Famous books you never cared for/understood the appeal of?

I can see why many modern readers don't like Heart of Darkness. I reread it recently (I'm a big Conrad fan). It consists mostly of huge long paragraphs, walls of text, and that can be intimidating. There's very little dialogue. It's all narration and description. Nothing to break up the page into manageable chunks. Maybe this is very nineteenth-century, and readers today just don't want to deal with it because it requires patience.

It's amazing, though. Watching the narrator Marlow react to the increasingly-oppressive jungle, the environment he's in, is fascinating. He has this growing realization of just how far from civilization he really is, and a growing dread of the wild. Put yourself in the position of the reader at the time the story was published, and it's chilling. Very powerful stuff.

 

That's true. I think Heart of Darkness has also been sort of tainted, it's too old fashioned in another way. Yes, you have post-colonial interpretations that have focused more on the people Conrad clearly did not focus on, and it's kind of taken away from the bleak interpretation I had when I first read it. I first read it as part of a early Modernist course, so we were basically directed into an existentialist reading. What is the 'Horror' that Kurtz sees?

And also ... yeah, Apocalypse Now. Fantastic film, but it's affected the way I feel about the novel, more than the way I think about it. If that makes any sense what so ever.

 

Conrad is one of my favorites.

 

No, not being sarcastic. For once. I kind of always liked the original title. It's so provocative.

Haha, that's pretty weird, yeah. my edition looks like this, so the dragon could be of any size on the character's skin.

I need to be on a fairly shameless mood to be able to digest so markedly self-fullfilment-ey literature, but I can recognize the appeal there. But it's interesting how the way you describe him, Christian Grey actually sounds like such a dream guy for, I'd imagine, a lot of women! The impression I got from what little I read was that he's like Patrick Bateman, lol. I actually loved American Psycho, and Bateman fascinated me in that morbid way evil fascinates people, so I think if Anastasia wasn't in that story, if it was just Christian on a moral decline until he needs to start getting his kicks out something truly illegal, I probably would've read it.

 

Harry Potter books always felt badly written to me.

They're for children, I know, but the way people my age harp on about how great they are makes me think they lack the brain cells for better fiction.

 

Stephen King's Dark Tower series. The first time I tried reading it, I got about half-way into the second book before I got bored.

A couple of years later, my dad told me that the series bets a lot better from there, so I re-read the first book, finished the second, and got half-way into the third before I realized I still felt the same way that I did the first time: that I was reading them for the sake of saying "I read The Dark Tower" rather than because I actually liked reading the story.

 

Nah. That was all right. What I couldn't stand was James' obvious fetish with long nails and feet... I don't know what the 2nd book's like as I only ever read the first and didn't care enough to wanna continue lol, but in the first book, James mentions Grey's long nails and feet a lot!

 

When I started reading Stephen King, I must confess that I found his style to be very dark and cold. But the more I read of him, the more I realised what a guru he is and realised that his work, despite being dark and cold, really captured me.

 

I don't get the feet fetish. I mean, feet are dirty! And if you have a cat, some very nasty things can get stick between toes when talking about bare foot. Eeeewwwwww!

 

I know I'm going to catch a lot of crap for this, but I thought Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath was boring. Who cares about a bunch of farmers and dust storms?

 

Bob Dylan? I have to fess up, I must admit I've not read anything by Steinbeck over than (for some reason) Cannery Row.

 

He obviously did.

 

You haven't read Of Mice and Men? And you're an English teacher? Come on man!

 

Ironically, I read Of Mine and Men during English lessons in high school.

 

I know, I don't get it either.

My high school was very snooty about American literature, they only let a few classes do Of Mice and Men, and mine was (like most of the classes at my school) given something by Dickens and George Eliot because British literature was seen as superior to American literature. I will read Of Mice and Men one day, though.

I went to a high school that did Classics too, so ... there is that.

 

That's true, though, right?

 

We read classics to, but the two famous Steinbeck books were pretty much guaranteed to be part of the school curriculum.

 

Oh no you didn't! British writers spell words wrong like favourite. It's favorite!

 

There's a U in Aluminium? Right?

Yeah, I think it was mostly due to our teachers seeing American literature as sort of crass and not as good for British students as British literature.

 

Aluminum

 

Sheathe your patriotic dicks, Brits and Yanks! >:[ Or I'll be forced to drop lit matches in your pants/trousers.

Books I never could understand? Um... most of Shakespeare?

 

What's that word?

(UK/US spelling differences are amazing. )

 

What about French literature? IS FRANCE NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU, YOU BRITISH _____!!??

FRANCE IS SUPERIOR IN ALMOST EVERY WAY!! IT IS THE SUPERIOR NATION, THE SUPERIOR CIVILIZATION!!!! VIVI LA FRAAAAAAAANCE!!!

*ahem* That is all.

Anyway, I never really got Jane Austen. Her characters were too...whiny in my opinion. :/

As for Shakespeare, no offense to @Lemex , I found him a bit difficult to understand. Takes a few reads. Crafty lil' bastard.

 

They got some pretty superior B.O. that's for sure.

 

I don't read French Literature because even the writers try to avoid having conflicts in their books.