'Great' novels you just didn't get

[Vanillaphant]

So a couple of months ago I started a thread asking members about highly revered films they'd seen and felt disappointed by. I thought we could do the same with novels. Or perhaps even novelists themselves - writers you've tried reading but just can't get along with for whatever reason.

My candidate for a novel would be Nostromo by Joseph Conrad. I'm not averse to Conrad at all - in fact I love The Secret Agent. But I only made it to page 60-odd of Nostromo lol. Perhaps if I'd have stuck with it I may have begun to enjoy it... But the pace of it just seemed so slow that I became exasperated. It was as though the attention to detail that I'd enjoyed in The Secret Agent became oppressive in the context of all the exposition in Nostromo... If that makes sense...?

As far as specific writers go... I tried Ernest Hemingway for the first time recently (For Whom the Bell Tolls). If anything I had almost the opposite problem there! There's something about Hemingway's style that grates on me a little; bit sparse for my liking, I think. But I prefer his beard to Conrad's, so, you know... swings and roundabouts. 😀

Anyone?

 

[chicago]

Catcher in the Rye.

Holden Caufield was a spoiled brat.

The Great Gatsby

Like watching a long episode of the Kardashians. Just vapid rich people out of touch with regular folk.

 

[milagros317]

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Supposedly a classic. I found it unreadable and without a single line of believable dialog.

 

[desdemona]

The Deerslayer - James Fenimore Cooper. Couldn't stand his drivel.

The Black Pearl - John Steinbeck. Not one of his better works.

Wicked - Gregory Macguire. Could not stand it. Nor can I comprehend how they made a musical out of it.

I'm sure there were others...I tend to block out those things I did not enjoy reading because it's one of my favorite past times.

 

[chicago]

Agreed on The Black Pearl and Wicked.

My issue with Wicked is that it was supposed to parallel the storyline of the original books, yet completely changes important aspects such as how the tin man and scarecrow came to be.

 

[desdemona]

Wicked felt like a bad acid trip... it didn't bring any of the aspects of L. Frank Baum's classic that I recognized. The musical inspired me a bit more - kind of like Les Mis. I like Victor Hugo in general, but there are whole chapters where I just have to fast forward.

On the professional classic side, I read Darwin's Origin of the Species. And I wanted to stab my eyes out. It does explain how he went on to write volumes on barnacles....

 

[PiedPiper]

The Deerslayer - James Fenimore Cooper. Couldn't stand his drivel.

The Black Pearl - John Steinbeck. Not one of his better works.

Wicked - Gregory Macguire. Could not stand it. Nor can I comprehend how they made a musical out of it.

I'm sure there were others...I tend to block out those things I did not enjoy reading because it's one of my favorite past times.

________________

D, have you read Marl Twain's hilarious essay on "The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper?"

 

[Bator]

Moby Dick- Herman Melville- One of, if not the most boring book in history of literature. Thin characters and transparent motives.

War And Peace- Leo Tolstoy- Meandering and dull. No, I didn't finish it, the only reason anyone would is for bragging rights lol

 

[Amnesiac]

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain. I read the restored edition (including excised pages from 100 years before) and found it nonsensical. I couldn't figure out where the humor and satire stood. Instead, I read about an idiotic backwoods kid met up with lunatics while trying to bring his friend to freedom by traveling SOUTH. I will probably read more Twain in the future, but I don't hold out any hope of being blown away or amused.

You Can't Go Home Again - Thomas Wolfe. Wolfe (no, the other one) tries to channel Hardy's Return of the Native into 1920s America as an autobiographical work of fiction. Instead, I found that the first few pages were so overwritten that I put it down and returned it. I now know the book was published posthumously, but either way, Wolfe needs an editor even more than Heinlein.

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte. I can't stand the Romantic writers with their fucking hand-wringing impotent turmoil and angst over stifling social conventions that they're too inhibited to at least recognize as being full of shit, and the Bronte's for all of their radical influence, are shit for storytellers. Granted, Emily is more interested in the internal emotional results of the plot than her sister Charlotte, so she picks a plot that is rather threadbare, but it's still masturbatory and indulgent in a way that sticks out in a post-feminist culture. I can probably appreciate it in the context in which it was written, but, just like movies that do the same (I'm looking at YOU, The Graduate), it doesn't possess much beyond its temporal significance to be of pleasurable reading merit.

Candide - Voltaire. I don't remember much about this beyond the fact that it was rambling and part of French class, which I was doing quite poorly in and reading it in French probably didn't help much. I will probably give this one another try some day.

