The Worst Classics You Have Ever Read

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

He is very good at characterisation. There's tons of characters in Dickens novels, each with their own quirks.

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Dickens is one of the greatest creators of characters in world literature. Harold Bloom writes that he is up there with Shakespeare and Chaucer (among the British writers), Cervantes, Tolstoy and Homer. For that alone he deserves a place in the pantheon of greats.

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

He is very good at characterisation. There's tons of characters in Dickens novels, each with their own quirks.

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That's true, but his writing might be more effective if the hero was more realistic. Although, I suppose, they do engage the reader's sympathy, which might have been what Dickens was trying to do.

Well I don't think Dickens should be approached like, say, Madame Bovary. Dickens reads more like a tale, and I feel that he should be approached in such a way. Even his writing conveys this feeling, it is always tender and light. I think Dickens is one of the greatest prose writers too.

Yes, the creation of character through quirks and description is first rate, but they have no psychological reality. People do not spontaneously change personalities on the eve of Christmas despite being visited by ghosts. With that said I am not Criticising Dickens for this aspect because he probably never intended psychological depth merely that I don’t enjoy Dickens that much for this reason, though of course my opinions may change over time.

Well even more so for Christmas Carol, it is not supposed to be a psychological study, but rather a light tale. So while I understand what you're saying, I feel it is just like saying "magic realism would be better if it was more realist". So it is not so much Dickens that you don't like rather the "genre" which he writes.

Yes, perhaps that would be a fair comment.

Though with the same thinking perhaps it is best not to praise the characters of Dickens at all, just the construction of his language and the enjoyable lightness of his tales?

I don't praise the characters, I praise the overall work. I don't think dostoevskian characterization would be nice to have in a Dickens story ;)

Just like Dickens characters in a Dostoevsky novel would be ridiculous. And in this sense you are right that the main interest of a Dickens story is not characterization or psychology, but other vectors.

No, I agree, I wasn’t referring to you with the praising of characters, but to the above posters and to general comments I have heard before. Perhaps it would be more accurate to praise the characterisation within the particular genre itself, his characters work well within his novels, Dostoevsky’s within Dostoevsky’s.

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Originally Posted by Neely

With that said I am not Criticising Dickens for this aspect because he probably never intended psychological depth merely that I don’t enjoy Dickens that much for this reason, though of course my opinions may change over time.

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Yep, Christmas Carol is just a nice Christmassy tale. Because you don't really want misery at Christmas do you? :)
A Tale of Two Cities has more depth, in the character of Sydney Carton, the drunk lawyer who sees in rare moments of sobriety how bad he is. Then the ending is famous.

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Originally Posted by Neely

Yes you are quite right "worst classic" is an oxymoron indeed. Like you, I don't particularly go for the unrealistic "change of heart" in A Christmas Carol, neither am I much fond of Dickens at all, but for me to start putting negative labels on his work would make me a fool, or more of a fool than I already am.

It is worth noting that classics as a general rule can also be labelled as such because they are the first of a type to do something, such as with Richardson, amongst the first novels, as well as the best of something. The label doesn't automatically denote the best, First/popular/best - maybe.

I remember trying to read The Turn of the Screw several years ago, several times and just gave it up in the end, thought it was "overly wordy." Then I learnt Freudian analysis and the novel totally opened up to me and I judged it in a different light. This is one of the ways that readers change over time, a novel may not work for you, which is fine, but it doesn't mean it is trash. Also some classics represent a body of work that I may not fully be at home with. For instance the Romantic poets appeal more to me than say, the Realists, but it does not make their work any less good just because of my own personal tastes.

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I remember when I started to read serious writers (eons ago) my local library had a number of Henry James novels on its shelves. They were impressively bound but what struck me most about them was their thickness. A cursory glance through one or two told me that James was an extraordinarily verbose author who would be unlikely to interest me. Years later I decided to read some of his less lengthy works such as The Turn of the Screw and The Europeans. I discovered that his reputation for wordiness was justified but he could write a good story. Later still I bought a copy of The American in a German translation because I thought that the use of compound words in the German language would make the novel seem shorter but I was wrong; the book was still unnaturally verbose.
Can anyone explain why James, a good story teller, was so long-winded, surely even a Freudian sub-text doesn't require such verbosity.

Les Miserables - too simple, too didactic, too corny.... maybe i'm missing something

Middlesmarch. Dont like Middlesmarch.

I'm not sure if it is really labeled as a "classic," but it is the one piece of literature that I have read so far that I wanted to burn. (It belonged to my school and was an assignment, so I decided I probably should not. . .)
Oh. . . almost forgot to write it down:
Franz Kafka's Metamorphasis. *shudder*

The Great Gatsby

Don Quitoxe


Couldn't relate well to either novel.

Some strange choices in this thread...