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Most hated 'classic' novel you've actually read

not sure if this qualifies as a classic or not, but it was 'classic' enough to make it into my high-school curriculum...
margaret atwood's 'stone angel'.
i had SOOO much trouble staying awake through it, i actually ended up reading it backwords on paragraph at a time. i have no idea how it worked, but it did.

RE: why finish a book you don't like?
i wasn't a great fan of either the chronicles of narnia or lewis carrol's alice stories. i found the righting style really aggravating. BUT... i loved the environment that each story presented me with, so i kept reading.
 
I hate reading anything by Ernest Hemingway. I was an English major in college, so I had to read many of his works and I found all of them BORING! I know that many people consider him to be one of the greatest author's of our time, but I will not palat another Hemingway book as long as I can help it again. I know, strong opinion here. If he's one of your favorites, I'd be interested to know why - I don't want to start an argument, but am curious as to what draws anyone's interests in Hemingway's novels.
 
I hated DH Lawrence's Women In Love with a passion. I had to read it though; I was on a 5 hour train journey and had no other way to pass the time. By the time I got home I was too far into the book to justify giving it up, but I moaned to anyone who would listen how I hated it.

I can't even put a finger on the reasons, although everyone sitting around talking about nothing for three quarters of the book would probably cover it.
 
I just read Taming of the Shrew in English. And while i thought that he did a witty job with many of the monologues, i thought that he most have changed almost everyones name half way through the book for the sole purpose of F-ing me up during the quotes section of the test. Lucentio becomes Cambio and Tranio becomes Lucentio and Benotello becomes Tranio.
 
When I tried to read Atlas Shrugged I gave up at 110 because I couldn't get into it at all.
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You didn't like this one?:eek: A true individualist in an oppressive, life-sucking-out of you- collectivist society struggles to create(gasp!) a business. I love the depiction of people in that one, they go off about *equality* and other cute things, while the economy around them crumbles-if you love economics, that is a great book and a pretty accurate depiction.
 
I hated Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I had to read all of them last year in English...yuck. Before that year I'd always said I never read a novel that I hated. I also tried to read J.R.R. Tolkien and hated him but I don't know if that counts.
 
The fact I couldn't remember anything about Last of the Mohicans three days after I finished the book... well that should tell you something.

I also wasn't too fond of Huckleberry Finn. It may be the Great American Novel, but it's one that I didn't like reading ;).
 
KristoCat said:
I hated As I Lay Dyingby Faulkner. Your mother is a fish?!? No, you're just crazy, kid!!! :mad: :confused: I felt that Faulkner was being deliberately obscure, but without any higher purpose for the obscurity. It was highly annoying. And depressing as hell.
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That's the first book that comes to my mind that I truly hated. And the "My mother is a fish." chapter is one of the reasons why, too. The only thing I got from that book is a loathing for Faulkner.
 
After trying several times, I still have never been able to finish The Mill on the Floss, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, or The Getting of Wisdom.

I did finish Wuthering Heights, but I don't understand why everyone thinks Heathcliff is such a romantic hero. I mean, I know there's the whole playing by his own rules, passion overcoming everything blah blah, but he bored me. And Kathy (senior)!!! So glad when she died.

Give me Jane Eyre any day.
 
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne is one unfunny joke stretched out into nine volumes. I admire Sterne's courage in getting such a bizarre book published though.
 
Peronel said:
After trying several times, I still have never been able to finish The Mill on the Floss, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, or The Getting of Wisdom.

I did finish Wuthering Heights, but I don't understand why everyone thinks Heathcliff is such a romantic hero. I mean, I know there's the whole playing by his own rules, passion overcoming everything blah blah, but he bored me. And Kathy (senior)!!! So glad when she died.

Give me Jane Eyre any day.
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I liked Jane Eyre better, too, but I never saw Heathcliff as a romantic hero, but rather a romantic villain. The book was full of dysfunctionality it was either weak men, villains or blubbering fools for women. However, the story was beautifully woven and I loved reading it.
 
Fastest way to declare yourself a philistine: call Dickens or Shakespeare shit.

I'll put another vote in for The Great Gatsby.
 
White_Rabbit said:
I just read Taming of the Shrew in English. And while i thought that he did a witty job with many of the monologues, i thought that he most have changed almost everyones name half way through the book for the sole purpose of F-ing me up during the quotes section of the test. Lucentio becomes Cambio and Tranio becomes Lucentio and Benotello becomes Tranio.
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lmao.

i know
 
KristoCat said:
I hated As I Lay Dyingby Faulkner. Your mother is a fish?!? No, you're just crazy, kid!!! :mad: :confused: I felt that Faulkner was being deliberately obscure, but without any higher purpose for the obscurity. It was highly annoying. And depressing as hell.
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I think the two Faulkner books (As I Lay Dying & The Sound And The Fury) I've read would be mine. I even had a lot of help from members here to get me through them but I just couldn't bring myself to like them. When I finished them I just felt like whew glad thatrs over.

I don't know why I finished them, I will usually give up if I don't like a book by say page 25-50 but I'm trying to round out my reading a bit with all the classics I've heard of but not read.
 
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