 

[SmashTV]

The Great Gatsby

Like watching a long episode of the Kardashians. Just vapid rich people out of touch with regular folk.

This. I kept reading, waiting for something to happen....and waited....and waited...and then gave up. At least I got it free via Kindle... 😉

Cheers, everybody,
SmashTV

 

[Cosmo_ac]

Not sure if it counts but...

Atlas Shrugged: I have yet to finish this...literary brick. I started to read it after I had played Bioshock for the first time, as mush of it was based on Rand's views, and found reading it to be akin to the Herculean task that Atlas himself had. The book has a very straightforward set of views, and Rand delivers them like a jack hammer, which is to say repeatedly and with as much subtlety and force as a jackhammer. There is no middle ground, and if you aren't on Rand's side, you had best get ready for a 40 page lecture (multiple times) on why looking out for yourself is best, and helping others is right up their with raping children and pouring boiling water on old ladies.

 

[Amnesiac]

Atlas Shrugged: I have yet to finish this...literary brick. I started to read it after I had played Bioshock for the first time, as mush of it was based on Rand's views, and found reading it to be akin to the Herculean task that Atlas himself had. The book has a very straightforward set of views, and Rand delivers them like a jack hammer, which is to say repeatedly and with as much subtlety and force as a jackhammer. There is no middle ground, and if you aren't on Rand's side, you had best get ready for a 40 page lecture (multiple times) on why looking out for yourself is best, and helping others is right up their with raping children and pouring boiling water on old ladies.

I tried Atlas Shrugged once, but I was interrupted and had to put it aside and never picked it up again. From what I remember, I found that Rand was a skilled writer of prose, and a decent storyteller in the building of tension and layering of subtext, but I never agreed with the polemical nature of her writing, which frankly belonged to another century when people believed that agitprop was the same as drama. I got a nice used hardcover of it for $10 and I'll read it someday, but subject matter aside, I think she had talent in writing...just not in restraint.

 

[milagros317]

Not sure if it counts but...

Atlas Shrugged: I have yet to finish this...literary brick. I started to read it after I had played Bioshock for the first time, as mush of it was based on Rand's views, and found reading it to be akin to the Herculean task that Atlas himself had. The book has a very straightforward set of views, and Rand delivers them like a jack hammer, which is to say repeatedly and with as much subtlety and force as a jackhammer. There is no middle ground, and if you aren't on Rand's side, you had best get ready for a 40 page lecture (multiple times) on why looking out for yourself is best, and helping others is right up their with raping children and pouring boiling water on old ladies.

On this we disagree totally. Atlas Shrugged is my favorite novel of all time. I first read it when I was 12 years old and at that time I didn't understand it. I reread it at 24 and it codified what I had come to believe by myself.

 

[desdemona]

________________

D, have you read Marl Twain's hilarious essay on "The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper?"

My history teacher shared it with us. Plus his own take on Natty Bumppo's wonderful "skills." I learned to tolerate it (like Darwin) by reading the first sentence of every paragraph.

 

[Vanillaphant]

Catcher in the Rye.

Holden Caufield was a spoiled brat.

The Great Gatsby

Like watching a long episode of the Kardashians. Just vapid rich people out of touch with regular folk.

So this is how we’re judging literature these days, is it – by how cool we think the protagonists are? 😛

It can happen that you feel an author is asking you to view their protagonist in a heroic light; and obviously if you take a dislike to the character, that can be jarring. I didn’t personally feel that way about TCITR. I felt that I was laughing as much at Caulfield as with him and that Salinger’s aim was to dramatize – in a humorous way – the worst aspects of adolescence: perhaps most notably its raging egocentricity lol. It’s unfortunate that there exist nincompoops who hero-worship the character of Caulfield, but I don’t think that delegitimizes the novel in any way. But then, maybe you just weren’t keen on the style/tone of the book generally – I wouldn’t claim to know! It’s all subjective ain’t it. 🙂

I haven’t even read The Great Gatsby. And the reason I haven’t is because I’ve read a couple of other works by FSF – Tender is the Night, (The Love of) The Last Tycoon - and, whilst I wouldn’t say I disliked them, they didn’t exactly fill me with a burning desire to get my hands on a copy of Gatsby: though I intend to read it eventually.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Supposedly a classic. I found it unreadable and without a single line of believable dialog.

Frankenstein is a favourite of mine. I wonder if it was the slightly camp Gothic Romance style that did it? Certainly if you want naturalism from your literature you wouldn’t get much joy out of a novel like that. 🙂

Moby Dick- Herman Melville- One of, if not the most boring book in history of literature.

