Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Here it is, the negative question. So some reminders before we start. Please do speak politely. We can disagree on which books we like just like we can disagree on which ice cream flavor. It is not personal. On the flip side don't make it personal. So with trepidation here I go....

PLEASE only talk about books that have been group reads.

Here are my lowest three in the ratings. Actually there are 4 books from our shelf that I have read that I gave 1* ratings. Here are the three lowest:

The Lover by Isabel Allende
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

What did I dislike? Honestly, they were all three incomprehensible. I cannot imagine what goes on in Walker's mind and Atwood's mind to have them come up with those scenarios. I tried to understand and stand in another's shoes and failed.

The characters in all three novels did the exact opposite of what I felt I personally would have done. Although I think the setting and plot in Handmaid's Tale is so outlandish I couldn't even try to put myself in it.

They all have something in common, lead characters who are abused women. That could definitely be a thing that makes me recoil from the books.

That being said, if these are your favorite books then fantastic. We just have different opinions. We can still be friends.

I've read these in the past year or so and gave 2 stars...

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. The constant violence depressed and wore me out.

The Symposium by Plato and Praise of Folly by Erasmus. Old philosophy books that I just couldn't get into.

I have three 1-starrers on the groupshelf:
Flowers For Algernon
Frankenstein
both of which I just thought were really badly written
and The Handmaid's Tale
which was well written, but annoyed me on so many levels I don't even want to talk about it ;o)

In the spirit of Lynn's point that it's not personal and we can all still be friends, I have three that are well-loved by many readers, just not me.

Two I gave two stars:
Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac--I just did not get on at all with this writing style. And The Kreutzer Sonata--much as I normally love Tolstoy this put forth views so disturbing I couldn't get past them.

And one one star, that, as Darren says, "annoyed me on so many levels I don't even want to talk about it": If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino.

I am in agreement with several of you on this question --

My three are:
The Handmaid’s Tale - I read this in 1989 and again in 2018 (for book club) and disliked it both times. It makes me not want to read anything else by Atwood (though I did enjoy Hag-Seed: The Tempest Retold)
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler -- just couldn't get into this one.

And my one star that I refuse to discuss is:
The Trial by Franz Kafka -- just don't even.....

I was surprised to find 7 one-star reads on my list. Some stars mean more than others, however, and picking the 3 was not hard:

A Confederacy of Dunces - I felt like a dunce when I got to the end, because I had wanted to quit from almost the first page.

Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel García Márquez and I are like oil and water.

Lolita - I found this book disturbing.

Thanks for a very interesting question, Lynn. It is fascinating to see what others pick.

further to my earlier post, I perhaps ought to mention that, in addition to three 1-starrers, I have also DNF'd 15 (FIFTEEN) of our group-shelf books
:oO
(but I do like this group, honestly I do)

This is a really interesting topic, and highlights how personal a response to a book is.

My three choices:
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - forced to read it for school exams, disliked it so much I didn’t read Hardy again for about 40 years
To the Lighthouse - not keen on stream of consciousness at the best of times, and I always feel Woolf is writing for other highbrow authors, not Joe Public like me
The God of Small Things - I so much wanted to love this, but I got bogged down and she kept throwing in funny remarks at the wrong moments!

I have 3 that fit my least favorite reads on the shelf.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Süskind : this was disturbing for me. Way too demented a character for me. I gave this 1 star

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett : I know this is widely popular and I wanted to love it. It read as a medieval soap opera to me with historical bits tossed in. 1 star from me.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt: I actually read this twice giving my 2 star rating a chance for redemption but no. I just couldn’t. Too sensational for me.

All the below are based on my last read of the books and IMO one's thoughts only reflect the reaction to the read at the time of that specific read.

The 39 Steps-- felt dated

Blindness-- below expectations

Catch-22-- felt very repetitive

I have very much liked most of the books on the shelf that I have read. The following are exceptions
The Talented Mister Ripley by Patricia Highsmith I found too disturbing and at times annoying. I was not quite sure what to make of this book.
Dune by Frank Herbert I found impossible to get into and abandoned quite early. This was many years ago and I should probably give it another try.
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier I gave 3 stars. I felt the story and themes quite dated. I was very disappointed in this book.

Catcher in the Rye--Holden Caufield needs to taken out to the barn and have hide tanned with a rubber hose (its too late to take Salinger's typewriter away from him).

Infinte Jest--DNF right now, but I may go back and finish (it's been on my "Currently Reading" shelf for over a year). Wallace hates his characters, despises his readers and kills the humor of his book by explaining it to death. A great hipster novel where the author blames everybody else for his problems.

Dune--humourless, dry sci-fi tale that relies on dreary inner monologues to further the story. 600 pages that felt like 1200 pages.

The Stand--This is a weird selection for me. The 1978 original was a masterpiece. The 1990 rewrite brings it into King's Dark Tower mythology, but destroys everything that was great about the original. A fall from 5 to Zero stars.

