# Overrated/Underrated Classics



## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

We all know the classics.  The Frankenstein's, Moby Dick's, and Pride & Prejudices of the world.  But do they all deserve to be classics, or are some just completely overrated in your mind?  

For example, there was a thread about Great Gatsby.  I for one am not in Gatsby's corner, but believe Huck Finn should defitely be up there.  What about your choices?


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## KMA (Mar 11, 2009)

I'll say it: I have a fancy literature degree and I hate Henry James.


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## windyrdg (Sep 20, 2010)

Speaking in generalities, I think the bigest problem the classics face is that most of them were written for a different time. TV, MTV and video games have made the laid back intro where you spend 40 pages introducing your MC's lineage, eating habits and clothing preferences obsolete. I find that even when I go back to reread novels I loved 30 years ago, they don't always resonate the way they did the first time through.

I still love Dickens. His writing was and is masterful. Jane Austen, however, seems extremely dated. Mark Twain does too. I agree about Gatsby. Most books from that era strike me as superficial. Even Michener seems a bit long-winded nowadays.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

I absolutely despised Anna Karenina!

Though I generally agree with windyrdg's points, I still think Mark Twain, especially his essays, is readable and great.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2010)

The Hooded Claw said:


> I absolutely despised Anna Karenina!
> 
> Though I generally agree with windyrdg's points, I still think Mark Twain, especially his essays, is readable and great.


I read Anna Karenina not too long ago. I had a good time with the first 100 pages, but after that...a slog!

Love Mark Twain.


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## WestofMars (Sep 16, 2009)

I am quite proud of the fact I have two degrees in English but have managed to avoid reading most of what's considered classics. I have no desire to fix this, either. Or to add a third English degree, come to think of it.


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## LauraB (Nov 23, 2008)

KMA said:


> I'll say it: I have a fancy literature degree and I hate Henry James.


I have a fancy literature degree too, I can (barely) tolerate James, but loath Hawthorne  .
KMA, I teach 1st grade with my fancy  degree, what do you do?


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## LauraB (Nov 23, 2008)

WestofMars said:


> I am quite proud of the fact I have two degrees in English but have managed to avoid reading most of what's considered classics. I have no desire to fix this, either. Or to add a third English degree, come to think of it.


I actually enjoy most of the classics I have read, but prefer either the really early (pre-biblical) era, or the early 20th century.

I'm a little odd.


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## KatieKlein (Dec 19, 2010)

I have a degree in English and have taught college literature. . . .

I've never been able to get through Moby Dick. I've successfully managed to stay away from all the "stream of consciousness" writers, and I have no idea what T.S. Eliot is saying. 

I do love my 19th century American/British authors, though.  

(whispers: and I've never read anything by Hemingway.)


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## LauraB (Nov 23, 2008)

I really like Hemingway and Steinbeck both, but favor Hemingway. Across the River and Into the Trees is a good Hemingway for people who want to give him a try (imo).  I also like Oscar Wilde. 

Steam of consciousness gives me a headache and leads to nausea.


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## kindlequeen (Sep 3, 2010)

I am so so so happy I am not the only one who hated Anna Karenina!  I thought it was so boring.... it was supposed to be a love story but all they talked about was farming!


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

I would say that in general classics deserve to be classics. Drivel tends to not survive the test of time, unless as drivel. Just because I don't happen to like Hardy and Hemingway doesn't mean that they were not great writers. And the fact that I fail to grasp their greatness is my problem, not theirs. Some things speak to us and touch us, and some things don't. Austen and Tolstoy touch me, Steinbeck and Melville do not. That, in and of itself, has no greater meaning to the world at large. It's about _me,_ not the writing that millions of others have enjoyed for decades and centuries.


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## LauraB (Nov 23, 2008)

I don't think anyone was saying they aren't great writers. Just discussing what grabs us, individually, and what doesn't. And it changes over time 20 years ago I had no feeling for Hemingway's writing. Now I do. 

Anna still evades me.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

My favourite classics are the Modernist ones: Joyce, Woolf, Kafka etc.

I like some of the _big_ Victorian era books, but sometimes they are a struggle. I think with a lot of them we miss the point by not reading them serially, as was intended...

James


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## tbrookside (Nov 4, 2009)

I like Twain's short work, but really never was very wowed by _Huckleberry Finn_.

I like _A Christmas Carol_, but I think you can tell in _Great Expectations_ and _David Copperfield_ that Dickens was getting paid by the word [in effect].

My respect for Hemingway and Fitzgerald grows over time.

Steinbeck is like Tom Wolfe to me - long-form journalism that's occasionally good.

Tolstoy - Not. A. Fan.


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## Alle Meine Entchen (Dec 6, 2009)

I think I might be the only girl in the world who doesn't like the Bronte sisters works.  A violent stalker, not romantic.  What?  You've you're first wife in the attic?  What will you do when I don't please you anymore, throw me in the basement?


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

tbrookside said:


> I like _A Christmas Carol_, but I think you can tell in _Great Expectations_ and _David Copperfield_ that Dickens was getting paid by the word [in effect].


If this were early enough in the 19th century I'd challenge you to a duel for saying that.


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## LibbyD (Apr 28, 2009)

I made an interesting discovery when I started listening to audiobooks a few years ago, which is that a good reader can make a difficult book accessible. As a result, I have been able to enjoy many classics I had started reading but had abandoned - books by Thackeray, Bulgakov, Melville, Trollope, Tolstoy, Balzac, Flaubert, and others. Faulkner is perhaps the most outstanding example. For me, his work had always been impenetrable - and that, I learned, is because I wasn't hearing it. (Faulkner himself said that his work is best understood when it is spoken aloud.) Another revelation was "The Great Gatsby". I just didn't get it - not until I heard Frank Muller reading it. (In case anyone would like to give "Moby Dick" another shot, I'll mention that Frank Muller did a great interpretation of that as well.)

Go to Audible.com and listen to some samples. Timothy West reading anything by Trollope and Michael Kitchen, Simon Vance, and Rosalyn Landor reading anything by anybody. For a real treat listen to Will Patton reading Faulkner's "Light in August". If you have a pulse you will be enthralled. A brief but pithy review can be found here: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/dbsearch/showreview.cfm?Num=58848


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## LauraB (Nov 23, 2008)

Eric C said:


> If this were early enough in the 19th century I'd challenge you to a duel for saying that.


It is true. When I studied British lit. it was covered. Most of his stories that appeared in serial form in the papers he was paid by word. That also is why most of the chapters end the way they do, to get people to buy the next serial.

Edited to add: He wasn't the only author to do this, Dumas did. I think it was common when authors wrote serials in papers.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

LauraB said:


> It is true. When I studied British lit. it was covered. Most of his stories that appeared in serial form in the papers he was paid by word. That also is why most of the chapters end the way they do, to get people to buy the next serial.
> 
> Edited to add: He wasn't the only author to do this, Dumas did. I think it was common when authors wrote serials in papers.


I was responding (tongue in cheek, of course) to the insinuation Dickens padded the books. I disagree. They are my two favorite Dickens novels. I can understand about Copperfield, how the old-fashioned picaresque style plotting might seem aimless or meandering to a modern sensibility, but Great Expectations is a tight read among Dickens novels, and it's got a more contemporary three-act structure.


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## LauraB (Nov 23, 2008)

I really enjoy all the Dickens books I've read. But I'm wordy myself so i don't even notice it in others   . I wouldn't say he padded the books, but he wasn't highly motivated to be brief either  . 

I gathered you weren't serious, just throwing my two (unasked for) cents into the conversation.


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## Thalia the Muse (Jan 20, 2010)

> TV, MTV and video games have made the laid back intro where you spend 40 pages introducing your MC's lineage, eating habits and clothing preferences obsolete.


Whereas I have no desire to read the equivalent of MTV or a video game, so I'm happy to enter a detailed, rich world where there aren't explosions on every page in a desperate ploy to keep me interested. If I wanted MTV, I'd put down my book and go watch MTV while texting my friends and eating Doritos.

I agree that Great Expectations is probably the most tightly plotted and least meandering Dickens -- it's really quite short. I recognize that it's a great novel, but Pip is such a jerk that I find it offputting. David Copperfield, on the other hand, I love.


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

I, for one, have found redeeming qualities in most of the classics that I've read (and I've read a lot of them). Maybe it's because I have always loved reading, writing, and language in general. I have found it very interesting to discover how differently the classic authors use the same language to achieve such a variety of results.


