# Reading > General Literature >  Your least favorite classic

## Pollopicu

To kill a Mockingbird-I'm still trying to understand exactly how this became heralded as one of the greatest American novels of all time. 

Lolita-only because I read it when I was much younger and I didn't understand that Nabakov's prose-style was done intentionally, I just thought he was a real bad writer  :FRlol:  I intend to read it again.

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## Idril

_Middlemarch_! I disliked that book so intensely that when I finally finished it, I burned it in a gesture of victory because finishing that dang book was a hard fought battle.  :Tongue:

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## Desolation

_The Great Gatsby_

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## mayneverhave

The Grapes of Wrath

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## Drkshadow03

Star Wars' Champions of the Force by Kevin J. Anderson!!!

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## Scheherazade

> Star Wars' Champions of the Force by Kevin J. Anderson!!!


I understand the others but... COME ON NOW!!!

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## mortalterror

> I understand the others but... COME ON NOW!!!


I know, I liked that one!

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## papayahed

Orlando reamins as, not only a big stinking pile of poo it is the supreme big stinking pile of poo.

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## JBI

To Kill a Mockingbird probably, if that was a classic - beyond that, Clarissa most likely.

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## Idril

> Orlando reamins as, not only a big stinking pile of poo it is the supreme big stinking pile of poo.


Oh yeah! That was a bad one!  :Tongue:

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## balehead

> _The Great Gatsby_


Arrgghh!! I love that book ... Ah well, i guess there may be one or two people out there who love _The Moonstone_ (Wilkie Collins). I hate that book with vehemance

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## Moriarty

The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is still the whiniest boy in literature.

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## kiki1982

_The Picture of Dorian Gray_. Despite the great idea, it was the execution that failed me... A play written as prose... Ah well, it was Wilde's first try at prose...

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## My name is red

> The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is still the whiniest boy in literature.


I think this is more like 'modern' classic and the same with to kill a mockingbird.
By the way,there are among my favourites :Redface: 

Good topic...let me think..So far,my least favourite could be _dead souls_ or _idiot_
sorry! :Rolleyes: 

and not to forget all works of Jane Austen!

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## mal4mac

> _Middlemarch_! I disliked that book so intensely that when I finally finished it, I burned it in a gesture of victory because finishing that dang book was a hard fought battle.


I thought it was wonderful! It got me through a boring family Christmas. Listening (patiently) to some of my more boring relatives rabbiting on, or watching yet another boring Xmas movie, I could at least look forward to George Eliot. This is definitely near the top of my "must reread" list.

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## mona amon

Jude the Obscure. So depressing, and ultimately pointless, IMO. And I couldn't stand any of the characters.

Picture of Dorian Grey - to me it just didn't seem 'good' enough to be a classic novel, though it might have worked as a short story.

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## Niamh

> _Middlemarch_! I disliked that book so intensely that when I finally finished it, I burned it in a gesture of victory because finishing that dang book was a hard fought battle.





> _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. Despite the great idea, it was the execution that failed me... A play written as prose... Ah well, it was Wilde's first try at prose...


Agreed!!!!!  :Sick: 

I'm throwing Wuthering Heights into this list too.

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## Modigliani

_Grapes of Wrath_. Apologies in advance to all Steinbeck lovers, but that man cannot hold my attention unless he's describing a murder.

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## meh!

'classic' that i've enjoyed the least...

Mill on the Floss.

They're making me read it  :Frown:

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## waterfallin

yeah, _Cather in the Rye_ and _Wuthering Heights_ were terrible! maybe I was just too young to appreciate Wuthering Heights...but I doubt it. I just could not bring myself to actually like any of the main characters, or even appreciate what they were supposed to represent. As for Catcher in the Rye, It's just personal taste. My friend absolutely loved it and hated _Lord of the Flies_, which I really enjoyed, so it's all relative I suppose. I'm sure theres more, but I can;'t think of them right now. Now that I think of it _Vanity Fair_ was quite and ordeal as well.

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## mal4mac

> Jude the Obscure. So depressing, and ultimately pointless, IMO. And I couldn't stand any of the characters.


