The Most Overrated Classics

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rachellabrum1
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Re: The Most Overrated Classics

Post by rachellabrum1 »

I do agree with you on To Kill a Mockingbird. Whereas I love the movie and feel it's a socially important book, the style of the writing could have been more engaging.
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N_R
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Post by N_R »

Yes we were made to read the classics and I feel that I am better off for having read them. A lot of Jane Austin, the Bronte sisters, anything by Alexandre Dumas.... I think that it has helped me to learn correct grammar too as nowadays some books are written in slang :o
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Post by SPasciuti »

Romo and Juliet. So much. It's just NOT a great love story. And I really hate when people call it as such. It's about two kids who made dumb decisions and ended up spearheading the deaths of about eight people! Sure, the family shouldn't have been fighting...but Romeo and Juliet were idiot kids!

A few other ones: The Great Gatsby (I have never understood the appeal of this one - and my sister ruined it further by regularly referring to that quote about wanting her daughter to grow up pretty and stupid -cringe-), To Kill a Mockingbird, The Grapes of Wrath, and Wuthering Heights.
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Post by melissy370 »

My overrated book is The Scarlet Letter. I know it has some historical importance and all. But it was torture getting through it.
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Post by GedGillmore »

I really struggled with The Scarlet Letter too. I feel less guilty now. Another book which I really want to love but just can't get through is Moby Dick. Am I the only person who can't read it?
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Post by Lincolnshirelass »

I have also tried 'Moby Dick' over and over, and I KNOW it's a classic, I just can't seem to get into it - it's not the length, I love 'War and Peace' and also love books about the sea. I've not wholly given up on it yet - I'll have another go!
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Post by GedGillmore »

Isn't it funny what some people do and don't like. I thought I was onto a winner in this thread and now a few of you have mentioned some of my favourite books. We read To Kill A Mockingbird in the only warm classroom in school on a Friday afternoon when we were all sleepy and slow and it always makes me feel that way when I read it. I wonder if I'd had a draconian teacher who'd forced it upon me in a drafty chamber, if I'd hate it now.
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Post by Lincolnshirelass »

Me again - having seen a TV documentary about him last night (BBC 4), I would like to mention James Joyce. Now I would like to qualify this. I like 'Dubliners', his short story collection, and have responded to EXCERPTS from 'Ulysses' (though the whole lot has so far defeated me), but wonder if I will ever get round to 'Finegan's Wake'. I realise it is a classic, and perhaps one day I WILL give it another try, but have a horrid feeling the exercise may have the same consequence.
An Eye for an Eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

Mahatma Gandhi
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Post by TheGhastlyGrimoire »

I’m certain I’ll be shot for this, but Les Misérables is probably the most overrated classic I’ve ever read. I conquered this tome sometime last year and I still can’t get past the lack of appeal. Perhaps I should have just watched the musical, because 90% of the book is just history.

Okay, that’s an over-exaggeration. It did help me sleep at night though!
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Post by Emma13 »

I also found Moby Dick hard work - I just wasn't sure why I was supposed to care! - but the most overrated classic for me is definitely Don Quixote. It's interminable and covers much of the same ground over and over. Once you've got your head around the themes and you've read the tilting at windmills bit, there's really no point persisting with it.
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Post by Lincolnshirelass »

@TheGhastlyGrimoire. I will join you in not having a happy relationship with Les Miserables (sort of fits, somehow!). I like 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' and quite a lot of Hugo's poetry, but Les Mis is pretty heavy going (though I quite enjoyed a recent radio adaptation and like you I enjoy the musical). Love your username btw!
An Eye for an Eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

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Post by 8catscratch1 »

The most over rated classic of all time is "Moby Dick". Reading it was like slogging through thick gooey mud. The counting house portion alone would put even the most literary reader into a coma. I longed to be harpooned after only a few pages. At first I felt as if I must be missing something, then I came to the conclusion that my feelings about this long winded tale were just as legitimate as any pompous professors. This thick volume is better left on the shelf for poor students assigned the task of sailing its pages through gale after gale.
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Post by Lovewreading89 »

The most overrated classic to me is "Romeo and Juliet" to me its just not a love story. its really two people with an infatuation with each other story/ family fighting with a horrible ending.

the other one is Les miserables.
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Post by Javier Campos »

Dracula! it was good and all but not so good. Surprisingly, some of the books that came after Dracula (vampire related books) are way better even though they go for a plot that is less interesting or complex.
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Post by Maggie G »

I always felt like On the Road was overrated. I think it was Truman Capote who said of Kerouac, “That’s not writing, that’s typing.” Haha.
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