classic books you didnt like

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Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
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I'm another who dislikes Faulkner. I've read him, because I once had an obsession with reading as many of the 'classics' as I could manage, but I gave up after the third one. I didn't like any of them. Fitzgerald is okay--I liked The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night well enough. The Picture of Dorian Gray was all right, as well (the most recent movie was a atrocious, though). Oscar Wilde was a better raconteur than writer (especially of poetry--his is pretty bad), but this and a few of the short stories were well done. :)
I liked some of Wildes essays. Like Decay of Lying and The Soul of Man Under Socialism. You don't have to agree with his arguments to be amused by the way he argues. One thing about Wilde, he is seldom dull (his poetry somehow loses his usual sparkle and except Dorian Gray novels isn't really his thing but Plays (importance of Being Earnest) short stories and essays are enjoyable. Another english classic i've never read is George Eliot. Somehow i've managed to read the Bronte sisters and Austen but miss her.
 
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Walter Oobleck

keeps coming back...or going, and going, and going
Mar 6, 2013
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OK, i do know about Faulkner. But he is one of these classic authors i've never read for some reason. i remember thinking several times that i ought to read something at least. Same thing with Fitzgerald. But perhaps Karma has wisely steered me clear of them, who knows?

Faulkner's As I Lay Dying is probably his most readable story, emphasis on story. I've read it multiple times, the narrative line is told from the multiple members of the Bundren family, the matriarch of which lies dying, a story with one of the shortest on record, from the youngest of the Bundren family, Vaardaman..."my mother is a fish". Faulkner wrote the story in six weeks during a time he worked at the post office, a kinder gentler time. The story is the time of horse and buggy. I've used the same narrative technique to tell a story, look for it in the walls of some of the houses I've remodeled. I recommend As I Lay Dying, great story. Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. There's a great line at the end,
now I can get them teeth.
His Light in August is another readable story.

George Eliot is on the same level of the tower as Dostoyevsky. Her characters are complex psychologically-driven and not always in a good way. People were as neurotic in Eliot's day as they are today. A few lines I noted: our passions do not live apart in locked chambers, but, dressed in their small wardrobes of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store... Some nice description, a character comes downstairs, stands with his back to the fireplace, and raises first one foot then the other, warming the soles of his feet. Middlemarch. I've only read three from Eliot.
 
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doowopgirl

very avid fan
Aug 7, 2009
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Les Mis ...I read 3/4 of the book, the whole book. I liked it A little
but it ...dried up for me.. I give it a great big ...Meh
I loved the story, but I did a lot of skimming. Like I didn't need three chapters on the battle of Waterloo just to introduce two characters. Moby Dick was the same. A great story, but way too much background of the whaling business.
 
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Lily Sawyer

B-ReadAndWed
Jun 27, 2009
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Heart of Darkness
Waiting for Godot
Brave New World


But the one I hated the most is The Stranger. Read previous rants about being forced to read it twice in French and once in English. Oh, the misery. I should have dropped the French class the second time around I was forced to read it, and burned the book.
 

Connor B

Well-Known Member
May 24, 2015
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I feel S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders is a touch too melodramatic and sentimental for my taste. Naturally, I just had to read it in middle school.
 
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GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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LMAO, writing you out of my will as of this post MISTER.....Now, off my lawn you will get....
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