But did you like it?  :Biggrin:  

Hardy is one of the greatest novelists and this is, perhaps, his greatest novel. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, who suggests that life *is* ultimately pointless. I can't think of a better novel that explores this idea so thoroughly. Definitely on my "reread often" list. 

You might need to explore Schopenhauer's philosophy before you can "get" this work - try "Schopenhauer" by Bryan Magee.

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## toni

_Wuthering Heights_, for me. I could barely make it halfway through the book; although it is written elegantly, the characters are either bland or too strong.

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## DanielBenoit

_Almost_ every post made here has broken my heart in someway  :Frown:   :FRlol: 

I can't really think of one, but though I thought Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man was _good_, it's a little bit of an overstatement for Modern Library to list it as the third best novel of the century. It was just a bit too murky at times and didn't possess the linguistic creativity and joy of Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake. But don't get me wrong, it's NOT a bad novel, it's quite good, it's just a bit overrated in my opinion.

Of something that I really didn't like, I would have to say that I didn't think that Richard III was the masterpiece that it has been made out to be. Don't get me wrong, I loved Richard, but itr was just too meandering and conventional for Shakespeare. I mean, the only character whom I actually liked was the most horrible person in the play  :FRlol:

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## LitNetIsGreat

> _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. Despite the great idea, it was the execution that failed me... A play written as prose... Ah well, it was Wilde's first try at prose...


Really?




> Jude the Obscure. So depressing, and ultimately pointless, IMO. And I couldn't stand any of the characters.
> 
> Picture of Dorian Grey - to me it just didn't seem 'good' enough to be a classic novel, though it might have worked as a short story.


What, really?




> Agreed!!!!! 
> 
> I'm throwing Wuthering Heights into this list too.


Oh my god no.  :Brickwall: 
 :Argue: 





> _Almost_ every post made here has broken my heart in someway


Me too, honestly...three of my favourite novels there...

I would be thinking of perhaps _Pamela_ or _Tom Jones_, not much fun, important in their own right, but not much fun. I find Fielding's constant interjections really irritating and _Pamela_ just so bland (even if it caused a sensation at the time).

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## Niamh

see! we are all different Neely. I love Tom Jones by Feilding.

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## LitNetIsGreat

> see! we are all different Neely. I love Tom Jones by Feilding.


 :Eek:

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## kiki1982

Yes, sorry, Neely. Although I don't have anything against Wilde himself (brilliant ideas, characterisation and writing) just that prose work was too obvious. Technicaly it is good, the idea is good, the characters are good (particularly Lord Henry), but too draw out I'm afraid... 

Can't agree with Hardy and certainly not with _Wuthering Heights_, brilliant as it was.

But, hey, like has been said here, we are all different.

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## LitNetIsGreat

> Yes, sorry, Neely. Although I don't have anything against Wilde himself (brilliant ideas, characterisation and writing) just that prose work was too obvious. Technicaly it is good, the idea is good, the characters are good (particularly Lord Henry), but too draw out I'm afraid... 
> 
> Can't agree with Hardy and certainly not with _Wuthering Heights_, brilliant as it was.
> 
> But, hey, like has been said here, we are all different.


No, no, that is fine. I see your point I think, it reads as if it is not written by a novelist, it is brilliant in its parts, but not perhaps in its binding, that's a perfectly valid argument. Certainly, I think _Jude_ and _Wuthering Heights_ the better novel in the traditional sense, easily, though I think there is something great, and quite brilliant about _Dorian Gray_, and of course of Oscar himself.

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## Homers_child

I just finished _Dorian Gray_ and I thought it was great! I'm definitely going to reread it later. I'm surprised that so many don't think too highly of it. But, as others said, it's all personal opinion. 

I'm not sure if it's a classic or not, but I didn't enjoy _Slaughterhouse Five_ at all. I thought it was strange and boring. Something tells me that was the point, but it just didn't work for me.

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## grace86

Hey guys...I'm back from a long absence online!!

My least favorite mentioned before was probably To Kill a Mockingbird. A more recent one that was just terrible for me to get through was Heart of Darkness!

