War and Peace?

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Am I the only one here who detests classic novels. When I tackled W and P I expected good things from "the World's greatst novel" but instead I found boring stories about boring people for generations. I percevered in the expectation it might liven up a bit when it got to the war, but by two thirds of the way through it was still endless boring peace, so I gave up!

Crime and Punishment followed, of which I managed just 3 chapters (Columbo was no better; talk about low budget!). Shakespear? I like the plays, but not for reading. Wuthering Heights? Utterly unintersting. Again I like the films of Dickens' books, but not to read (I much prefer Trollope). I haven't given up, and am currently working on Great Expectations, but frankly, an account of atrocities in the Belgian Congo is proving to be a lot more enjoyable..

Most people don't enjoy classic novels and the few who do only read them to make it appear that they high intelligence. I sometimes wish I had the intelligence and attention span to read and enjoy such books, but I don't, and would rather be reading Fox in Socks or something like that. So what?

I haven't much enjoyed reading Dickens either. He seems to try so hard to be witty that he becomes rather unintelligible, though I enjoyed Dombey And Son. I also prefer Anthony Trollope. Currently reading Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. Braddon, which I thought started off a tad weak but she gets into her stride later on. I liked this bit:

Let any man make a calculation of his existence, subtracting the hours in which he has been thoroughly happy—really and entirely at his ease, without one arriere pensée to mar his enjoyment—without the most infinitesimal cloud to overshadow the brightness of his horizon. Let him do this, and surely he will laugh in utter bitterness of soul when he sets down the sum of his felicity, and discovers the pitiful smallness of the amount. He will have enjoyed himself for a week or ten days in thirty years, perhaps.

But everything hinges on the individual reader.

I tend to prefer old books, partly because of the sense of history - the idea of somebody from the rather distant past talking to me and the delightful quaintness of the language - partly because authors were clearer in those days, erring on the side of over-explaining instead of the modern way of throwing out a few hints and leaving me to do a lot of work trying to figure it all out from the context. Even so I sometimes wish Victorian authors would just get on with it. I think it helps not to expect too much of "the classics" - just because they're so highly revered doesn't mean they're terrific reading for everybody. A lot of them were written for the middle class, hence the use of so many trendy French phrases etc. So such books might not resonate so well with readers who have a more modern mindset.

My advice would be to keep digging around here and there until something good turns up. A lot of entertainment bores me, and I very rarely read a book to myself, but somehow it helps me enjoy it when I read aloud to other people. I guess it's more social, and there's the added dimension of improving one's intonation and delivery.

I love all the books that were mentioned in the OP and am especially fond of Shakespeare and Dickens. I adore Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, and The Winter’s Tale. My favorite Dickens novels are David Copperfield (the first one I read) and Bleak House. Bleak House made me cry the last time I read it, but don’t tell anyone.

I majored in English, so my views aren’t at all representative. When I was a teenager, a major special interest of mine was Victorian literature, especially Dickens, Wilkie Collins, the Brontës, and Tennyson. I still love Victorian literature but have branched out over the years. Virginia Woolf is one of my favorite writers.

That’s not always true. Many people genuinely enjoy the classics although, as with other interests, it’s still just a small percentage of the overall population.

Many classics were written before TV and movies decreased everyone's attention span. However, there are still variations that depend on individual inclinations and preferences. I personally enjoy science fiction and will tolerate poor writing, fuzzy plot points, and weak characters more than I would with a different genre.

There are some that do profess to like convoluted books simply to impress others, but these are usually so transparent as to be avoided. I had a friend years ago who was studying anthropology. He highly recommended a book titled, "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". As I tried reading it I cam to two conclusions. First the author was wrong. Secondly he had intentionally written in an obtuse way presumable to appear erudite. Several years later I saw inthe paper an article about a guy I knew from Mensa. He had his picture taken with a pile of books next to him. In that pile was the book TOCIBBM. That he was posturing was evident both from the picture and what I knew of him. It was rather sad.

