What classic books do you not like/loathe

[freejoytoo]

I'd take the pessimism of The Catcher in the Rye over the nauseating Glasse family, who are so sickly sweet and sentimental that I just want to throw up.

I liked The Hobbit but it was read to me in primary school, not sure what I'd think of it now.

I hated One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Going to get slammed for this but I've never been wild about Orwell. I think he's a fantastic writer but I didn't enjoy Animal Farm, though that may have been because I was too young to appreciate it,and I don't want to read Nineteen Eighty-Four again. Dystopian fiction doesn't appeal to me, I guess.

I can't stand DH Lawrence.

[Arete]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am coming out of the closet. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE reading The Lord of the Rings. And the Simarillion. They are all lovingly in my bookcase. Don't shun me. I too, am a human being.

[LynnKaboom]

The Awakening by Kate Chopin.

I HAAAAAATED that book. I had to read it in my senior year of high school for English class, and there has never been a book character I wanted to punch in the face more than Edna before or since. There were multiple times I had to literally stop myself from just chucking it out the window.

[JesusFightClub]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am coming out of the closet. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE reading The Lord of the Rings. And the Simarillion. They are all lovingly in my bookcase. Don't shun me. I too, am a human being.

Hey, nothing wrong with that! It took me a few runs at LOTR, but I got there in the end. It is an amazing book. The Silmarillon I couldn't manage but I respect those who could!

[freejoytoo]

Don't know this person counts as it's modern but I HATE Ian McEwan's books so much. They all read like set texts for sixteen-year-olds looking for symbolism. I could look past it if it was a decent story but none of them are. I felt so ENRAGED after The Child in Time.

[O Latin]

The Scarlet Letter. I dropped out of AP English junior year because of that book. Also Paradise Lost. We had to read part of it in my Brit LIt course a couple years ago, and I just couldn't get through it. Then last year I took Bible as LIt and we did an exercise in class one day where we compared the Adam and Eve story in Genesis to Paradise Lost and everyone else went on and on about how much "prettier" Paradise Lost sounded. I think I was the only one who liked Genesis better.

I read Lord of the Flies sophomore year in high school and HATED it, but I read it again senior year and it wasn't so bad, so I suspect my god awful sophomore English teacher was more to blame for that one than the book itself. I read Catcher in the Rye my first semester in college and I kind of liked it.

I LOVE Shakespeare. I prefer to SEE the plays, obviously, but they're not bad to read, either. My favorite English classes were always the ones where we got to read a Shakespeare play. The only thing that bugged me was that we would always get assigned versions that had a million and one footnotes, which I find distracting when you're trying to read something like a play.

[contrary]

I was also an english major, and i've no idea why, because generally speaking, i do not like classic literature.

I like well-written, contemporary novels and read them voraciously.

That said, anything James Joyce. Particularly "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". I understand that i needed to understand the "stream of consciousness" thing, but good GRAVY was that book awful. I think i would've understood the Stream of Consciousness point in two pages. Maybe four, to really drive the point home.

Painful. PAINFUL.

[Sweetpea1]

I was also an english major, and i've no idea why, because generally speaking, i do not like classic literature.

I like well-written, contemporary novels and read them voraciously.

That said, anything James Joyce. Particularly "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". I understand that i needed to understand the "stream of consciousness" thing, but good GRAVY was that book awful. I think i would've understood the Stream of Consciousness point in two pages. Maybe four, to really drive the point home.

Painful. PAINFUL.

I hated James Joyce. The short stories are alright, but the novels... ughhhhh.

[JesusFightClub]

I hated James Joyce. The short stories are alright, but the novels... ughhhhh.

My mum was the first person on either side of my family to go to university, she did English as a mature student and her dissertation was on Joyce. She says she agrees with you. :lol:

I've never even tried!

[freejoytoo]

My unpopular opinion is that I really like Joyce...not enough to read Ulysses again though!

[contrary]

researching a dissertation on Joyce makes me feel like crying.

JFC, your mum must be an all-star.

[Terrie]

The Scarlet Letter. I dropped out of AP English junior year because of that book.

That book was like trying to march through knee-deep mud.

