The Worst Great Literary Work You'Ve Ever Read

[Brian]

Yeah, I wish I had read White Noise, especially with the recent movie. I think all his fond memories of Underworld were based on the prologue, the baseball chapter. Which was really good! But it was only the prologue...

[(poco) Sforzando]

I am an ardent though not uncritical Shakespearean, and a few years ago moderated an online reading group where we went through all the plays. (We started strong with 15 or so members, but by the end dwindled to about 4.) We also included some of Shakespeare's contemporaries, and while John Webster's two tragedies and Dekker's Shoemaker's Holiday were huge hits, no one much liked Marlowe's Faustus. And I thought Ben Jonson's The Alchemist was so unbearable that I stopped the reading midway, and we instead read Euripides' Medea which was much more fun.

I am a great lover of Moby Dick, BTW.

[Franco_Manitobain]

Count me in as another huge fan of Moby Dick.

[DavidW]

Yeah, I wish I had read White Noise, especially with the recent movie.

I had not seen the movie, but the novel is great!

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Really, Finnegan's Wake is easier to read...

LOL, At Swim-Two-Birds is one of my favorite books of all time. I used to have chunks of it memorized.

[ritter]

I've never been a fan of Marguerite Yourcenar. Her style is so erudite (in what to me feels almost like a bragging exercise) that her prose turns dry IMHO (despite its much-vaunted lyricism).

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

We all disliked Don DeLillo's Underworld so much - including the professor, who hadn't read it in a few years! - that after two classes he said, "Should we give up and move on to the next one?"

I got this out of the library to test-read it - I wasn't going to buy an 800-page novel if I wasn't sure it was worth the investment. It didn't pass the 50-page test. There may be some interesting parts here and there, but it wasn't worth the slog to discover them.

[SimonNZ]

I liked and in many places admired Underworld. I also had a number of criticisms and reservations, including the occasionally affected purple prose, but that didn't ultimately detract from the literally dozens of original and memorable stand-alone scenes. And for a big fat high-concept book it was a remarkably fast read.

[LKB]

I love Of Mice and Men, Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden.  I want to someday get to Cannery Row.  I really like Steinbeck's down to Earth style and well written characters.

I've been a Steinbeck fan since around 1980, but only got to Cannery Row about three years ago. It immediately became my favorite fiction from J.S.

I'd also recommend the following:

Travels with Charley in Search of America https://a.co/d/gqkWqIG

The Log From the Sea of Cortez https://a.co/d/fvrL6Is

America and Americans https://a.co/d/4It85eA

[Karl Henning]

I had an American Literature After 1980 class in college. We all disliked Don DeLillo's Underworld so much - including the professor, who hadn't read it in a few years! - that after two classes he said, "Should we give up and move on to the next one?"

To this day the only DeLillo I've read is White Noise, which I still like. Don't think I'm interested in a movie.

[Cato]

... we instead read Euripides' Medea which was much more fun.

I am a great lover of Moby Dick, BTW.

Count me in as another huge fan of Moby Dick.

Amen!  Euripides is an all-around favorite! 

On Moby Dick, I know people who just roll their eyes, when I mention that they should give the book a chance. 

My favorite comment came from a colleague with a dunce-level I.Q.: "It's so long and boring!"

"Oh!  So you have read the book!"

"No!  It's too long and boring!"

"But how do you know it's boring, if you have never read it?"

(Shrugs, with an incredulous face) "Everybody knows it's boring." 

"So, do you really think that 'everybody' has read Moby Dick?"

"Nah, but, everybody I know says it's just a big long bore!"

I should have given up, but persisted: "And you're positive that 'everybody you know' really has read the book, and are not like you?"

(Shrugs) "It doesn't matter 'cause I'm never gonna read it anyway." 

On second thought, I may have insulted dunces with the earlier comment!

[Jo498]

I've been a Steinbeck fan since around 1980, but only got to Cannery Row about three years ago. It immediately became my favorite fiction from J.S.

It's a very entertaining and humane book with really picturesque characters and very comical situations. Totally different from e.g. Grapes of Wrath and I'd recommend it to everyone who finds some other Steinbeck a bit too serious.

[vers la flamme]

I must be the only one who liked The Catcher in the Rye. I read it when I was about the protagonist's age, and again some 10 years later, and I enjoyed it greatly both times.

[Karl Henning]

I must be the only one who liked The Catcher in the Rye. I read it when I was about the protagonist's age, and again some 10 years later, and I enjoyed it greatly both times.

I like that Mel Gibson likes it in Conspiracy Theory

[Brian]

I must be the only one who liked The Catcher in the Rye. I read it when I was about the protagonist's age, and again some 10 years later, and I enjoyed it greatly both times.

My mom wrote her master's degree thesis on Holden's psychology so I get a little defensive when people attack it.

[Mandryka]

I've never been a fan of Marguerite Yourcenar. Her style is so erudite (in what to me feels almost like a bragging exercise) that her prose turns dry IMHO (despite its much-vaunted lyricism).

OMG! Zeno and Hadrien are two of my literary heroes!

[Ganondorf]

King Lear. And while I enjoy Hamlet I'm not going to pretend that it's a perfect play.

[SimonNZ]

I like that Mel Gibson likes it in Conspiracy Theory

Except the men in black would be chasing random purchases all over the city every day. They should have made it a book that bookshops feel obliged to carry but seldom actually sell.

[Jo498]

I must be the only one who liked The Catcher in the Rye. I read it when I was about the protagonist's age, and again some 10 years later, and I enjoyed it greatly both times.

As I said, I am not going to read it again; I have no deep grudge against it, but I find it ridiculous to force it on teenagers two generations later on the other side of the ocean as a "classic" (and feel smugly progressive because it is "modern" book with a troubled teenage protagonist"). So it's less the book but the teaching/education establishment I am fed up with.

There was actual one much worse book in my school time, called "The new sorrows of young W" by the East German author Plenzdorf who ca. 1970 wrote a GDR version of the Werther triangle story featuring a rebellious 17 year old. While CitR had in my view aged badly in almost 40 years, the Plenzdorf book did worse in less than 20. The obviously "brilliant" idea of education boards for German class was of course to read Goethe's Werther and "The new sorrows of young W" back to back...

[Florestan]

There was actual one much worse book in my school time, called "The new sorrows of young W" by the East German author Plenzdorf who ca. 1970 wrote a GDR version of the Werther triangle story featuring a rebellious 17 year old. While CitR had in my view aged badly in almost 40 years, the Plenzdorf book did worse in less than 20. The obviously "brilliant" idea of education boards for German class was of course to read Goethe's Werther and "The new sorrows of young W" back to back...

The horror! The horror!