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/lit/ - Literature

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19684935 No.19684935 [Reply] [Original]

What are some "classics" which aren't worth reading?

>> No.19685022

tale of two cities

>> No.19685024

Ethan Frome

>> No.19685060

>>19685024
Not this

>> No.19685068

Wuthering Heights

>> No.19685069

>>19684935
Remembrance of Gay Jew Frenchie's Things Past

>> No.19685076

>>19685068
oof wrong

>> No.19685087
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19685087

>>19685068
Try again, boo-boo.

>> No.19685095

>>19685068
Aye

>> No.19685106

the greeks

>> No.19685135
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19685135

>>19684935a
AIWL turned out being a real let down. No morals, no message, and there was the cruel massacre of the oysters, but what kind of metaphor was that supposed to be?

>> No.19685155

>>19685135
Crazy coincidental. I was just thinking about the film like a second ago.
> https://youtu.be/RdsZT7WKjW8

>> No.19685162

>>19684935
Jane Austen

>> No.19685219

>>19684935
aenid
dosto
beats

>> No.19685237

>>19684935
All of the ones that you like.

>> No.19686261

Brother's Karamazov

>> No.19686272

>>19686261
*C&P and Notes were alright, demons started out as trite as Brothers so I never bothered with it and haven't read the Idiot

>> No.19686285
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19686285

>>19686272
Damn u filtered hard bro!

>> No.19686434

>>19684935
How to kill a mockingbird

>> No.19686449

>>19684935
Oscar Wilde's Dorian book

>> No.19686465

>>19686261

Grow up.

>>19686449

It's a fun book though, come on man.

>> No.19686498

>>19686261
>'

>> No.19686527

>>19685162
austen is comfy and fun

>> No.19686558

>>19684935
I don't think any of them are a waste of time anon. It doesn't take that long to read a full book, unless the book is too wordy. You only have one life, you could try being more thorough

>> No.19686603

Anything Dickens. Anything by a woman. Most of Hawthorne.

>> No.19686805

>>19684935
The answer is different for everyone

>> No.19686816

>>19686449
t. romantic living in denial

>> No.19686821

>>19685068
YES

>> No.19686994

>>19685106
repent

>> No.19687066

The one you're going to glaze your eyes over the entire time you read it

>> No.19687072

>>19685068
Filtered.

>> No.19687078

>>19686261
>le contrarian

>> No.19687082

I like Victorian literature but i'd say a lot of it is a waste

>> No.19687085

>>19686449
Agreed, but his essays are very much worthwhile.

>> No.19687104

>>19685135
I thought it was just meant to be an allegorical tract against modern mathematics or something.

>> No.19687105

>>19686261
Kys

>> No.19687107

>>19687082
>filtered by Can You Forgive Her?
couldn't be me

>> No.19687114

Ulysses

>> No.19687115

>>19686272
Wow, dude. Can't believe you just admitted to all of that publicly without a proxy.

>> No.19687117

>>19684935
Truly a lot of them, as many of the classics are just imitations of previous works or possess merely historical interest. Even some of the good ones aren't really necessary to read.
Just to list a few of them: Lord Byron, many of Shakespeare's plays, most of Coleridge's poetry, any set of complete works by nearly anyone, "foundational works" such as the Cid and the Song of Roland which are good but frankly rather primitive, most of Petrarch's poetry, the lyric poetry of Tasso and Camões, and so on...

>>19685068
Completely true. As George Steiner said, it's just glorified kitsch.
Lots of readers have kitsch sensibilities, so naturally they love it.

>> No.19687129

I didn't get much from the Homeric Hymns desu

>> No.19687133

>>19686261
Ty. Seriously, anyone that has read Dostoievski's other works can notice how BK is just every book he wrote but watered down to a distasteful puddle with zero nuance and too preachy

>> No.19687280

>>19687078
>le hiveminder

>> No.19687289

>>19684935
Faust 2

>> No.19687515

Hunger by Knut Hamsun
It's just a 4chan greentext in novel form.

>> No.19687541

Angels in America

>> No.19687672

>>19687515
kys

>> No.19687775

>>19686272
Crime and Punishment is the one of his major novels that you could consider skipping.

As for "classics" you'd be better off ignoring:
Ulysses
Portrait of An Artist as a Young Man
The Threepenny Opera
Pygmalion
The Importance of Being Earnest
Any of the massive pomo tomes that American authors churned out in the 60s to the9 0s.

>> No.19687785

>>19685022
It is a great novel, you gormless monkey.

>> No.19687793

>>19687775
I also forgot to add The Grapes of Wrath. I don't know how anyone can stand the awful biblical writing style he uses in that one.

>> No.19687812

>>19684935
Any Hemingway

>> No.19688053

>>19687515
>it's just a 4chan greentext
that's why i like it, he's just such a fucking autist

>> No.19689095

>>19687775
Ulysses is worth more than all of Shakespeare.

>> No.19689100

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

>> No.19689122

>>19686449
I was actually pleasantly surprised by it

>> No.19689152

All classics are worth reading

>> No.19689190

>>19684935
What are the reasons to consider fon Quijote not a classic worth reading?

