The Worst Great Literary Work You'Ve Ever Read

[SimonNZ]

Oh, yes, that is another novel that I've started reading twice, or even thrice, without ever finishing it. I guess it's one of the few instances in which the movie is better than the book.

No, that's far too far. Even in the main narrative there's so much internal experience that can't be filmed but only written.

If anyone needs a way into Moby Dick I highly recommend Frank Muller's reading complete on 18cds. The model of what an audiobook can achieve and of the distinct artistry of an audio reader. (Take note you embarrassing amateurs at LibriVox: its an art). I'm sure there are other versions of it, but that one was a revelation to me - and he made me love all the digressions. Its no wonder he got the gig as Stephen King's audio reader of choice (and of many others).

Likewise, anyone wanting a way into Heart Of Darkness might try Kenneth Branaugh's reading.

[Florestan]

No, that's far too far. Even in the main narrative there's so much internal experience that can't be filmed but only written.

Okay.

Libera per vacuum etc.

[SimonNZ]

Libera per vacuum etc.

You'll have to explain that one for me. Google isn't being much help.

[DavidW]

I truly admire students who really delve into literature; my personal love of Dickens comes from HS.

I read many of his novels when I was in HS and loved them.  But a few months back I tried reading Bleak House, and I just don't like his style anymore.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I read many of his novels when I was in HS and loved them.  But a few months back I tried reading Bleak House, and I just don't like his style anymore.

It's funny, when I was in high school I didn't much like Dickens (or maybe I just disliked him because he was assigned reading). Much later, going back to him on my own, my reaction was the exact opposite.

[LKB]

Call me a philistine --- I vastly prefer Dickens to any Russian save Turgenev. 

Call me something worse than a Philistine, l greatly prefer Dickens over any Russian, period. 

[Holden]

Another vote for James Joyce but a different novel - Ulysses which I just cpundn't finish in the end.

And while we're are looking at drama (you did mention Shakespeare) Dylan Thomas 'Under Milk Wood' gets a thumbs down vote as well. It starts well but then just meanders along in all sorts of different directions until it gets hopelessly lost and the repetitively overuse of adjectival phrases just end up getting boring. I'm surprised that Richard Burton didn't fall asleep while trying to put it onto LP.

[SimonNZ]

Another vote for James Joyce but a different novel - Ulysses which I just cpundn't finish in the end.

And while we're are looking at drama (you did mention Shakespeare) Dylan Thomas 'Under Milk Wood' gets a thumbs down vote as well. It starts well but then just meanders along in all sorts of different directions until it gets hopelessly lost and the repetitively overuse of adjectival phrases just end up getting boring. I'm surprised that Richard Burton didn't fall asleep while trying to put it onto LP.

The Burton recording is oddly slow and humorless. Try instead Thomas' own recording recorded live with friends and an enthusiastic audience. It's fast and fun.

[Ganondorf]

Crime and Punishment is simply beyond High School students. It's a crime so to punish them.

I probably understood Crime and punishment better as a kid than as an adult.

[Florestan]

You'll have to explain that one for me. Google isn't being much help.

It's a quote from Horace: Libera per vacuum posui vestigia princeps, non aliena meo pressi pede, approximately translating as I went the first in a desert place, my steps did not follow another's. But why I wrote that in reply to your post, I can't explain because I have no idea. 

[Mandryka]

By which I mean, what literary work which is unanimously considered a masterpiece do you personally find not so great at all?

My first and foremost example is The Sorrows of Young Werther. A laughably mawkish piece of shit, yet one which led astray a whole generation, with echoes as far as Brahms and Massenet. How and why Goethe of all people should have written such crap is beyond me.

Your turn.

Worstward Ho

[Jo498]

Ordinary life is boring --- and Heaven forfend that it should ever be otherwise.

Do you want the self-same drama in your own life too?

Of course not. But that's what literature is for, isn't it? Did the Greeks want to experience a 10 year long siege war or the dire fates that befell Oedipus or Agamemnon?
Of course not, but the whole point was that vicarious experience in the theater or when listening to a recitation (or today reading) is somehow good for the soul (e.g. cleansing it of the emotions that would otherwise run amok or so).

[Florestan]

Of course not. But that's what literature is for, isn't it? Did the Greeks want to experience a 10 year long siege war or the dire fates that befell Oedipus or Agamemnon?
Of course not, but the whole point was that vicarious experience in the theater or when listening to a recitation (or today reading) is somehow good for the soul (e.g. cleansing it of the emotions that would otherwise run amok or so).

You're right, of course..

[Ganondorf]

Likeable and boring.

I find this true in general although I initially rather liked Levin. In some writers such as Dickens this is extremely notable. Give me Steerforth any day over Tommy Traddles. Steerforth's a jerkass but he's ten million times deeper, more witty and charismatic than Traddles.

[Brian]

The Natural by Bernard Malamud is certainly not exalted to the level of Tolstoy or Goethe. But it is considered a masterpiece of American postwar fiction, a parable of the American dream, and considered also by many people to be the best novel ever written about baseball.

Well...no. Malamud didn't understand baseball at all (even its rules), but his sins are much worse than that. The book is strangely misogynistic (all the women characters are crazy and violent), and the final plot twist and climax is provided by the character making a moral choice. The problem is that his moral choice is forced by ridiculous mechanics and twists. The author manipulates events so much that it all feels egregiously fake. And the author forces the character to make his "choice" in order to teach readers a bitter moral.

I object to being preached at, no matter what the religion  , so I found that manipulation repugnant. Especially since the characters and descriptions were also bad and the prose uninteresting. The book is completely without merit.

[Mandryka]

By which I mean, what literary work which is unanimously considered a masterpiece do you personally find not so great at all?

My first and foremost example is The Sorrows of Young Werther. A laughably mawkish piece of shit, yet one which led astray a whole generation, with echoes as far as Brahms and Massenet. How and why Goethe of all people should have written such crap is beyond me.

Your turn.

The Death of Virgil

[DaveF]

The Death of Virgil

Thank you - a copy sits in my bedside cupboard, from where I take it occasionally, read the first 20 pages (again, having forgotten where I got to last time) and then lose interest.

And Joyce has been mentioned a couple of times, but not for Finnegans Wake - surely nobody has read that?

[Karl Henning]

Thank you - a copy sits in my bedside cupboard, from where I take it occasionally, read the first 20 pages (again, having forgotten where I got to last time) and then lose interest.

And Joyce has been mentioned a couple of times, but not for Finnegans Wake - surely nobody has read that?

I've really only read short stories and poems by Joyce.

[BWV 1080]

And Joyce has been mentioned a couple of times, but not for Finnegans Wake - surely nobody has read that?

Took a run at it a couple of years ago, made it through book 1, then book 2 got even more difficult

Ulysses was an easy read in comparison

[Spotted Horses]

I seem to be perpetually stuck about 30% of the way through Ulysses. It starts out easy but eventually every page becomes a puzzle to solve. I'm not going to deny it's a masterpiece (since so many people find it compelling) but I marvel that there are people who have so much time on their hands to spend reading one book.

I missed my chance, when I was at University there was a famous class which dedicated the entire semester to Ulysses, and I didn't take it.