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

Alle Meine Entchen said:


> I think I might be the only girl in the world who doesn't like the Bronte sisters works. A violent stalker, not romantic. What? You've you're first wife in the attic? What will you do when I don't please you anymore, throw me in the basement?


1. Heathcliff was scary and the model for a lot of romance novel heroes.

2. Jane sorta calls him on this, asks what he would do if she went mad. He said words to the effect of her mind being his treasure and that if she were broken it would be his treasure still. (He referred to his wife's antics at one point as the gambols of a demon -- and I do love that line.)


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## Five String (Jun 6, 2010)

Our views on current books are subjective, so why wouldn't our views of classics be the same? I really struggled through The DaVInci Code. Like skipped the last 1/3 or so to the end because I didn't care any more, I just wanted to find out what happened at the end and be done with it. Same with some other

So, no, I don't like all the 'classics'. I like some Bronte sisters, not all, some Thomas Hardy (Far From the Madding Crowd only), Hemingway is pretty good but he can be a little spare and grim, Hawthorne is good but really sort of a chore to read, Henry James, forget it, Edith Wharton uneven (her trying to make western Massachusetts into a Gulag Archipelago in Ethan Frome was way over the top), James Fenimore Cooper A-1 19th century action adventure. 

While I'm at it, what the heck is a 'classic' anyway? Or, one person's classic is another's bore. 

And it changes over time. I like Moby Dick a lot, but I know when it came out it bombed, and it wasn't until the 1920's(?) that some critics or professors rehabilitated it and it became more popular. Until then, it was just a weird book that flopped. And to some of us, no offense intended, it still is a flop.


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## Thalia the Muse (Jan 20, 2010)

Heathcliff is supposed to be a complete bastard (can I use that word here?) and Cathy is supposed to be a selfish twit. The real story, IMO, in Wuthering Heights is how their legacy blights the following generation, and whether it can be overcome. 

I was so shocked when I first read Wuthering Heights and realized how awful and yet how believable the protagonists were. It's what makes the book so lively and compelling now, when so many lesser 19th-century novels are populated by tin saints and mustache-twirling villains.


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

Five String said:


> Our views on current books are subjective, so why wouldn't our views of classics be the same? I really struggled through The DaVInci Code. Like skipped the last 1/3 or so to the end because I didn't care any more, I just wanted to find out what happened at the end and be done with it. Same with some other
> 
> So, no, I don't like all the 'classics'. I like some Bronte sisters, not all, some Thomas Hardy (Far From the Madding Crowd only), Hemingway is pretty good but he can be a little spare and grim, Hawthorne is good but really sort of a chore to read, Henry James, forget it, Edith Wharton uneven (her trying to make western Massachusetts into a Gulag Archipelago in Ethan Frome was way over the top), James Fenimore Cooper A-1 19th century action adventure.
> 
> ...


How true about our views on books (current and "classics") being subjective. I guess that's what makes life interesting, and gives reimbursement to authors of all genres and abilities. As for Moby Dick, I liked it a lot, too, and I agree with you about Thomas Hardy, the Bronte sisters, and others.

I have to admit that I love the fact that the constancy of human nature transcends decades and centuries, and I take some measure of comfort in that.


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

Thalia the Muse said:


> Heathcliff is supposed to be a complete bastard (can I use that word here?) and Cathy is supposed to be a selfish twit. The real story, IMO, in Wuthering Heights is how their legacy blights the following generation, and whether it can be overcome.
> 
> I was so shocked when I first read Wuthering Heights and realized how awful and yet how believable the protagonists were. It's what makes the book so lively and compelling now, when so many lesser 19th-century novels are populated by tin saints and mustache-twirling villains.


I think a lot of books take on a different feel depending on when they're read. At thirteen Heathcliff and Cathy seemed romantic instead of sociopaths. Scarlett O'Hara also seemed a lot more reasonable back them and Melanie seemed like a doormat, instead of the secretly strong one.


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## Alle Meine Entchen (Dec 6, 2009)

I have another "classic" that bothers me: Romeo and Juliet. Why is this considered the most romantic story ever? They met, what, 2xs before getting married and a month after they were married they killed themselves. I don't understand it. Maybe b/c Romeo seems a little stalker-ish in climbing up to her window just to listen into her conversations. I really really don't find the whole, "he wouldn't leave me alone until I went out w/ him" thing romantic, just scary



MichelleR said:


> 1. Heathcliff was scary and the model for a lot of romance novel heroes.
> 
> 2. Jane sorta calls him on this, asks what he would do if she went mad. He said words to the effect of her mind being his treasure and that if she were broken it would be his treasure still. (He referred to his wife's antics at one point as the gambols of a demon -- and I do love that line.)


I still hold to my opinion (which is about as much as it's worth). It's like all of the romance novels in the 70s where the "hero" would


Spoiler



rape


 the heroine b/c she wanted it and then later "fell in love". Doesn't jive w/ my mind.


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## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

Alle Meine Entchen said:


> I still hold to my opinion (which is about as much as it's worth). It's like all of the romance novels in the 70s where the "hero" would
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> ...


Oh, I see that and understand it.


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## Basilius (Feb 20, 2010)

I personally cannot stand Dickens or Austen. There's a great many classic books that I received free either from our Kobo or the summer reading giveaway Barnes & Noble was doing that I should probably read at some point. But there's so much cool stuff going on NOW, that I find it difficult to spend the time to go back and read them.

My understanding on Anna Karenina (or any Russian literature, frankly) is that how much you enjoy the book is greatly dependent on which translation you read. My wife loved it, but she picked up a very recent translation.


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

Basilius said:


> I personally cannot stand Dickens or Austen. There's a great many classic books that I received free either from our Kobo or the summer reading giveaway Barnes & Noble was doing that I should probably read at some point. But there's so much cool stuff going on NOW, that I find it difficult to spend the time to go back and read them.
> 
> My understanding on Anna Karenina (or any Russian literature, frankly) is that how much you enjoy the book is greatly dependent on which translation you read. My wife loved it, but she picked up a very recent translation.


I LOVE Jane Austen. Maybe most men don't tune in to the romanticism of her writing, but many of my women friends love her. Does it get much better than Elizabeth Bennet's observations of "society" or reading about Mr. Darcy's thoughts about those around him? Loved the humor in "Emma," as well as Austen's astute observations about human nature in all of her books. Don't get me wrong. I love nearly all genres, so am not limited to the times of Jane Austen. As for Dickens, I read most of his works when in college, and appreciated parts of most of them, but he's certainly not my favorite of the "classic" authors.


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## LibbyD (Apr 28, 2009)

Alle Meine Entchen said:


> I have another "classic" that bothers me: Romeo and Juliet. Why is this considered the most romantic story ever? They met, what, 2xs before getting married and a month after they were married they killed themselves. I don't understand it.


Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy about an intense family feud, and R&J didn't plan a double suicide. J took a sleeping potion in order feign death and delay the marriage to Paris that her father had ordered. R believed she was dead and killed himself rather than live without her. Then J woke up, saw R dead, and followed suit. Their deaths resulted in an end to the feud, but that came too late for R&J. Tragedy.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

There are some classics I love.  I do like reading Jane Austen.  I love Charles Dickens.  Some classics are too hard for me to slog through.

I agree, it is totally subjective.  But they're classics because they have touched so many people over time.  And they will continue to do so, even if some of them people find hard to get through.

Vicki


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## Five String (Jun 6, 2010)

I don't think you have to be a female to like Jane Austen. Although I always thought the protagonist (I forgot her name) was too deferential to Mr. Darcy in a stereotypical doormat female way, you can't argue with Austen's insights. Plus, so long as you're not forced to read it in a class at school, it's fun to read.

Apropos of nothing, Clueless is a very good 'tween/'teen movie take on Austen. (I forgot which book by Austen also)


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## Thalia the Muse (Jan 20, 2010)

Clueless is a version of Emma -- Austen's funniest book by far!

I need to see that movie again ...


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

Five String said:


> I don't think you have to be a female to like Jane Austen. Although I always thought the protagonist (I forgot her name) was too deferential to Mr. Darcy in a stereotypical doormat female way, you can't argue with Austen's insights. Plus, so long as you're not forced to read it in a class at school, it's fun to read.
> 
> Apropos of nothing, Clueless is a very good 'tween/'teen movie take on Austen. (I forgot which book by Austen also)


Maybe I misspoke about most men and Jane Austen. I'd like to think that I'm wrong about my assumption. As for Lizzie, it seems to me that there were times when she was much less deferential to Mr. Darcy than most young ladies of those times. She certainly fired zingers at him when she was given the opportunity. She got her chance when she fired back at him after his first proposal. I'm sure that her place in society when compared to his forced her to be deferential when she would have preferred not to be. Times certainly have changed a lot in the last 200 or so years.


