classic books you didnt like

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Mel217

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Mar 10, 2017
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"Right Turn Clyde."

Watch your six heading out west sir. I've toured the Stanley House a couple of times and I wanted to move to Estes Park once I visited there. Nice town, slow pace and I never got tired of looking westward into the Rockies.

What time shall I meet you there?
 

Mel217

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Mar 10, 2017
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the perspectives in this thread are interesting to read. outside of required high school assignments, despite the many, many books i've read, i've been very lax in the "classics" department. something i've recently been thinking of remedying. i guess i'm another who while devouring a lot of books, might stop short of identifying as "well read" since my only exposure to a lot of classics is through movies. i actually watched a "booktuber" (youtube channel dedicated to books, there's a lot of them out there, and *some* of them are even run by some people older than the twilight generation, who seem to read nothing but young adult fantasy novels) who did a tour of her bookshelves, and she had so many of the literary classics, beautiful looking editions too. there were a number that i honestly didn't even realize were anything but a movie, but which made sense when you consider how often hollywood actually puts out an original idea.

Yes. I hated Wuthering Heights, HATED it, and it was an assigned read. I would have thrown it against a wall by page 2 had I the choice but I didn't. If it hadn't been an assigned read it probably would have fallen under the category of "didn't trip my trigger". But being told it's mandatory just seems to set me off; that's the real issue I had with any class that had a book to read. As we've all discussed in (many) other threads, sometimes a book grabs one audience member and puts the other to sleep. Forcing a book that the reader thinks is dull seems to just underline the point to those who already aren't fond of reading that it really truly IS boring.
(I don't blame the teachers. They were following curriculum and doing their job!!!)
 

staropeace

Richard Bachman's love child
Nov 28, 2006
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Yes. I hated Wuthering Heights, HATED it, and it was an assigned read. I would have thrown it against a wall by page 2 had I the choice but I didn't. If it hadn't been an assigned read it probably would have fallen under the category of "didn't trip my trigger". But being told it's mandatory just seems to set me off; that's the real issue I had with any class that had a book to read. As we've all discussed in (many) other threads, sometimes a book grabs one audience member and puts the other to sleep. Forcing a book that the reader thinks is dull seems to just underline the point to those who already aren't fond of reading that it really truly IS boring.
(I don't blame the teachers. They were following curriculum and doing their job!!!)
I hated it, too.
 
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danie

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Absolutely. Great book. And there have been a few adaptations of it, film wise.

My favorite being old school TV Movie starring George C. Scott and Susannah York. I remember coming home and seeing it after school, probably watched it right after Dark Shadows.
I need to watch that one. The 2011 version with Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska is one I can watch over and over.
 

morgan

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Jul 11, 2010
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Personally, I struggled with everything I read by Faulkner. Had a professor my senior year of college who decided to dedicate the entire Major American Writers course to Faulkner alone. Read at least a half dozen of his novels and they simply didn't strike a chord with me. Might try one again now that I'm older. Most readers think his writing was absolute genius. There's a very good chance I just wasn't smart enough to appreciate it! ;-D
 

Mr Nobody

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Jul 9, 2008
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I can't read Hemingway. He was held up as some kind of model stylist on the CW courses I did as part of my BA (English Lang. & Lit.), but I found his writing to be dry as dust.
Didn't like Great Expectations, Oliver Twist or David Copperfield. Moby Dick...just, no. I tried and failed to get through Middlemarch and I felt nothing but relief at getting to the end of Rebecca. I've made three or four attempts to get to War and Peace, but it ain't happenin'. Dracula and Frankenstein are slow to the point of tedium (and probably some way beyond) and I couldn't see what all the fuss was about re: The Turn of the Screw. Joyce is unreadable; I don't mind 'hard' books - I'm a reasonably intelligent guy (actually, to hell with false modesty; I have an IQ of 150+) - but I draw the line when it's a toss-up between flinging the book up the wall or myself out of the window.
There are others I've battled with, several of which (and whom, in the case of authors) have already been mentioned, but I've managed to find enough redeeming features in them to keep them off the list.
 

Grandpa

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Mar 2, 2014
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Oh, and I didn't hate it but I didn't find nearly as much enjoyment as Huck Finn as I did in Tom Sawyer.

I agree. I like both of them, and Tom Sawyer is a much more agreeable read. But I have to argue for context.

Huckleberry Finn was written in two distinct phases, one darker than the other, and that cynicism that pervades the story at the start rather detracts from the more lighthearted tone of Tom Sawyer. But through it all in Huck Finn, what Twain did was change American storytelling.

Seriously. Up to that point, American authors affected the rules and ways of their European and specifically British counterparts. Twain wrote his book in the first person and entirely in American vernacular. It was revolutionary for its time, it caught on, other American authors found their American voice, and the literary crusade was on.

For me, it's kinda like... oh, I dunno... 2001 A Space Odyssey. You don't have to like it, but you can appreciate its impact.
 

Grandpa

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Personally, I struggled with everything I read by Faulkner. Had a professor my senior year of college who decided to dedicate the entire Major American Writers course to Faulkner alone. Read at least a half dozen of his novels and they simply didn't strike a chord with me. Might try one again now that I'm older. Most readers think his writing was absolute genius. There's a very good chance I just wasn't smart enough to appreciate it! ;-D

Yeah. I hadn't read Faulkner at all, and in college was assigned The Sound and the Fury (one of the thousand-plus, I'm sure, titles that riff on Shakespeare).

