Literary classics I was supposed to like and hated

[ellid]

We all know them: books we are supposed to like and actually can't stand, for various reasons. Here are five that I particularly despised:

1. The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. I still remember a friend of my mother's urging me to read this because I allegedly reminded her of the protagonist. It was only much, much later that I realized how insulting it was to be compared to Esther Greenwood, who was mentally ill, self-pitying, and did one stupid thing after another. There's a couple of very striking images, but why anyone would suggest that an intelligent teenage girl read this is beyond me.

2. Jude the Obscure and pretty much the whole of Thomas Hardy's works. Horrible, depressing books full of horribly depressed people living in grinding poverty and ignorance, suffering from horrible (if unrealistic) events like drowning in ponds, having an entire herd of sheep shoved off a cliff by insane collies, and flinging themselves out of windows to avoid having sex.

3. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway. Boring, boring, boring. Maybe I would have a different opinion if I'd read this when it was first published, but man oh man was this disappointing. Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return is a much better look at the Lost Generation.

4. Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. As I am not a mathematical genius, dislike clever word puzzles (or, why I fantasize about killing Will Shortz DEAD DEAD DEAD for those asinine puzzle sequences on NPR), and am not a Victorian maiden willing to pose naked for the kindly maths don, this book left me cold. Never finished it.

5. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. Can someone please run over Holden Caulfield with a bus? Please?

BONUS:

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. Heathcliff is a sadist, Cathy is a fool, and the whole book left a nasty taste in my mouth. It's a shame, too, since Jane Eyre, by Emily's sister Charlotte, was flat-out brilliant.

Anyone else have a Great Book they'd love to shove down the literary shredder?

Comments

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

With you pretty much on all of these, esp the Bell Jar. Now, shall we talk about Dickens?!

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities, and I rather liked Great Expectations, especially Dickens' original ending. Oliver Twist, though - UGH .

[amykb.livejournal.com]

Loved, or at least liked, all of those, but I never could get through The Last of the Mohicans, and I *hate with a passion* anything by Herman Melville.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I assume you've read Mark Twain's opinion of Fenimore Cooper and his Deerslayer books... (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Indians/offense.html)

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

Ones I was supposed to read but couldn't force myself to as I found the chapters I did read deathly dull: Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.

OMG! Were those two dull as dish water books. Didn't care about anybody! Felt as though I had way better things to do with my time.

I did like both Alice in Wonderland and some of Thomas Hardy's books like the Mayor of Casterbridge. In general, I prefer Hardy to Dickens, actually.

I've not read much early 20th c. Amer. Lit. because I'm a snob. I've yet to find any Amer. lit written before WWII that I consider worth reading, except for Edgar Allen Poe and certain Southern short story writers. Most Am. Lit. bores me to tears.

Much of it seems to be manly men, doing manly things, and I just don't care!

Great books I'm not planning on reading, ever, include: Grapes of Wrath, anything by Earnest Hemmingway, Moby Dick, and Catcher in the Rye, to name a few off the top of my head. I'm certain there are more but I just can't think of them currently.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I actually thought parts of Huckleberry Finn were hilarious, especially the part where Tom and Huck conspire to free Jim in a ridiculously convoluted manner cribbed from Dumas pere.

Actual early to mid 20th century Americans I read again and again include E.B. White (brilliant, brilliant essays) and James Thurber, plus Malcolm Cowley's criticism. I also love mid-century detective novels, especially those by Rex Stout and Ellery Queen.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I am SO WITH YOU about #5. SO. I hated that book with a bitter and deathless hatred. It was so awful.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I have never understood why J.D. Salinger is so highly regarded by critics. NO ONE talks like the Glass family, and Holden is a whiny little brat who needs to be slapped repeatedly with a large wet fish.

[mad_maudlin]

E has threatened to break up with me because I don't like Hamlet.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Hamlet himself can be pretty annoying.

[celandineb.livejournal.com]

I disliked The Bell Jar and Wuthering Heights, too. I DO like Alice in Wonderland (am fond of word puzzles). Not sure if I've read Jude the Obscure or The Sun Also Rises, but I generally like Hardy and I do NOT like Hemingway. I know I've never read The Catcher in the Rye, although how I managed to miss it I'm not sure.

Generally I don't like clever arty literary sorts of books, the sort that get rave reviews in literary magazines or the NYT Review of Books, and win various prizes. I can't think of any titles off the top of my head though.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I refuse to read them. All too many of the American ones were written under the influence of MFA programs or writer's workshops, and there isn't a real character in the lot. I seriously think that the great books of the late 20th century are all going to be genre books, not literary fiction.

[knic26.livejournal.com]

This is why I love LJ! or, why I fantasize about killing Will Shortz DEAD DEAD DEAD for those asinine puzzle sequences on NPR

I have an flister that is a puzzle person, a personal friend of Will Shortz, and participates in some of his puzzles at conventions.

