An overhyped classic you really didn't like

[grgmrn]

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe. I never understood why Napoleon boasted about having read it seven times.

[X-XXXX-X]

For me is basically any work by Edgar Allan Poe. The only people it would scare was someone from the 19th century or before. Don't get me wrong ! The stories are good even if some of then are quite average, but people keep acting as if they were the most traumatizing thing they ever saw. Honestly even the worst of the creepy-pastas still way scarier.

[cxsimpson]

I had a professor in college who loved Robert Louis Stevenson so naturally that's all he taught about. I read both Jekyll and Hyde and Treasure Island and didn't really like either of them.

[Bigwig1973]

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I don't know why - it seemed very boring? Most things, I hate to admit by Ernest Hemingway. I did kind of like the short story, "Hills Like White Elephants" and "The Old Man and the Sea" but I didn't really like The Sun Also Rises. As far as obscure classics go, I did not care for Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy. I didn't like the writing style, or how his points were argued. I like to at least imagine to believe it is because he was (supposedly) a late riser and I am a morning person and because he was good with geometry and I never even took geometry. Although, it could also be that the particular translation I had was not very good.

[Zainabreadsnow]

Moby Dick. I don't know how anyone got through that mammoth of a book. It is very dry and there's only so much description of the sea that one can take.

[anaplasticCerebrum]

Probably Heart of Darkness. I made it 90% of the way through and got exhausted. And The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway's books all kind of blend together for me.

[sblake26]

As soon as I read this prompt I thought of The Alchemist. It is honestly on my list of least favorite books I have ever read. I do not understand the hype around it at all.

[HanElizabeth397]

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I don't know why - it seemed very boring? Most things, I hate to admit by Ernest Hemingway. I did kind of like the short story, "Hills Like White Elephants" and "The Old Man and the Sea" but I didn't really like The Sun Also Rises. As far as obscure classics go, I did not care for Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy. I didn't like the writing style, or how his points were argued. I like to at least imagine to believe it is because he was (supposedly) a late riser and I am a morning person and because he was good with geometry and I never even took geometry. Although, it could also be that the particular translation I had was not very good.

I didn't enjoy Catcher in the Rye either! I really disliked the main protagonist and didn't think the story was as special as it was made out to be

[R Lefler]

There have been a few.
The Great Gatsby, because I find rich people utterly boring. If a book has a rich protagonist, the plot has to be very compelling, but it usually isn't. The stakes don't equal destitution, prison, starvation, death, etc. They usually just involve embarrassment, loss of social standing, and maybe the worst thing that could possibly happen is they'll end up a little less rich.
Pride and Prejudice, for the same reason. I just hate excessively privileged people and find them hard to relate to as protagonists. Unless there is something secretly cool about them, like they're vampires, cannibals, in a secret society, etc. Or I like when a privileged main character attempts to either eschew her privilege, or use it to do good. For example, Marius in Les Miserables comes from a rich background, but rejects that background to support the revolutionaries.
Catcher in the Rye is probably the worst book I've read that's considered a "classic" and taught in schools. The prose was so boring and the main character was boring too. It was the book I read with the biggest case of screaming, "I don't care!" while reading it.
Someone mentioned The Scarlet Letter, and I'll say, I don't think it's terrible, but it wasn't great either. It seemed to me like my high school just chose it because we had an epidemic of teen pregnancies at the time. It can get a little dull.
Another one is To Kill a Mockingbird. The interesting part is the trial. But everything before that is kind of a slog. I didn't really care about Scout and her kiddie desires and problems. Because when I read it I was in high school. She seemed like a boring, average child. I read Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn as a kid, but similarly, I don't think I'd have enjoyed them as an adult. My elementary school made me read them because Mark Twain is such a big deal in Missouri, but I don't think they're great. They're entertaining children's stories, and they're for boys. As a girl, I found those characters harder to relate to.

[R Lefler]

As soon as I read this prompt I thought of The Alchemist. It is honestly on my list of least favorite books I have ever read. I do not understand the hype around it at all.

Oh, can you tell me more about what you didn't like? Because my mom, an English teacher, recommended it to me recently and she made it sound very good. Now I'm wondering about whether or not I should read it.

[jen22+]

It has to be Lord of the Rings

[Chatfemme]

Wow...a lot of trashing of some of my favs in this forum. I do understand. I have never been able to get the big deal about Great Expectations by Dickens. I have read abridged, unabridged and seen the movie the TV special series versions and none of those have warmed me up to the story. My favorite character of the story is only around for a few pages and that is Pip's uncle the blacksmith. The rest meh.

However, my most hated classic that I could not stick with is Lolita by Nabokov. Part of my problem with this novel could be the medium I chose to introduce myself to the book. I tried the audiobook first. I could not stand listening to the old man going on and on about the young girl and all her attractions. It was too much for me. Maybe the story gets better or makes more sense later, but I could not get past the first hour or so of listening to find out. Even though I don't want to read it, I still think of it as a classic that should be read because it presents a version of the internal thinking of a person that I would just never understand. It is good to have something like that out there for those who are willing to put themselves through the discomfort.

