If you’ve ever talked to me, you probably know I do not like Lord of the Flies by Sir William Golding. Or Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Or Animal Farm by George Orwell… Sure, I understand the value of these novels both in their quality as a piece of art and as commentaries on different social aspects of their time, but on the whole, I’d prefer not to read them a second time.
Being an English major is great for so many reasons, and one of the best in my opinion is getting to discover and read so many incredible novels for class (God, I love being an English major). Contrary to popular belief, however, most English majors don’t love every classic novel, so I asked English majors at William & Mary to tell me more about the classic novels they dislike and why.
Ivy Duerr: Moby Dick by Herman Melville
If I wanted to read a textbook about whaling, I would read a textbook about whaling. I bet I even could find one as badly written as Moby Dick. Ishmael tells the story of the angry, doomed Captain Ahab, seeking the white whale. Sort of. Mostly this book is Melville seeking any reason possible to write what he actually wants to write — a textbook on whaling.
Dana Florczak: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Pretty much everyone had to read this book in high school, so I’ll spare you a plot synopsis. But I actually didn’t have to read it in HS — it wasn’t part of my particular class’s curriculum — so I decided to read it for fun (I’m an English major, so are you really surprised by that?). I could not stand this book. The main character Holden is absurd and was completely unrelatable to me. I also found the book completely self-indulgent. I saw no point in the book, it was just a sort of “manifesto” written by a character who was terrible to begin with and never changed or grew. If you have a different opinion (and you probably do, since this book is divisive AF) please let me know and maybe I’ll give it another chance. But you better have a really compelling argument.
Clive LePage: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby is the story of a man who throws shirts at a woman until she cries. Of course, the shirts represent his acquisitive lust for her, and her tears represent uncertainty in the early 20th century, and the giant billboard with eyes represents a capitalist God watching over humanity, and Gatsby’s unreasonable fortune represents F. Scott Fitzgerald’s inability to come up with a reason for why Gatsby is so fortunate, etc., etc. Everything in The Great Gatsby is a metaphor for some distant sense of worth, which is brilliant, because the book is a metaphor for unattainable American ideals. However, the primary issue with the novel is that it thus undoes itself; any virtue that could be discovered by reading The Great Gatsby is betrayed by the sheer fact that it is a novel–a fictitious creation intended to criticize American values. Often, The Great Gatsby is used as a definition of the Jazz Age, but I assure you, the Jazz Age is best defined by the rambunctious, exhilarating melodies of Jazz music, not a green light across a harbor. Unfortunately, authors have since modeled countless novels after this mysterious, rich, youthful, white man, for no reason other than to glorify the 1920s–precisely the effect that The Great Gatsby fights against. The moment that The Great Gatsby was published, literary authenticity was borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Sarah Shevenock: Lord of the Flies by Sir William Golding
Young schoolboys are stranded on a desert island and try to form their own society (SPOILER ALERT: IT DOES NOT GO WELL). I personally just found it simultaneously boring and horrifying. I had to read it for a high school English class and it was the first book in my entire life that I hated. The conflict was just so stupid–all of their problems could have been solved if there had been a girl on the island with them. She wouldn’t have let that stuff happen.
An Anonymous Senior: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
This novel ostensibly centers on the romantic feelings Jake Barnes harbors for Lady Brett Ashley. In actuality, though, this novel is just a drinking diary. Jake pines, then gets drunk. Jake goes to the running of the bulls, still drunk, and drinks more. Honestly, put Jake in some salmon colored shorts and he’d most certainly get a bid to a fraternity, impotence notwithstanding. Though many praise Hemingway’s simple sentence style as a mark of genius, if his daily habits resemble Jake’s in the least, one might attribute the short, choppy style of his sentences less to authorial brilliance and more to the fact he was probably nursing a hangover on the daily (Writing with a headache is hard. Trying to put in semicolons and deal with various clauses with a headache is impossible). The sun may rise, but, due to the constant allusions to drinking and Jake’s persistent whining, my opinion of this book will never rise with it.
Chandler Makepeace: Moby Dick by Herman Melville
No. That stupid whale doesn’t deserve any more of my time. I have never felt such disdain for a novel in my entire life.
So there you have it—despite their status as classic novels, not everyone seems to love them indiscriminately. Besides, going on a tirade about these “classic” novels is always a great way to let off some steam. Who gets to decide what makes a classic anyway?