# You had to read/see it, it was a classic! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 13, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083 "2005-04-13T04:25:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/61 "2005-04-14T10:54:50Z")
In French IV, we had to read **L’Etranger**. I thought it read like a flat rock skipping over a lake and, in the end, sinking to the bottom. I wanted to wash my brain out with soap. ---
**Author:** ![mailman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8491ac/32.png) [@mailman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mailman)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/62 "2005-04-14T11:23:14Z")
One of my students, just yesterday, asked me about Catcher in the Rye. I did not like the book when I read it at 14, nor did I like it when I re-read it at about 22 (?) or so. Nor have I ever liked it when just dipping into it for the heck of it. However, I know that kids seem to love that book. Why? I don’t know, but I see kids reading in on their own volition year after year. So I was honest with her. I said I didn’t particularly like the book, but that kids her age seem to really love it, so go ahead and give it a try. What should I have said? “That book sucks! Go home and watch TV!”? ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/63 "2005-04-14T12:04:22Z")
::shudders from hearing OtakuLoki’s tale of woe:: mailman , you should have said, "That book sucks! Go read Steinbeck’s “East of Eden,” 😃 (Just kidding! It’s better for them to catch the habbit, then to watch a sitcom. At second thought, maybe you should have recommended a classic film, based on a book, or the book itself like, “The 49 Steps.”) ---
**Author:** ![mailman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8491ac/32.png) [@mailman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mailman)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/64 "2005-04-14T14:38:15Z")
…maybe I should have said, “Tropic of Capricorn…try that one.” ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/65 "2005-04-14T15:54:21Z")
\*\*Blade Runner. \*\* I’ve watched it through twice, the directors cut both times. It’s okay, but for some reason I can’t get into it. ---
**Author:** ![Indygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/66 "2005-04-14T16:32:46Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > I was reading _Atlas Shrugged_ my senior year. My English teacher took it away from me. That’s crazy. I hope you threw a fit or at least complained to someone. If you can’t have your Ayn Rand phase when you’re a senior in high school, when the hell are you supposed to have it? (I actually had mine freshman year of college, but you get what I’m saying. I still love The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.) ---
**Author:** ![wampeter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@wampeter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wampeter)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/67 "2005-04-14T17:12:37Z")
I hated - _hated_ - _Heart of Darkness_ . It was the first (and last) time I ever actually fell asleep while reading (it takes me forever to fall asleep and I have to be in just the right position, too, so falling asleep while reading NEVER happens). I also really disliked _Beowulf_ . But since I was just a stupid teenager, maybe I just didn’t appreciate it. I’m translating/reading it now in my Old English class, and it’s pretty kickass. I read _The Great Gatsby_ voluntarily in high school, because it was a classic and therefore I felt I had to… but I despised it. I get angry just thinking about the book. On the other hand, I dreaded reading _Great Expectations_ , because I had heard how boring Dickens was, but ended up loving it. It actually convinced me to read more Dickens! ---
**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:** [April 14, 2005, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/68 "2005-04-14T17:34:13Z")
Just wanted to say that I _loved_ mosdt of my reading assignments – **The Odyssey** , **Tale of Two Cities** , **Antigone** , **war and Peace** , **Frankenstein** etc. But some books do stand out. Besides the ones I listed in my previous post, there are these from high school and college: **The Beast in the Jungle** – Henry James at his worst. A very long story in which nothing happens. It turns out that the whole point is that nothing happens. There is no Beast – it’s purely metaphorical. I’d prefer if it were real, and rent James into tiny author-bits. **Turn of the Screw** – James again. Only Henry James could manage to make a ghost story _boring_ **Pride and Prejudice** – The hardest book I ever had to push myself through. Jane Austen is a great writer, I hear. **The Death of Ivan Ilych** – I loved the immense book **War and Peace** , so why do I hate this offering from Tolstoy? It reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon I saw once – “Despondent Russian author committing suicide by leaping from atop his suicide note.” ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/69 "2005-04-14T17:38:25Z")
> [@Jayn\_Newell](#): > > Books: _Lord of the Rings_. I have an omnibus copy at home by my bed, with a paper bookmark a little over halfway through. It hasn’t been touched in over two years. Tolkein may have been a genius, but he bores me to tears. Must he describe every dew drop on every leaf in the whole forest before getting on with the plot? My nitpick with JRRT was the OGawful bad poetry. I’ve read LOTR I don’t know how many times and have learned to skip over the poetry. The novel reads better and in only about half the time if you do. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/70 "2005-04-14T17:40:07Z")
Half my library ridiculed in a diss thread. I was feeling sulky and left out until, finally, this: > [@Lamar Mundane](#): > > **A Confederacy of Dunces**. Never been so underwhelmed in my life. I seriously had to reevaluate some freindships based on my friends raving over this book. I like all kinds of offbeat stuff, but I do not know what kind of sense of humor you have to have to get this book. Truer words, my friend. I didn’t smile once. Oh, and while we’re excoriating great works, there’s a dent in my wall where **Swann’s Way** hit. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/71 "2005-04-14T17:50:26Z")
Oh right, Henry James. I was very bored by Washington Square. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye was another flop. ---
