who can run while listening to tedious prose?
These days I’m working my way through the Thomas Kydd series, enjoying the point of view of an ordinary seaman as opposed to the officers’ point of view from Hornblower and Aubrey.
I had to do a term paper on Pride and Prejudice in high school because I was absent the day books were selected and it was the only one left. My 17 year old self found it incredibly pretentious. For sheer boringness, it’s hard to beat The Fairie Queen. I took the two required semesters of Western Lit in seperate years. First semester FQ came at the end, but the next year they didn’t get to it until second semester. I did even worse on the test second time through.
As one who has slogged thru many boring books I proclaim tedious the winner is Joyce’s ULYSSES. I hate the stream of consciousness style, as in Faulkner. Looking at the comments above, it is obvious that the certain means to make something obnoxious is to assign it in school. If a teacher required chocolate ice cream that would end sales of it forever.
I kinda wonder if there isn’t something meta about being forced to read subversive literature in public school.
Fahrenheit 451 doesn’t have the same punch if it’s a 16 year old kid being forced to read it. Hell, they have a ready book in mind for burning.
I have no doubt high school English teachers who care have all sorts of exciting modern books thier students would relate too, if only thier jobs weren’t on the line if one parent gets mad about one sentence for whatever reason in one book donated by that teacher.
Never read Heart of Darkness in school, for some reason bought this as a beach read one summer. What a mistake! What a turgid slog this story is and barely got through 10 pages, put this down and never picked it up again.
Our high school “lit” class was Pick Your Own Books; Read it, write a report on it, have a teacher conference once a grading period, make a project that shows you read the book. You had to read a specified number of pages per grading period so you weren’t dicking around. It was great! If 'Salem’s Lot had been a brush fire, the school would have burned down–everyone wanted to read it!
Maybe I was too young but I grinded through all of it, good golly, the genealogical info was biblical and yet more boring than the Old Testament. Some good plot/action/world-building but lots of filler. Decades later, no interest in re-reading, not sure if I have seen all of the movies, definitely none of the Hobbit movies.
Please note: The Hobbit was a much more incredible story (to me) than anything in the "Lord of the Rings: Trilogy
It took me a while to “get” As I Lay Dying. For those not in the know, each chapter is written by a different family member around the time leading up to a family funeral. Adult children, other relatives, friends, and even the corpse get chapters written in the first person; many of them get multiple chapters. But if you don’t understand this, you’ll find it a tough slog.
For me, the worst book was Wuthering Heights. Even though it was assigned in high school, I gave up after fifty pages, and fell back on the Classic Comic. And even that was awful.
Doubt many kids are getting assigned Ulysses in High School in all its 700 page glory, if that is your inference. A chapter maybe, like Molly Bloom’s soliloquy [the only chapter that has a true stream of conciousness style, btw). Kudos to you if you went to a school with that level of expectation.
French kids will read part of Swan’s way in school, AFAIK - the middle section on Swan in Parisen society is quite straightforward
I don’t know why I’m surprised when people say they don’t like Watership Down, seems to be a common enough sentiment.
I too saw the movie in the late 70s. I was a child, less than 10 and thought it was pretty good. The real draw was that it was on HBO and I watched it at my friends house cause his mom and dad were cool enough to have cable. I discovered that it was actually a book in 1980 and dove in face first. Took a couple weeks, but probably one of the best written children’s stories since George McDonald’s Wise Woman, or Princess and…stories.
Of course being a child, any political messages hidden between the lines were so far over my head that I didn’t even feel the wind of their passing.
Watership Down is one of my top 5 favourite books as an adult. It works as both a children’s story (I first read it at the age of 10 I think) and a political allegory. In a similar way to the Harry Potter series containing allegories on terrorism, religion, and state control (among other things I’m sure). But even Watership Down could probably benefit from tighter editing.
If you are a fan of The Complete Guide To Everything podcast, the hosts are doing a side-project for patrons, called Books. They are reading and discussing books, a few chapters each week. So far they’ve done The Great Gatsby and Lord of the Flies. I’m really enjoying it.