Does anyone read classics anymore?

Billingsgate · Oct 10, 2007

Does anyone love classic literature these days? I'm fairly new to AW. But my overall impression going through these forums is that all anyone ever reads here is Stephen King and fantasy novels. King is a great role model for writers, a masterful storyteller, and a superbly polished writer. And yet a novel like The Stand is like eating a McDonald's meal - perfectly made, and you can wolf it right down - compared to the lush lingering banquets of War and Peace or Moby-Dick.

My greatest reading pleasure, and my greatest influence as a person and as a writer, comes from reading classic literature. To me, War And Peace is an unputdownable page-turner, and I can't wait to read the new English translation coming out later this month.

My top favorite novels of all time, after War And Peace, include Don Quixote, Moby-Dick, Anna Karenina, Robinson Crusoe, Alice In Wonderland, Crime And Punishment and some more more modern classics like The Grapes of Wrath, The Tin Drum and The Makioka Sisters.

I'm no literary snob. I enjoy thrillers and westerns and when I'm in a real fast food/easy reading mood, there's always Stephen King, Elmore Leonard and others who offer high entertainment. But my most deeply satisfying reading experiences usually come from the older works which have stood the test of time.

Am I alone out there? Is there anyone else here who loves classic literature?

donroc · Oct 10, 2007

I would assume many here return to them occasionally if not often.

www.donaldmichaelplatt.com

WendyNYC · Oct 10, 2007

Me, me! I read (and re-read) classics as well as contemporary books. Poetry, too. Great Expectations is one of my favorites. I love reading children's classics to/with my kids.

RLB · Oct 10, 2007

There are plenty of people around here who love classics. We had a favorites thread last month: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76675&highlight=favorite+classics

Sunkissed27f · Oct 10, 2007

I read the classics...oh about once a week.

I have volumes of classical literature.

benbradley · Oct 10, 2007

Just how old does a novel have to be to be considered a "classic?" Is it enough that it becomes commonly required high-school reading?

I was thinking of starting a book-club thread on "1984" (published in 1948, of course!), prompted by some recent threads. "Animal Farm" would be good too, though it's been 20 years since I've last read these.

JoNightshade · Oct 10, 2007

Count me among the classic lit lovers. Dude, I was an English major! I don't read the classics as much as I used to, probably because I spent 4 years doing so intensively. But Middlemarch and the Gulag Archipelago are both on my to-be-read pile at the moment.

gerrydodge · Oct 10, 2007

This is a good thread. My greatest inspiration as a writer was Faulkner, followed by Joyce and Nabokov. Masterful writing like there's is what made me say to myself, early on, I want to do this. I just finished the HAMLET this summer again, and of course, as a teacher of lit. I reread many classics. BILLY BUDD is the most underated American novel ever written. It inspired Thomas Mann, Nabokov and a host of more contemporary writers. I consider that novel one of the great American classics. It should be required reading for any American writer along with THE GREAT GATSBY.

johnnysannie · Oct 10, 2007

I also read classic literature along with an ecclectic assortment of modern novels. I often re-read classics I have read in past years and when I can track down a classic novel that I have not read, it goes to the top of the list.

scarletpeaches · Oct 10, 2007

I adore Anna Karenina although I've only read it once! My bad.

Austen and Dickens are a struggle for me at times, although I laughed out loud at parts of The Pickwick Papers.

I read Dracula for the first time when I was seven, and again when I was twenty-seven; so that's my longest period between two readings of the same book.

I hate Jane Eyre with a passion and don't care who knows it - I'm a much greater fan of Wuthering Heights, which I've read twice. And yes, it made me cry both times.

Dawnstorm · Oct 10, 2007

JoNightshade said:
Count me among the classic lit lovers. Dude, I was an English major! I don't read the classics as much as I used to, probably because I spent 4 years doing so intensively. But Middlemarch and the Gulag Archipelago are both on my to-be-read pile at the moment.

Ooh, Middlemarch is one of my favourite classics. It's the role model for balancing a huge cast of characters. I adore this book!

(I just googled the Gulag Achipelago, which was new to me. Sounds interesting.)

