The Romance of Tristan

Reading this is an odd experience. The protagonist, whom we are supposed to love and admire, according to the author, is a cowardly cad and nothing good can be said for him. His lady love, whom we also should love, is a self absorbed twat. The only characters who did their jobs as they ought, who acted on their commitments, are the three evil barons whom we are intended to hate and despise, and who probably were in fact self-righteous and tedious bores. As for the author, he is either willfully blind to the absurdities of what he is saying or else he is an idiot.

And yet the book is deservedly a classic and a source-point of much important European and English literature. It entertained me and I enjoyed reading it.