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## Paegan (Jul 20, 2009)

Although there are classics I truly love, there are also many I can't stand.  I think for me its more a particular author, than any one book.

James Joyce gives me heartburn..Ulysses the best book ever written - who chooses this stuff?
Thomas Hardy - by the time I got through 2 of his books I just wanted to kill myself - depressing beyond belief.
Ernest Hemingway- misogynistic... boring boring

I can go one but I'm reading a book that I won't regret wasting my time one.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

Basilius said:


> I personally cannot stand Dickens or Austen. There's a great many classic books that I received free either from our Kobo or the summer reading giveaway Barnes & Noble was doing that I should probably read at some point. But there's so much cool stuff going on NOW, that I find it difficult to spend the time to go back and read them.
> 
> My understanding on Anna Karenina (or any Russian literature, frankly) is that how much you enjoy the book is greatly dependent on which translation you read. My wife loved it, but she picked up a very recent translation.


Maybe you'd get a different feel if you gave Android Karenina a try.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

We're not all going to like all of the classics. Most of the current books in the store today will be forgotten about before long. Some of them will be reread now and then, some will be read by nearly no one. And a few, a very, very few will still be read by significant numbers of people many decades from now.


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## scottnicholson (Jan 31, 2010)

I believe there are two streams of classics--one is the kind perpetuated by an academic industry with the singular outcome of continuing the industry (analyzing what a book "means" because then you can teach it to other people who have to buy into the idea there is a meaning beyond what the story says) and then there are the "classics" you read because you want to.

Like, I hid Kurt Vonnegut books inside the folds of my Moby Dick copy when I was supposed to be reading in English class. I don't know who outsmarted whom. They got jobs out of it and all I got was this lousy writing career!

Scott Nicholson


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

scottnicholson said:


> I believe there are two streams of classics--one is the kind perpetuated by an academic industry with the singular outcome of continuing the industry (analyzing what a book "means" because then you can teach it to other people who have to buy into the idea there is a meaning beyond what the story says) and then there are the "classics" you read because you want to.
> 
> Like, I hid Kurt Vonnegut books inside the folds of my Moby Dick copy when I was supposed to be reading in English class. I don't know who outsmarted whom. They got jobs out of it and all I got was this lousy writing career!
> 
> Scott Nicholson


You should put that on a t-shirt.


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## Thalia the Muse (Jan 20, 2010)

I like Moby Dick AND Vonnegut -- have you ever gone back and taken a shot at Melville? I mean, he's already dead so no need to shoot him, but you know what I mean ...


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

Thalia the Muse said:


> I like Moby Dick AND Vonnegut -- have you ever gone back and taken a shot at Melville? I mean, he's already dead so no need to shoot him, but you know what I mean ...


I believe he's been harpooned.


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

Five String said:


> Our views on current books are subjective, so why wouldn't our views of classics be the same?


I so agree. It's fun to read about everyone's opinion but there aren't any absolutes. Everyone here comes from a different background and has had different experiences.

I was in school (grad school) until I was 30 - and I did my share of reading classic books that I "had" to read. I don't read the classics anymore just because of that - now I can read all those books that weren't "on the list". It's not that I "trash" the classics, just got tired of having to read them.

Having said that - if I had to reread them again..I would definitely go back to Bronte, Tolstoy, Dickens, and Shakespeare.


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## unknown2cherubim (Sep 10, 2010)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> I believe he's been harpooned.


I regularly attempt _Moby Dick_, once every five years or so. Hmmm, maybe I should try _Billy Budd_ instead?


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

unknown2cherubim said:


> I regularly attempt _Moby Dick_, once every five years or so. Hmmm, maybe I should try _Billy Budd_ instead?


Personally, I much prefer _Moby Dick_ to _Billy Budd_.


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## Thalia the Muse (Jan 20, 2010)

I think Moby Dick is just a fabulously rich and entertaining adventure story. Billy Budd I did not love, but should probably reread.


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## mattposner (Oct 28, 2010)

KMA said:


> I'll say it: I have a fancy literature degree and I hate Henry James.


I'm not one for Henry James, either. Or James Joyce other than Dubliners. Or Thomas Pynchon, that purveyor of overblown [email protected] Among classics, I'd say The Scarlet Letter  is overrated, although I do like Hawthorne otherwise.

However, I love Jane Austen unreservedly, have read every novel by the Brontes -- unusual taste for a male perhaps, but 'tis so.

Interesting thread.


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

mattposner said:


> I'm not one for Henry James, either. Or James Joyce other than Dubliners. Or Thomas Pynchon, that purveyor of overblown [email protected] Among classics, I'd say The Scarlet Letter  is overrated, although I do like Hawthorne otherwise.
> 
> However, I love Jane Austen unreservedly, have read every novel by the Brontes -- unusual taste for a male perhaps, but 'tis so.
> 
> Interesting thread.


I seem to be one of the few who liked _The Scarlet Letter_, which I read many years ago while in high school, I think. Guess I should give it another try to see if I still like it.


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## LauraB (Nov 23, 2008)

Cindy416 said:


> Personally, I much prefer _Moby Dick_ to _Billy Budd_.


Me too!


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## chris.truscott (Dec 3, 2010)

I love early 20th-century American literature. Hemingway and Fitzgerald, especially. I love their observations on the society around them.


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2010)

Comments on the thread so far:

I read a just-released translation of Anna Karenina. I can't fault the translation, but the story really slows down and grows more abstract as it goes on. Not that I don't love the details of managing one's peasants and all.

Men and Jane Austen: I was forced to read Mansfield Park for a class and really loved it. I've read all but Northanger Abbey. I found a lot to enjoy in her writing. It's nice to be able to dig deep into characters and continuously find meaning.

Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter is painful, but I'd urge all of you to challenge yourself with the short story, "Rappaccini's Daughter," which is in my top three favorite short stories of all-time. Its beauty is awe-inspiring.


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## unknown2cherubim (Sep 10, 2010)

foreverjuly said:


> <snipped>.
> 
> Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter is painful, but I'd urge all of you to challenge yourself with the short story, "Rappaccini's Daughter," which is in my top three favorite short stories of all-time. Its beauty is awe-inspiring.


I just googled this to make sure, but yeah -- I loved this short story. I just didn't remember it was Hawthorne.


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

foreverjuly said:


> Comments on the thread so far:
> 
> I read a just-released translation of Anna Karenina. I can't fault the translation, but the story really slows down and grows more abstract as it goes on. Not that I don't love the details of managing one's peasants and all.
> 
> ...


I am glad to hear that you like Jane Austen, and I think I should modify my post and remove the part about most men not tuning in the the romanticism of her work. (There is so much more to her writing than romanticism anyway, of course.) As for Hawthorne, I haven't read Rappaccini's Daughter, but will put it on my TBR list.


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## ValeriGail (Jan 21, 2010)

Reading this thread has made me want to snuggle in with some Jane Austen!  (Persuasion is actually my favorite!  Though, P&P is next in line and given the day may win lol)

I couldn't get passed chapter two of Jane Eyre.. If you think Austen was wordy (which my mom does and asked my how on earth I could finish one of her books), I found the beginning of Jane Eyre to be head ache material.  But, I watched the BBC version   LOL.  I find that Austen transports me to a completely different place.  Not very many current novels have had the same effect.  I don't have much experience with many of the other classics, which I hope to change.  I loved Huck Finn as a kid, but did not like Tom Sawyer at all.  I don't know why.  

I've got a list of classics I want to read, and its been really interesting reading all the different views of them.  I've always wanted to read a Faulkner novel, but just never actually followed through.  I think I might just do that now.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

I love reading and when I was busy being an English Major, I loved analyzing the 'great' works.  

What I didn't like was having to be enamored by authors I found tedious .... for example, most of the 17th Century - Milton, Hobbes, Webster and many of their contemporaries - were important historically and needed to be read to understand the later centuries but, jeesh, they were a major yawn.

There, I said it.


