Literature Be Damned

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What classic have you not read and have no desire to? This is also a chance for you to convince people how deprived they are by not reading said classic.

My answer: Moby Dick.

― Samantha, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The whaling and biological infortmation about whales is one of hte most poetic and accurate depictions of these masters of the deep. The men and the blubber is homoerotic . And Ahab is a character whos obsessivenesses seem to be human at the most basic level .
However i would recommend above all Billy Budd

― anthony, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There are so many books I have not read. Where to begin?...I guess I'll never read Ulyseses (sp?)...and I'll never finish Nausea. Should I read the Counterfeiters? I have a copy of that.

― james, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i will never finish a thousand plateaus and i'm man enough to admit that.

― foucault, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Decameron.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jess, you have no desire to read Mille Plateaux? Then why did you start? [I think Guat and Del would be fine with your decision btw]

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Huckleberry Finn. I *love* Tom Sawyer, but I've never gotten past the first couple of chapters of its more or less sequel.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

huckleberry finn is my favorite pre-20th century novel.

― ethan, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Moby Dick" is great, as is "Nausea". I've never read "Ulysses", tho, and I kind of doubt I will.

― Norman Phay, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The men and the blubber is homoerotic

Perhaps, Anthony, this is why I've avoided it.

― Samantha, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

YOu did the whaling bit right ?
The Decameron was funny and dirty .
Finnegans Wake ?

― anthony, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hey jess, sorry I wuz so confrontational. i didn't mean to be, i just mean that there are a million books i'd kind of, like, want to read, even utterly LUST after, and not get to. i interpreted the question to be about books you never ever want to read, no matter how many people say it's great, etc.

The kewl thing about 1KPlateaux is that it's designed to be only partially read, or read out-of-sequence. you probably won't "get" everything that way, but you know, you might get more than if you read it all from cover to cover, frankly.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i think i misinterpreted the question too tracer. (no worries, btw.) i started 1kp about this time last year and made it through about 2 chapters before i realized that i didn't understand a damn thing being said, despite my best efforts. (and i'm a pretty rough and tumble reader, usually.) mostly, i just resented it becuz it made me feel stupid, and i reaaaaly hate that. i'll probably get back to it at some point. actually, in re-reading the question, moby dick is a good answer. the majority of shakespear also holds no interest for me.

― jess, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Les Miserables. See the goddamn movie instead, cause the book SuXoR.

― turner, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

anything by austen or the brontes

― Ed, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(awaits kate)

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the decameron is ace. i have nodesire to ever read moby dick or clarissa by s. richardson (i read pamela, she was annoying enough). also, has anyone here read any anthony trollope? is he any good?

― katie, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The problem with reading "classics" is that no matter how good they are I always feel like reading them is a chore, so I either give up or have to wait a chapter to really enjoy it.

― Maria, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

treasure island. i have tried throughout my life and always failed. I have not read Moby Dick, I might but allow me to urge everyone not to read heart of darkness, it is irritating.

― Menelaus Darcy, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can't imagine I'll ever get round to reading Trollope or Hardy. Anyone else - you never know! I definitely will finish Ulysses - next holiday maybe (my mistake was to read it on the tube).

― Tom, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i have an austen allergy

― Alan Trewartha, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'll add to the Read The Decameron campaign - especially the one about putting the devil into hell

Any Fowles, Updike, Joyce, Rushdie, Carey - actually, not strictly true as I read the 1st chapter of "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and the dirty bits in "Couples".

― Mark C, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I liked Clarissa. She Explained It All very well! In the "modern" ouvre I do not think I will read a HEARTBREAKING WURK OF STAGGERING GENIUS.

― Sarah, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

MARK C Peter Carey is great! you fule. and Sarah the Clarissa i am thinking of did not explain it all, she sat in the corner like a big wet wuss and was crap for approx. 5000 pages. this is no lie! tho didn't Clarissa go on to be Sabrina the teenage witch?

― katie, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes. Does anyone else think Sabrina is gradually turning into a minger as she gets older?

― RickyT, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh and Mark C, I concur with Katie's asessment of your foolishness.