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## isidro

Oh come on! There were far worse works than old Dorian! (Ahem...looking away, embarrassed to slight any work of literature...) I confess the Great Gatsby would have at least one of my votes. And the Hemingway aficionados won't like me after this but The Old Man and the Sea. I can see why it was termed a classic, but Hemingway's writing puts me to sleep a bit.

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## kiki1982

> No, no, that is fine. I see your point I think, it reads as if it is not written by a novelist, it is brilliant in its parts, but not perhaps in its binding, that's a perfectly valid argument. Certainly, I think _Jude_ and _Wuthering Heights_ the better novel in the traditional sense, easily, though I think there is something great, and quite brilliant about _Dorian Gray_, and of course of Oscar himself.


Yes, brilliant in its parts indeed. I agree with that. 

I found it great when I first read it. I was 17-18 and my English wasn't terribly good. Pretty terrible in fact  :Wink: . So maybe that was why I didn't find it too boring. I just couldn't understand half of it so I could not be disturbed by 'too long'. And it was the first book I actually 'got' more or less. I found that great. 

I guess re-reading is not for me...

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## kelby_lake

> _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. Despite the great idea, it was the execution that failed me... A play written as prose... Ah well, it was Wilde's first try at prose...


Agreed! Wilde was good at plays, not so good at prose.

To Kill A Mockingbird is one of my least favourites.

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## LitNetIsGreat

> Agreed! Wilde was good at plays, not so good at prose.


To the danger of taking over the thread with my Wildean agendas, I would strongly disagree with that. Some of Oscar's prose is quite brilliant indeed, although he is prone to the odd purple patch. Where perhaps Oscar fails in the novel is in regards to its structure.

If you think that Wilde was not so good at prose then you have never read his essays, De Profundis, his letters, his shorter fiction with the same rapture as I have. Wilde was a great prose artist; just not a novelist.

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## joebob

catch 22 was horrid.

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## mona amon

> though I think there is something great, and quite brilliant about Dorian Gray, and of course of Oscar himself.


Well, it's a while since I read it, and I think I'll give it another go one of these days. Your enthusiasm for this book has influenced me, Neely!  :Smile: 




> But did you like it? 
> 
> Hardy is one of the greatest novelists and this is, perhaps, his greatest novel. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, who suggests that life *is* ultimately pointless. I can't think of a better novel that explores this idea so thoroughly. Definitely on my "reread often" list. ~ mal4mac


I have to admit, reluctantly, that it was really good. But I just didn't like it!  :Smile:

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## The Comedian

Least favorite Classic, eh -- I'll second someone's nomination of "Middlemarch". It was about all I could endure to slog through that tedious collection of subtlety. The idea of burring it in victory hadn't occurred to me at the time, but I find the idea quite brilliant.

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## Frankie Anne

Another vote for "The Grapes of Wrath."

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## mal4mac

I liked "The Grapes of Wrath" . Maybe it's because I'm British? I guess you must get this book, or its associated history, crammed into you from first grade in California? It gave me new insight into the great depression and its personal impact.

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## Madame X

> I liked "The Grapes of Wrath" . Maybe it's because I'm British? I guess you must get this book, or its associated history, crammed into you from first grade in California? It gave me new insight into the great depression and its personal impact.


Thats by the same gentleman who wrote _Of Mice and Men_, yeah? Probably a lesser renowned work in comparison, and by no means required reading material for me, but I nonetheless found that one to be exceptional only in its blandness. Am willing to indulge accounts to the contrary, however.

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## mal4mac

> Thats by the same gentleman who wrote _Of Mice and Men_, yeah? Probably a lesser renowned work in comparison, and by no means required reading material for me, but I nonetheless found that one to be exceptional only in its blandness...


I did find that a bit bland. I much prefer "Grapes", which cannot be called bland. I really like "Cannery Row". It's by turns wonderfully comic and poignantly sad, and has some interesting characters. Maybe Steinbeck deserved his Nobel prize?

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## Dimitra

Jude the Obscure,Portrait of a Lady,Middlemarch and the Old Man and the Sea were the biggest dissapointments for me when it comes to classic literature.