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

Geoffrey said:


> I love reading and when I was busy being an English Major, I loved analyzing the 'great' works.
> 
> What I didn't like was having to be enamored by authors I found tedious .... for example, most of the 17th Century - Milton, Hobbes, Webster and many of their contemporaries - were important historically and needed to be read to understand the later centuries but, jeesh, they were a major yawn.
> 
> There, I said it.


I have to agree with you on the 17th century authors, Geoffrey. The only ones I've read were the ones that were required reading. I've always felt that there were/are too many wonderful books waiting to be discovered to spend my time with the ones that were major yawns.


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2010)

unknown2cherubim said:


> I just googled this to make sure, but yeah -- I loved this short story. I just didn't remember it was Hawthorne.


Awesome!



Cindy416 said:


> I am glad to hear that you like Jane Austen, and I think I should modify my post and remove the part about most men not tuning in the the romanticism of her work. (There is so much more to her writing than romanticism anyway, of course.) As for Hawthorne, I haven't read Rappaccini's Daughter, but will put it on my TBR list.


I really wasn't offended by your post in any way. The tastes of male readers vary just as much as women's, and there are plenty of both kinds for whom Jane Austen (most successful female author of all time) is on the outs. Definitely give Rappaccini's Daughter a shot. It'll take an hour or two tops and would actually fit in well with Austen's style.



Geoffrey said:


> I love reading and when I was busy being an English Major, I loved analyzing the 'great' works.
> 
> What I didn't like was having to be enamored by authors I found tedious .... for example, most of the 17th Century - Milton, Hobbes, Webster and many of their contemporaries - were important historically and needed to be read to understand the later centuries but, jeesh, they were a major yawn.
> 
> There, I said it.


It needed to be said. Paradise Lost is a good literary hallmark, but I took a class on Milton and his essays were really esoteric and dry. That said, I still find myself admiring some of his ideas and they've proven useful. Just a lot of work to unearth them from those essays.


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

foreverjuly said:


> Awesome!
> 
> I really wasn't offended by your post in any way. The tastes of male readers vary just as much as women's, and there are plenty of both kinds for whom Jane Austen (most successful female author of all time) is on the outs. Definitely give Rappaccini's Daughter a shot. It'll take an hour or two tops and would actually fit in well with Austen's style.
> 
> It needed to be said. Paradise Lost is a good literary hallmark, but I took a class on Milton and his essays were really esoteric and dry. That said, I still find myself admiring some of his ideas and they've proven useful. Just a lot of work to unearth them from those essays.


I just 1-clicked my way to _Rappaccini's Daughter_. I have read "Young Goodman Brown," which is part of the collection that I bought, but haven't read the other two. I'll get around to those soon. Thanks for the recommendation!

I have to admit that I found Paradise Lost to be the most interesting of Milton's Paradise series.


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2010)

Cindy416 said:


> I just 1-clicked my way to _Rappaccini's Daughter_. I have read "Young Goodman Brown," which is part of the collection that I bought, but haven't read the other two. I'll get around to those soon. Thanks for the recommendation!
> 
> I have to admit that I found Paradise Lost to be the most interesting of Milton's Paradise series.


Nice! Definitely let me know what you think. Presumably the third story in that collection is The Birthmark, which is also another high-quality story in the same vein. While we're on the subject, I also really liked Hawthorne's other novel, The Blithedale Romance, and have always meant to reread it. It's too bad The Scarlet Letter dominates his cannon so much because there's so much once you get away from it.

My girlfriend still can't stand him though.


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

foreverjuly said:


> Nice! Definitely let me know what you think. Presumably the third story in that collection is The Birthmark, which is also another high-quality story in the same vein. While we're on the subject, I also really liked Hawthorne's other novel, The Blithedale Romance, and have always meant to reread it. It's too bad The Scarlet Letter dominates his cannon so much because there's so much once you get away from it.
> 
> My girlfriend still can't stand him though.


I just looked at what I bought again (on Amazon's page), and am not sure whether I have one short story or three. Guess I'd better turn on my wireless, download it, and see what is there. I may get around to reading "Rappaccini's Daughter" tonight, as I'm not sure that I want to wait. Will let you know what I think of it.


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## Cliff Ball (Apr 10, 2010)

I loath a lot of Victorian Period literature, with the exception of _Frankenstein_ and _Dracula_, and even Twain's work. Like some of you, I have a BA in English and I think most of it is over-rated and tedious, especially Charles Dickens. Everything Dickens wrote is depressing, so why does everyone think _A Christmas Carol_, _Great Expectations_, etc are all really awesome? I understand why they had to pack their novels full of minutiae, with no other entertainment to speak of, but, that doesn't mean I want to read it. I got to the point where I just read the Cliff's Notes or Sparks Notes versions of the novels, I got bored with classic literature.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

What's really funny is our tastes say more about ourselves than the authors and their works.


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## unknown2cherubim (Sep 10, 2010)

Eric C said:


> What's really funny is our tastes say more about ourselves than the authors and their works.


But what exactly does it say about us other than our tastes differ?


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## KMA (Mar 11, 2009)

LauraB said:


> I have a fancy literature degree too, I can (barely) tolerate James, but loath Hawthorne  .
> KMA, I teach 1st grade with my fancy  degree, what do you do?


I homeschool my two daughters and teach piano lessons. It's funny, I've had a fair number of unusual jobs and not one has ever required my degree. (One of them did get me screamed at by Sarah Palin, though.)


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## karinlib (Jan 1, 2010)

I have tried to read James Joyce, but I have never been able to get through even Portait of an Artist.  I have read 2 of Faulkner's works, but I didn't like them.  Faulkner is a good writer, but I hate his characters.  I think in order for me to like an author, I have to like  some of their characters, at least a little.  Although Franzen isn't a classic author yet.  I feel the same about him.  I like his writing, hate the characters.


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## LibbyD (Apr 28, 2009)

KMA said:


> I homeschool my two daughters and teach piano lessons. It's funny, I've had a fair number of unusual jobs and not one has ever required my degree. (One of them did get me screamed at by Sarah Palin, though.)


Congrats for the scream. Evidently, you are doing something right!


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## KMA (Mar 11, 2009)

LibbyD said:


> Congrats for the scream. Evidently, you are doing something right!


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Thalia the Muse said:


> Heathcliff is supposed to be a complete bastard (can I use that word here?) and Cathy is supposed to be a selfish twit. The real story, IMO, in Wuthering Heights is how their legacy blights the following generation, and whether it can be overcome.
> 
> I was so shocked when I first read Wuthering Heights and realized how awful and yet how believable the protagonists were. It's what makes the book so lively and compelling now, when so many lesser 19th-century novels are populated by tin saints and mustache-twirling villains.


I agree 100% percent. Emily Brontë was way ahead of the science of psychology. Heck, look at any soap opera on daytime TV. They're still retelling her novel.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Cindy416 said:


> Maybe I misspoke about most men and Jane Austen. I'd like to think that I'm wrong about my assumption. As for Lizzie, it seems to me that there were times when she was much less deferential to Mr. Darcy than most young ladies of those times. She certainly fired zingers at him when she was given the opportunity. She got her chance when she fired back at him after his first proposal. I'm sure that her place in society when compared to his forced her to be deferential when she would have preferred not to be. Times certainly have changed a lot in the last 200 or so years.


I also never thought of Lizzy as being "deferential" to Mr. Darcy. She rejects him - even though the marriage would have saved her family from all financial troubles and possible poverty after Mr. Bennet's death. That's just flat-out ballsy for a woman of that era. Mr. Darcy would be today's equivalent of a billionaire. He might be a jerk, but - as Jane puts - "he's not vicious." He's good looking, filthy rich, and stuck up. There are worse things. The fact that Elizabeth rejects his marriage offer is boggling. (And she rejects a second offer from another perfectly eligible bachelor, the bafoonish Mr. Collins. Wait...it's possible Jane called Mr. Collins "not vicious." Anyway, it applies to Mr. Darcy too.)

On the other hand, it should be noted that when asked when she began to love Mr. Darcy she responded that it may have been when she first saw his grounds of Pemberley. (Imagine a private citizen owning property the size of - oh, say Staten Island. I'd fall in love too.)


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

With all this talk about Jane Austen, have any of you read Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies?


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

KMA said:


> (One of them did get me screamed at by Sarah Palin, though.)


That's truely one of the best comments I've read on the internet.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

KMA said:


> I homeschool my two daughters and teach piano lessons. It's funny, I've had a fair number of unusual jobs and not one has ever required my degree. (One of them did get me screamed at by Sarah Palin, though.)


Why? Were you selling vegetables?