>> No.19689214

>>19684935
A couple of classics important in English literary history are Spenser's The Fairie Queen and Richardson's Clarissa. Both are really hard to get through. (Clive James, a pretty well-read bloke, said he found The Fairie Queen unique in its ability to focus the mind on anything and everything except itself. He literally had to position himself facing a wall to read it, to shut out potential distractions.)

Not sure this means they're worthless though.

>> No.19689354

>>19689190
being braindead

>> No.19689367
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19689367

>> No.19689413

>>19684935
Pretty much none of them. Classics are classics for a reason. Even if you don't end up liking a particular one it's worth reading to see what made/makes it so popular, and to be able to understand any references made to it in later works or other parts of culture.

>> No.19689430

>>19684935
Call me a brainlet but I didn't get Plutarch's "Parallel Lives" at all. Very hard to read without some kind of dictionary of ancient place names and people, and credulously repeats mythology in a pseudo-historical style. Did not seem worth the effort to me.

>> No.19689555

The Odyssey. Read it when I was younger. Maybe I should re-read it again before I bash it.

>> No.19689759

>>19689555
>all the sluts get hanged at the end
it's kino

>> No.19689770

>>19689095
Even joyce wouldn't agree

>> No.19689773

>>19689759
Have sex

>> No.19689824

>>19684935
the magic mountain

>> No.19690223

>>19687775
>Joyce
His work only stinks because he loves big stinky farts. Read his letters. JOYCE LOVES FARTS. HE IS A DIRTY BUM-SNIFFER!

>> No.19690235

>>19689824
cringe

>> No.19690241

>>19689190
Don Kichote is the best novel to ever exist.

>> No.19690427

>>19687115
jokes on you, im behind 7 proxies

>> No.19690443

>>19689770
Writers are terrible judges of their own work.

>> No.19690468

Crime and Punishment is dogshit and way way too long, complete waste of time.

>> No.19690564

i didnt like any greek classics because i learned literally nothing from them.

>> No.19690584

>>19689367
unbased

>> No.19690586

>>19684935
Steppenwolf, self-indulgent and embarrassing. I was disappointed after liking Siddartha a lot.

>> No.19690620

>>19684935
Every "minor work" of an author.

>> No.19690627

>>19690620
reading through all of yeats lyric poems was very worthwhile

>> No.19691482

I won't say it's "not worth it" but I didn't like Don Quijote.

>> No.19691503

>>19691482
Try Don Quixote.

>> No.19691506

>>19690468
I disagree; I enjoyed it very much and read it in the span of only about five days.

>> No.19691673

>>19691503
Fucking retard "x" was used instead of "j" in some cases in older Spanish. It's literaly the same thing. My copy is written with a "j" so I will call it as such.

>> No.19691684

>>19687117
This pretty much covers it.

>> No.19691710
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19691710

>>19691673
> Getting this autistically butthurt over a dumb joke

>> No.19691745

>>19685068
100%

>> No.19691748

>>19686261
unironically this

>> No.19691751

>>19691673
Wrong, different sound: native Spanish speaker

>> No.19691754

>>19687775
Good list, Dosto overall is massively overrated. As is Joyce.

>> No.19691760

>>19690468
Agree

>> No.19691808
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19691808

>>19691710
I can't into jokes. All hidden meanings and nuances are completely lost on me. I can't read faces and I can't percieve anything beyond obvious sarcasm. I'm every fisherman's dream fish because I always bite. My only defence against unforseen jokes irl is to shut up, never give my "true" opinions on anything and act as detached as I can.

>> No.19691824

>>19685022
Disagree very much. If you can work through the more antiquated English, it's a great story

>> No.19691856

>>19684935
lord of the flies
catch 22
portrait of an artist
journey to the end of the night (not sure if classic but definitely not worth it)

>> No.19691961

>>19691856
agreed on all of these. although lord of the flies is just decent. but the other two were really mediocre.

>> No.19691975

>>19691808
Did you not think it seems unlikely that someone would be recommending you 'Don Quixote', completely unaware that it is the same book as 'Don Quijote'? Does that really seem a more probable occurrence to you than someone on 4chan making a joke? If someone says something that seems egregiously stupid without any precedence, you can probably assume it's a joke or at least somewhat ironic

>> No.19692021

>>19691975
>Did you not think it seems unlikely that someone would be recommending you 'Don Quixote', completely unaware that it is the same book as 'Don Quijote'?
It's hard for me as it is to make the difference between a joke and someone being genuinely retarded irl and an anonymous message board doesn't make it easier but at least I can let loose and be honest here. I'm not retarded by any means but I am very dense in some regards. I suspect I have a mental condition but my parents were poor and couldn't get me a therapist and now it feels like it would all be pointless.

>> No.19692047
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19692047

>>19685022
I can only agree. Also Mystery of Edwin Drood.
Read David Copperfield, Great Expectations, or Bleak House.

>> No.19692050

>>19691975
Technically not the same book, different titles frequently betoken different content at the syntactical/lexical level. For example, I would not read a linguistically modernized version of Don Quixote: it's not the same book, but a translation.

>> No.19692193

>>19690564
bcos u read shit translations neek