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I think that the OP is actually confusing whether a popular book can be "badly written" with whether a popular book can be a "bad" book.
The answer to the first question seems to be "yes"; the answer to the second question may be "no."
As I mentioned upthread, I hated a lot of the Da Vinci reading experience because of the bad writing, but I kept turning the pages and finished the book because I wanted to see what happened. And it seems that I'm not alone in that. Which suggests that the book overall was not bad - it at least drew people in - even though the writing was bad.
I have also read books that I didn't finish because, despite the occasionally wonderful use of language, the book didn't end up *going* anywhere and none of the characters were interesting. But, at least at the sentence level, the book was well written.
Re: "Great Literature." Sometimes the language in older books is unfamiliar and hard to follow for people who haven't read much of it. As you read more, it becomes more familiar, easier to follow - and eventually you can find modern pedestrian reading somewhat shallow.
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