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## LauraB (Nov 23, 2008)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> With all this talk about Jane Austen, have any of you read Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies?


I read it for Amazon vine a few months ago. I liked it. I think it may still be on my bookshelf.


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

DYB said:


> I also never thought of Lizzy as being "deferential" to Mr. Darcy. She rejects him - even though the marriage would have saved her family from all financial troubles and possible poverty after Mr. Bennet's death. That's just flat-out ballsy for a woman of that era. Mr. Darcy would be today's equivalent of a billionaire. He might be a jerk, but - as Jane puts - "he's not vicious." He's good looking, filthy rich, and stuck up. There are worse things. The fact that Elizabeth rejects his marriage offer is boggling. (And she rejects a second offer from another perfectly eligible bachelor, the bafoonish Mr. Collins. Wait...it's possible Jane called Mr. Collins "not vicious." Anyway, it applies to Mr. Darcy too.)
> 
> On the other hand, it should be noted that when asked when she began to love Mr. Darcy she responded that it may have been when she first saw his grounds of Pemberley. (Imagine a private citizen owning property the size of - oh, say Staten Island. I'd fall in love too.)


I, too, fell in love with him when I saw his grounds at Pemberly (A&E version).


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2010)

KMA said:


> (One of them did get me screamed at by Sarah Palin, though.)


Story, please!


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## Helen Hanson (Sep 13, 2010)

I posted this link elsewhere, but it sure applies here. Even the classic authors spewed vitriol about each others work. You can't please everyone . . .

http://www.examiner.com/book-in-national/the-50-best-author-vs-author-put-downs-of-all-time


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## DHammons (Dec 21, 2010)

I read "Look Homeward, Angel" by Thomas Wolfe some years ago. Shortly after I had read the book (a year or two) I visited his home in Asheville, NC (which has since burnt down). However, I had forgotten that I had read any of his work. When I toured his house, I couldn't figure out why certain rooms and the outside of the house seemed so familiar to me. When I mentioned this to my wife, she reminded of his book. I don't recall the book being anything great and it wasn't horrible, either, but something has to be said about his ability to describe a place in such detail that one would mistakenly think they had been there before.

I also read Wieland (which I don't remember much about) by Charles Brockden Brown, just because he was touted as the first american novelist, but apparently that is disputed.


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

I have read a number of the classics, mostly for school, and have generally found something to appreciate, occasionally love, about most of them. However, I can't stand James Joyce's writing style. I picked up _Ulysses_ in the college library one day, read the first page, and put it down immediately. I don't remember a word of what I read--I've blocked out the trauma.

Oh, intriguing anecdote about _Look Homeward, Angel_. I've visited his childhood home in Asheville several times, and his ability to describe the setting still unnerves me. His childhood home (if you can call it that, since his mother sometimes apparently turned him out of his bed in order to make room for one more boarder--she was pretty money-hungry) seems to me to be a remarkable reflection of his mother's personality, at least how she's descibed in his books and in biographical sketches.


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## KMA (Mar 11, 2009)

DYB said:


> Why? Were you selling vegetables?


Worse. I told her she had to work instead of shop.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Helen Hanson said:


> I posted this link elsewhere, but it sure applies here. Even the classic authors spewed vitriol about each others work. You can't please everyone . . .
> 
> http://www.examiner.com/book-in-national/the-50-best-author-vs-author-put-downs-of-all-time


These are very interesting. I think Twain offers an opinion on this list more frequently than anyone else. I know he'd also offered quite a few opinions on music and composers (he didn't care for Wagner.) Methinks the man thought too highly of himself.


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## AnnetteL (Jul 14, 2010)

I like most classics I've read--especially when I have a grasp on the time period and know what the audience of the time would have expected.

I'm an English major too. Somehow I was required to read just an excerpt of Moby Dick. Glad I didn't need to read. 

And I cannot stand Faulkner. (Never read anyone else with such a raging ego or lack of awareness of the reader.)


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## Indy (Jun 7, 2010)

tbrookside said:


> I like Twain's short work, but really never was very wowed by _Huckleberry Finn_.
> 
> I like _A Christmas Carol_, but I think you can tell in _Great Expectations_ and _David Copperfield_ that Dickens was getting paid by the word [in effect].
> 
> ...


Oh great, you have a new book out! Now I have to go read the Merchant of Venice first.


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## taufour (Dec 14, 2010)

Jane Austen may seem dated but her books have  been made into so many films -- why do we go to see them if they don't somehow relate to our world or sense of contemporary life? I think if you read Austen you are reading for that remarkable astuteness of observation and dry, very sardonic tone -- its so refreshing and just on the edge of cynicism. But most classics suffered not so much in their own presentation but in the presentation of them by our teachers when we were in school, I think...
VJ Waks


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

taufour said:


> Jane Austen may seem dated but her books have been made into so many films -- why do we go to see them if they don't somehow relate to our world or sense of contemporary life? I think if you read Austen you are reading for that remarkable astuteness of observation and dry, very sardonic tone -- its so refreshing and just on the edge of cynicism. But most classics suffered not so much in their own presentation but in the presentation of them by our teachers when we were in school, I think...
> VJ Waks


I think you are very right about teachers and how they manage to present classics in school. I remember in high school one of our English teachers, Mr. Trent, once allowed students to pick the book we were going to read. I actually suggested "Pride and Prejudice" and it received more votes than the other titles (can't even remember what they were.) Most of the objections had come from the guys. However, the teacher threw himself into how he went about presenting the book and a few chapters in the guys were enthusiastically arguing over just how much of a jerk Mr. Darcy was (or wasn't) and how unreasonable Elizabeth was in rejecting him. I don't know how he did it, but he had football players enthralled by the Bennetts.


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## mattposner (Oct 28, 2010)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> With all this talk about Jane Austen, have any of you read Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies?


I bought it, read about 20 pages, and took it back to the bookstore. Seriously disliked the parts that weren't Austen. A good idea, but I didn't like the execution. With respect to those whose taste is different, thumbs down from me personally.

other commentary:

Dickens DID write by the word. That DID make him write longer than compact modern writers. That was good for the taste of audiences in his day who were reading the book installments aloud to the family after dinner and needed a lot to keep them busy. For us modern audiences, it's a matter of individual taste whether one likes his elaborations. I think it's probably a mistake to assume all Dickens is at the same level. Some books are better than others, and that's subjective. I can't bear Great Expectations or Bleak House, but I love David Copperfield and I easily made my way through Nicholas Nickleby, one of the longer ones. Tale of Two Cities has a lot of teachable content.

Re the debate about Austen -- stating my own view, her verbiage is precisely to my taste. The complex nuances of courtship and observations of social niceties suit my temperament from her pen (even as they don't from the wearisome Henry James). The major criticism I have of Austen is Sense and Sensibility, for I find the males too faint of personality to be particularly agreeable. I once taught Pride and Prejudice to a senior class of yeshiva boys. A few actually got the point, although they would all have rather been reading Tom Clancy...


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

mattposner said:


> I bought it, read about 20 pages, and took it back to the bookstore. Seriously disliked the parts that weren't Austen. A good idea, but I didn't like the execution. With respect to those whose taste is different, thumbs down from me personally.
> 
> other commentary:
> 
> ...


I guess Sense, Sensibility, and Sea Monsters isn't on your to be read list.


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2011)

mattposner said:


> I bought it, read about 20 pages, and took it back to the bookstore. Seriously disliked the parts that weren't Austen. A good idea, but I didn't like the execution. With respect to those whose taste is different, thumbs down from me personally.


I did practically the same thing, although I never even left the bookstore with it. At first I thought the language was cute, but then I realized it was just going to be the same thing over and over and I stopped finding the phrasing to be clever.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

foreverjuly said:


> I did practically the same thing, although I never even left the bookstore with it. At first I thought the language was cute, but then I realized it was just going to be the same thing over and over and I stopped finding the phrasing to be clever.


Maybe it will be a bad book, better movie. Or a bad book worse movie.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

purplepen79 said:


> However, I can't stand James Joyce's writing style. I picked up _Ulysses_ in the college library one day, read the first page, and put it down immediately. I don't remember a word of what I read--I've blocked out the trauma.


Hi - have you tried Joyce's 'Dubliners'? A lot easier way into James Joyce; great short stories, in my opinion. A lot more realistic style than Ulysses.

If you have already, then apologies and just ignore me!


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2011)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> Maybe it will be a bad book, better movie. Or a bad book worse movie.


