What classic books do you not like/loathe

[erunerune]

I hate The Iliad.

I think Harry Potteris boring. Read the Earthsea books to learn about *real* wizards.

Middlemarch didn't do anything for me, either.

On the other hand, I love me some Faulkner and shit. Also thumbs up on Gatsby.

[Sinister Rouge]

I'm currently reading Paradise Lost, as its the primary subject of my seventeenth century lit course, and I just can't get into it. I appreciate that Milton was a pretty cool guy, what with his then-radical beliefs in something called "democracy", but man, Dude was wordy. Hemingway is going to be heavenly after this.

[Buggaboo]

I'm currently reading Paradise Lost, as its the primary subject of my seventeenth century lit course, and I just can't get into it. I appreciate that Milton was a pretty cool guy, what with his then-radical beliefs in something called "democracy", but man, Dude was wordy. Hemingway is going to be heavenly after this.

Now I'm sitting here trying to remember if I read that in college lit. It seems like I have but I can't recall a damn thing about it. Must be I was about as impressed with it as you are! ;)

[Lady_M]

Yay! We can have tea and cakes for elevensies.

Count me in too! I have Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion, and a five book set of Tolkien's ancillary writings on Middle Earth sitting on my bookshelf that I read periodically. Got into it when I was 14 (back before the movies) and have never really left :D .

And an essay using Cirth runes = awesome.

[Lady_M]

I hated, hated, hated The English Patient. Had to read it for a modern literature course in college (I have a BA in English), started reading, thought the writing was absolutely gorgeous and then about midway through realized I thought the story was crap and I didn't like the characters at all.

I also seriously dislike The King Must Die and thought I would die midway through The Illiad.

Les Miserables was totally worth reading, but I really think that is one book that should not be read in its unabridged form. Hugo seriously needed an editor. He goes off on political tangents of around 100 pages at times pretty much disregarding the story, and without those, it's a much better read in my opinion. I've read both an abridged version and slogged through the unabridged one and I'm voting heavily in favor of the abridged version.

I liked Jane Eyre right up until the end, which completely ruined the book for me.

Edited to add: Wordsworth. I hate his poetry with a deep and abiding passion, which I know for an English major is total heresy, but this list is incomplete without it.

[Guest Anonymous]

I hated, hated, hated The English Patient. Had to read it for a modern literature course in college (I have a BA in English), started reading, thought the writing was absolutely gorgeous and then about midway through realized I thought the story was crap and I didn't like the characters at all.

I also seriously dislike The King Must Die and thought I would die midway through The Illiad.

Les Miserables was totally worth reading, but I really think that is one book that should not be read in its unabridged form. Hugo seriously needed an editor. He goes off on political tangents of around 100 pages at times pretty much disregarding the story, and without those, it's a much better read in my opinion. I've read both an abridged version and slogged through the unabridged one and I'm voting heavily in favor of the abridged version.

I liked Jane Eyre right up until the end, which completely ruined the book for me.

Just out of interest, what was wrong with the end of Jane Eyre?

[Lady_M]

Just out of interest, what was wrong with the end of Jane Eyre?

I didn't think

she should have married him. I never really liked Rochester as a character, and thought Jane was way too good for him.

[Terrie]

Oh, God, yes, unabridged Les Mis. Hugo is worse than Dumas.

I'll commit nerd-genra blasphemy and admit that I hate Ender's Game. It was an okay read, but once I was done I kept thinking "What the fuck was that?" Of course, I never got around to reading it until I was in my 20's and it had been hyped to death to me, so that may have been a big factor.

[Arete]

Hey, hey, hey! Easy when speaking of the Dumas. ;)

[Terrie]

Hey, hey, hey! Easy when speaking of the Dumas. ;)

I LOVE Dumas. I read the Count of Monte Cristo, unabridged, when I was in junior high. But the man wrote in the era of the interesting, but not always related, discourse. The difference between the two is that when Dumas stops the story for a whole chapter to ramble about poisons, there's a plot point buried in there. When Hugo gives pause to the story to give the history of the convent school, it is 100% tangent.

[Lady_M]

I LOVE Dumas. I read the Count of Monte Cristo, unabridged, when I was in junior high. But the man wrote in the era of the interesting, but not always related, discourse. The difference between the two is that when Dumas stops the story for a whole chapter to ramble about poisons, there's a plot point buried in there. When Hugo gives pause to the story to give the history of the convent school, it is 100% tangent.

Or that section where Hugo stops the story for something like 80 pages to go off on Napoleon and a battle, only to have very end a tiny mention where Thenardier is picking goods off the bodies? Total tangent and drove me nuts.

Good point about the Dumas.

[ItISjustme]

I've started Great Expectations many times and never finished.

This. I finally had to force myself to finish it because I hate leaving a book unread. I wish I hadn't.

[Lady_M]

This. I finally had to force myself to finish it because I hate leaving a book unread. I wish I hadn't.

