What was the dumbest "classic" mandatory reading book you suffered through in high school and why?

Not that I don't enjoy a good pulpy page turner....

no you didn't read Atlas S. wrote:

nigel power wrote:

Atlas Shrugged

Liberal liar tries to make himself a victim.

That's a very inaccurate synopsis of the book. Did you even read it?

Worst: The Jungle

Best: The Sun Also Rises

grapey wrote:

jjjjj wrote:

don't advertise your stupidity.

Pfft. I've read them ALL pal. Joyce, Tolstoy, Hardy, you name it. Dad was a lit professor and I didn't go to no public HS, yo. I did my Latin homework, then read lit written in English.

Would he let you rub him off when the Latin was done?

I've only been writing for a year or two, but every word and color and detail is put there with purpose to build a world. I doubt there are writers 10000x better than me who neglect this. Your teacher is not over-analyzing, you are simply under-analyzing.

"Portrait of an Artist...oof"

Portrait of a young man as an artist is one of the best novels ever written in history, if you can't appreciate it on some level, I feel very bad for your existence.

gold counter wrote:

The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. As I recall it's about 600 pages of feudal farming in China. The last 100 or so pages are decent but the 500 you read to get there is pure torture.

I've read TKAM and Catcher in the Rye and believe me this is much, much, worse.

Agreed. That book was awful. I had to read it over the summer one year. What a shitty way to spend the summer.

Johnny rotten wrote:

I'm an English teacher, so I've read most of the insufferable stuff--and I've assigned some of it, too.

I can't stand Catcher, either. Holden Caulfied just annoys me.

You are a phony.

Johnny rotten wrote:Most of all I cannot tolerate Gatsby. Not only do I not give a rat's ass about Gatsby himself, but Nick Carraway, the narrator, seems not to have a soul. He's not showily repugnant like Tom Buchanan; he just can't seem to make himself care about anything. The only thing he does of any value is to attend Gatby's funeral and tell his story.

So...to summarize...you're saying Carraway doesn't care about anything or do anything important except tell the entire story? And Carraway didnt just attend funeral if I'm remembering correctly, he organized it. Carraway's the one who realized value of story. Carraway's also the only person who doesn't abandon Gatsby. Carraway's one of the only likable characters in the book, I think.

The Great Gatsby is a fantastic book, quite possibly the great American novel - Moby Dick is up there too. I feel really bad for people who can't appreciate either.

Catcher in the Rye is over-rated for certain and some of the books written in the 170ss and 1800s can be difficult to get interested in, both in terms of style and content.

However...

And if any of you read any of Ayn Rand's three major works - Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged, then those are the rightful answers here. Horrible works of literature and philosophy.

50 shades of Grey

The New Testament. The only good thing about having to read this was diagnosing the apostles various psychological disorders.

The Scarlet Letter, thought it was horrible.

I thought The Catcher in the Rye was great, still my favorite book of all time. Yes, Holden was a complete @ss but he was supposed to be. He doesn't realize that he has all of the traits that he complains about other people having.

Top 3 for me:

-To the Lighthouse

-Return of the Native

-Pride and Prejudice

ifyouthinkso wrote:

I thought The Catcher in the Rye was great, still my favorite book of all time. Yes, Holden was a complete @ss but he was supposed to be. He doesn't realize that he has all of the traits that he complains about other people having.

Exactly. Disliking the main character might be a reason to dislike the book, but it doesn't make the book "dumb." Someone earlier in the thread said that they "hated" Holden. A book has to be pretty powerful to elicit an emotion as strong as hatred. If a book is really bad, you don't care about the characters at all.

"Great Expectations" is a magnificent book. I'm amazed anyone would consider it their worst.

I'd agree that "Scarlet Letter" is wretched to plow through and "The Awakening" is dreadful. People looking for American women writers of an earlier day would do much better with Edith Wharton or Willa Cather than with "The Awakening."

Some of the really unbearable stuff comes when you take a freshman college survey course of English literature. I submit "The Faerie Queene." Run away from it.

portrait of the artist as a young man. The only book I've ever read the cliff notes to. FYI...Joyce was a fart fetishist. Look up his letters lolAyn rand is insufferable. Her philosophy and writing is awful. How did someone so hateful and ignorant of some peoples bad luck at life become so popular?

Is A Terrific wrote:

"Great Expectations" is a magnificent book. I'm amazed anyone would consider it their worst.

I'd agree that "Scarlet Letter" is wretched to plow through and "The Awakening" is dreadful. People looking for American women writers of an earlier day would do much better with Edith Wharton or Willa Cather than with "The Awakening."

Some of the really unbearable stuff comes when you take a freshman college survey course of English literature. I submit "The Faerie Queene." Run away from it.

I used to do some English teaching, and always tried to be careful to avoid books that were beyond the level of my students, or were interesting only as historical artifacts (like the Faerie Queen or even Catcher in the Rye). Reading these types of books can be really interesting--why exactly was Holden Caufield such a powerful character for contemporary readers? How did he connect with readers sympathetic to 60s counter-culture, etc. blah blah blah. But it's too much to ask high school or intro-level college students to enjoy this type of reading.

So, I'm largely sympathetic to this thread. God knows I hated Silas Marner in high school.

That said, it would probably be more accurate for students who hate such books to acknowledge that maybe they don't have the educational background (yet) to enjoy them. It's easy and convenient to say "the book is stupid." Maybe the problem is the student. Education can be a process were we become less and less ignorant. Or we can just call things we don't quite understand "stupid."

sharkey wrote:

For me it was Life of Pi. That stupid book had absolutely no message or lessons to teach. All I got from it was "It's okay to be religious, atheistic, agnostic, or MULTIPLE religions!" (Which is single-handedly the most meaningless and stupid thing I've ever heard). I don't get the mass worship of that book.

What was yours?

Madame Bovary

Beowulf

The Chocolate War

Awful, plus the book got banned by our school midway through reading it, so all work we did on it was for nothing.