Or bad book, equally bad movie!


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## DHammons (Dec 21, 2010)

purplepen79 said:


> Oh, intriguing anecdote about _Look Homeward, Angel_. I've visited his childhood home in Asheville several times, and his ability to describe the setting still unnerves me. His childhood home (if you can call it that, since his mother sometimes apparently turned him out of his bed in order to make room for one more boarder--she was pretty money-hungry) seems to me to be a remarkable reflection of his mother's personality, at least how she's descibed in his books and in biographical sketches.


I guess Wolfe's descriptive abilities were a little too detailed for the town folk. Apparently, they were not very happy when he pusblished his book, as the characters in the story were too similar to the actual people he encountered during his younger years in Asheville. They were not portrayed in a favorable light.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

foreverjuly said:


> Or bad book, equally bad movie!


I see another movie thread coming on.


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2011)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> I see another movie thread coming on.


lol yeah, because we could _never _have too many of those.


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## mattposner (Oct 28, 2010)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> I guess Sense, Sensibility, and Sea Monsters isn't on your to be read list.


I'll pass on S,S, and SM, but I do respect any suggestions you have. Since I teach high school, I'm always on the lookout for stuff I can use to motivate reluctant readers.

Just to stay on-topic for the thread, let me trash another classic. I took a seminar in Faulkner in grad school and did read some Faulkner I liked, but I could never, having tried repeatedly, get into Absalom, Absalom. It reads like he's trying to compete with Ulysses, although I don't know which book was published first. For Faulkner, I do recommend As I Lay Dying  -- that's my favorite.

Re the earlier trashing of Don Quixote -- I understand why it is popular, but on my first attempt to read it I found it very sadistic. Don Quixote was a figure of pity who was constantly having his teeth kicked out. I didn't find that funny. Maybe I'd feel different on a second reading.

Concerning the Greek classics, I never dug Euripides. He may be the closest to the modern dramatic form, but he seems long-winded and histrionic to me. Give me Aeschylus and Sophocles instead.

If you have time, please post to my thread about favorite independent bookstores.

Best,

Matt


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2011)

Matt, I loved As I Lay Dying! It's really one of my favorite novels.

I enjoyed Don Quixote and find it to be an extreme precursor to Catch-22.


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## ginaf20697 (Jan 31, 2009)

There aren't enough words to describe how much I loathe Ethan Frome


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## LaFlamme (Dec 9, 2010)

I have a hard time with William Faulkner. Respect the hell out of what he accomplished, I just generally can't dance to the beat of his writing.


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## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

ginaf20697 said:


> There aren't enough words to describe how much I loathe Ethan Frome


I've never quite understood the hatred people have for it, I must admit. (And yes, I'm a Wharton fan.) To me, at worst, it seemed small and insignificant. But people's hatred is strong. It has always seemed weird.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

I just read that John Irving named his dog "Dickens." Homage or insult, I'm not sure, but suspect the former.


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## LaFlamme (Dec 9, 2010)

Eric C said:


> I just read that John Irving named his dog "Dickens." Homage or insult, I'm not sure, but suspect the former.


You'd think a simple "Charles" would have sufficed if it was meant to be a simple homage. But what do I know. I don't even have a dog.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

Off topic but a cute story: I know this couple with a dog named "Watson" because the wife is a big Sherlock Holmes fan and the husband, a science professor, is a big fan of Watson and Crick.


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## LaFlamme (Dec 9, 2010)

I had cats named Annabelle Lee and Lenore in a nod to Poe. But we were talking about dogs, weren't we? I'll just shut up.


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## Lee (Nov 7, 2008)

Just wanted to echo some of the comments about Anna Karenina.  A few months ago I paid around $4.50 for a good translation and started reading.  I actually liked the opening domestic drama, I thought it had some great characterization.  But then Levin enters the picture and the book goes downhill fast.  I read a couple more chapters and then gave up and returned it for a refund.  In the past I've read and enjoyed some Dostoyevsky novels, but I guess Tolstoy doesn't do it for me. 

I tried to read a non-abridged translation of Don Quixote a few months after first getting my first Kindle, three years ago.  I loved Man of La Mancha as a kid, and I'd even read an abridged version of Don Quixote.  I read about 200 pages of the non-abridged one and gave up.  I understood that Cervantes was making a point about then-current literary fashions, but I felt he was making the same point over and over, endlessly, and it got boring.

Maybe my taste in classics runs more to populist tastes than strictly literary.  I recently read and loved the Count of Monte Cristo, and Wilkie Collins is my all-time favorite (I find him much superior to Dickens).


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## Debi F (Nov 10, 2010)

AnnetteL said:


> And I cannot stand Faulkner. (Never read anyone else with such a raging ego or lack of awareness of the reader.)


Hopefully that doesn't extend to all Faulkners! 

I adore T.S. Eliot, Hemmingway and Fitzgerald (though you couldn't pay me to read anything from the 19th century other than Poe!). I really prefer more contemporary authors like Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood.

But, if you go way back for some bawdy Chaucer or an epic like Beowulf, I'm in heaven!


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Lee said:


> Just wanted to echo some of the comments about Anna Karenina. A few months ago I paid around $4.50 for a good translation and started reading. I actually liked the opening domestic drama, I thought it had some great characterization. But then Levin enters the picture and the book goes downhill fast.


I'm reading it at the moment, and have got past that point, so hopefully I like it enough to push to the end now..!


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

LaFlamme said:


> You'd think a simple "Charles" would have sufficed if it was meant to be a simple homage. But what do I know. I don't even have a dog.


Depends what kind of dog we're talking about. Is it a bulldog?


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

I enjoyed reading Dante, I read Inferno and Purgatory. But I had the Penguin Press edition which had plenty of footnotes to explain some of the things that weren't clear. I'd like to read Paradise, but the version I have access to doesn't have expanatory footnotes. I also enjoyed the long introduction in the PP edition.

I spent Spring Break one year reading Plato's Republic, it was one of the books required for a Political Philosophy class I was taking. Then I went out and bought the Cliff Notes for so I could get even more about it. I suppose that's a sad way to spend Spring Break.   I also had to read Leviathan for the class, but it didn't engage me like Republic did.


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## pahiker (Feb 27, 2010)

I HATED The Red Badge of Courage!


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

QuantumIguana said:


> I enjoyed reading Dante, I read Inferno and Purgatory. But I had the Penguin Press edition which had plenty of footnotes to explain some of the things that weren't clear. I'd like to read Paradise, but the version I have access to doesn't have expanatory footnotes. I also enjoyed the long introduction in the PP edition.
> 
> I spent Spring Break one year reading Plato's Republic, it was one of the books required for a Political Philosophy class I was taking. Then I went out and bought the Cliff Notes for so I could get even more about it. I suppose that's a sad way to spend Spring Break.  I also had to read Leviathan for the class, but it didn't engage me like Republic did.


I LOVED Plato's Republic! It's been many years since I read it. Guess I should read.


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## JimC1946 (Aug 6, 2009)

Okay, here I come out of the closet. I despise Jane Austen.

Sorry, I had to say it.

And Melville is way too verbose for me. Billy Budd almost killed me to read the whole thing.


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## raynsally (Jan 27, 2010)

Read the entire thread, very glad I did. All my life I have been an avid reader. In my early years I didn't have a lot of money for books so I would read anything I could get my hands on. Friends and family would pass their books on so thats what I read. That means with different tastes. I read a lot of genres. Always finished a book even if I didn't like it. Going through the names of the classics you have mentioned, very few I havn't read. When I noticed a lot of your dislikes I had to chuckle. I didn't like them either. I always thought it was because I wasn't well enough educated to understand or  appreciate them. Maybe the stories were not that interesting. I have a completed 7th grade education. I am fortunate enough to have a K2 and an account that myself and my children and grandchildren keep gift cards in that I can read what I want. Still My collections consist of authors. Austin, Bronte, Dickens, Trollope, Warton, Wodehouse, Hyer ( writes like Austin, IMO,) Guy de Maupassant ( A fellow who really needed Prosac.) I just need to say, while I do like newer books and authors as well, not well enough to keep them and read them again. I will take one posters advice and try some on audiobooks, it might make me understand the message better. Thanks for this thread.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

raynsally said:


> Read the entire thread, very glad I did. All my life I have been an avid reader. In my early years I didn't have a lot of money for books so I would read anything I could get my hands on. Friends and family would pass their books on so thats what I read. That means with different tastes. I read a lot of genres. Always finished a book even if I didn't like it. Going through the names of the classics you have mentioned, very few I havn't read. When I noticed a lot of your dislikes I had to chuckle. I didn't like them either. I always thought it was because I wasn't well enough educated to understand or appreciate them. Maybe the stories were not that interesting. I have a completed 7th grade education. I am fortunate enough to have a K2 and an account that myself and my children and grandchildren keep gift cards in that I can read what I want. Still My collections consist of authors. Austin, Bronte, Dickens, Trollope, Warton, Wodehouse, Hyer ( writes like Austin, IMO,) Guy de Maupassant ( A fellow who really needed Prosac.) I just need to say, while I do like newer books and authors as well, not well enough to keep them and read them again. I will take one posters advice and try some on audiobooks, it might make me understand the message better. Thanks for this thread.


