# Worst "Classic" Book Ever **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 31, 2001, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185 "2001-08-31T20:09:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![hegel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cab0a1/32.png) [@hegel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hegel)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/81 "2001-09-03T17:22:29Z")
vanity fair sucked. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/82 "2001-09-03T17:34:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by cichlidiot \* > \*\* > > Since a lot of posters mentioned they enjoy Dostoevsky, maybe someone could explain The Double. I understand it is about a split-personality (?), but I didn’t understand the ending at all. "When he came to himself, he saw that the horses were taking him along an unfamiliar road. Dark woods wound to the right and the left of it; the place was desolate and deserted. Suddenly he almost swooned: two fiery eyes were staring at him in the darkness, and those two eyes were glittering malignant hellish glee. ‘That’s not Krestyan Ivanovich! Who is it? Or is it he? It is. It is Krestyan Ivanovich, but not the old Krestyan Ivanovich, it’s another Krestyan Ivanovich! It’s a terrible Krestyan Ivanovich!’ " > > I apologize if this is considered a hi-jack, strike me down if you must, but could you enlighten me first? Where was he being taken, had he been there before, how come? \*\* Well, I don’t enjoy Dostoevsky, but I have read **The Double**. We discussed this story in my Madness in Literature class, and we were never able to fully resolve the ending, at least not as a group. There are two takes on it: either it’s really an imposter like Ivanovich says and he’s being taken away so the double can have his life; or Ivanovich is totally off the deep end of a mental illness, probably something in the delusional schizophrenic family, and the scene is his warped perspective of what happens when they drag him off to the asylum. Most of us thought it was the latter, but a few die-hards believed that there really was someone trying to destroy him and take over his life. ---
**Author:** ![frock75](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ad7895/32.png) [@frock75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/frock75)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/83 "2001-09-03T17:53:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*John Knowles (Knoles? Knowls? Noles?) _A Separate Peace_ is only good for toilet paper. \*\* You understand the dread that suddenly came over me when I read this post? I have tried for years to suppress the memory of this book. Please lord have mercy on me. ---
**Author:** ![Daowajan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@Daowajan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daowajan)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/84 "2001-09-03T18:01:20Z")
I am about to say something that will get my ass kicked multiple times: I liked **The Scarlet Letter.** I have weird taste in books. I also liked **The Name of the Rose** - did anybody here ever read that? It strikes me as a book that would have quite a throng of haters connected with it. And in an objective light, **Crime and Punishment** is not THAT bad, really. My votes for the worst: **A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man**. Was there a point to this book? All the symbolism was so digustingly blatant - “all beauty is made up of _three_ components” - I actually beat my head on the table when I read that. I spent 200 pages hoping it would get good. **A Separate Peace**. I have never stopped hating this book. It’s bad on every level. My dislike for **To Kill a Mockingbird** is well known, so I’ll leave it alone for now. I used to live in Chicago, and they were trying to use the book as a way to fix the city’s deep racial divide. Yeah, 150 years of segregation and discrimination and oppression is gonna stop after everyone in the city is subjected to a PoS book. **Pride and Prejudice**. Jane Austen Must Die. This is the only book I have ever stopped reading halfway through. I didn’t care for **Huckleberry Finn** either. [Comic Book Guy]Worst ending ever![/Comic Book Guy] ---
**Author:** ![DPWhite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d26b3c/32.png) [@DPWhite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPWhite)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/85 "2001-09-03T18:31:29Z")
I haven’t read the Russians, but I did slough all the way through Ulysses, and only the first chapter was worth it. (The first chapter was brilliant, unfortunately the rest of the book is about someone infinitely more boring). This was the worst thing I have ever worked my way through. ---
**Author:** ![DPWhite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d26b3c/32.png) [@DPWhite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPWhite)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/86 "2001-09-03T18:35:18Z")
Whoever didn’t finish Huckleberry Finn up there is cheating themselves. Of all the great classics it is the easist read and has the most wonderful insights on America. ---
**Author:** ![Cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@Cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyn)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/87 "2001-09-03T19:23:57Z")
Hated **Madame Bovary** and wanted to throw\*\* Anna Karanina\*\* in front of a train. ---
**Author:** ![Lionors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c37758/32.png) [@Lionors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lionors)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/88 "2001-09-03T21:25:38Z")
Incidentally, I’m about to tackle War and Peace…again. I’ll see if I can make it through this time. ---