Squire wrote: "Catcher in the Rye--Holden Caufield needs to taken out to the barn and have hide tanned with a rubber hose (its too late to take Salinger's typewriter away from him).

Infinte Jest--DNF right now, ..."

Interesting. I have not read much by Stephen King so I had no idea he rewrote his novels.

I didn't like any of these at all. Definitely my three here:

The Master and Margarita
The Pillars of the Earth
A Confederacy of Dunces

The Secret History The book is just too long. There is too many small side trips that are not part of the story. It almost feels like Donna Tartt wrote a 250-page book and the editor told her that longer books sell better and it was artificially expended. Why do we have to hear about all those drives with Henry to see this and that? Henry eating? Henry buying a garden tool?

The narrator is supposed to be a man, but has a distinct female voice. It is so much than even I can see it (English is my second language).

The language is sloppy. Too many extra words “...I found myself...” artificially expanding the page numbers.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ The writing is very old fashioned in a 1700ish way: Long complicated sentence structure to show how educated and intellectual the writer is. Some parts are painful to read. Also it is hard to know what historical details are actual historical and what are religious wishful thinking.

Catch-22. DNF after 100 pages.

J_BlueFlower wrote: "The Last Battle (Chronicles of Narnia, #7) Open racist drivel camouflaged at a children's book. My first 1 star read in more than 2 years. Notice it is The Last Battle specificly, not ..."

Neither The Last Battle nor The Girl in the Spider's Web are on our bookshelf.

"PLEASE only talk about books that have been group reads."

Sara wrote: "PLEASE only talk about books that have been group reads."

Ops, I cannot read, I guess.... Removed and added two others.

Thanks.

Oh boi here we go:

*The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho* (or anything written by that man for that matter). Oh. My. God. You freaking hippie stoooooop with the meaningless platitudes and hallmark’s one liners. Yisus crais. As to why I have more than one of his book in my bookshelf, someone in my house got cancer and there were needs of some feel good spiritual awakening type of books, so the adults bought most of them. Tried one when I was like 8, didn’t understand and thought I needed more ‘adult knowledge’ to get it. Read it again at age 15 and yep, utter rubbish. Feel people here in LATAM got carried away by Coelho’s pandering and ‘old wise man’ schtick.

*The Trial by Franz Kafka*. It wasn’t necessarily enjoyable, but I kind of expect it because, you know, never finished? If anything it is very interesting, the edition I got also has some extra scenes never finished (I don’t know if those are included in the English version).

*Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky* I was super exited for this book, but it was kinda ‘meh’ for me. Was waiting for it to get better and then… it ended. The protagonist is insufferable, and his Fantine-ish emotional support girlfriend could’ve done better than him. Brothers Karamazov deserves way more praise just sayin’ (didn’t see Brothers Karamazov in the bookshelf)

🗑️ A Confederacy of Dunces DNF’d, very quickly. Hated the writing, the characters, the humor, all of it.
🗑️ One Hundred Years of Solitude DNF’d at about 30%. It was all gratuitous, uninteresting, borderline-incestuous sex, followed by pointless, uninteresting battles & reprisals. So tedious.
🗑️ Catch-22 DNF’d at about halfway through. Just kept getting worse & worse, the longer I read.

Haven’t ever regretted dumping any of those.

I was surprised to find that I have only given one book on our shelf a one-star rating:

Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

Another book I really did not like, although I rated it two stars (and I might go back and lower it, now that I think about it) was:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

There were a few others I ran across that were two star ratings, although I think they were all more like 2.5 stars in reality. Yay! We read good books here! But to round out my bottom three I will go with:

Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll

...which I think was a lot less "fun" than the first book and, while I appreciate how much the Alice stories are beloved by generations of readers, I never found it fun or even interesting.

I've noticed lots of books I really enjoyed - including some of my all-time favorites! - listed above by other readers, including:

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Secret History by Donna Tartt

So it's all a matter of taste, I suppose. Of the books I didn't enjoy, I gladly admit they were all well written, but I just did not connect with them in some fundamental way.

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "So it's all a matter of taste, I suppose. Of the books I didn't enjoy, I gladly admit they were all well written, but I just did not connect with them in some fundamental way."

I do often find it interesting that books I adore others abhor and vice-versa.

Sara wrote: "RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "So it's all a matter of taste, I suppose. Of the books I didn't enjoy, I gladly admit they were all well written, but I just did not connect with them in some fundamen..."

And, Sara, this is when I have to say that I laughed the other day when you said you disliked A Confederacy of Dunces and gave it one star -- and I gave it 5 stars and loved it!! haha! I thought it was so funny. And it was a book that I really expected to dislike!!
As much as we enjoy so many of the same books, there are still going to be some that we differ on. I just thought that was humorous and interesting. I love how books speak to people in different ways :)

Exactly!