You should check out the website podiobooks. All their stuff is Free.


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## Amy Corwin (Jan 3, 2011)

Hi!
So glad I found this thread...
Do you think your taste changes as you get older? I was wondering because I tried Wodehouse when I was young and wasn't interested. But I picked up one of his books about ten years ago and loved it. I've since bought every Wodehouse I can find. Although I will say that I don't see Jeeves as the sympathetic character that most people and moves portray him as. In fact, he's a blight on poor Bertie's life and selfishly keeps Bertie from marrying and perhaps finding happiness because Jeeves is afraid of losing his position if Bertie marries. Mean little son-of-a-gun if you ask me. LOL But that doesn't make the stories any less enjoyable--at least now that I'm old enough to appreciate them.

Does anyone else like H.H. Munroe? (Saki) He's one author I just can't get enough of. I wish he hadn't died so young or that someone else in the world wrote that weird combination of dark humor and bizarre situations. In a sense, he's the dark--but still funny--side of Wodehouse. Clovis could be Bertie if Bertie were a bit smarter and a whole lot crueler.


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## unknown2cherubim (Sep 10, 2010)

I love Munro.  He is one of my favorite authors.  I have all his collected stories somewhere.


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## Amy Corwin (Jan 3, 2011)

LOL I can't seem to stop buying various collections of Munro, although I have a book that purports to be his complete works.

I recently saw this, as well. Wish I could find a copy of his book on the Russian empire. Apparently it cut too close to the bone for a lot of folks and was widely panned/pulled from shelves. Interesting.


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## raynsally (Jan 27, 2010)

I do think your taste change as you get older. But, you have to consider a 9, 10 ,11, year old reading a lot of these classics, I don't think I understood them. I think the children of today might. They seem far more advanced ( to me anyhow. ) Isn't it wonderful how differently we see what we read. Wodehouse makes me laugh out loud. To me Bertie is selfish and afraid of commitment and Jeeves saves him from himself everytime. Now I have to read Mumro, I already ordered Rappaccini's Daughter from Amazon. Don't do it. It is a corrupt file and even CS hasn't been able to remove it from my K2. I will try Podiobooks. Old habbits are hard to break and free books are great. My thing with new books is I don't like Sci-Fi, Zombies, and many of the new stuff. Just an old realist I guess. Series are another thing that drives me nuts, by the time the next book has come out I 've read 50 books and i can't just pickup the thread, I think that is also an age thing.


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## KindleLovinMike (Jan 6, 2011)

If they hadn't forced me to read it in high school, I might have liked Tess of the D'urbervilles more.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

raynsally said:


> I do think your taste change as you get older. But, you have to consider a 9, 10 ,11, year old reading a lot of these classics, I don't think I understood them. I think the children of today might. They seem far more advanced ( to me anyhow. ) Isn't it wonderful how differently we see what we read. Wodehouse makes me laugh out loud. To me Bertie is selfish and afraid of commitment and Jeeves saves him from himself everytime. Now I have to read Mumro, I already ordered Rappaccini's Daughter from Amazon. Don't do it. It is a corrupt file and even CS hasn't been able to remove it from my K2. I will try Podiobooks. Old habbits are hard to break and free books are great. My thing with new books is I don't like Sci-Fi, Zombies, and many of the new stuff. Just an old realist I guess. Series are another thing that drives me nuts, by the time the next book has come out I 've read 50 books and i can't just pickup the thread, I think that is also an age thing.


I used to be opposed to reading a bunch of stuff they taught in schools just because it was being shoved down my throat. But a true testament to a classic, a lot of those books won me over anyway despite my preconceptions.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

James Joyce, Ulysses 

bought 4 copies, over 30 years, best intentions, never finished it


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## john_a_karr (Jun 21, 2010)

Read the first paragraph or so of Ulysses ... never got further. 

Don't 'get' John Irving at all. A chapter into Prayer for Owen Meany and I bailed. 

I do get these guys, fortunately: Steinbeck, Hemingway, Homer, Kesey, Poe, Wiesel, Tolkien, Salinger, Heller. 

And am thinking of adding Melville, the more I read of Moby Dick.


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## DaMichaels (Jan 22, 2011)

QuantumIguana said:


> I enjoyed reading Dante, I read Inferno and Purgatory. But I had the Penguin Press edition which had plenty of footnotes to explain some of the things that weren't clear. I'd like to read Paradise, but the version I have access to doesn't have expanatory footnotes. I also enjoyed the long introduction in the PP edition.
> 
> I spent Spring Break one year reading Plato's Republic, it was one of the books required for a Political Philosophy class I was taking. Then I went out and bought the Cliff Notes for so I could get even more about it. I suppose that's a sad way to spend Spring Break.  I also had to read Leviathan for the class, but it didn't engage me like Republic did.


Bantam has a cheap but nice quality edition of Paradise translated by Allen Mandelbaum. The translation is very good, and the notes are great.


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## Malweth (Oct 18, 2009)

Amy Corwin said:


> Do you think your taste changes as you get older?


I said in High School that I'd like the books better if they didn't force us to read them.

I still think it's true 15 years later. Granted, I wouldn't like all of them now (I can't see me liking "The Scarlet Letter"), but I'd find many of them more memorable. Some of the ones I liked back then surprise me now (especially "The Mayor of Caterbridge"). I just wish I had more time to read these books now. Even with the Kindle, it's taken me 3+ weeks to complete "Foucault's Pendulum," certainly a modern classic (I'm at about 70%).

I think, possibly even more than the politics and period, the dated language and style prevent enjoyment of a book in the High School classroom. Politics and events can be explained and picked up much more easily than grammar or wordiness. The other problem is the overuse of period politics... we get the picture, "Gulliver's Travels" is a political satire. I did enjoy the book - but it is sopped-up with politics.

I'm a big fan of books that make their point without overdoing it. My favorite author, Kazuo Ishiguro, does this well. "Never Let Me Go" isn't subtle, but a lot of people don't quite get the point. Dickens takes adventure stories and makes them go on and on, to their detriment. I loved ONLY the first 20 chapters of "Great Expectations," but perhaps I read it too young.

What's clear to me is that I haven't read enough classics - especially after graduating High School (my degree is in Engineering). I'd like to work on that, but the core problem with classic literature is that it's slow going. It varies from Dumas to Joyce, but even Dumas isn't as easy a read as Ishiguro.

And a pox on whoever said Romeo & Juliet is no good!


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## Amy Corwin (Jan 3, 2011)

D.H. Lawrence was highly overrated. In fact, I'm surprised at how many people miss the fact that he at least appeared to be a total misogynist (hated women). He may have been attracted to them, but his books always portrayed them as cruel, uncaring, and responsible for ruining the lives of the men around them.

I don't object to having been forced to read him in school, though. At a minimum he taught me the real meaning of the word "misogyny", but I'd rather not read him now that I understand that lesson. 

Give me Chaucer any day.  I'm sorry they didn't let us read Chaucer instead of Lawrence. He was much more fun and interesting.


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## LauraB (Nov 23, 2008)

I've read a lot of D. H. Lawrence, and taken classes on his work, and have not come across anyone in those classes or my book groups, who didn't get the idea his work had "misogynist" views of women displayed in his work.  He lived in a time with a lot of social change where women were concerned and socially there was a lot of conflict about the changes. That came out in literature from a variety of authors of the time. He took the "misogynist" view, Virginia Woolf took the other view. (They were friends.)   I do think the reader needs to be careful about  closely identifying a narrator and characters with the author.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Amy Corwin said:


> D.H. Lawrence was highly overrated. In fact, I'm surprised at how many people miss the fact that he at least appeared to be a total misogynist (hated women). He may have been attracted to them, but his books always portrayed them as cruel, uncaring, and responsible for ruining the lives of the men around them.