Agh. Moby Dick was a nightmare to read. I wanted to give up halfway through but I wound up a bit like Ahab himself, seized by a sort of monomania, a grim determination to see the end of Moby Dick! lol What really did my head in was all the obscure mythological/literary references, of which I could make neither head nor tail. Very frustrating. I was just pleased when I finished, to be honest.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain. I read the restored edition (including excised pages from 100 years before) and found it nonsensical. I couldn't figure out where the humor and satire stood. Instead, I read about an idiotic backwoods kid met up with lunatics while trying to bring his friend to freedom by traveling SOUTH. I will probably read more Twain in the future, but I don't hold out any hope of being blown away or amused.

I enjoyed The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But I enjoyed Tom Sawyer more: I just thought it was funnier. I think it’s fair to say that Huck Finn is afforded greater reverence simply because it touches on the issues of race and slavery.

 

[chicago]

So this is how we’re judging literature these days, is it – by how cool we think the protagonists are? 😛

It can happen that you feel an author is asking you to view their protagonist in a heroic light; and obviously if you take a dislike to the character, that can be jarring. I didn’t personally feel that way about TCITR. I felt that I was laughing as much at Caulfield as with him and that Salinger’s aim was to dramatize – in a humorous way – the worst aspects of adolescence: perhaps most notably its raging egocentricity lol. It’s unfortunate that there exist nincompoops who hero-worship the character of Caulfield, but I don’t think that delegitimizes the novel in any way. But then, maybe you just weren’t keen on the style/tone of the book generally – I wouldn’t claim to know! It’s all subjective ain’t it. 🙂

Definitely. A lot of people really liked the book and I read it as an adolescent myself. I think I resented Holden in a way. He grew up in Manhattan, went to fancy prep schools, was well off enough to check into a downtown hotel for 3 days at 16, both parents still in the picture, and a younger sister that loved him dearly. All that and he couldn't be bothered to put effort into his classes, nor did he have the tools to deal with small annoyances like a classmate that smelled bad or someone else dating his ex gf. When he tells his younger sister that he's running away, I identified with the little girl and just wanted Holden to get his ass kicked...again.

Granted, my feelings towards the book and the characters were likely skewed due to my own issues at 15-ish or whenever it was I was reading it. Looking back at the summary now, 13 years later, I can understand more why teenagers would be able to relate.

 

[Oddjob0226]

Catcher in the Rye.

Yep. I liked reading it but sure didn't understand it.

 

[Vanillaphant]

Definitely. A lot of people really liked the book and I read it as an adolescent myself. I think I resented Holden in a way. He grew up in Manhattan, went to fancy prep schools, was well off enough to check into a downtown hotel for 3 days at 16, both parents still in the picture, and a younger sister that loved him dearly. All that and he couldn't be bothered to put effort into his classes, nor did he have the tools to deal with small annoyances like a classmate that smelled bad or someone else dating his ex gf. When he tells his younger sister that he's running away, I identified with the little girl and just wanted Holden to get his ass kicked...again.

Ah, OK. Well I can understand that. Or I understand better, I should say. I only read the book myself a couple of years ago. So it was a more detached experience for me, I suppose. And I tend to enjoy books that are written in a distinctive first-person narrative - or where the dialogue is expressed through some 'exotic' idiom lol. I would say that was its main appeal for me.

I wonder how you would feel if you read the book again now? You might find that you've forgiven Caulfield! (notwithstanding his bolshy, ungrateful nincompoopery). Your fifteen-year-old self would never forgive you for that!

 

[Strider]

The Scarlet Letter - I've really never warmed to Hawthorne in general, but this one was just deadly. I read it as a junior in high school and could barely get through it. I tried it again in my mid-20s thinking I had missed something. I stopped about a quarter of the way into it, my initial views having been confirmed.

The Historian - This was an updated version of Dracula that came out in 2005; at the time, all the literary critics flipped over it. It actually starts off pretty strong but the plot momentum just grinds to a halt fairly early in and then ends up largely being 500 pages of people running around libraries.

 

[milagros317]

The Scarlet Letter - I've really never warmed to Hawthorne in general, but this one was just deadly. I read it as a junior in high school and could barely get through it. I tried it again in my mid-20s thinking I had missed something. I stopped about a quarter of the way into it, my initial views having been confirmed.

I had forgotten being forced to read this garbage in the 8th grade.