Portrait of Dorian Gray on the other hand is one of my favourite books.Funny how tastes differ so much.hehe

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## mal4mac

> Jude the Obscure ...,Middlemarch ... were the biggest dissapointments for me when it comes to classic literature.... Funny how tastes differ so much.hehe


Do "developed" tastes differ much? All the serious critics I've read have rated these two novels very highly. Maybe you are finding it difficult to appreciate British Victorian novels? 

I find, or have found, several areas of literature difficult to appreciate. Apart from a few sections, I found the Iliad a great disappointment. But that may be due to my lack of knowledge, experience and/or Ancient Greek. 

I found Don Quixote difficult, and gave up reading it, but ten years later I read through it with ease and it is now one of favourite novels (up there with Jude and Middlemarch!)

I gave up on Joyce's Ulysses and Proust, but am building up to tackle them again!

Jude and Middlemarch are weighty beasts. It might be worth warming up to them with Jane Austen or early/short Dickens. Or earlier novels by Eliot and Hardy, e.g., Tess.

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## V.Jayalakshmi

Dear Members,

I think"To Kill A Mocking Bird" has not been included in the "Classic" group.But I do vote for Leo Tolstoy's"War and Peace" as a great all time classic.I will also vote for all of Charles Dicken's books too.Can you forget "David Copperfield"?Oh! I forgot Thomas Hardy."The Mayor Of Castirbridge" and "Far From The maddening Crowd".

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## Idril

> Do "developed" tastes differ much? All the serious critics I've read have rated these two novels very highly. Maybe you are finding it difficult to appreciate British Victorian novels?
> 
> Jude and Middlemarch are weighty beasts. It might be worth warming up to them with Jane Austen or early/short Dickens. Or earlier novels by Eliot and Hardy, e.g., Tess.


For me, my dislike of _Middlemarch_ doesn't have anything to do with not being comfortable with the genre. I actually really like Victorian literature. I haven't read all that much Austin but I'm a huge fan of Trollope and Galsworthy among others. It wasn't the style or era or size that made it difficult for me, I just found it mind-numbingly dull. And I have to say I was surprised at that, it seemed like a perfect fit for me but alas, I just was never able to connect with the characters or the story. Sometimes it's just inexplicable why we like what we like and don't like what we don't like. I don't care for _Brothers Karamazov_ yet it is highly regarded as Dostoevsky's greatest work, both by fans and critics. It's not because I don't like or am unable to appreciate the depth of his work because I'm a huge Dostoevsky fan, I've read all his novels and a great many short stories, but for some reason...well...I know what the reason is but I'm not getting into that argument again  :Tongue:  ...that particular book, while there are moments that I thought absolutely brilliant, failed to move me as a whole. Not all books appeal to all people. Despite what the critics say about a book, in the end, it all comes down to personal taste.

That said, I do agree that sometimes it's worthwhile to revisit a book you found difficult once upon a time after you've become more familiar with it's subject. The first few books I read about the Russian Revolution and Civil War just made my head hurt with all those groups, the Reds and Whites were easy enough but then you had the Blacks and the Greens and the Mensheviks and of course, the Bolsheviks and the Socialists and the list never ends. Now that I've read a lot more about it and are much more familiar with all terms, I can go back to those first few books and enjoy them on a whole new level.

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## Dimitra

> Do "developed" tastes differ much? All the serious critics I've read have rated these two novels very highly. Maybe you are finding it difficult to appreciate British Victorian novels? 
> 
> I find, or have found, several areas of literature difficult to appreciate. Apart from a few sections, I found the Iliad a great disappointment. But that may be due to my lack of knowledge, experience and/or Ancient Greek. 
> 
> I found Don Quixote difficult, and gave up reading it, but ten years later I read through it with ease and it is now one of favourite novels (up there with Jude and Middlemarch!)
> 
> I gave up on Joyce's Ulysses and Proust, but am building up to tackle them again!
> 
> Jude and Middlemarch are weighty beasts. It might be worth warming up to them with Jane Austen or early/short Dickens. Or earlier novels by Eliot and Hardy, e.g., Tess.



