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Post by Satchmo on Jun 17, 2009 17:17:26 GMT -5
I read The Great Gatsby about a month ago. If I wasn't required to read it for English class, I swear I would have tossed out the window. It was awful. Every useless bit of information is beaten into your skull, while the major and very important plot points are so overly implied that you don't catch it until the next chapter. Enigmatic writing is great for foreshadowing, but if the principal character dies, it's usually a good thing to make sure your reader actually gets the fact.
That got me thinking about other "classics" I despise. The other group of books that everyone else seems to love, while I harbor an unabashed hatred for are every book that Jules Verne ever wrote. His ideas were brilliant, which just goes as an example of just how awful he was at writing, seeing as every sentence is painfully boring do slog through.
So now it crossed my mind, do any of you have books that are universally beloved, and which everyone thinks are masterpieces, that you think are, to put it simply, pure crap?
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Post by Crowfan on Jun 17, 2009 17:22:26 GMT -5
The Scarlet Letter. Had to read this in high school and I just found it really boring.
Moby Dick. Again for a high school class. The unabridged version had chapter after chapter on whales. I gave up and got Cliffs Notes.
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Post by Chuck on Jun 17, 2009 19:16:55 GMT -5
cf, I agree 100% with The Scarlet Letter.
I have a short temper with anything by Hemmingway, for some reason.
But I absolutely cannot stand A.A. Milne.
("Tonstant Weader Throwed Up." -- Dorothy Parker)
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Post by crowschmo on Jun 17, 2009 20:58:47 GMT -5
On the Road (That WAS just typing).
The Catcher in the Rye
East of Eden
I thought they were all boring. So was Huckleberry Finn. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Holy crap, that sucked. Actually, there aren't too many books I DO like. It's all expectation (GREAT Expectations - haven't read that. Did read David Copperfield, didn't like it).
I guess everything is hyped up so much that I'm disappointed with it, I don't know. Maybe something's wrong with me. Hell, I don't even like Shakespeare.
One book considered a classic that I DID like was To Kill a Mockingbird. (Girl power!)
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Post by CBG on Jun 17, 2009 21:05:53 GMT -5
Anything by Earnest Hemingway.
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Post by angilasman on Jun 17, 2009 21:38:16 GMT -5
But I absolutely cannot stand A.A. Milne. I just read Winnie-the-Pooh and was delighted by how clever it was.
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Post by Donna SadCat Lady on Jun 17, 2009 21:43:15 GMT -5
As an English major, I had to read a whole bunch of classics that I just couldn't stand. Under different conditions, they might have been tolerable. I'll never know. I'm not about to try Joseph Conrad or D.H. Lawrence again. One author I didn't like then who I have tried since, and still can't stand, is Henry James. If you thought Great Gatsby was enigmatic, compare that to any of James's novels. Not just important plot points, but every blasted thing in the book is implied. Virginia Woolf is another author I've got no interest in reading again.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Jun 18, 2009 5:38:10 GMT -5
Well that answers that, now we know who's afraid of Virginia Woolf.
(yes, I am ashamed of myself for going there)
So far I haven't read a classic that I hated. I need to get on that and find one.
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Post by mrsphyllistorgo on Jun 18, 2009 12:17:16 GMT -5
Scarlet Letter. Only the Puritans can take hot aduterous action and make it more boring than a bowl of oatmeal. It's weird, because House of Seven Gables is actually pretty funny.
I could never get through Bridge to Tarabithia. I know it's supposed to be this big rite of passage for the sensitive adolescent, but I couldn't get into it. Same with Wrinkle in Time.
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Post by Satchmo on Jun 18, 2009 15:55:04 GMT -5
Scarlet Letter. Only the Puritans can take hot aduterous action and make it more boring than a bowl of oatmeal. It's weird, because House of Seven Gables is actually pretty funny. I could never get through Bridge to Tarabithia. I know it's supposed to be this big rite of passage for the sensitive adolescent, but I couldn't get into it. Same with Wrinkle in Time. I despised A Bridge to Teribithia! The last three chapters were nothing but about a million different ways to say that someone died. I FREAKING GET IT: YOU'RE SAD, NOW JUST SHUT UP!
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Post by Donna SadCat Lady on Jun 18, 2009 23:36:32 GMT -5
Well that answers that, now we know who's afraid of Virginia Woolf. (yes, I am ashamed of myself for going there) Oh, you laughed your a** off, George!
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Post by Hellcat on Jun 19, 2009 0:01:52 GMT -5
I had to read James Joyce's Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man three times in my school career: once in high school and twice in college. I hated it a little more each time I read it. Unbearably tedious.
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Post by jkazoolien on Jul 1, 2009 12:39:00 GMT -5
It's refreshing to know I'm not alone in my Gatsby hatred. Useless symbolism (got something to say, fraking say it!), and the notion of "money won't buy you happiness" has been done better before or since by other authors (quite a few of the early short stories of Kurt Vonnegut in Bagombo Snuff Box being fine examples).
While I didn't hate The Cather in the Rye, per se, it just didn't seem all that interesting to me. Perhaps because I've seen that style of writing done so much by other authors since him, I can't appreciate how cutting-edge it was when published. It'd be like if kids studied Chuck Palahniuk in 2047. They'd probably be bored by him, too.
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Post by Satchmo on Jul 1, 2009 15:15:47 GMT -5
It's refreshing to know I'm not alone in my Gatsby hatred. Useless symbolism (got something to say, fraking say it!), and the notion of "money won't buy you happiness" has been done better before or since by other authors (quite a few of the early short stories of Kurt Vonnegut in Bagombo Snuff Box being fine examples). While I didn't hate The Cather in the Rye, per se, it just didn't seem all that interesting to me. Perhaps because I've seen that style of writing done so much by other authors since him, I can't appreciate how cutting-edge it was when published. It'd be like if kids studied Chuck Palahniuk in 2047. They'd probably be bored by him, too. Yeah, writing style has a lot to do with literary tastes and distastes. The over-wordy, incredibly formal writing style of the 1800s and early 1900s is, in my opinion, the main reason students hate reading "the classics". I have no problem with "wordy" per se (Anyone who's ever talked to me would know that), but, mainly because writers were paid by the word, these books are just criminally wordy. There are a few writers that managed to write books that still sound fresh (Dostoevsky comes to mind), but most of the time writing from that era just comes up ranging from crusty to completely unreadable (see my previous rant on Jules Verne).
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Post by callipygias on Jul 1, 2009 16:06:13 GMT -5
Tons of great literature from the 19th century, and not all of it paid for by the word.
Unless you're reading the original Russian those are actually translations of Dostoevsky that are sounding fresh.
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