Miss Havisham was the only part of that book that was worth it (the scene when she's first introduced with the dark room and the rotting wedding cake is really fantastic and creepy). Part of my problem with the book was that I really didn't like Pip (or Estella for that matter), and when I dislike the main character, it's hard to enjoy the book. I think I kept reading in hopes that it would get better, but it didn't.

[loveandwar]

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.

Co-sign!! I had to read it for AP Language and Composition in 11th grade. We had to analyze every freaking chapter. I threw it across the room more than once...

[SomewhatFundy]

I didn't like Pride and Prejudice. It just bored me, although to be fair I read it in like the 8th grade.

I've always struggled with reading and reading comprehension, i've always been more of a math person in school. So a lot of my dislike of certain books may have something to do with how hard they may have been for me to get through. A lot of that has gotten better since finding out that short stories and essays are better for my comprehension/retention issues. I figured that out with The Masque of the Red Death. That story was so hard to get through the first time I read it, because I didn't understand the symbolism and story. I literally had no idea what on earth was going on. But my literature teacher encouraged me and helped me. So I re-read it line by line and ended up LOVING it. That is actually the first time I recall being excited by reading, and it's sad that it took that long. I read The Lottery that year too and was captivated by it. Depressing, yeah. But still in awe of it.

I also didn't like The Outsiders or White Fang. Another book I found boring was The Secret Garden. All my classmates gushed over those books in school, and I just didn't care.

[krusso]

I also could never get into anything written by Jane Austen. It all seemed so longwinded :D

[bbtlover]

I loathe Old Man and the Sea. One good thing it had going for it though, was that it was short. I don't think I would have passed 10th grad English if it was any longer. It didn't help that the teacher I had talked in a low tone and kept the classroom hot and the click of this cowboy boots throughout the room was irritating enough without having to listen to all of the "Christ Imagery" there was. Eventually I just started shouting out "Christ Imagery" when he would ask "What symbolism do you see on this page?"

sorry about the rant, after 18 years, it still pisses me off to no end. (my hubby likes it. We've had some heated discussions about it and have agreed to not discuss it again.)

[Terrie]

I also could never get into anything written by Jane Austen. It all seemed so longwinded :D

I find her very hard to read, but enjoy listening to audio versions of her books. No clue why one works better than the other.

[AtroposHeart]

I am not sure if this counts as a classic, but I am findinger interview with a Vampire too purple prose for my taste

[Shoobydoo]

I find her very hard to read, but enjoy listening to audio versions of her books. No clue why one works better than the other.

I have the exact same thing. I listen to audio versions of her books almost on loop when I need background noise, but if I try to actually READ them I get bored after three pages. I'm a very auditory learner, so I'm probably going to be able to recite Pride and Prejudice from memory one of these days.

Books I hated.... The Grapes of Wrath. I hate, hate, HATED that book, It's the only book for a class I never finished. I also hated 1984. To me it's almost a pinnacle of shitty writing. I think he had an interesting story, but the constant repetition and hitting the reader over the head with the point just ruined any value the book had for me. TOTALITARIANISM IS BAD. I get it, I really do. You don't need to keep churning out 20 page soliloquies about how terrible totalitarianism is. For obvious reason I am never going to try to read Ayn Rand. :lol:

I also listened to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights recently. I found making a comparison between the two sisters very interesting. I actually like Jane Eyre LESS because it was more WELL written than Wuthering Heights. The descriptions of what amounts to torture in Jane Eyre were so uncomfortable to listen to it almost made me ill. Whereas I felt that Wuthering Heights was not as expressively written and actually so stupid it was kind of funny. (I seriously DON'T understand why that book is so popular, much less considered a romance. It a stupid dysfunctional story about stupid dysfunctional people, there's only two characters who wouldn't engender disgust in any sane person, and one of them dies half way through the book!)

[Artemis]

Can't stand Hemingway, Graham Greene, D H Lawrence, Hardy, Hawthorne. Or Salinger or Steinbeck.

Dickens' soppy women make me puke. Estella was a prize bitch-queen, and I wanted to strangle Esther in Bleak House for the number of times she coyly pointed out how much everyone fucking LOVED her so much. Also, Agnes pointing upwards in David Copperfield made me howl with laughter every time. Quite liked Little Dorrit, at least she had the guts to go out and WORK.

One horrendous summer holiday in France in a wet tent in Normandy, a 14-year old me ploughed through Jude the Obscure, Les Miserables in French, and Crime and Punishment by Dostoievsky. I was young, and very, very serious, and had made myself a list of classic literature that I 'ought' to read.

What with the tent, the wet, my parents and the books I wanted to kill myself by the end of the two weeks there . . .

[Arete]

I almost opened a vein finishing Jude the Obscure. The Brothers Karamazov is, to me, a much better way of getting a Dostoievsky fix. Not gonna lie, I liked The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea.