The Worst Classics You Have Ever Read

I really like Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, but I did read it alongside Henrysons Testament of Cresseid which is pure brilliance.
I could never be bothered with Heart of Darkness. Didn't find it horrifying. Dracula I also found tedious.

The French Lt. Woman, liked the film but the book no.

In fact I think I took a viscious pleasure in reading almost all of the book and then not the last three pages.

I did not enjoy The Stars My Destination too much, the story started off thrilling and intriguing but as the novel progressed Gully Foyle the cro-magnon Merchant Marine quest of revenge begins to unravel in contrivance upon contrivance. And when I learned the whos and the whys of Gully's abandonment upon that derelict spaceship flotsam jetsam ... oh ... my ... gawd. How EVIL to put me through this mild endurance challenge just to bat me on the nose and poke me with a stick!

Yarrrrrggggghhaiaiaiaia!

And my home went through some renovations recently and had stopped reading at page 207 of a 258 page book. Failed to finish it but still have my bookmark slapped between the pages.

I didn't even learn about the mystery behind the burning man... don't ask... 'less you've read the book.

Oh dear god, it would have to be Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Though it is very very sad that he is dead, I hated that book. Because it was a classic I picked it for a book report, thinking "hey, it's a classic, people talk about it, it's gotta be good!" So after I discovered I hated it I had to finish it, unfortunately.

I was around 15 at the time, and sometimes I think "well, maybe I was just too young to really grasp it's 'amazingness' or something" .... but nope, every time I pick it up again I still hate it.

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Originally Posted by Orual

The Lord of the Flies is one book that I didn't dislike while I was reading it, but the further removed from it I am, the more I think "that really wasn't very good." It didn't seem realistic to me; Jack declined too quickly and was too much of a outliar--he was corrupt beyond what I would expect from a twelve or thirteen year old bully.

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I agree entirely!!!! What was especially frustrating was that EVERYBODY else in my english class loved the book and couldn't understand why I didn't. I dont care that Jack wears a mask -- 12 year old boys dont just become murderers, and wouldn't some of the other boys have questioned him instead of being such sheep? (the only people i have met who display such lack of individual thinking were my classmates) It's like Golding was so set on teaching his lessons to us that he sacrificed the characters.

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Originally Posted by Orual

I didn't particurally like The Great Gatsby, either. I just found it mediocre, maybe because it wasn't what I was expecting.

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I also didn't like The Great Gatsby. Again my frustration was increased by EVERYBODY else loving it including my english teacher. Pretty much its about selfish self-centered rich people and I found NO meaning into my own life and learned NOTHING from it. I remember my teacher saying that the characters are complex because "they are archetypical rich people except that they have problems" HELLO! having problems is what MAKES a rich person archetypical. when do we see rich people that dont have problems?

moby dick - boring

i loved catcher in the rye. perhaps i was lucky that the first time i read it my teacher led fairly in-depth discussions, because the second time i read it my teacher (the same one who loves fitzgerald) skipped over almost all of the things that i found important.

so maybe i would like gatsby more if it was with a different teacher?

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Originally Posted by Adolescent09

Have you found any classics that were simply unappealing yet according to to the general public considered some of the most outstanding literary works ever? List classics you have read that have disinterested you and made you slog through several pages of pure banality.

Here are a few I can think of off the top of my head:

1. Catch-22
2. The Catcher in the Rye
3. A Streetcar Named Desire
4. slow, superfluous chapters in the middle of Moby Dick (although I love the beginning and ending)

If this topic becomes semi-successful it might even be good to state reasons why you found certain classics unappealing (without getting too controversial or starting rants).

Good day, people :)

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there are no "worst" classics, only worst readers of the classics. :p

I should also add that though Hemingway is a little dry, it is exactly his sparsity that makes his writing impressive. Fitzgerald doesn't bother to find the mot juste, he just throws all of them in there. Extra words, however flowery they may be, make writing seem juvenile to me. It's almost as though only less-sophisticated readers "fall for" the wordiness.

Heart of Darkness
Turn of the Screw

I did, however, like Apocalypse Now which is an adaptation of Heart of Darkness.

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Originally Posted by jon1jt

there are no "worst" classics, only worst readers of the classics. :p

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I guess a newbie such as myself shouldn't try to tackle Conrad's work. :)

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Originally Posted by Jennyfrijole

Oh dear god, it would have to be Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Though it is very very sad that he is dead, I hated that book. Because it was a classic I picked it for a book report, thinking "hey, it's a classic, people talk about it, it's gotta be good!" So after I discovered I hated it I had to finish it, unfortunately.

I was around 15 at the time, and sometimes I think "well, maybe I was just too young to really grasp it's 'amazingness' or something" .... but nope, every time I pick it up again I still hate it.

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15 is abit young for Vonnegut ... I think. I imagine he would have bored me to tears at that age. But this book when read in the correct context is a riot in short controlled bursts.

Without a doubt- Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy....ohhhh!! how I loathed that book!

I had the idea once of reading the most famous of the classics, after Bovary I gave up on it. The town of Flaubert's novel was dull, as were all the people in it and the descriptions of it, which was his point I suppose. I still hated it!

On The Road is terribly dull and boring.

Rucksack bohemians on the road to everywhere.

I didn't dislike On the Road, but it's certainly nothing great. It was entertaining and perhaps it "captured the spirit of the '50s", but as a great piece of literature it just falls on its face.

Another classic I didn't care for is The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway's prose, especially in this novel, is just too flat and boring, and his characters cardboard.

I'm kinda surprised, though, (and I probably shouldn't be) at how many people dislike Faulkner in this thread. I can't get enough of him!

Oh man, I found the constant travel and occassion soap between the characters unbelievably tedious and disorientating with the protagonist's circle of friends seperating and regathering at popular "beat" places throughout the continental States (gee, a small world it had been back then ;) ) and hookin up with different lovers and one night stands.

Plus the dialogue was so blase.

Maybe, in it's day it did "capture the spirit of the '50s" but to me downright trite.