Beware the "classic" book that everyone says you must read

I spent 3 weeks slugging through Moby Dick because my book club swore it was a masterpiece, and I ended up hating every page of those long whale chapters. Turns out half the group admitted they only pretended to enjoy it to sound smart, and the other half actually skimmed it. Has anyone else been burned by a so-called "must read" that turned out to be a total snooze?

2 comments

2 Comments

allen.ruby4d ago

The whole "classic" thing is a trap sometimes... people act like if you don't love it you're just not smart enough to get it. Moby Dick is the perfect example, the whale stuff drags on forever and the story barely moves. The real issue is that book clubs and schools push these old books as mandatory, but half the people forcing them on you haven't even read them themselves. A book only counts as a "must read" if it actually grabs you and makes you think, not because some dead guy wrote it back when punctuation was optional. I'd rather read something that keeps me awake than pretend to enjoy 300 pages about whale blubber... life is too short for that.

lilymurphy2d ago

Oh man, you hit the nail on the head. I once tried to read Moby Dick for a book club and fell asleep twice before page 50. It's a tough sell when the whole plot is basically a guy staring at the ocean for 500 pages. My brain just checked out somewhere around the third chapter on whale anatomy, and I haven't been back since. People act like you're missing some deep secret if you don't love it, but honestly, I'd rather admit I'm just not that smart than pretend to enjoy that slog. Do you think we'd all be forced to read it if it was published today, or would people just call it a boring indie film and move on?