# 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:** 13\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Nausicaa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7c8e57/32.png) [@Nausicaa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nausicaa)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/101 "2001-09-04T20:04:00Z")
I’m surprised no one has mentioned “Bleak House” - I would describe it but it makes me nauseous just thinking about it. I also have to mention “The Ambassadors” by Henry James - literally nothing happens in this story. Also - Dylan says in “Sara” that he wrote “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” for his wife - Sara. ---
**Author:** ![Qwertyasdfg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ecc23a/32.png) [@Qwertyasdfg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwertyasdfg)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/102 "2001-09-04T20:28:08Z")
Wow, my first thread to go into a 3rd page ever. 😃 As for TKaM, I think that Lee could have made a good book, but screwed herself by using the civil rights as a background for boring plots like the Radleys, the old lady Scout has to visit and Dill (who seemed to serve no purpose.) Then you have the trite cliched ending you could see coming a mile away… ---
**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, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/103 "2001-09-04T20:43:57Z")
Congrats, Qwertyasdfg. (I hope I am never called upon to _pronounce_ you.) I can’t get anyone to even _post_ in my threads. Sob. ---
**Author:** ![ndorward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c2a13f/32.png) [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/104 "2001-09-04T21:20:49Z")
Well, not sure I’m entirely in sympathy with the thread (having taught the odd lit course, an experience I’ve not enjoyed very much: hard not to remember some of the more aggressively lazy readers from the class, & it’s hard not to get depressed about people saying God Bless _Cliff’s Notes_)–but I’d perhaps nonetheless vary the pace here by naming a few poets who have continually failed to interest me despite my having read a fair bit of them–this isn’t so much a matter of _hating_ the work as finding it completely passes me by. John Clare. Very interesting story (a labourer-poet who eventually went mad) but the voluminous poetry has often struck me as mostly unvaried. Edmund Spenser. H.D. Jack Spicer. Michael Palmer. ---
**Author:** ![DaveX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/96bed5/32.png) [@DaveX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaveX)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/105 "2001-09-04T21:21:08Z")
The Illiad… I absolutely love “The Odyssey”, but I can’t seem to keep up with the lineage in “The Illiad”. It reads like the damn bible. I know it is probably a function of the translation, but I gave up halfway through. Cichlidiot mentioned another pet peeve of mine, the architectural sidetracks in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”. Cluttered up an otherwise good novel. On an ending note, it’s good to see all the slags on “Great Expectations”. I’ve only read two Dickens novels; “David Copperfield” first (which I adored), and then “Great Expectations” (which I never finished). I figured maybe Copperfield was the exception rather than the rule, but now I think I’ll go back and give a few of the others a whirl. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2001, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/106 "2001-09-04T21:36:33Z")
While it wasn’t hard going like some of the aforementioned works, I thought Frankenstein was a piece of junk. Narrations by different characters all sound like the same voice, etc. I guess Mary Shelley wrote it in some sort of contest with her friends but it should have stayed there. ---
**Author:** ![Mekhazzio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b38774/32.png) [@Mekhazzio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mekhazzio)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/107 "2001-09-05T04:47:53Z")
Worst ‘classic’? Anything by Steinbeck. I have no idea what people see in his books. “Grapes of Wrath” was the most mind-numbingly dull collection of pages that I’ve ever had to slog through. ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/108 "2001-09-05T06:11:32Z")
Aw, c’mon! I can’t believe that no one has mentioned Edith Wharton’s _Ethan Frome_! Ugh. This book was the very first book assigned in my senior year AP English class. Upon finishing it, I seem to recall writing in my journal something like, “The only useful thing I have learned from this book is that a sled is a quite ineffective suicide weapon.” That scene where Ethan is getting all excited by touching the same piece of cloth that Mattie is touching is a bit contrived, too. And all that analysis about the significance of the broken pickle dish! And, why the heck is this narrator (who is forgotten about for most of the book) so interested in this old man, anyway? The interest borders on the pathological, IMO. Ethan should have the guy arrested for stalking. This was not a book that was meant for serious analysis. Our teacher may as well have assigned a Danielle Steele novel. I have no idea why this book is considered to be “literature”. Is it just because it’s old? Is it just because the school happens to own copies of it, so it’s cheaper to assign it that to buy new copies of a _good_ book? This book was probably inflicted upon a new group of students at my alma mater this very day. I will shed a tear for those brave students. May their sanity be preserved in this trying time. ---
**Author:** ![aegypt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/76d3ee/32.png) [@aegypt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aegypt)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/109 "2001-09-05T12:48:35Z")
_Jude the Obscure_, by Thomas Hardy. Or _Tess or the D’Urbervilles_, by the same author. The horror, the horror! ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Billy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Billy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Billy)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/110 "2001-09-05T13:47:06Z")
Emma. I enjoyed the movie, however. That blonde girl is a spicy little number. ---
**Author:** ![magdalene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df788c/32.png) [@magdalene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magdalene)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/111 "2001-09-05T14:01:55Z")
Tamex, I mentioned Ethan Frome! “Look how sexually repressed we New Englanders are! Let’s act this out through daredevil sledding stunts!” ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/112 "2001-09-05T14:13:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by magdalene \* > \*\*Tamex, I mentioned Ethan Frome! > > “Look how sexually repressed we New Englanders are! Let’s act this out through daredevil sledding stunts!” \*\* So you did! (I looked…really!) You sum up the book quite nicely. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Qwertyasdfg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ecc23a/32.png) [@Qwertyasdfg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwertyasdfg)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185/113 "2001-09-05T20:21:30Z")
The Grapes of Wrath was the most powerful book I ever read. But lets just agree to disagree. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-classic-book-ever/79185.md?page=5)