'Great' novels you just didn't get

[C.A.B.]

Catcher in the Rye was vomitous, self-indulgent, angst-riddled, maudlin, pajama-boy, whinery. As was Dead Poet's Society... and most anything where Stephen King is mewling about his formative years.


get me a bucket

 

[Alliekat]

I essentially read for a living so the downside of that, is for the past 16 years or so I have done far less reading in my free time than I did before. But I will agree with the sentiments of Catcher in the Rye, I did not enjoy it all that much. And I might be one of the few women my age that does not like Jane Austen, but I just feel like her novels often drone on and on.

 

[IrvingKrebb]

Catcher in the Rye, for sure, but I think I might have read it too late in life. I was 26 and mostly it kind of annoyed me. On the Road is another one...no sir, I didn't like it.

 

[Bohemianne]

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

Agreed. I love everything about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, both novel and movie.

And I might be one of the few women my age that does not like Jane Austen, but I just feel like her novels often drone on and on.

I tend to confuse Louisa May Alcott with Jane Austen. "Little Women" novel bored me to death, but for some reason, the film is vibrant and interesting, the way I can almost compare the theme with "Pride and Prejudice". The novels are like traditionally quilted, just because I can't find the better way of describing. But I do have respect for those great authors.

 

[Alliekat]

Agreed. I love everything about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, both novel and movie.



I tend to confuse Louisa May Alcott with Jane Austen. "Little Women" novel bored me to death, but for some reason, the film is vibrant and interesting, the way I can almost compare the theme with "Pride and Prejudice". The novels are like traditionally quilted, just because I can't find the better way of describing. But I do have respect for those great authors.

Oh yes, I certainly respect her work, I just personally find it boring and like you said...quilted

 

[Vanillaphant]

Just been trying to read Catch-22. Oh boy. Somebody's gonna have to explain that one to me. After about 50 pages I found that I just couldn't continue! I felt like I was reading a script for a bad sitcom, or even a very long - and not very funny - vaudeville comedy routine or something like that: 'wacky' characters interrupting, misunderstanding, exasperating one another (with their 'zany' idiosyncrasies). I just couldn't believe, considering the book's reputation, how much I didn't enjoy it! Oh well. There's no accounting for taste, as they say.

And another writer. Not that he's known as a novelist, particularly, but I've never really seen what is so great about Edgar Allan Poe. Obviously he appealed - and pandered to, I think it's fair to say - the readers of his day, what with 19th century society's preoccupation with the gothic and the macabre and all that jazz. But now? To be honest, I'm convinced that a lot of people claim to like him merely out of a sense of vanity - i.e. cos they like to think of themselves as being a bit dark ("oooooh...!") and a bit mysterious (double "oooooh...!"). And I get a similar feeling where the likes of Kerouac and some of the other 'beat' writers are concerned - except in their cases you can substitute 'dark', 'mysterious' and 'oooooh' for 'cool', 'Bohemian' and 'dude!', respectively. lol

...I might be one of the few women my age that does not like Jane Austen...

Funny. I might be one of the few men my age that does. lol

 

[Tickleslave83]

I like Edgar Allen Poe but I think that some of his stories can be kind of dull. But I think that he contributed so much to horror that you have to respect him on that level even if you don't like him very much personally or are not a big fan of his work.

 

[Vanillaphant]

...I think that he contributed so much to horror...

Maybe too much lol.

I think my main problem is that he seemed to be content to relate with readers more through subject matter rather than through something a little deeper, more profound/joyous/edifying/whatever. And for that reason, when I read his stuff, it all seemed a tad cynical. But then, as I understand (this is at least according to Wikipedia, anyway lol) he was one of the first Americans to make a decent fist of attempting to make a living exclusively from writing… So perhaps he felt a pressure to write about what he thought would sell, and that if he diversified too much he would risk losing readers (and the experiment would fail).

I think some of his stories are decent, but I would still say he's a tad overrated.

 

[Oddjob0226]

It looks like a few people got "Catcher In the Rye" but don't realize they got it, or don't go beyond the surface of why they got it. I still don't fully get the story - it's specific purpose or even the ending - but I understand the picture it painted.

That - the main character as neither hero, villain, nor even anti-hero exactly - and the tremendous use of fucking profanity for the god-damned time period, certainly made it a substantial piece of work when nowadays the only context we really have for such potential breakthroughs are a saturated white noise of young adult books and spiritual self-help tomes.

 

[crydun]

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

me too! glad it's not just me..

 

[crydun]

most Oprah Club books and anything by Toni Morrison...

 

[Vanillaphant]

Bit self-indulgent to bump yer own thread, I know lol. I was in a self-indulgent kinda mood. Sue me an’ all that!

Sort of breaking my own rules here (as he wasn’t a novelist), but I tried reading some Anton Chekov short stories recently. From what I’ve gleaned, he was interested in writing stories that were more naturalistic than was common for that time. Which sounds laudable. And maybe his work constituted an important development in blah blah whatever the fuck lol. But I cannot tell you how bored I was reading his stuff! Good Lord.

Right, that’s the genius of Chekov dealt with! lol

Revisiting this thread, I was surprised at a couple of choices - now that I have an opinion on them! lol. I think Wuthering Heights is a great novel! Each to their own and all that. There is, I think, a histrionic tone – and a knowing one at that - to those gothic-type novels which tends to be polarizing. I love it, myself lol. Whatever your problem with that novel, you have to admit, you get your money’s worth! Cruelty, despair, obsession, envy, a ghost lol – it’s all goin’ on!

Tried reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, however - couldn’t get on with it at all! Weird how two sisters could write such different books!

Was also surprised to see The Black Pearl show up – what with it being the name of the fictional ship from The Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

I read The Pearl *insufferably smug face* lol by John Steinbeck a few months ago and quite enjoyed it. Have read some other stuff by Steinbeck – most recently The Moon Is Down – and wasn’t too keen, though.

Would love to hear some more nominations!

Cheeyers!

 

[BlasterMaster]

I read The Pearl *insufferably smug face* lol by John Steinbeck a few months ago and quite enjoyed it. Have read some other stuff by Steinbeck – most recently The Moon Is Down – and wasn’t too keen, though.

Ugh, gods, the Pearl! That and the Giver, Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, and East of Eden! All that depressing shit I had to read that quite literally made me want to kill myself in high school (due to dealing with other depressing shit in my life and having to defend my sister who was lesbian from religious assholes)! If only they had us read positive books (Lord of the Ring perhaps)? Hell, I would have taken more Shakespear over any the depressing shit my English teachers made me read.

As for books I was never able to get, hmmm...a few Star Trek novels perhaps, maybe a Star Wars expanded universe novel (though I loved the Thrawn trilogy)! I'm pretty good at getting the plot of books though.