"Classics" you like that nobody seems to have read

Has anybody ever read a "classic" book - they're easy to spot; they usually have "An undisputed classic of the genre!" by some reviewer or another on the dust jacket - that they rather enjoyed... and then gone looking for people to talk to it about, only to find nothing?

My personal example is Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay, which I read when I was about sixteen; I'm far less besotted with it now then I was then, but I can remember being pretty crazy in love and looking everywhere for somewhere to talk about it. I know heaps of people who are way more into the high fantasy genre than I am, and who compulsively read absolutely everything ever published that's longer than five hundred pages and has a sword in it. They all recognise the name, and that "It's supposed to be really good," but none of them have ever read it!

Has anybody else ever experienced this? A book that everyone's heard of, but nobody ever seems to have read?

edited 26th Sep '10 5:18:26 PM by Yuval

Anything by PG Wodehouse. Everyone's heard of the guy, everyone knows he's meant to be funny, no one under forty has read the stories. Even a lot of the Jeeves And Wooster fangirls have only seen the excellent tv series.

Usually I almost read them, then think better of it. I did get about a hundred pages into The First Circle, though, and I still intend to read The Way We Live Now.

edited 26th Sep '10 6:57:54 PM by FeoTakahari

I keep getting people to read more Roger Zelazny but nobody does.

I know I've mentioned it before, but Malcolm Lowry's modernist novel Under The Volcano is a longtime favorite of mine. Seems to be a "critically well-regarded but not much read" kind of deal.

^

I have. His books are short on filler. This is a good thing.

G. K. Chesterton. Brilliant guy.

^^Good to hear it.

I might as well mention Gravity's Rainbow; THE postmodern epic, and my personal favorite, but it seems unlikely you know anybody who's read it.

edited 26th Sep '10 8:30:43 PM by ImipolexG

...oh hey, I never realised that this was actually a trope: Mainstream Obscurity.

I checked up on this discussion, then clicked "Random" and ended up there; how uncanny is that?

Tall Tale America; basically an attempt to turn the most famous American tall tales into a Shared Universe.

@Krracknut - I've read the first five Amber books.

to answer the OP:

Robert E. Howard's Conan stories

The Three Musketeers and its sequels

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

and I at least tried to read The Tale of Genji.

The Pillow Book Of Sei Shonagon is better; it's sassy and bitchy and awesome. Genji is for poetry wankers who want to feel superior by getting a shitload of references.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for references. But not ten per page, okay?

My problem with Genji is that it seemed like the book was a bunch of overly long stories about how Genji likes to have sex.

Then again, considering when it was written, I'm guessing there wasn't much else to write about.

edited 27th Sep '10 5:32:26 PM by Edmond_Dantes

The Great Gatsby.

One of the books I liked studying in High School.

Raven, I've read Tall Tale America! At least, I've read one called Tall Tale America. Written during WWII? Framing story about how America needs heroes? *checks the page for it* Yep, same book. I still have my copy.

edited 30th Sep '10 11:07:25 PM by Madrugada

^ You know, it's weird, I've been able to track down a bunch of tall tale books from the 30's and 40's, but after that the genre just seems to have dried up, except for children's picture books.

I never thought about it that way. It did, pretty much, didn't it?

Maridee, I've read The Man Who Was Thursday.

OP: The Once and Future King. The book is pretty well known- there is even a Disney adaptation of the first part- but I've never known anyone else who has read the whole thing, probably due to length.

I've read The Once And Future King. Couldn't stand it.

Oh. Why?

^^^ I liked the first part of The Once And Future King, but in the latter three parts White's insistence on being faithful to Le Morte Darthur came back to bite him. Malory never said much about Arthur's life inbetween being given to a foster family and pulling the sword from the stone, so there White had a lot of free reign and could tell whatever kind of story he wanted. In the latter three books, though, he's constrained by the events of Le Morte, hampering his attempts at telling a new story, while anyone who's already read Malory's magnum opus is probably going to be bored rereading so much of the story over again.

I haven't read Malory so I didn't have that problem. However, the first part was still my favorite.

Oh. Why?

Too much infatuation with its own cleverness, too little actual cleverness.

No one I know (except my brother) has read Dune. I mean, seriously? And my high school is quite nerdy.

It seems that I can never meet someone else who has read the War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.