My to read list, concerning classics, has currently: D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers (bought it cheap; gotta love Wordsworth classics, or is it a Penguin?).

I'm also looking for some Thomas Hardy, but I'm unsure which one to tackle. I may let bookshop-availability decide. Any suggestions?

Shadow_Ferret · Oct 10, 2007

Have I ever read War and Peace? Hell no. And I never plan to.

Many of the books listed here, Moby Dick, Anna Karenina, The Grapes of Wrath, and so on just don't interest me. Some I was forced to read in high school, like The Great Gatsby and being forced to do anything turns me off.

In fact, just the term classics turns me off. It's like your supposed to love them, or at least labor over them to improve your writing. Personally, I don't how reading some long-dead, long-winded Russian author is going to help me today.

But I have read, and enjoyed, Crime and Punishment, Heart of Darkness, Bartleby the Shrivener, The Three Musketeers, Dracula, Beowulf, The Song of Roland, Animal Farm, 1984, Brave New World, Lolita, Tropic of Cancer, Poe, Wells, Doyle, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Paradise Lost, and Lady Chatterly's Lover. However, I don't revere them any more than I revere more modern authors. I certainly don't put them on a pedestal simply because they're dead and moldering in their graves.

To be honest, I don't care what something is classified. I only care if it interests me.

Zelenka · Oct 10, 2007

I read a few things that could fall into the 'classics' category but I also read a lot of modern writers as well. I take things as I find them and I refuse to pretend I've enjoyed something just because it's considered 'worthwhile'. If I liked it, I will say so. If I didn't like it, I resent the implication that it's because I'm too stupid to understand it, which has been said to me before. Sorry, didn't mean to start into a rant there.

Some of my favourite books are Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Tristam Shandy, The Case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde, The 39 Steps and Dracula.

dolores haze · Oct 10, 2007

Dawnstorm said:
I'm also looking for some Thomas Hardy, but I'm unsure which one to tackle. I may let bookshop-availability decide. Any suggestions?

My fave is Jude the Obscure. Also recommend Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Far From the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Return of the Native. Two on the Tower was awful. Hardy is not everyone's cup of tea - he's a very strong brew.

Next on my classics reading list is Zola's Germinal.

ResearchGuy · Oct 10, 2007

Billingsgate said:
Does anyone love classic literature these days? . . . Am I alone out there? Is there anyone else here who loves classic literature?

You are not alone. I believe that the large selection of classics published and sold and well promoted by Barnes & Noble is just one sign of that.

I read classics along with so much more (from popular mysteries to history, memoir, science, and on and on). To pick a few from recent years: Pride and Prejudice, Main Street, Cannery Row (plus Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat and Sweet Thursday--my goodness could that man WRITE!). I own more than 100 volumes of the Library of America, and in time will read many of those that I have not already read.

My wife found years ago that books she did not care for in high school make great reading now (Great Expectations being one favorite). When our kids were in high school, she took great gusto in enjoying the very books they were complaining about.

--Ken

ResearchGuy · Oct 10, 2007

benbradley said:
Just how old does a novel have to be to be considered a "classic?" Is it enough that it becomes commonly required high-school reading? . . . .

IMO, a classic is defined not by age, but by quality. Specifically, can a reader read the book again and again with new and deeper meaning each time? I have recently read such a book, just published. After six or seven readings (I got my hands on it in typescript long before publication) it is better than the first time. And the first time I knew it was a keeper. Most old books are not classics. Just run of the mill books with no staying power. Even many that were best sellers -- they eventually drop into obscurity.

It is amusing to see books on high school reading lists now that were dismissed as "that science fiction trash" when I was in high school -- books like Asimov's "Foundation" series. Some of his stuff really was silly. But it seems to have held up well. Ray Bradbury's work has met the test of time. (I met him twice when I was in college. The first time he was friendly and down to earth, chatting about this and that and autographing my book club edition copy of one of his books for me. The second time he seemed to have been overcome By Being Ray Bradbury, too rushed to talk.)

