Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck. ARGH ARGH. Reads like Bridge to Terabithia, helluva boring predictable drivel, a clueless retard a classic does not make. That and Animal Farm. I loved it but dredging layers of meaning from an allegory is not a fun thing.
Why is this a literary classic? (not really a rant)
- Thread starter thebobmaster_v1legacy
- Start date
Recommended Videos
It seems that you have read at least one classic enough to use a reference from it.Krakyn said:
Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy, did a manga version of Crime and Punishment which was strangely fitting to the source material, but it was never translated into English so far. Shame.ThrobbingEgo said:
I really couldn't enjoy Animal Farm, because the allegory was so obvious and clunky that I really didn't need any of the historical background to figure out where it was going. Of course the pig called Napoleon is going to take power and be evil. But then I doubt subtlety was really Orwell's strong point. I also had trouble reading Lord of the Rings, due to simple events being dragged out to span chapters, and especially the self-indulgent section with that bore Tom Bombadil which fails to add anything at all to the story. Still, I'm trying to re-read it, and it's currently much more rewarding.
I didn't really have any problem with Lord of the Flies. Yes, I had to perform literary autopsy on it, but the descriptive passages were excellent. And all of it was worth it just to watch the hilarious 1963 movie adaptation.
My favourite classic is Catch-22. Yes, the satire is just as obvious as it is in Animal Farm, but it's also far more enjoyable. I think it's the difference between satire and allegory; satire has you laughing at the absurdity of the matter, while allegory tells you to nod solemnly because this is all very important.
I didn't really have any problem with Lord of the Flies. Yes, I had to perform literary autopsy on it, but the descriptive passages were excellent. And all of it was worth it just to watch the hilarious 1963 movie adaptation.
My favourite classic is Catch-22. Yes, the satire is just as obvious as it is in Animal Farm, but it's also far more enjoyable. I think it's the difference between satire and allegory; satire has you laughing at the absurdity of the matter, while allegory tells you to nod solemnly because this is all very important.
*Screaming with tears in his eyes*Foolish Mortal said:
Never, NEVER, NEVER breath a word against MR Thomas Bombadil again and you may well live to see 20.
Anything by Zora Neale Hurston. We had to read a bunch of her books for school this year, and they all sucked.
It's annoying that every year in school or for summer reading we have to read a book about slavery or black culture, and I'm not racist, but it's boring as all hell. Some examples:
Cry, the Beloved Country.
To Kill a Mockingbird.
And some book that I completely forgot the name of.
It's annoying that every year in school or for summer reading we have to read a book about slavery or black culture, and I'm not racist, but it's boring as all hell. Some examples:
Cry, the Beloved Country.
To Kill a Mockingbird.
And some book that I completely forgot the name of.
Pride and Prejudice needs a book burning. Why I didn't do so once I'd finished my English with it I don't know...
My mother actually found my copy at the back of the loft last night, and was about to read it... I managed to stop her and replace it with Stardust. Feel like I've helped the world in my own little way now
And as for Shakespeare, I hate being taught it in English classes, for one major reason: Shakespeare was a playwrite, which means it should not be read. It should be performed. That's why so many kids dislike him, I think. If it was taught in a different way to analysing every thee and thou, maybe it would be far more popular than it is.
My mother actually found my copy at the back of the loft last night, and was about to read it... I managed to stop her and replace it with Stardust. Feel like I've helped the world in my own little way now
And as for Shakespeare, I hate being taught it in English classes, for one major reason: Shakespeare was a playwrite, which means it should not be read. It should be performed. That's why so many kids dislike him, I think. If it was taught in a different way to analysing every thee and thou, maybe it would be far more popular than it is.
I like George Orwell, and most of his books, but I have to admit I am sick of people saying things like "1984 was amazing OMG itts all happening rite now!!1". He wrote other books: 'Homage to Catalonia' is way better, as its actually describing real events.
The problem with being taught Shakespeare is that everyone falls into one of two camps; either you have to reinterpret every damn line for the benefit of those who don't understand it, or you don't understand it. Also if you read it round the class it just seems to go on forever, usually read in a dreary monotone by someone who should not be made, or even allowed, to read out loud ever. Read properly by people who understand it (and in that category I would not put all professional actors, even) it fair zings along.