There are other classics that I don't like , but I think everyone should read them because they explain something about humankind that we need to recognize. Two that come to mind right away are Lord of the Flies by Golding and Animal Farm and 1984 by Orwell. These books have contributed to my cynical nature, I know, but their messages need to be heard. All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque taught me how how terrible modern warfare can be for our soldiers and why we must work for peace any time it is at all possible. I think of Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Hardy as another story I hate, but it is a real picture of how society sees and treats innocent, attractive girls/women with no independent security (read station, money or power) for themselves. Everyone needs to know this is the reality of the world for many girls/women out there. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is similar. It is just an exaggerated tale demonstrating some's peoples inhumanity to others and how that affects everyone around.That story has lots of other worthwhile themes that a more enjoyable read would not show us.

These novels are all like horror stories that are more than the "slash and stab the lusty teenager tales" we get into today. These classics need to be read and understood if we are going to make the world a better place, and to have a complete education about our world. I could go on with many other examples, but that is a good start. The classics are classics sometimes because of what they have to teach us, not for a fun read or great story though some of them have those elements as well

BTW, my two favorite tales of all time are Les Miserables and The Lord of the Rings. That should give you a little incite into my perspective.

[fern_b]

There have been a few.
The Great Gatsby, because I find rich people utterly boring. If a book has a rich protagonist, the plot has to be very compelling, but it usually isn't. The stakes don't equal destitution, prison, starvation, death, etc. They usually just involve embarrassment, loss of social standing, and maybe the worst thing that could possibly happen is they'll end up a little less rich.
Pride and Prejudice, for the same reason. I just hate excessively privileged people and find them hard to relate to as protagonists. Unless there is something secretly cool about them, like they're vampires, cannibals, in a secret society, etc. Or I like when a privileged main character attempts to either eschew her privilege, or use it to do good. For example, Marius in Les Miserables comes from a rich background, but rejects that background to support the revolutionaries.

I totally agree, and that's why I could never get into Jane Austen. I just don't care about the nuances of social/wealth disparities between people who are all rich enough to have servants.

Another classic I didn't like is For Whom the Bell Tolls. I'm interested in that period of history so I wanted to enjoy it, but Hemingway's writing style isn't for me and the few female characters felt pretty flat.

[Iconicsmt]

There are other classics that I don't like , but I think everyone should read them because they explain something about humankind that we need to recognize. Two that come to mind right away are Lord of the Flies by Golding and Animal Farm and 1984 by Orwell. These books have contributed to my cynical nature, I know, but their messages need to be heard. All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque taught me how how terrible modern warfare can be for our soldiers and why we must work for peace any time it is at all possible. I think of Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Hardy as another story I hate, but it is a real picture of how society sees and treats innocent, attractive girls/women with no independent security (read station, money or power) for themselves. Everyone needs to know this is the reality of the world for many girls/women out there. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is similar. It is just an exaggerated tale demonstrating some's peoples inhumanity to others and how that affects everyone around.That story has lots of other worthwhile themes that a more enjoyable read would not show us.

I couldn’t agree more! It wasn’t until reading through this thread that I realized how many readers gravitate toward stories where they can empathize with the protagonist. Maybe it’s an “opposites attract” thing, but I’ve always liked stories where the most prominent characters do/say/think things that I probably wouldn’t. It envelopes me into the story because it makes me analyze their situation and thought processes more deeply. You can find out a lot about yourself from wondering what on earth someone was thinking when they did such-and-such, ha. That’s a big reason why Wuthering Heights is my favorite book — every single character is an antagonist and incredibly flawed. It’s way more of a cryptic psychological study than a romance. But each character’s connection to one another and to the actions of Cathy and Heathcliff are so multilayered that you can see why everyone wound up the way they did, and (maybe I’m just slightly morbid) most of them do get a happy ending after paying a lot of unpleasant dues.

On the last note, that’s a big reason why Tess of the d’Urbervilles downright depressed me. Tess was a character I actually did heavily relate to, so her tale was a little too “no good deed goes unpunished” for me.

[Qwertylearner12345]

It has to be Merchant of Venice .Among all of Shakespeare's literature why they chose this still doesn't make much sense .Don't get me wrong Macbeth is amazing. But in the MOV -
1)being vague was taken a little too far.
Keeping in mind this is where reading begins for kids in our country.
2) I read this in school and found it like an overstretched uninteresting story that just didn't make much sense.(story is boring)
3) The plot twist seems to be written as an afterthought.(we put in more work thinking of the ending than the author did)
4)Every character is a little bit of an exaggeration
Antonio -too giving.
Bassanio -too spendthrift.
Shylock -absolute evil and on and on
Its a little too white and black to be found believable living in this grey world.
After surviving MOV I lost faith in novels but rediscovered it after a few years on being gifted with 'the kiterunner' .