**Author:** ![Theobroma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@Theobroma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Theobroma)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/89 "2001-09-04T02:51:02Z")
I read “The Scarlet Letter” in high school, and kind of got into it. I even wrote a looong essay for the AP English exam based on “protagonists who flout society’s norms and expectations” (or something like that–it’s been a long time). The sample character was Jean Valjean, but I felt for Hester Prynne even more. “Confederacy of Dunces” was hysterical!! I went to my freakin’ junior prom with that guy…I thought it was so funny, I loaned it to a co-worker last week. Don’t know if I would have appreciated it in high school, though. Also read “Name of the Rose” as an adult, and liked it very much, but don’t know if I would have gone for it in my teens. Now that I have defended my faves, I will actually respond to the OP with the ones I hated most. “The Sound and the Fury”–relied on Cliffs notes to pass. That thing was so obscure, I didn’t realize Quentin had committed suicide–and he was NARRATING at the time!! Also, anything else by Faulkner–jeez louise, am I the only one who can’t stand ploughing through impenetrable prose about white trash?? I don’t know how the Pulitzer committee made it through. “Grapes of Wrath” was less awful if you skipped the every-other-chapter weather report. That and “The Pearl” weren’t horribly written, just horribly depressing. Can’t come up with a third choice that I hated as much, so I will end the post with–Hi Opal! ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/90 "2001-09-04T03:07:37Z")
I think maybe The Eighth Day by Thorton Wilder. At least with all the other books I’ve read, I can think of reasons why they might be good. Language, symbolism, I guess. This book is so dull. AND it had the capability to be a good novel but it went horribly wrong. A main character as described as doing his profession mainly to get money. The main, main dude, John Ashley, looks for a wife by making sure she’ll have no outside interests or ambitions. (Okay, okay, I know it’s another time.) Really it’s just the lack of passion. Even Tale of Two Cities had passion- the revolution and whatnot. I can’t possibly see how this book that is just so dull, so detached could be a classic. I literally can’t comprehend how anyone could have emotion for it. The characters are wooden, the speech is so like words out of a can…Horrible thing. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/91 "2001-09-04T03:15:46Z")
Okay, I haven’t read a lot of the older stuff mentioned, as my high school English teachers generally taught newer classics. So I have little to comment, except that anyone who didn’t like the Brothers K needs to reread it, because they missed something important. (My coworker and I have a running joke about how everyone should act like characters in TBK - it involves lots of shrieking, mock tears of joy, threats to commit suicide, etc. Really, wouldn’t the world be more interesting if we all emulated Dostoevsky characters?) Anyway, the only books I _hated_ in high school were Of Mice and Men and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Not a lot of people seem to agree with me on the latter, but it was boring and I hated McMurphy. ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/92 "2001-09-04T04:20:55Z")
Hum, this is interesting. We’ll need quite an oven for all of us about to burn for _Tess_, I’ve a feeling everyone just wanted her to go the fuck _hwome_ already and leave us alone! I adored _Heart of Darkness_, really. I compared the experience to wading through peanut butter - indeed, it’s the longest short book around. But that just made it more fun to savor. Perhaps having seen Apocalypse Now a couple of years earlier helped. _Wuthering Heights_ didn’t bother me nearly as much as _Tess_. Still melodramatic, but I seem to remember enough “writerly” things going on to make it tolerable. Oh, and I credit _Madame Bovary_ (and her hateful accomplice, _Eugenie Grandet_ with killing my interest in the French language - it was beyond all the Camus and Ann So many people hated _A Separate Peace_, which I find surprising. I don’t remember it all that well at all, just a vague sense that I liked it but found it a bit fluffy. And paws off _Terabithia_, which I read on my own. What a brilliant little novel, disturbing in the right way. I agree that the problem is that H.S. English teachers haven’t the foggiest idea of how to pick literature for teenagers - and too often fail to place works in an historical context. Ibsen makes no sense if you don’t know exactly what the consequences of divorce were for a “respectable” woman at the turn of the century. ---
**Author:** ![Goldeneldon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f19dbf/32.png) [@Goldeneldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Goldeneldon)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/93 "2001-09-04T05:02:47Z")
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery. Even thinking about this book makes me wan…ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/94 "2001-09-04T07:13:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*Oh god, the Left Behind books could become classics? > > MOMMY!!! \*\* I can actually see that happening - people in the future may find those books useful for understanding what was going on in the minds of Christian Fundamentalists in the early 21st century. ---
**Author:** ![Globe-trotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cab0a1/32.png) [@Globe-trotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Globe-trotter)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/95 "2001-09-04T13:52:28Z")
I’ve actually enjoyed a lot of the books in this thread… :o However, I simply loathe Henry James. Good thing the movies are better than his prose. 😉 I have thrown a few of his books out of sheer disgust (you would have thought that I would have figured it out after one book!). Bleh. Great Expectations is horrible… and this from a Dickens lover. It took me four tries to finally finish the novel (I’m stubborn, what can I say?) and while I will gladly reread some of his other novels, this one ain’t one of them. I didn’t hate The Great Gatsby but I did think, “That’s it?” I was rather underwhelmed by it. Virginia Woolf makes me want to stab my eyeballs with a fork. 'nuff said. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/96 "2001-09-04T14:40:15Z")
