I did like re-reading Moby Dick as an adult, though I haven't made a habit of it. But I view it as an honorary SF novel, a detailed look at an alien world, complete with chapter-long infodumps, the book is half infodump about whales and whaling and the whale penis.

Not sure where Count of Monte Cristo falls in all this. Perhaps unlikable characters can be saved by sufficiently interesting plot. I guess Nabokov's thing might be "use of language" and I don't care enough about that. Banks has the culture, though I haven't re-read Culture books in a long time...

Interesting to hear about your WWI split, and I'd forgotten about the CIA thing.