― RickyT, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

She looks nice with her new dark hair!!

― james, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Katie/RickyT, an easy-to-get-into Peter Carey recommendation then?

― Mark C, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oscar and Lucinda and Jack Maggs are nice and straightforward. don't whatever you do start off on The Unusual Life Of Tristan Smith though, cos it is bonkers.

― katie, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Or the Tax Inspector. I'd say start with Bliss myself. Short, representative but not overly complex. Jack Maggs is atypical and a bit too obsessed with Dickens for my liking.

― RickyT, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Somebody gave me the entire 'Remembrance of Things Past' for Xmas. The first seven pages were about the difficulty he has falling sleep, a problem I was instantly cured of before I got to page eight. (Obvious but true!) After two months they gave up asking me if I 'enjoyed' it.

― dave q, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Fat Man in History is an easy read, and my choice as the best thing Carey's done. Rather liked Illywhacker though, not that it's one to recommend, and am enjoying the True History of the Kelly Gang despite the hype.

Huckleberry Finn is worth sticking with. I swear it. At the very least, if it ain't living up to Tom Sawyer for you, skip to the chapters late in the book where Tom makes his appearance, as it's demented.

― badger, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hah! I actually love FINNEGANS WAKE (or FUNNYGOONS WORK as I like to call it). And ULYSSES. I have no desire to read JANE AUSTEN, PRIDE & PREJUDICE, SENSE & SENSIBILITY and all that yackety-shmackety.

― Kodanshi, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

1kp: if something can't be understood, that's becuz the authors didn't want it to be understood. 1kp works as source of buzzwords and style-tips for young scholars on the go. Sortof a wordy wallpaper magazine.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Put me down as a 'no' for Austen and those dour Brontes.
I quite like some Dickens but I've always steered clear of 'Oliver Twist' and 'Great Expectations' - I've watched just toooo many film/TV adaptations of them to get interested in the original text.
I probably won't ever read any Virginia Wolf either. I just know it.

ps. 'Moby Dick' is superb.

― DavidM, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Perhaps, but so are the Brontes.

― Samantha, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have made a vailant effort on both Austen and Dickens . I have failed and have no need to retry. I wish i had read more then Swanns Way in Proust though.

― anthony, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I love Moby Dick and everything by Joyce, just to get those two out of the way. When I was young I liked Tom Sawyer and got bored with Huck Finn. A few years ago I read the latter again and found that I liked Huck and couldn't stand Tom - the so-called 'happy ending' of that book is really bad. I can't really think of a better way to end it, though, so I can't blame Twain for that.

I've gone my whole life without ever reading Dickens, except for A Christmas Carol. What little I've read of Kipling bores me stiff and Hawthorne is excruciating. Henry James, unreadable. This is irrelevant, though, since the subject is "books you don't want to read." Beloved by Toni Morrison. Anything by Virginia Woolf.

Finally: even though I really like long, complicated, 'literary' type novels, I will never, never, never, never, never EVER read Proust.

― Justyn Dillingham, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's puerile but in Austen's P&P, Darcy ejaculates into someone's ear. Worth it for stuff like that. I get Carlos to read it to me in his scary lecher voice.

― suzy, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

YOu are missing one of the post metaphysical and poetic expansions concerning the rifting effects of slavery in Beloved . I never wanted to read Gerturde Stein.

― anthony, Wednesday, 21 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Trial.

― Wheeler, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

why don't you have any desire to read the trial? it's nice

― maryann, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If I never again read anything by Herman Melville, Jane Austin, Anthony Trollope, or Jean-Paul Sartre, I will die a happy guy. And only if Fyodor Dostoyevski were a better writer instead of the 19th century Russian equivalent of Kilgore Trout (i.e., a writer with great ideas for stories but awful writing skills)!

I'll put in a good word or two for old Samuel Richardson, tho'. Sorta a reverse-Dostoyevski/Kilgore Trout, in his way.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Trial was not nice and perhaps one of the least fleshed out and therefore most failed Kafka stories . But the Hunger Artist , theres the story

― anthony, Thursday, 22 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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