The Interwebz is (are) the truest melting pot ever!

[ellid.livejournal.com]

different strokes for different folks...:)

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Love Thurber!

Book that not only I but my entire class hated so much that the teacher found us another book to read? The Fall of the House of Usher by E.A.Poe

[ellid.livejournal.com]

*dies*

I loved Poe, but I can see why your class revolted at that one....

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

I liked Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, but I don't recall doing so because of being a "mathematical genius" nor because of "clever word puzzles". I've never read (nor even tried to read) any of the other books that you list.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Different tastes, I suppose :)

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Heart of Darkness. I hated that book with a hateful hatred when I first read it as a senior in high school, and I feel no need to read it and see if I'd like it any better today.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I preferred the movie...."The horror! The horror!"

[tree_and_leaf]

I liked Alice well enough - it's not one of the books from childhood I want to revist, or did reread often at the time, but I wouldn't want to kill it with fire or anything.

Mostly Hardy is dreadful, though I quite liked Far from the Madding Crowd, and the one about the choir/ parish band, whose name temporarily escapes me, is great, even if I disagree with Hardy's belief that Ritualism was a bad thing.

I have never read Catcher in the Rye. Nothing I have heard makes me feel I should rectify this.

Agree totally about Wuthering Heights.

Any of DH Lawrence's novels (he was a good poet, though).

[ellid.livejournal.com]

My beef with DH Lawrence is that Lady Chatterly's Lover has shaped the perceptions of several generations of men as to how a woman feels and responds sexually, and all too many women as well.

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

The Lord of the Flies.
The Outsiders.

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

A short story, but thouroughly loathed by friends and family along with me was "The Red Pony" aka The Dead Pony.
A build up of the loving relationship between the child and pony climaxes with the animal found dead on a hillside with extremely graphic detail of the situation (scavengers at work, I won't do the graphic detail)
Some of us had to read it in class before lunch!

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed some of your loathed titles.

I thiink Hardy may have been paving the way for D. H. Lawrence's "sexual revolution" :-> I find Hardy's novels beautiful but grim, and the only one I really "loved" was Far from the Madding Crowd because it had something approximating a happy ending (the lush movie adaptation starring Julie Christie and Terrence Stamp didn't hurt, either :->). As for Wuthering Heights, one of my profs said that the main problem was that Cathy actually loved both men, but societal constraints wouldn't allow her to have both (Bronte as an argument for polyamory?). I've even managed to enjoy books that killed other people--Sister Carrie, The Fall and Rise of Silas Lapham, Gene Stratton Porter's oeuvre....

What *I* hate? Moby Dick. Hate hate hate it. And my American Novel prof was a Melville scholar, so we went over the book in loving detail. (I told him my favorite part was the cetological chapters; he told me I was perverse.)

[danabren.livejournal.com]

(or, why I fantasize about killing Will Shortz DEAD DEAD DEAD for those asinine puzzle sequences on NPR)

BWHAHAHAAA

I tend to find them mildly insulting, or at least the way he cozens the contestants by pandering to ignorance.

[susannaknits.livejournal.com]

I rather liked Hemingway and Hardy both, actually. I know I read Salinger, but I never can quite remember anything much about it. Seems like I was underwhelmed. I must have liked Alice well enough, because I know I sought out the sequel(s) - there were a couple, weren't there? I was a weird kid, though. At one point, I set out to read all the Oz books.

The book that completely defeated me was Moby Dick. I've always loved reading, especially long books, but I could not get through that one for love or money. I gave up somewhere in the part about whales and whaling.

[xrian.livejournal.com]

I have never understood why English teachers get to define what constitutes "great literature." There are plenty of books by talented and skillful authors who accomplish tremendous things -- but those books don't, somehow, ever seem to make the Official List. I really think that the criteria must have been set up in something like the 1920s or 30s and critics are still picking books that follow the same pattern.

Also, as my mother used to put it, most of these books are "not very cheerful." ;) Perhaps I'm sensitive to this, but it does not do the health of anyone prone to chronic depression any good at all to read depressing books.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

That is yet another reason I hated The Bell Jar. I'm prone to depression, and reading such a beautifully written description of someone who was supposedly like me descending into depression so intense it nearly killed her was NOT a good thing.

[dnrx2.livejournal.com]

I hated the Grapes of Wrath-Book and Movie. But I did like Of Mice and men by Steinbeck

[ednama.livejournal.com]

SO much with you on all of these (except the 1st, that I haven't read)but Wuthering Heights was the worst because in my final exams, so I couldn't exactly let it fall from my fingers like, say, a catcher in the rye.

I didn't even *get* that there was anything more to 'Alice' than just a dull tale.

This should be a meme. I'm going to memify this.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

You're going to WHAT?

*ohmygod*