I have a pretty virulent distaste for most late 19th century to early twentieth century American literature. Naturalism? Blech. Stephen Crane? Hurl. Spoon River Anthology? Great Gatsby? All awful. Oh, and there is a special place in hell for JD Salinger. If you didn’t like _Catcher_, then by all means read _Franny and Zooey_. Consider it an experiment to see just how insane you can drive yourself by reading. On the other hand, _Heart of Darkness_ is one of my favorite books of all time. I think I am going to weep in the corner now… And while I never agree with **astorian** politically, he is dead bloody on regarding Melville. Billy Budd reads like a swift kick to the solar plexus. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/97 "2001-09-04T16:57:22Z")
To the Moby Dick haters, I recommend Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund. I made my tortured way through Moby Dick in my college American literature course and feel confident in saying that Ahab’s Wife is the book Moby Dick should have been. It’s far more interesting, the language is more accessible (but with a definite 19th century feel). It’s sweeping, engrossing. And like the work is springs from, it’s got a great opening line. (I remember liking Bartleby and appreciated the memory-jogging reference!) Oh, you To Kill a Mockingbird haters! I love everything about this book. And, I grew up in a small town and my daddy was a lawyer. When everyone in the balcony stands up and Scout is chided to her feet as well for “your father’s passin’,” I get tears every single time. More Southern fiction: I really liked Cold Mountain. Until Ahab’s Wife, I felt it was the best book I’d read in 10 years! I’d stayed completely away from the book’s hype, however, and feel sure that soured many of its detractors. I tried to read Heart of Darkness about a year ago. It had never been forced upon me and I was looking forward to it, really, if only to more clearly understand the Apocalypse Now parallels. Blek ick pooey. I skipped ahead to “the horror! the horror!” just to see what “the horror” was. Underwhelmed, I was. And I agree with TV about 19th century novels as soap operas. If you read Hardy’s Return of the Native with this in mind, it’s actually pretty good. Dickens: I liked Oliver Twist. Speaking of long-windedness, \*\*UncaStuart \*\* (and others) – have you read Fanny: Being the True History of the Adventures of Fanny Hackabout-Jones: A Novel by Erica Jong? It’s sort of a Candide on acid; it lovingly lampoons the whole genre. (At least that’s how I remember it!) **Daowajan** – I was considering answering the OP with The Name of the Rose, but thought better of it since I didn’t actually finish. I enjoyed the movie and thought the book would provide more of the same sinister intricacies. Maybe it did, but they were incomprehensible to me. (Though of course we’re now mortal enemies, now that I know your aberrant Mockingbird opinions 😃 ) My nomination? **The Sound and the Fury**. It’s incomprehensible, even in a literature class, even with Cliff notes. Even 20 years hence it’s thoroughly unreadable; I know, I tried. Is there ANYONE who gets it? ---
**Author:** ![Daowajan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@Daowajan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daowajan)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/98 "2001-09-04T18:15:10Z")
It appears I’ve just met my doppelganger. Cool! ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/99 "2001-09-04T18:28:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by furryman \* > \*\*I’m not sure if this is considered a classic but I thought “The Third Policeman” By Flan O’Brien was highly overrated. One reveiwer called it “the funniest book I ever read.” Please! I thought it was vaugely humorous, and the ending was downright depressing. > \*\* Oh well. At least someone’s even read Flann O’Brien. He s one of my personal favourites as my (misspelled) handle will show (same author, different book). Half man, half bicycle. Hehehehehe, roar, heheheheh. And that’s not even mentioning the surreal conversation. Sorry, I know this thread was meant to be more of a poll than a discussion, but I think in the case of someone er…mildy criticising the author from who you get your handle, you should be able to stand up and defend them. ---
**Author:** ![Interrobang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/interrobang/32/17463_2.png) [@Interrobang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Interrobang)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/100 "2001-09-04T18:51:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ellen \* > My nomination? **The Sound and the Fury**. It’s incomprehensible, even in a literature class, even with Cliff notes. Even 20 years hence it’s thoroughly unreadable; I know, I tried. Is there ANYONE who gets it? I love it, but I don’t claim to _get_ it. But to me, it’s less a book about “getting” than about experiencing – and much as I enjoyed the experience, I can easily understand why other people wouldn’t enjoy it at all. (It does get a lot easier after the Benjy section, though.) I love Faulkner in general, though – whenever I read him, I feel like I’m immersing myself in a comfy whirlpool of lit’ry genius. _Absalom, Absalom!_ is my favorite book. Hijack over. Let’s see – I slammed _The Pearl_ earlier. Another of my well-loathed books would be _The Old Man and the Sea_. Hemingway’s come in for a lot of abuse on this thread, but that book’s easily the worst of his that I’ve read. In fact, I was surprised when I sort of enjoyed _The Sun Also Rises_ – after Old Man, I was bracing for the worst. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185.md?page=6)