hi mal4mac  :Smile: 

what means developed taste?Each and everyone in my opinion,has his own taste that appeals the most to his character,his idiocracy and his ideology and developes it in a different way.
I have read Jane Austen and Dickens and though I didn't fall in love with them,I still like them.Which didn't happen with Jude or Middlemarch or any Henry James I have read so far.
Of course it may have a lot to do with interpretation as I don't read them in english..but I doubt it.One another novel I found absolutely dissapointing was Madame Bovary but I believe it was only because the wealth and the mastery of the authors' language couldn't pass through the interpratation..

I'm just a casual simple reader,I'm neither a literature critic,an author nor a proffessor..and the most important reason I read books is my enjoyment.I couldn't get this out of those books,and no matter what the experts believe,I-not matter how much less I know about literature,or how much less credit my opinion holds- have the right to say it and so will I. :Wink:

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## kiki1982

Maybe it has to do with cheerfulness, though. A lot of people do not like sad things. And particularly Hardy is one of those naturalists who make sad stories even sadder. I am not sure about Henry James on this one, as he fits the timing of Naturalism, but could still be realist... And anyway, he is really an American. I suppose therewas a distinction between them (I'm not really acquainted with the differences). 

_Madame Bovary_ I have known to be criticised just because of the sadness in it... 

It is not so much the Victorian way of things, but maybe rather the sad, unsolvable, defetist nature of it that is so troubling to some people. 

I personally find it great, although I can only read 2 of those books in one year, otherwise I'm in danger of getting depressed myself.

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## TimeWells

I couldn't get through Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter. His prose was insufferable, sounding from beginning to end like a person who talks simply for the pleasure of hearing themselves talk.

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## IJustMadeThatUp

Ugh! Silas Marner. It took willpower to keep my fingers turning the pages.

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## mal4mac

> hi mal4mac 
> 
> what means developed taste?Each and everyone in my opinion,has his own taste that appeals the most to his character,his idiocracy and his ideology and developes it in a different way.
> I have read Jane Austen and Dickens and though I didn't fall in love with them,I still like them.Which didn't happen with Jude or Middlemarch or any Henry James I have read so far.
> Of course it may have a lot to do with interpretation as I don't read them in english..but I doubt it.One another novel I found absolutely dissapointing was Madame Bovary but I believe it was only because the wealth and the mastery of the authors' language couldn't pass through the interpratation..
> 
> I'm just a casual simple reader,I'm neither a literature critic,an author nor a proffessor..and the most important reason I read books is my enjoyment.I couldn't get this out of those books,and no matter what the experts believe,I-not matter how much less I know about literature,or how much less credit my opinion holds- have the right to say it and so will I.


It might be the translation. A new translation of Don Quixote (Grossman's) made an unreadable book readable for me. Your English is good, so why not try some of these writers in English? Maybe start with Austen?

You definitely have the right to say what you want, but I also have the right to question your opinion. Your taste might have developed in such a way as to lead you to dislike Eliot, but to like equally admired things. And there's nothing wrong with that. But Middlemarch is one of favourite novels. So I'd just say 'give it another chance' someday. You might like it in ten years time. I don't like people to miss out :-)

I'm also just a casual reader and I read books mostly for enjoyment, though enlightenment is also part of my enjoyment. 

I've just re-read "What Good Are The Arts?" by John Carey, a modern English critic & professor who writes in support of the casual reader. I'd especially recommend this book if you want to understand Eliot. He has a chapter comparing how Austen, Wordsworth, and Eliot deal with disdain. Also, Carey writes the best, simple, modern English of any critic I know.

(Carey suggests that Austen is too disdainful of weak characters, whereas Wordsworth & Eliot are kinder - Eliot is more sorry for the withered scholar Casaubon than disdainful!)

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## prendrelemick

> I find Fielding's constant interjections really irritating .


 Just miss those bits out, simples!


The only classic book I have actually hated with an all consuming passion is Catcher in the Rye. Can I have my money back Mr Salinger.

