Unpopular Opinions Thread

[MikeDeTiger]

Piggybacking on brad and SF's earlier comments about War and Peace....

Most "classic" works I've ever read (or was required to read) sucked.  I love reading, love many, many books and authors.  But a bunch of supposedly great works bored me to tears.  Great Expectations, Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Grapes of Wrath, all come to mind.  Maybe I was too young to appreciate them....I dunno.  I didn't enjoy them in the least.  

There are books by Jane Austen which are considered classics, and Little Women, none of which I've read, nor do I suspect I'd enjoy any more than any of the others listed.  

I see Dostoevsky's are listed as classics, those were fine.  I liked The Count of Monte Cristo.  Most of that stuff tho, just makes me think it's for pompous people who want to get together at aristocratic parties, sip tea with their pinky fingers out, jerk each other off about the fancy schools they attended and pretend to be cultured and deep and thoughtful and better than the plebes.  Give me Harry Potter any day over that stuff. 

[bayareabadger]

I completely disagree with this statement. A restaurant without a good burger is not a good restaurant.

If I have to order the burger, usually it means I’m giving up on the rest of the menu.

[FearlessF]

yup - I make burgers at home

[SFBadger96]

Piggybacking on brad and SF's earlier comments about War and Peace....

Most "classic" works I've ever read (or was required to read) sucked.  I love reading, love many, many books and authors.  But a bunch of supposedly great works bored me to tears.  Great Expectations, Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Grapes of Wrath, all come to mind.  Maybe I was too young to appreciate them....I dunno.  I didn't enjoy them in the least. 

There are books by Jane Austen which are considered classics, and Little Women, none of which I've read, nor do I suspect I'd enjoy any more than any of the others listed. 

I see Dostoevsky's are listed as classics, those were fine.  I liked The Count of Monte Cristo.  Most of that stuff tho, just makes me think it's for pompous people who want to get together at aristocratic parties, sip tea with their pinky fingers out, jerk each other off about the fancy schools they attended and pretend to be cultured and deep and thoughtful and better than the plebes.  Give me Harry Potter any day over that stuff.

I read several of the "classics" in my 30s and enjoyed them much more than I did as a high school student when I was forced to read many of them. The perspective of (a little more) age mattered. But I still couldn't stand War and Peace or Moby Dick. :-) (I think I read those in my 40s.) As for Jane Austen, I just never saw the point, so I never tried her again. I did reread the Scarlet Letter, and while I can hardly remember it, I was much more impressed with it as an adult than I was in high school.

[Cincydawg]

A book I loathed in HS was "Red Badge of Courage".  I really hated it.  I reread it decades later and thought it was pretty great literature.

I picked up some of Heinlein's stuff lately and thought it was mostly garbage.

[jgvol]

I read several of the "classics" in my 30s and enjoyed them much more than I did as a high school student when I was forced to read many of them. The perspective of (a little more) age mattered. But I still couldn't stand War and Peace or Moby Dick. :-) (I think I read those in my 40s.) As for Jane Austen, I just never saw the point, so I never tried her again. I did reread the Scarlet Letter, and while I can hardly remember it, I was much more impressed with it as an adult than I was in high school.

You need head meds, good sir.

I only attempted in high school.  Couldn't pull it off.  Worst book of all time.  Went the "Cliff's Notes" route and, of course -- failed the test, as I also did for every other test where I attempted the "Cliff's Notes" shortcut.

One that I remember "liking" in high school was Ethan Frome.  Can't recall much about it now, but remember not hating it.

[OrangeAfroMan]

I see Dostoevsky's are listed as classics, those were fine.  I liked The Count of Monte Cristo.  Most of that stuff tho, just makes me think it's for pompous people who want to get together at aristocratic parties, sip tea with their pinky fingers out, jerk each other off about the fancy schools they attended and pretend to be cultured and deep and thoughtful and better than the plebes.  Give me Harry Potter any day over that stuff.

Are you spying on me?

[MikeDeTiger]

A book I loathed in HS was "Red Badge of Courage".  I really hated it.  I reread it decades later and thought it was pretty great literature.

I picked up some of Heinlein's stuff lately and thought it was mostly garbage.

I read several of Heinlein's books and enjoyed them, but I was a kid.  I wonder if that would change now.  They were pretty readable for a kid so I thought he must be consider YA fiction.  I've been a bit surprised to learn he's considered the author of some "classics" and is taken so seriously.  I figured he was for 'tweens.  

[MikeDeTiger]

lolz, I'm just kidding, guys.....

...y'all know I'm the product of Louisiana public education and can't read.  

[OrangeAfroMan]

Assigning classic works of literature at the high school level is a waste of time.  Such a low % of the students are going to get anything out of them, much less enjoy them.  A low-enough % are going to actually read the text, period.
That's why people tend to appreciate them more as adults.  They're adult-level, and if not, their age and detachment from our modern society make them adult-level.

Exposure would be fine.  Excerpts.  Context.  That would make sense.  

Giving some 15 year old boy from Las Vegas a thousand-word, 19th-century novel about Russian aristocrats in 2025 is a fool's errand.  

[utee94]

Ha!  I love all the classics listed above.  I loved Great Gatsby so much I went out and bought everything Fitzgerald ever wrote.  To this day he remains my favorite author.

I love all the classics, except as we've discussed, War and Peace.  And also one other not mentioned above, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.  That was truly the worst book ever written, I am convinced.

[Cincydawg]

I'm reading almost exclusively on the Libby app now, and our library doesn't have some of the Heinlein works I'd like to try and I gave away my copies.

My partial list of unpopular (or weird) opinions:

1.  Chamberlain had no real choice at Munich.
2.  The Maginot Line did it's job.
3.  Manstein was the best general in WW 2.
4.  Paris is my least favorite city in France.
5.  The port cities in Asia all look alike.
6.  Nick Chubb was better than Herschel.
7.  Pride and Prejudice is a great novel.
8.  People around the world are more alike than not.
9.  The world would have been better off had Germany won WW 1.
10.  Facebook can be pretty amusing.

[utee94]

Pride and Prejudice was fine.  I prefer the Bronte sisters to Jane Austen to be honest.  I read pretty much everything written by all three in late high school when I was trying to impress a cute theater girl who was into chick literature.

Fortunately, it worked.

[bayareabadger]

I read the Great Gatsby in college, really enjoyed it and my number one Takeaway was that I would’ve gotten very little out of it in high school