--Ken

valen_sinclair · Oct 10, 2007

well i love reading a good classic now and then, but again what really defines a classic.
I love Moby Dick, War and Peace, Journey to the Centre of the Earth. But I also love a lot of sci-fi pulp fiction from the 40's like Alfred Bester....does this class as classic??

gingerwoman · Oct 10, 2007

Oh I adore Tess of the d'Urbervilles. I have a Masters in Eng Lit and I'm fond of the Victorian novels but it's been a while since I read one. I love Anne Bronte. She's very underrated in my opinion.

emsuniverse · Oct 10, 2007

Mark Twain once said that a classic book is one that is often praised, but never read. I don't know how true that is... I sometimes read classics - I read Gone With the Wind a couple of months ago.

Alvah · Oct 10, 2007

ResearchGuy said:
IMO, a classic is defined not by age, but by quality. Specifically, can a reader read the book again and again with new and deeper meaning each time?

I met a man who said he had read War and Peace three times.
When he was 17 he read it for the adventure. When he was 30, he read it for the romance. When he was 50 he read it for the philosophy.

RoadBuddy · Oct 10, 2007

How true, how true, Billingsgate. War and Peace is an excellent book. Those turn-of-the-century Russians seem to write from a place of pain and suffering that makes the very pages bleed and weep.

Thomas Hardy is brilliant as well, even if he does repeat the same story a few times.

joetrain · Oct 10, 2007

good thread. moby, yes please, and some faulkner (not big on his overblown-prose novels like absolam), some dostoevsky (re:notes from underground), haven't done w&p but am suddenly inspired to do so, stienbeck is the greatest -- big influence, hmmm- are the beats considered classics or still just pop?

Jamesaritchie · Oct 11, 2007

Billingsgate said:
Does anyone love classic literature these days? I'm fairly new to AW. But my overall impression going through these forums is that all anyone ever reads here is Stephen King and fantasy novels. King is a great role model for writers, a masterful storyteller, and a superbly polished writer. And yet a novel like The Stand is like eating a McDonald's meal - perfectly made, and you can wolf it right down - compared to the lush lingering banquets of War and Peace or Moby-Dick.

My greatest reading pleasure, and my greatest influence as a person and as a writer, comes from reading classic literature. To me, War And Peace is an unputdownable page-turner, and I can't wait to read the new English translation coming out later this month.

My top favorite novels of all time, after War And Peace, include Don Quixote, Moby-Dick, Anna Karenina, Robinson Crusoe, Alice In Wonderland, Crime And Punishment and some more more modern classics like The Grapes of Wrath, The Tin Drum and The Makioka Sisters.

I'm no literary snob. I enjoy thrillers and westerns and when I'm in a real fast food/easy reading mood, there's always Stephen King, Elmore Leonard and others who offer high entertainment. But my most deeply satisfying reading experiences usually come from the older works which have stood the test of time.

Am I alone out there? Is there anyone else here who loves classic literature?

King has probably read more classics than most, and his writing reflects it. He's often called "The American Dickens" for good reason. If you really find The Stand to be like eating at McDonald's, it makes me wonder if you've actually read it, or the classics you've mentioned. Or you read it with teh mindset that it was going to be junk. It isn't.

But I will say this. There is no such thing as a good writer who has not read a boatload of classic novels. There never will be. And, yes, a great many still read them. The sales numbers are fantastic, and God only knows how many are downloaded and read as e-books, since most classic novels are now in public domain.

scarletpeaches · Oct 11, 2007

dolores haze said:
My fave is Jude the Obscure. Also recommend Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Far From the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Return of the Native. Two on the Tower was awful. Hardy is not everyone's cup of tea - he's a very strong brew.

Next on my classics reading list is Zola's Germinal.

And he obviously doesn't like women very much.

blacbird · Oct 11, 2007

ResearchGuy said:
The second time he seemed to have been overcome By Being Ray Bradbury, too rushed to talk.)

As an aside, I had a pretty similar experience with him a few years back. Was a little disappointing, but I still like his stuff, especially his early stuff.

Regards "classics", I read things classified as such with regularity. We've had a number of threads relating to such literature here.

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