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## Kevets

I am long out of school and I didn't study literature, so I haven't been forced to read anything in a long time. So if I don't like something, I stop. But I decided that I had to read _Crime and Punishment_, and I found it quite a slog. I finished it through sheer will power.

And try as I might, I could never make it past about the 20 page mark in _Mrs. Dalloway._

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## LitNetIsGreat

> Just miss those bits out, simples!
> 
> The only classic book I have actually hated with an all consuming passion is Catcher in the Rye. Can I have my money back Mr Salinger.


Now why didn't I think of that? 

No, it is not that I don't think that Fielding wasn't a talented writer or that _Tom Jones_ is not an important novel, I do and it is, it is just so annoying at times. 

Much of this can be put down to the early structure of the novel, which clearly wasn't complete at this time, though some of it probably has to do with a large uni workload and after the tenth "let me just stop there and philosophise about something completely different and totally irrelevant to the actual nature of the events in the novel as dictated so far, let me waffle on about something (for no apparent reason) for another fifty pages, of anything that is on my mind, actually I haver a little essay here which I think I will insert if you don't mind, you know I get paid by the word, it concerns the affects of morality and the nature of the contact with opposing individuals on a religious autonomy with the structures of the society and kindness of the soul" [paraphrase] then it just drives you totally insane, waffle, even worse than _Pamela_. 

I didn't dislike _Catcher_ at all, though it probably works best in the adolescent mindset.




> I am long out of school and I didn't study literature, so I haven't been forced to read anything in a long time. So if I don't like something, I stop. But I decided that I had to read _Crime and Punishment_, and I found it quite a slog. I finished it through sheer will power.
> 
> And try as I might, I could never make it past about the 20 page mark in _Mrs. Dalloway._


I shudder at the brilliance of Woolf. It maybe true that you have to work a little and it certainly helps to know some of the context of modernism, but woolf was a truly great writer. Look at the little subtleties in there and she will blow you across the street.

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## prendrelemick

I didn't realize anyone had actually read those bits. My copy of Tom Jones helpfully prints them in Italics, so they can be avoided, (or studied by social historians.) What is left is a delight.

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## LitNetIsGreat

Yes I'm sure it is, it is a shame I didn't have that edition, instead I didn't finish it having died at page 487...

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## rimbaud

well so far I didn't like The great Getsby, everyone said you must read it, as when I did it really disappointed me, I just don't see what the big deal is

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## dfloyd

I can only say if your tastes do not develop any further, you'll probably never get a degree in literature and, likewise, never become a teacher. What I don't understand is what you're doing on the literature network. Anyone who doesn't get the point of Gatsby, burns Middlemarch, and despises War and Peace ought to join a NASCAR forum, if there is such a thing.

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## maysays

_Madame Bovary_ by Flaubert.
I still don't understand why anyone would want to read/write/adapt for screenplay a story about such a boring woman.

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## Emil Miller

> well so far I didn't like The great Getsby, everyone said you must read it, as when I did it really disappointed me, I just don't see what the big deal is


It is precisely in what you have failed to see that big deal lies.

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## Gretchen

Anna Karenina

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## Kevets

I really enjoyed Anna Karenina.

But my nomination is for Moby Dick. I enjoyed the first 100 pages quite a lot, then I enjoyed nine or ten paragraphs in the remainder. How this is assigned to HS students is beyond me. Maybe it teaches them the art of skimming. And I felt sorry for the whales!

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## One Gallant

Like others I don't see why To Kill a Mockingbird is so great but that's not my least favourite classic. That goes to The Count of Monte Cristo. It starts and ends well but there's about eight or nine hundred pages between them and I've never came across a more unlikeable hero in any other book.

It's a good story if told in the right way but the right way isn't Dumas' novel. You're better off listening to Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre radio version-it's far superior.

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## Jazz_

> catch 22 was horrid.


Really? I loved it...


I disliked The Heart Of Darkness - I struggled to get through it (despite it being very short).

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## janesmith

The Way of All Flesh- Extremely dense and just not particularly interesting.

