Quote:
Originally Posted by bren  I've TRIED to read classic lit, believe me. I received recommendations for 'Tender is the Night' and got EXTREMELY bored after pg 40ish. Started reading 'Exit to Eden' but never finished it. I DID like it though so at some point I want to go back and finish it. Not sure if that's the book I want to read post-op  . I bought 'Lolita' because a friend recommended it but I haven't picked it up, yet. One of my friends in grad school recommended a ton--Pride and Prejudice, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead (she liked Ayn Rand) but after she told me that she LOVED 'Great Expectations' and I wasn't a fan, I was a bit skeptical about her recommendations LOL 
I guess I'm not TOTALLY anti-classics because there are a few that I liked but I'm just not sure I can get into them post-op. What did you have in mind? |
I will agree with you about
Great Expectations, as well as other Dickens books. A lot of people give Dickens more credit than he really deserves. Personally, I find the plots very contrived. If you put it into the context of the era in which they were written and their serial nature, you can appreciate them for the purpose they served at the time, but as for deep or thought-provoking...you're better off looking elsewhere.
I never read
Tender is the Night, but I have read
The Great Gatsby several times and have written a few papers on it. Fitzgerald's short fiction is a lot of fun to read. Hint about Fitzgerald: there is
so much there, that his books (and short stories) require several reads to really catch it all. Example, the short story: "Babylon Revisited." Read it once, then read it again, and I guarantee you will change your mind about Charlie.
Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein is a great read.
If you're looking for something different, Louise Erdrich writes beautiful Native American fiction, and
Tracks is a really great book written from shifting perspectives.