Late bloomers: 10 classic books with terrible initial reviews

Then you’ve got a real treat before you.

Can’t disagree with the feedback given for Lolita, Wuthering Heights and Huck Finn.

For Fellowship that looks more like an in joke as much as anything.

Who hasn’t said: ‘Oh Fuck! Not another elf!’ in their life?

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More proof, perhaps, that there’s no accounting for taste.

I read it with the context of its era in mind, and thus found it nearly revolutionary. I also find her style very fluid, readable and sensitive to the plights of her characters.

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I haven’t tried to read Moby Dick, but I have a long and abiding hatred for The Grapes of Wrath. I have tried several times to read the damn thing and I just couldn’t do it.

And yes, I’ve tried skipping the goddamn turtle chapters.

I did get through it (the ending is…trippy), and it does seem like a case where for once the movie version is better.

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What? It opens with the guy considering suicide and decides to take to the sea. Okay it isn’t the fastest read and I will grant you skipping the bit on the fiddly details of whaling/whales but oh man it is a wonderful meditation on being human.

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I regretted reading all of Moby Dick, especially the inconsequential chapters.
For anyone thinking about reading it, do yourself a kindness and read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea instead, it is a much more enjoyable experience imo.
Melville’s real talent was short stories.

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Moby Dick was ruined for me because it was assigned to me in high school. Hated it. Burned my copy at the end of the year. I am an avid reader and have never before or since burned a book.

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Well, Ulysses is itself a truly monstrous paragraph that pulls no punches.

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Here’s an anecdote about the Silmarillion! I first read it in Finnish translation, and wondered about all the English-speakers complaining about how hard it was to read and how they were put off by the dense style. I’d had had no difficulties when reading it at the age of twelve or so!

Then, as an adult (and a fluent speaker and reader of English), I tried the original, English-language version of the book… and found out why so many people were complaining about the language. Turns out the archaic style Tolkien pursued works much better in Finnish; it’s stately and old-fashioned, but also smoothly flowing and clear. It’s one of the very few cases where I think the translation is unambiguously better than the original!

(We were lucky in that Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Silmarillion were all translated extremely well into Finnish. :slight_smile: )

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Even though I’ve never read the book, every time I hear the title, this song starts playing in my mind,

I’ve never seen the video before. Thank… you?

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You are welcome. Check out the alternative version of this clip. I assure you it’s a lot more intense than the other one …

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You demon. Thank you again.

ETA now I’m probably going to have nightmares about Kate Bush gyrating outside my window tonight.

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I think she was an old version of Bjork.

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I’ve ready the complete and unabridged version. I even read the long section in the middle where the author outlines the taxonomy of whales in great depth. I quite enjoyed it. Mind you, I’ve not re-read it since.

@_osivot I understand your sentiments. There are certainly chunks from the book that could be lifted out as stand alone vignettes. The section where Ishmael shares a room at the lodging house with Queequeg is wonderfully odd.

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There are worse things to have gyrating outside your bedroom window.

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“Protobjork.”

Mmm. He’s just floating. Did you watch her moves? It’s like she’s made of licorice.

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When someone tells me to read Moby Dick I say “I would prefer not to”.

(actually I don’t read it because I’ve already seen the Star Trek version)

(I keed, I keed)

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Kate Bush, a magnificent British institution and national treasure, is also available in “cellophane rap” effect.

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The chapter about “Squeezing Case” is also gorgeous, as is Pip’s chapter (no spoilers)…There’s a lot of rumination about men together, Melville’s veiled way of expressing his own sexuality. And Ginsberg was a great big fanboy for Melville.
I mean, what’s not to like:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

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