That said I hate Romeo and Juliet too. It's one of his first plays, and it reads to me like random bits of poetry crowbarred into a story with very little real understanding of human nature, and R&J themselves just come across as idiot lovesick teenagers. Yes, I'm aware that's what they're supposed to be but I don't find that particularly sympathetic. For a better telling of a tragic romance read Antony And Cleopatra.
I don't like Jane Austen either but I can at least see its literary significance. There's a great deal of difference between reading something for pleasure and for criticism. I've read books for GCSE, A level and Degree and I don't think there was one of them I would have read past chapter two for pleasure. Actually that's not true, I would have read 1984 but then I am an SF nut and I think that particular novel has such a massive influence on SF that you can't claim any knowledge in tyhat field without having read it. Oh, and Frankenstein, for the same reason.
That said I hate Romeo and Juliet too. It's one of his first plays, and it reads to me like random bits of poetry crowbarred into a story with very little real understanding of human nature, and R&J themselves just come across as idiot lovesick teenagers. Yes, I'm aware that's what they're supposed to be but I don't find that particularly sympathetic. For a better telling of a tragic romance read Antony And Cleopatra.
I don't like Jane Austen either but I can at least see its literary significance. There's a great deal of difference between reading something for pleasure and for criticism. I've read books for GCSE, A level and Degree and I don't think there was one of them I would have read past chapter two for pleasure. Actually that's not true, I would have read 1984 but then I am an SF nut and I think that particular novel has such a massive influence on SF that you can't claim any knowledge in tyhat field without having read it. Oh, and Frankenstein, for the same reason.
Because I went to a private Christian school in Canada, many of these classics (1984, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Great Expectations, etc.) weren't mandatory, as the school had its own material to teach us, and even then, we only ended up reading one novel per year:
Grade 9 - Book of the Dun Cow. Kind of interesting. Kind of. Really bizarre. Something about a rooster being the protector of a chicken coop and there being some massive worm in the world that was going to kill everything. I wasn't impressed, but it was dead simple to analyze and write an essay on, so I didn't mind so much.
Grade 10 - To Kill a Mockingbird. The only real "classic" I was ever forced to study. I thought it was an intriguing premise, if the setting was a bit bland and hard to relate to. I was taught a very skewed version of Canadian history, so the setting of the southern US during the Depression (I think that's the correct time period) was completely lost on me.
Grade 11 - The Chosen. Here's where things take a huge nosedive. This is a book about two Jewish boys growing up in New York during World War 2. Nothing of any significance ever happens in the entire book. The conflict is entirely based around the two boys deciding if they want to do what their fathers want or not, and that just seemed so contrived and petty - it had no impact at all. I thought the whole thing just bad.
Grade 12 - The Stone Angel. This is one of the worst books I have ever, EVER read. Its a holdover from the 60 and 70s when Canadians were afraid of losing their "Canadian-ness" to America, so Canadian schools taught stuff by Canadian authors. This book is about a dying old woman suffering from senile dementia. The whole book is her recounting the extremely depressing tale of her life, leading up to a last page epiphany. 10 chapters of needless crap, ending in her trying to do one good thing before she dies. The worst part was, my teacher tried to spin it as if the book was about hope and fulfilled life, and that the author was trying to teach us life lessons. Never mind that the author was apparently an alcoholic chain smoker with manic depression who ended up committing suicide, and the only way the book could be about hope was if you took it as a warning (i.e. never marry someone named Bram Shipley on impulse).
I also had to study four plays by Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummer's Night Dream, and Hamlet), but I love Shakespeare, so those were no problem.
Grade 9 - Book of the Dun Cow. Kind of interesting. Kind of. Really bizarre. Something about a rooster being the protector of a chicken coop and there being some massive worm in the world that was going to kill everything. I wasn't impressed, but it was dead simple to analyze and write an essay on, so I didn't mind so much.
Grade 10 - To Kill a Mockingbird. The only real "classic" I was ever forced to study. I thought it was an intriguing premise, if the setting was a bit bland and hard to relate to. I was taught a very skewed version of Canadian history, so the setting of the southern US during the Depression (I think that's the correct time period) was completely lost on me.
Grade 11 - The Chosen. Here's where things take a huge nosedive. This is a book about two Jewish boys growing up in New York during World War 2. Nothing of any significance ever happens in the entire book. The conflict is entirely based around the two boys deciding if they want to do what their fathers want or not, and that just seemed so contrived and petty - it had no impact at all. I thought the whole thing just bad.
