Crap by any other name is still crap

Sometimes you see a title and just know it is going to be good...Of Mice and Men, War and Peace, Little Women, The Grapes of Wrath...okay, so those are pretty much poor choices. But that speaks to what exactly a "classic" is, doesn't it? There is a lot of stuff out there that we are expected to believe is great writing. At times it is obtuse stuff...other times it is only great considered in light of the times it was written...if you have ever suffered through Utopia or Frankenstein then you know what I mean...whereas at least More had some talent for writing, still his story is jumpy, illogical, and can lose the reader. Frankenstein is even worse...it is poorly written and the story is at best barely comprehensible and illogical...yet both are books that I would still recommend for those who understand the concept behind them.
Utopia was a commentary on the ills and excesses of the times...and Frankenstein of course is an allegory of the battle between supporters of the Enlightenment and supporters of Romanticism. Are the secrets of science something to acquire by "seizing" them, "raping nature" for them and so forth or are they to be acquired through "feelings"?
Other times you read stuff and just...wonder. What were fans of Bierce, Whitman, Poe thinking? Why is Howl considered great writing? If written by a teenager it would be dismissed as incomprehensible and indicative of no discernible talent. But get hopped up on mind altering substances and suddenly it is brilliant? Pish posh. It was, is, and always will be rubbish. Simply stringing together random words/sentences is not brilliant...and being drug fueled to write it does not make it so.
Of course, some people will argue that it is great because it is emblamatic of a movement as well...however, unlike books which have stood the test of time to some degree, there is nothing gained from reading this angry work.
Contrast that with Upton Sinclair's The Jungle or even Conrad's Heart of Darkness. You still see constant references to both of them and Conrad's effort was redone in the anti-war Vietnam picture Apocalypse Now. Writing that not only is understandable but conveys an important message will always be superior to raw emotion distilled into disjointed tirades...and perhaps to overlong paragons of the writers craft such as much of Tolstoy's work.
Sometimes literature is hard to comprehend simply because of the differing world views. Steinbeck is so negative that the overall tone of his work can turn what is actually an engaging story into something almost intolerable to read. Nor is he the only example...To Kill a Mockingbird and Where the Red Fern Grows have some similarities in their basic story but only the latter is one I enjoy.
Not that my personal enjoyment means a book is quality or otherwise. No doubt many people are screaming at my ratings of certain selections from above. That's okay...you have a right to be wrong :-)