You're right of course that there are misogynistic passages in his work, but there's so much of it, with often contradictory views expressed about ideas, that it's incorrect I think to say he was "a total" misogynist. He tended to 'think things out' in print, rather than thinking about them beforehand and writing his conclusions. He did express some views that were very pro-woman for the time, as well as many that were anti-women or just plain _odd_.

But that doesn't, for me, stop the beauty of some his great descriptive passages - I come from Nottingahm too, and some of his descriptions of the local countryside are amazingly accurate but couldn't have been written by anyone else either.

Or maybe I just want to defend a local boy!


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

The Catcher in the Rye is considered a classic, but I thought it was a horrible, rambling book to read. I wonder how that thing became a classic?


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## 28612 (Dec 7, 2010)

Another English undergrad major here.  A procrastinating English major, which meant I read Joyce's Ulysses in a day and a half. I read it straight through, pulled an all-nighter. Might have been from the lack of sleep, but I did get strangely into the flow of it ... and never want to do that again. And still would say it's overrated.

A classic I feel is underrated is THE HISTORY OF TOM JONES, A FOUNDLING by Henry Fielding. 

I found it hilarious. Henry definitely had a wide strain of smart-a** in him, and I like that.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Patricia McLinn said:


> which meant I read Joyce's Ulysses in a day and a half.


Respect.


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## Raydad (Jan 11, 2011)

Steinbeck is worthy of respect. I understand why people say TGOW is the Great American Novel. 

A writer I think is greatly underrated is Charles Portis (True Grit). I've read two of his works, True Grit and The Dog of the South.


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## 28612 (Dec 7, 2010)

James Everington said:


> Respect.


LOL. More like youthful stupidity. I think I was in an altered state by the end of it.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

Ok book fans, please go easy on me for this one.

I absolutely hate The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger. The worst moment in my recent memories of this book was when the news announced that since his death manuscripts that he never published may get to see the light of day  

Now it isn't like I'm unfairly judging this book. I have tried to like it. I've read it 7 times (1 more time and I'll be on an FBI database), all at various stages in the past 17 years. Each time I came away hating it. Each time I picked it up again I was trying to love it, to get what was so 'classic' about this book.

Also not a fan of Frankenstein or the Steig Larsson books.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

Can a classic be underrated? An underrated classic seems like an oxymoron. What you could have is a book that should be considered a classic, but is not considered a classic. I think what makes something a classic is a work that still has significant readership when its contemporary works have been long forgotten.


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## Chris Barraclough (Jan 25, 2011)

I tried Catcher in the Rye recently, not expecting much, and actually really enjoyed it. I thought the voice of Holden was fantastically sardonic and entertaining, although I was waiting for something to happen plot-wise and was left a little cold!

It's definitely not a 'classic' that I'd rate alongside H.G. Wells, etc. though.


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## crash86 (Oct 8, 2010)

Patricia McLinn said:


> LOL. More like youthful stupidity. I think I was in an altered state by the end of it.


It took me a month to finish Ulysses and by that time I was not only drained but relieved! It is kinda hypnotic in certain parts. My third try in reading it.... glad I did though I can be counted in the minority of people who have actually finished it! Loved Dubliners by Joyce.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

Chris Barraclough said:


> I tried Catcher in the Rye recently, not expecting much, and actually really enjoyed it. I thought the voice of Holden was fantastically sardonic and entertaining, although I was waiting for something to happen plot-wise and was left a little cold!
> 
> It's definitely not a 'classic' that I'd rate alongside H.G. Wells, etc. though.


I think it's a classic because of the time period it came out. That was just around the cusp when people starting questioning authority more. As to not much plot, that's a lot of what a teenager is all about. Which is also why the whininess is annoying, yet also true to life.


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## 28612 (Dec 7, 2010)

crash86 said:


> Loved Dubliners by Joyce.


I rather liked Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. But in the end, I'd take A Tale of Two Cities any day.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Patricia McLinn said:


> I rather liked Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. But in the end, I'd take A Tale of Two Cities any day.


For some reason, I've never been able to get into Dickens. I'm sure the problem is with me not him, but still... 
Not tried Tale of Two Cities though.


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## KerylR (Dec 28, 2010)

Alle Meine Entchen said:


> I think I might be the only girl in the world who doesn't like the Bronte sisters works. A violent stalker, not romantic. What? You've you're first wife in the attic? What will you do when I don't please you anymore, throw me in the basement?


Can't stand them, either!

Though as a bit of history and for what they have to say about the world they were written in, that's something I find fascinating.


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## KerylR (Dec 28, 2010)

Patrick Skelton said:


> The Catcher in the Rye is considered a classic, but I thought it was a horrible, rambling book to read. I wonder how that thing became a classic?


+1.

I mean, I get how subversive it was a the time, but really, whining and minimal plot. Ugh!


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## KerylR (Dec 28, 2010)

In general I'm not a huge classics fan.  I feel like I need a blow torch and a machete to cut my way through the dense wodges of words in some of those books.

But usually, I can look back and say, "Well, that was a really cool plot."  Books I would not voluntarily finish (Lord of the Rings, Phantom of the Opera, Austen, Brontes, Frankenstein, anything by Dickens, etc..) make really good movies because they were written by people who wrote great plots.

But there is one book, one classic I was forced to wade through for college and then write a feminist literary criticism of, that just made me want to set the book on fire.

The Awakening.  I loathed every single word of that odious pile of verbiage.  As of this point there is not a single other "classic" (including Cather in the Rye, which I also loathed) that I'd less like to read than The Awakening.

Not to say I've got strong opinions about things.


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

A lot of classics would be rejected today, no doubt!


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## LauraB (Nov 23, 2008)

KerylR said:


> The Awakening. I loathed every single word of that odious pile of verbiage...... that I'd less like to read than The Awakening.


I really like that book and reread it occasionally. It is a good example of American Realism.


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## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> I think it's a classic because of the time period it came out. That was just around the cusp when people starting questioning authority more. As to not much plot, that's a lot of what a teenager is all about. Which is also why the whininess is annoying, yet also true to life.


People keep telling me that it is a portrait of the frustrations of being a teenager. But even when I read it as a teenager and again as an adult I never saw that at all. Maybe I wasn't much of a teenager.


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## 28612 (Dec 7, 2010)

tim290280 said:


> People keep telling me that it is a portrait of the frustrations of being a teenager. But even when I read it as a teenager and again as an adult I never saw that at all. Maybe I wasn't much of a teenager.


I had the exact same reaction as a teenager. Didn't re-read it as an adult. Too many other fun things to read.



> For some reason, I've never been able to get into Dickens. I'm sure the problem is with me not him, but still...
> Not tried Tale of Two Cities though.


James, give it a try. I think of ToTC as the most streamlined of Dickens' stories (except A Christmas Carol.) It has less of the sprawl of his other books, keeps more to the main thread.

He was definitely making social statements. Even in A Christmas Carol. Though most people don't know it, because those are the bits the movies cut out of Carol -- Want and Ignorance hiding under Christmas Present's robes and the miners, and such.


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## James Everington (Dec 25, 2010)

Patricia McLinn said:


> I had the exact same reaction as a teenager. Didn't re-read it as an adult. Too many other fun things to read.
> 
> James, give it a try. I think of ToTC as the most streamlined of Dickens' stories (except A Christmas Carol.) It has less of the sprawl of his other books, keeps more to the main thread.
> 
> He was definitely making social statements. Even in A Christmas Carol. Though most people don't know it, because those are the bits the movies cut out of Carol -- Want and Ignorance hiding under Christmas Present's robes and the miners, and such.


_Maybe_ I will... At least on Kindle it won't take up an entire bookshelf like bleedin' Bleak House does...


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

James Everington said:


> _Maybe_ I will... At least on Kindle it won't take up an entire bookshelf like bleedin' Bleak House does...


Or like the Mark Twain autobiography. Great book, but I can use that thing for bicep curls.


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> Or like the Mark Twain autobiography. Great book, but I can use that thing for bicep curls.


That's one of my 20 favorite things about my Kindle.  The first book that I read on my Kindle 2 was _The Historian_, by Elizabeth Kostova. I'd been trying to get through the book for a long time, but it was very large and heavy, and I hated carrying it around and I disliked trying to hold it while I read. Once I had my Kindle, I couldn't wait to read the book.


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