[keen23]

That book was like trying to march through knee-deep mud.

We had to read that in conjunction with The Crucible. Awfulness.

Another book that I never want to see again is Return of the Native.

[JesusFightClub]

researching a dissertation on Joyce makes me feel like crying.

JFC, your mum must be an all-star.

I can't imagine going anywhere near it. I tried reading Joyce once and fled weeping.

[freejoytoo]

My final essay was 7000 words on Ulysses. It was...painful.

[Sweetpea1]

My mum was the first person on either side of my family to go to university, she did English as a mature student and her dissertation was on Joyce. She says she agrees with you. :lol:

I've never even tried!

I'm feeling her pain. I have a BA in English (rusty). I had to read Joyce for a survey class. Never again. My brother asked for help with Joyce for a high school class and I ran screaming.

[contrary]

Ha! I seem to have stumbled on to everybody's classic-hot button author!

[ElphabaGalinda]

We had to read that in conjunction with The Crucible. Awfulness.

Another book that I never want to see again is Return of the Native.

I hated the Scarlet Letter too...I'd forgotten I hated it, but it was one of the few books that I truely struggled to get through, and it took me much longer to finish than normal because I didn't like it. I had to finish it though because it was for school.

It was one of those books that I liked the idea of, in theory, but actually reading the book was torture.

[OddlyAmused]

I hated the Scarlet Letter too...I'd forgotten I hated it, but it was one of the few books that I truely struggled to get through, and it took me much longer to finish than normal because I didn't like it. I had to finish it though because it was for school.

It was one of those books that I liked the idea of, in theory, but actually reading the book was torture.

I hate The Scarlet Letter so much. I read it in 11th grade and was miserable the whole time. I asked my brother not long ago what his opinion of the book was, and the response I got was, "Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...I HATE that book!"

[JesusFightClub]

My final essay was 7000 words on Ulysses. It was...painful.

Christ Almighty, I bet it was. I bet it was. :auto-ambulance:

I did try. But not only could I make no sense of it mostly, the bits I could make sense of I didn't like. And I did "The portrayal of nihilism in Dostoyevsky's works" as my final year mini-dissertation when I was 17, so it's not like I can't do themes. It was just...wrong or so alien I couldn't get it.

[B5SnowDog]

I detest ALL Shakespeare. I get called out for saying it all the time. It would appear in literary circles it is akin to saying I hate my child. But I just detest it. There are years of my life I will never get back reading that chap and discussing what it 'may' mean. What parallels to modern life we can draw, etc. I'm sure he is a genius. I just don't care. Shoot me. OH and Chaucer, repeat all the above with bells on.

I think Shakespeare works much better when you see it performed than when you read it. Which makes sense, of course.

[B5SnowDog]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am coming out of the closet. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE reading The Lord of the Rings. And the Simarillion. They are all lovingly in my bookcase. Don't shun me. I too, am a human being.

I shall stand with you!

In my senior year English class, we had to do an extensive term paper on the author of our choice; the catch was that we had to write an essay arguing why we should be allowed our first choice. I wanted Tolkien, so I wrote my essay using Cirth runes.

[freejoytoo]

Christ Almighty, I bet it was. I bet it was. :auto-ambulance:

I did try. But not only could I make no sense of it mostly, the bits I could make sense of I didn't like. And I did "The portrayal of nihilism in Dostoyevsky's works" as my final year mini-dissertation when I was 17, so it's not like I can't do themes. It was just...wrong or so alien I couldn't get it.

I think the only reason I got through it was because I had an incredible tutor who knew how to get it across to us. He explained the background and some of the more obscure stuff and whilst I'm not in any hurry to pick it up again it did give me a real appreciation for the book.

I didn't get that great a mark but I think writing it was an achievement alone!

[Terrie]

I think Shakespeare works much better when you see it performed than when you read it. Which makes sense, of course.

It also helps to realize that Shakespeare is some of the raunchiest writing you will every encounter. Sometimes, it seems like every other line is a sex joke.

[Conuly]

It also helps to realize that Shakespeare is some of the raunchiest writing you will every encounter. Sometimes, it seems like every other line is a sex joke.

“Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them.â€