 

[Vanillaphant]

Just thought of another. On the Road by Jack Kerouac. On paper (so to speak) it's the sort of novel I would go for... But it seemed to me a little - erm - not conceited exactly, but maybe self-conscious, if that makes sense. I thought it was OK, and it was obviously pretty ground-breaking for its day... But I'm not sure why it's still held in such high regard now.

Not wanting to give up on the whole 'beat' thing, I shortly after read Junkie by William S. Burroughs and definitely enjoyed that more - probably because it had more of a deadpan/ironic tone.

 

[knight]

Great Expectations. My god that was a hard read. And not worth it.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I couldn't even finish it. It just went on and on and on and nothing happened. It was like Waiting for Godot, underwater.

 

[desdemona]

Great Expectations. My god that was a hard read. And not worth it.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I couldn't even finish it. It just went on and on and on and nothing happened. It was like Waiting for Godot, underwater.

I liked Waiting for Godot - at least as a play 🙂

 

[knight]

I liked Waiting for Godot - at least as a play 🙂

The only play where nothing happens.

Twice.

'Course, I'd be very curious to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan in it...

 

[Tickleslave83]

I agree and disagree with some of the thoughts on the novels mentioned here.

Catcher in the Rye-I really liked this novel and it's one of the few books that I actually have read more than once. I originally read it in high school and then again in 2009. I kind of just like the fact that the character is really cynical and unhappy and kind of reminds me of me. I guess that's what most of the people who like this novel tend to say so I think it appeals to people who are bitter and cynical and share the character's main worldview. Also the fact that two people were assassinated or attempted to be assassinated by people who are carrying around copies of this novel gives it some added interest.

Frankenstein-I just read this one recently like a year or two ago. Prior to that I had seen all of the universal movies about it and I really liked the movies but the novel is really different from it. I like the novel as well though and I thought it was interesting that in the movies the monster pretty much just grunts and groans but in the book is actually able to speak and is quite articulate and philosophical. The 1994 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein actually stuck very close to the book and I enjoyed it for that reason. I also read in the same month Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I was reading them all in October for Halloween. Frankenstein was my favorite of the three although I did like the other two, just not as much. And I have seen most of the film versions as well.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn-I remember I really like this in high school when we read it in seventh grade along with Tom Sawyer but I think I mostly remember it now from the numerous movie versions of it I have seen. It has been so long since I have read the actual book that I don't feel I should be commenting on it right now.

Atlas Shrugged-I would never even tried to read this novel because it's basically just a very thick novel expressing an ideology I find utterly repellent. And just the plot summary of it made it sound incredibly boring. Honestly I was getting bored just reading the plot summary on Wikipedia and if you can't even get through a plot summary of something this fat chance you're going to enjoy the novel itself. Besides I have read the Satanic Bible and that's pretty much Ayn Rand's philosophy was just a little bit of weird religious mumbo-jumbo thrown in, as the author of it said himself.

Great Expectations-I remember that we read this in ninth or 10th grade advanced English class and every single person in the class without exception hated it and we would always bring it up with our English teacher sort of recurring joke just how much we hated it. I barely remember it but I remember that I really didn't like it either and it was one of my least favorite books ever. And I'm a person who reads a lot, and though I mostly like to read weird stuff, a book has to be pretty terrible for me to actually hate it and this is one of those books that I would put on that list. Although it did make me appreciate that South Park spoof of it more. I like the South Park ending better. Probably the only exciting part of the entire book was when the old lady caught on fire.

I don't really have too many other novels that I hate except to say that in general I pretty much hate almost any novel that's about social class in premodern times where the person was just trying to find the perfect aristocratic marriage. Bores me to tears. Then again I am a huge socialist so anything about a bunch of snobby rich people looking for some type of perfect aristocratic marriage kind of just sickens me. And in general I don't like novels that don't agree with my worldview very much. I like novels that focus more on ordinary people and the poor and downtrodden, people living on the fringes of society. A lot of the classical books focus too much on the lives of the rich, which is understandable I guess because they were the only people who are literate when much of this was written, but it still doesn't really appeal to me.

I have never read The Great Gatsby but it didn't seem like the kind of novel I would like very much.

And once again, although I read a lot, I mostly do prefer modern books. I have nothing against the classics, but I will say that I am one of those people who thinks a lot of it just boring and not very relatable at all. I also took an English course on legends of King Arthur and I found all those books to be very boring as well, along with Chaucer. I don't think it was so much that it was bad, so much that it was difficult to understand. I like Shakespeare but again I think I get the movies more because the plays are little bit difficult to read, though I did very good in that Shakespeare course regardless of that.