**Author:** ![shadowfax33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@shadowfax33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shadowfax33)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/72 "2005-04-14T17:55:50Z")
70+ posts and no one has mentioned _The Deerslayer_? Or anything by James Fenimore Cooper, for that matter? :eek: I, too, am a proud book geek, and enjoyed most things that I was assigned to read in HS and college. Heck, I even liked A Separate Peace. _The Deerslayer_ remains the only book in my life that I have ever tossed in the trash. A year or so later, I stumbled across Twain’s essay, “The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper.” It was so funny it almost made slogging through \*The Deerslayer \* worthwhile. ---
**Author:** ![CapnPitt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/edb3f5/32.png) [@CapnPitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CapnPitt)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/73 "2005-04-14T18:23:05Z")
I don’t think anybody threw this out there either, but _Ulysses_ by Joyce frankly, is crap. I think the only reason people think it’s THE masterpiece of the 20th C. is because of the hype machine. Ooooh, it’s rambling and dense therefore it must be _deep_. Plus it was banned, therefore it has to be great, no? ---
**Author:** ![Mauvaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mauvaise/32/11084_2.png) [@Mauvaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mauvaise)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/74 "2005-04-14T19:27:31Z")
Count me as another book/reading nerd, because I loved about 99% of the books assigned in Jr High/HS and was probably one of the few who did: David Copperfield? Loved it! The Good Earth? Loved it enough to read the sequels on my own. Romeo & Juliet? Hamlet? MacBeth? Julius Ceasar? Loved them all. Though it wasn’t until later that I truly appreciated JC. I read Catcher in the Rye on my own. I loved it as a teen, haven’t re-read it since, but I wonder how I’d feel about it now. To Kill a Mockingbird? Loved it, and the movie. The only things I didn’t enjoy were: Anything by Hemmingway or Steinbeck. Any short stories by Melville or Conrad. I liked most of 1984, except the book within the book (still have not read it). ---
**Author:** ![wonderwench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/35a633/32.png) [@wonderwench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderwench)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/75 "2005-04-14T19:34:52Z")
Nathalie Sarraute - The Golden Fruits Incomprehensible nonsense. Meh. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/76 "2005-04-14T19:35:22Z")
> [@Mauvaise](#): > > I liked most of 1984, except the book within the book (still have not read it). Nobody has. And nobody has ever read John Galt’s whole speech either in **Atlas Shrugged**. (Okay, maybe not nobody, but probably almost…) ---
**Author:** ![wonderwench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/35a633/32.png) [@wonderwench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderwench)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/77 "2005-04-14T19:44:05Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Nobody has. And nobody has ever read John Galt’s whole speech either in **Atlas Shrugged**. (Okay, maybe not nobody, but probably almost…) I’ve read it - three times. But in case you don’t care to, here’s the Cliff Notes version: Money is Good. ---
**Author:** ![Achren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/898d66/32.png) [@Achren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achren)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/78 "2005-04-14T19:47:30Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > **Scott\_plaid** , I’m not sure you understand the true horror of my 12th grade English class - the teacher was obsessed with sex. To give you an example we did Hamlet in about three weeks. As I remember it, we spent two weeks obsessing on the incestuous relationship between Gertrude and the king, and how that related to Hamlet, then we spent 2 days on the incestuous relationship between Ophelia and Lysander, and the other three days on the rest of the play. And that’s what he did with Hamlet, you can imagine what Billy Budd was like. > > \ But did you ever read [**Wide Sargasso Sea**](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393308804/qid=1113507776/sr=8-2/ref=pd_ka_1/104-3978505-3707145?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)? The [film](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000D0YXV/qid=1113507776/sr=8-4/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl74/104-3978505-3707145?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846) is rated NC-17. All the 14 yr old guys insisted that _this_ was the movie we should watch instead of Romeo and Juliet. Heh. We read it as freshmen in high school. My freshman (college) english professor said she wouldn’t let us read it so I think any opinions I have of it are in for some overhauling. ---
**Author:** ![lachesis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@lachesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lachesis)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/79 "2005-04-14T19:55:53Z")
oh thank goodness! someone else though **Turn of the Screw** was time ill-spent. i’ve read surprisingly few classics that i ever thought were a waste of time… although i will admit that re-reading **The Last of the Mohicans** a couple years ago made me reassess my homage for Cooper. i guess overwrought prose may be easier to swallow when you’re younger and haven’t as many other standards to compare it to. having said all that, the one “oughta read that, i remember it from a school reading list of classics” that i absolutely despised was **Look Homeward, Angel**. that, THAT was something children were encouraged to study, or even _peruse_?!? repellant people doing stupid things… must have been the literary forerunner of things like Melrose Place. i also thought **The Awakening** was a waste of paper. knowing (thanks to over-helpful blurbs) of the “tragic” ending, i was actually CHEERING for it to happen, just so the whole stupid story would be over. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083/80 "2005-04-14T20:01:20Z")
> [@Indygrrl](#): > > (I actually had mine freshman year of college, but you get what I’m saying. I still love The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.) My freshman college year girlfriend made me sit down and read The Fountainhead because she decided it was some sort of solution to life and she wanted me to become enlightened myself and join her in her newfound objectivism. I finished it, then dumped her. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-had-to-read-see-it-it-was-a-classic/299083.md?page=5)