I could not tell you to this day what the story is about. I just listened carefully to the class discussion, took good notes, and did fine on the final. A lesson I learned from Scarlet Letter in high school, where I got a B+ on that final without ever having gotten past the first chapter (I'm sorry, danie, but it's the truth).
 

Mel217

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Mar 10, 2017
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I agree. I like both of them, and Tom Sawyer is a much more agreeable read. But I have to argue for context.

Huckleberry Finn was written in two distinct phases, one darker than the other, and that cynicism that pervades the story at the start rather detracts from the more lighthearted tone of Tom Sawyer. But through it all in Huck Finn, what Twain did was change American storytelling.

Seriously. Up to that point, American authors affected the rules and ways of their European and specifically British counterparts. Twain wrote his book in the first person and entirely in American vernacular. It was revolutionary for its time, it caught on, other American authors found their American voice, and the literary crusade was on.

For me, it's kinda like... oh, I dunno... 2001 A Space Odyssey. You don't have to like it, but you can appreciate its impact.

You make a very good point. I read both books around Junior High. I should really go for a re-read and see how they stack up. I think as we get a bit older, we're able to appreciate the points as you state (it's hard to appreciate such things when you're 13 years old or so.)
I still consider 2001 A Space Odyssey to be pretty darned ground breaking, and terrifying in it's own right.
 

Mel217

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To veer slightly off path, but it goes a bit with my complaints about Wuthering Heights and Tom Sawyer vs. Huck Finn:

I've always LOVED the book To Kill a Mockingbird. We read it early on in school; older grade school I believe. I still love the book to this day and consider it one of my favorites, yet only when I hit adulthood did I start to speculate as to why I loved this book so much.
When we read this book in school, we had a teacher very against the boring "read chapters 5-7, test tomorrow" blah blah boring blah crap. She was outstanding and a very talented teacher. Our class didn't read this book. We friggin' DISSECTED it. We analyzed every chapter, most sentences, laughed together when Scout (fresh off the "I learned to cuss" boat) asked someone to pass the damn ham, please. We were encouraged to shout out answers and forget the "raise your hand" stuff. The class was so interactive and so unlike so many others that the environment itself was so nurturing---nurturing to readers who loved analyzing and nurturing to non-readers who weren't subjected to the boring as butter "read this, take a quiz, read the next bit, take another quiz", etc. All views were respected, and some were challenged but not in a harsh or confrontational manner. It was a classroom for sure, but it was a start in treating a group of kids as young adults. In short, this teacher taught us to read for comprehension, and to think.
We spent an entire semester on this book alone.
At the end of a read, we were always granted a few days to watch the movie. I'll never forget it. During the trial scene with Mayella and Atticus, the bell rang. No one got up to leave the classroom.
I credit several of my teachers for instilling such a love for reading, writing, and art as a whole. Classes like this solidified the idea that reading can be more than skimming a book. You can (in your mind) become it. In later years, I had another very talented teacher who had the same ideas, and same views, and the classroom was less of a class and more of an open forum. We were given the rights to behave like "little adults" and, in turn, took that seriously and showed that respect back to the teacher and one another. Very cool lessons learned. Good teachers ought to be given a trillion dollar bonus and a fancy new car for going the extra mile.
 

Mel217

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Mar 10, 2017
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Yeah. I hadn't read Faulkner at all, and in college was assigned The Sound and the Fury (one of the thousand-plus, I'm sure, titles that riff on Shakespeare).

I could not tell you to this day what the story is about. I just listened carefully to the class discussion, took good notes, and did fine on the final. A lesson I learned from Scarlet Letter in high school, where I got a B+ on that final without ever having gotten past the first chapter (I'm sorry, danie, but it's the truth).

I don't think I ever read the Scarlet Letter. I suck. I should probably attempt it.
I went through a Jules Verne kick when I was about 11 or 12. I still have no idea what got me there, or why, and I remember being completely unreachable if I had one of his books in my hand. But do you think I can recall a single thing about them today except for the fact that one of the books contained the Icelandic alphabet or something along those lines?
We had an extra credit program for reading fiends in middle school and I remember getting some pretty weird looking side-eyes for reading Roots by Alex Haley. The book was as big as "It", or close to it, and it was a very fascinating read (yet sometimes disturbing).
I used to go to the public library weekly. I'd check out these big, huge thousand plus page books, chomping at the bit to get going...yet always had something like a Garfield comic thrown in there, or maybe a Sweet Valley High book. Such a weird combo :p
 
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Mr. Chips

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May 16, 2017
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As I Lay Dying made me think I was.

I agree! Growing up in MS, Faulkner was a huge part of assigned reading in my HS. I never really enjoyed much of his I had to read, but I can only remember a handful of assigned reading that I did enjoy...the whole assigned part doesnt help Anyone enjoy it much.
 

Anduan Pirate Princess

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I found anything by Melville to be a snooze fest. Billy Budd, Moby Dick, etc. all can cure insomnia.
I was thinking about Billy Budd in regards to this thread, too! We started reading it junior year high school English class, and even the teacher was bored with it, so we took a vote to give up on it and move to something else. I was the weirdo who was bummed because I liked it, and I finished reading it on my own. :biggrin2:
 
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