Grade 12 - The Stone Angel. This is one of the worst books I have ever, EVER read. Its a holdover from the 60 and 70s when Canadians were afraid of losing their "Canadian-ness" to America, so Canadian schools taught stuff by Canadian authors. This book is about a dying old woman suffering from senile dementia. The whole book is her recounting the extremely depressing tale of her life, leading up to a last page epiphany. 10 chapters of needless crap, ending in her trying to do one good thing before she dies. The worst part was, my teacher tried to spin it as if the book was about hope and fulfilled life, and that the author was trying to teach us life lessons. Never mind that the author was apparently an alcoholic chain smoker with manic depression who ended up committing suicide, and the only way the book could be about hope was if you took it as a warning (i.e. never marry someone named Bram Shipley on impulse).
I also had to study four plays by Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummer's Night Dream, and Hamlet), but I love Shakespeare, so those were no problem.
I could shout at you for not liking it, but instead I will just say: Oscar Wilde, write that down *No Pen* well then, Remember!HentMas said:
The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings -
What a tedious and overlong book. How can people read this without falling asleep?
Character development is poor and the vast majority of the book is a lot of people walking around...
I can see what Tolkein was trying to do, but the execution is lacking.
Similar with Catch-22. I could see what Joseph Heller was trying to do and it did kind of work, but it lost me towards the end by getting a bit repetitive.
Though it did produce one of the best quotes of all time:
"I can't see how anyone can hold in such reverance a Supreme Being who gave us the phenomenon of phlegm"
-A
What a tedious and overlong book. How can people read this without falling asleep?
Character development is poor and the vast majority of the book is a lot of people walking around...
I can see what Tolkein was trying to do, but the execution is lacking.
Similar with Catch-22. I could see what Joseph Heller was trying to do and it did kind of work, but it lost me towards the end by getting a bit repetitive.
Though it did produce one of the best quotes of all time:
"I can't see how anyone can hold in such reverance a Supreme Being who gave us the phenomenon of phlegm"
-A
Haha, I think you've just nailed the reason why I didn't like it.thebobmaster said:
When I read The Catcher In The Rye, I did half of it on a train journey and then abandoned it for nearly a year before finally finishing it. I couldn't help thinking that maybe this contributed to the apathy, so I picked it up when I was at home and brought it back to read over the summer. I'll see how it goes.
1984 - er, yeah. That's another one I've got on the shelf right in front of my face. Let me just grab it and see how far I got into it before quitting... four chapters. I don't know if it was because everyone basically knows what happens thanks to a million pop-culture references, or if it was just because it's really slow and dreary, but I just got to a point where I just couldn't be arsed to continue. I'll finish it at some point.
Animal Farm. I have a grudge against this as a result of GCSE English Literature. We studied it, it bored me so I didn't take a whole lot of notice - in fact I spent more time comparing the animals to members of my family than what they were meant to be representing... the final straw was when we got to the exam and I realised all too late that I'd forgotten my copy of the book so I had to do it all from what little memory I had. Ended up with an F.
To Kill A Mockingbird - another one I've got here, haven't actually attempted to read it yet, the blurb on the back doesn't exactly sound appealing. Another one bought in my "I must read all of these so-called classics" phase.
Austen, Dickens, Brontë... I guess Regency/Victorian literature as a whole - no. Just no.
On The Road - recommended by a friend who has similar taste in literature, but within just a couple of pages, my brain was screaming "argh, shut uuuuuuuup". Might've just been the mood I was in that day, I've got it here on the shelf so I'll get around to it later.
Fair enough but even those people I've talked to who thinks its a necessary companion to the lord of the rings trilogy admit that they found it slow and boring in places. I'd have thought any sane editor nowadays would cut at least half of it out.Zeeky_Santos said:
Vertical have been translating a lot of his work recently, so hopefully there's a good chance of it being translated at some point in the not-too-distant future. However, with the huge amount that Tezuka pumped out during his lifetime, of course a lot is going to be left out.NewGeekPhilosopher said:
I can understand people not liking Pride and Prejudice, but To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984 and Of Mice and Men? C'mon! They're some of my favourite books (although I was never forced to study them). As I'm starting an English lit degree in September, I'm probably much more tolerant of "classics" but I really enjoyed those two books.
I can understand people not liking LOTR, as much as I loved it the last time I read it (a long, long time ago). However, it's merit as a fantasy classic is pretty much undisputed.