We all have different thresholds for how much we are willing to tolerate. Back in the 1970s I read the Hobbit and enjoyed it. I got about 50 pages into the Fellowship of the ring and gave up. My friends had all told me I just quit too soon because it really picked up just after the point I quit.

There are people who savor a well turned phrase or for whom things like poetry are evocative of emotions and feelings that are welcome sensations. I have more of an engineers approach and while I can recognize what others may appreciate, I have no problem sticking with what I prefer.

I was lucky with Lord Of The Rings - my workplace was going through a quiet phase and I was left to rot for a few weeks, so I had loads of spare time and nothing much to lose (what a job, eh?). I doubt I'd have had the patience in "real life" (i.e. outside the workplace) to have persevered. So I'm glad I got the chance to read it.

It took me about six months to read War and Peace. If I was just doing it to impress people I could have just said I had read it.

Many classic novels are quite good.

I hated War and Peace, though.When I was a freshman in high school, my English teacher selected me to read it for a book report. It quickly turned into a forced death march. I read every page but didn't get anything out of it. I haven't been able to read anything by Tolstoy ever since.

In comparison, Doestoevsky's Crime and Punishment was quite enjoyable.

^ I greatly enjoyed Crime and Punishment, too. I was just thinking that a good translation can make all the difference in the world. Translations of Russian novels by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky are great in my experience although David McDuff and Michael Katz are supposed to be quite good as well, not that I’ve explored their work.

That's quite true.

My favorite Russian fiction is some of Anton Chekhov's short stories. In fact, my all time favorite short story is Anton Chekhov's Heartache or Misery (title depends on the translation).

I noticed that as well, of coarse there's probably plenty of exceptions but that scene is not for me. I sometimes have the attention span of a stonner & I never gotten high or taken illegal drugs. I have dyslexia & ADD, though the latter may be more something like Sluggish Cognitive Tempo &/or Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder or in addition to that. I used to read a bit during middle-school when we were having something like recess partly because I had problems socializing with others & there wasn't much else for me to do. Before starting 9th grade my reading ability & comprehension were tested to be at a 10th grade level but my reading speed has always been extremely slow. I regularly read a bit of things online but I have not had the interest to read novels since middle-school.

I liked War and Peace quite a bit, and I'm not generally someone who likes to read novels.

"War And Peace" always sounded pretty dreary and political to me, so I never attempted it. Glancing at it on Project Gutenberg just now, it doesn't look much fun. The dialogue seems very wooden, I couldn't empathise with the characters, and nothing about the plot resonated with me. If reading books comes easy to an individual, I suppose it's no big thing to take a chance, but it takes me a lot of effort, so if I do read a book (fiction or non-fiction), it's quite an extension of trust that the author will make it worth my while. So I don't take that risk lightly, and War And Peace doesn't make the grade.

That was a horrible thing to do to you, forcing you to read a long book regardless of how you might have felt about it. I don't think my school ever gave us set books, even though it was a somewhat authoritarian relic of the UK grammar school system. They gave us a reading list and we were free to pick whatever we wanted off that. Later on they let us read books that were off the list, though they reserved the right to block anything they strongly disapproved of. Mostly, though, if they didn't like a book somebody had picked, they'd just openly criticise us and the book, but they'd usually allow us to continue. One kid read Sherlock Holmes And The Seven Percent Solution, and got some flak for it, but it wasn't banned. The teacher reckoned the author (not Conan Doyle) should have just let Holmes rest in his grave like Doyle had intended. I've never read the book, but I loved the film.

I was probably the most voracious reader in my school. She seemed to think that I might enjoy it.

if its not ...Cat in Hat ......probably am...need to improve my readings skills . .....lolz.sorry could not resist...

When I was a freshman in high school, my English teacher selected me to read it for a book report. It quickly turned into a forced death march. I read every page but didn't get anything out of it. I haven't been able to read anything by Tolstoy ever since.

One wonder sometimes if the purpose of public education is to destroy any interest in learning.