I have only 2 one star books, but quite a few 2 stars on the list. So as I looked at them, the ones that stand out that I really didn't like was: As I Lay Dying; I just cannot get into Faulkner;
Ulysses; story was fine, it was the crazy writing!
Sula; I so wanted to like this book but I have found that Morrison is another author that it is difficult for me to connect with.

Here are my least favorites

A Confederacy of Dunces - This is my one star read. I read it over 20 years ago for book club. I hated the humor and the story. Wish I would have DNF'd it

The Great Gatsby - I'm probably an outlier but find this one to be so over hyped. I disliked Daisy so much and it completely took me out of the story.

Lord of the Flies - I read this in high school (30 years ago). The violence and story were outside anything I would have read at that age. I have been wondering if I could appreciate it more on a reread at this stage in life.

Seems like A Confederacy of Dunces is one that not a lot of people liked. I might have to give it a try! I can be a glutton for punishment.

: D

I liked 90% of the book a lot. I can definitely understand people disliking it. It is a special kind of humor.

Squire wrote: "Seems like A Confederacy of Dunces is one that not a lot of people liked. I might have to give it a try! I can be a glutton for punishment.

: D"

LOL Squire

Kris wrote: "Here are my least favorites

A Confederacy of Dunces - This is my one star read. I read it over 20 years ago for book club. I hated the humor and the story. Wish I would have DNF'd it..."

Chris I never "had" to read The Great Gatsby. I have attempted and quit three times. I understand. Daisy's complete indifference to her children was my reason for quitting the book.

I tend to only join the monthly reads if I think I'm going to like a book, so it's pretty rare that I really dislike one. There were a handful of books I gave 3*s, but I'm fine with that.

The one book for which my opinion is not popular is Blindness. I was excited when it won because it's on a top 100 greatest books of all time that I admire, so I had wanted to read it. And the author is loved my some people I respect. I still think I might like his other works, but my review of Blindness was pretty scathing.

So let me end on a positive. Hunger was also on that top 100 list and thanks to this group I finally read it. My review is here. And a story I had not even heard of but can thank this group for finding was The Last Question. It was a gem for me as someone who was in high tech and is fascinated with AI and the universe.

So thank you group for the nudges. Whether I like a book or not, it's an adventure and I'm so grateful.

I've liked almost all the books I joined for, including a lot of the ones mentioned in this thread that others didn't like. And I had to dig back really far to come up with three. There are really only two, with a third that is only a question of my mood at the time.

A Confederacy of Dunces: This one just wasn't for me, but it's purely a matter of personal taste. I generally struggle to appreciate this type of humor.

Ulysses: Mainly it is my personal mental block of not liking any book that I feel requires a secret decoder ring of other explanatory books to make sense of. I prefer to read books without supplemental material first and then only after I form my own impressions, to read other supplemental material by critics. This is the only book I have ever read so far (either inside or outside of the group) where I felt like I couldn't get very far on my own, no matter what I did. As a result, I didn't enjoy it. I am sure if I could have gotten past my inclinations and read it alongside explanatory materials, I would have liked it better.

The third one is not even fair to include because it was just a matter of my mood at the time. I gave up on Praise of Folly pretty early. It didn't help that I am pretty sure I was using a very poor translation; the syntax was extremely tangled. It might have been literal, but it was clunky as hell. I'd like to give it another try with a better translation someday.

Another vote for A Confederacy of Dunces! It's DEFINITELY on my tbr now.

Greg wrote: “Ulysses: Mainly it is my personal mental block of not liking any book that I feel requires a secret decoder ring of other explanatory books to make sense of. I prefer to read books ...”

Completely agree—I’ve always known Ulysses was this way, though, so I’ve never even attempted to read it. Nor do I ever intend to. You’re probably right about the best way to read it, as well. But I’m no longer in school, and I can’t really see myself ever reading a book that way.

How I managed to enjoy The Master and Margarita so much, I don’t know. That book is also crammed full of allusions and references. But it’s just so much fun.

spoko, I think the difference for me is that The Master and Margarita functions on many different levels. I enjoyed it as well! Although I have no doubt that research, criticism, and local knowledge could deepen the experience, I was able to get a great deal from the book even apart from any of that.

Whereas with Ulysses, I required extra materials to get anything out of it. That could very well be a failing on my part. But it is the only book I have ever read that I felt that way about.

Greg wrote: “spoko, I think the difference for me is that The Master and Margarita functions on many different levels. I enjoyed it as well! Although I have no doubt that research, criticism, and ...”

That sounds right to me. I heartily disagree, by the way, that it might be a failing on your part. I’m pretty firm in my conviction that a book shouldn’t be written to require that. Others certainly will disagree, but this I strongly believe. Honestly, The Master and Margarita is a great counterexample—it is possible to write something that rewards some research and/or outside knowledge, but doesn’t utterly require it. Truthfully, I did find myself rabbit-holing some of the references from it, but I was driven by the fact that I was already so engrossed in the work itself.