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## dfloyd

to fight to get through them. They were all stepping stones to a formidable education in the classics. They are books everyone who wants a good background in literature should read. And I read all of Fielding's asides in Tom Jones, as well as his other novels Joseph Andrews, Jonathon Wild, and Amelia.

Rather than a list of least liked classics, it should be a list of books which many do not have the ability to get through, but should have. The only book which a literature afficianado might skip is Mrs. Dull-Away.

I usually agree with you, but The Way of All flesh should be on a list of classics to read. Try Erewhon by Butler. Maybe you'll like it better.

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## BienvenuJDC

> Really? I loved it...
> 
> 
> I disliked The Heart Of Darkness - I struggled to get through it (despite it being very short).


I loved _Catch-22_ too...

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## kelby_lake

To Kill A Mockingbird, so far. It might be okay for 10 year olds but...

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## lowradiation

I'm surprised there's not been more Heart Of Darkness hate, everyone seems to be completely split on that book. I think you enjoy it more when you study around it, I couldn't have imagine enjoying it if I'd read it for pleasure not for my studies.

My vote goes to any Austen novel by the way, probably through personal taste really. Unfortunately she's very unavoidable in English at degree level.

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## Babak Movahed

Canterbury Tales... awful is an understatement.

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## kiki1982

What?? _The Canterbury Tales_? Chaucer is hilarious! If anything I see some British humour in there that has become so famous on TV. 

It is slow to read, but it is no reason to call it awful. What can have been so awful about it?

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## Bastable

> But my nomination is for Moby Dick. I enjoyed the first 100 pages quite a lot, then I enjoyed nine or ten paragraphs in the remainder. How this is assigned to HS students is beyond me. Maybe it teaches them the art of skimming. And I felt sorry for the whales!


Even though i myself enjoyed it, i do agree that assigning it to highschool students is grossly unfair and is hardly conducive to instilling a love for literature i them.

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## Babak Movahed

> What?? _The Canterbury Tales_? Chaucer is hilarious! If anything I see some British humour in there that has become so famous on TV. 
> 
> It is slow to read, but it is no reason to call it awful. What can have been so awful about it?


Alright awful might have been a tad harsh, but despite his humor I took a Chaucer class and I'm still not a fan, no offense.

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## scaltz

Carrie by Stephen King. The writing was just...boring. I didn't get into the plot, I didn't feel sympathy for the characters let alone Carrie herself. Maybe because of the generation gap between him and I. And don't get me wrong boring isn't the same thing as slow paced plot (novels of Haruki Murakami comes to mind).

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## scaltz

> To Kill A Mockingbird, so far. It might be okay for 10 year olds but...


Why so much hate around this book? Come on, the author has a knack of presenting taboos with humor! Even I, a sixteen year old brat, liked it!

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## JuniperWoolf

I've read _Heart of Darkness_ a lot (but then again, I'm a psychology type). 

I also loved _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. In fact, I've already decided to name my first born son "Dorian."

My least favorite is _The Great Gatsby_. There was really nothing there for me.

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## OrphanPip

I'll add my vote to Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, that book has put me to sleep on more than one occasion.

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## kelby_lake

> Why so much hate around this book? Come on, the author has a knack of presenting taboos with humor! Even I, a sixteen year old brat, liked it!


Humour? I don't remember much humour...maybe because they were kiddies? I just found the kiddies irritating, especially Scout 'I want to be a boy'.

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## teashi

^ I don't think it was about her 'wanting to be a boy'. Scout looked up to her older brother (her only sibling) and her father, and her mother was dead. 

I'll add for 'worst classics', stuff by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Longwinded, gibberish writing.

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## fb0252

> Alright awful might have been a tad harsh, but despite his humor I took a Chaucer class and I'm still not a fan, no offense.


you took a Chaucer class. i challenge you read C Tales in original English, then forward us another post.

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## MrRegular

> catch 22 was horrid.


Agreed!

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## c aesura

Orwell's _Coming Up for Air_ was an unbelievable pain. And yet the next novels he would publish are two of my favourite works of all time: _Animal Farm_ and _Nineteen Eighty-Four_.

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## bounty

yet another chance to say how terribly disappointing _moby dick_ was!

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