The Classics

It's not stupid; it's just the way you do things.
When I read the classics, I head straight for the juvenile section of the library and read it ... uh, in the easy to read format. Otherwise, I wouldn't read them at all.

Is that stupid? I don't think so. I think it's just me. YMMV

When I was 14, the only TV in the house quit working. It was summer and there was nothing else to do, so I started pulling books off the shelves. That's when I read a number of classics that have become favorites and stayed with me all these years. Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, and Richard Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley, are two I read that summer. That's what got me started reading, and that's what got me started writing.

I've had to read a lot of novels, and poetry, and plays and, worst of all, criticism and critical theory I hated for school. And I do mean a lot -- pages and pages listing works.

I figure I've compensated for a lot of people; you go right ahead and read what you want to read. Keep in mind that an awful lot of the canon, especially in terms of fiction, was not exactly revered when it was published; it was popular sure, but it certainly wasn't regarded as "litrature."

So go. Read. Enjoy. Write stuff other people will enjoy. There ought to be some payoff for me suffering through all of Smollet, James, and Cooper.

I read the Catcher in the Rye because I thought I had to. It's a classic, right? Maybe somebody can tell me why it's a classic, because I am perplexed.

I love the classics! I have well-worn copies of Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre, & even Little Women that I read over and over and over. Then, I have a pile of modern chick-lit that I've discarded halfway through because I just couldn't sympathize with the "heroine" - and I use that term loosely. So, I guess I prefer many of the classics, but I haven't given up hope on the moderns either ... despite the paperback graveyard piling up in my office.

I think it's good to have a good understanding of both ... especially if you're planning on getting published yourself.

Cherryh is one of my all time favorite writers.

Catcher in the Rye

Jbal-I believe that Catcher is a classic because so many scholars consider it to be a groundbreaker. It was among the first novels that took on the topic of child neglect/child abuse, the generation gap, etc. head on.

If I remember correctly, it was first published just after WWII--so the above topics, along with the use of profanity--made it a very avant-garde read for those conservative times.

It was banned in many school districts, not only for its use of foul language, but for its subversive ideas. Much like the movie, The Graduate, Catcher bitterly exposed the hypocrisy and moral torpitude of the older generation.

Also, Holden, the narrator, is simmering with a rage that is almost palpable. His rambling narrative allows the reader to delve into the mind of a confused, angry, and emotionally unstable young man.

Salinger's use of an unreliable narrator is the epitome of "show, don't tell" for character development. The reader gets to draw his/her own uneasy conclusions about Holden's mental state and the veracity of his complaints.

Put it this way, there would be no Titanic without Romeo & Juliet, just as there would be no Outsiders without Catcher in the Rye.

Lecture over. You are dismissed.

The unreliable narrator is a good point. That was probably the biggest thing I took away from it.

For a long time I was against 'the classics' and refused to read them. I had read some in school of course. The reason for my rebellion was that far too often I saw people, when asked to name a favorite author or book, recite names from the 'classics'. I felt they were saying what they thought they were supposed to say instead of what they really thought.

So that means I have not read many of these books. I have enrolled in a lit class for fall term, though, and so I will read some then I imagine. I figure the worst case scenario isthat my opinion will become informed. The truth is that books are books and I will like some and not like others.

I liked Beowolf and the Canterbury Tales. Other than that...feh. Those people wrote funny back then.

It's like any other area of fiction - you're going to like some, and not like others. I tried to read War and Peace once, and got confused by the complicated Russian names, but I raced through The Three Musketeers and The Black Tulip by Dumas, and when I finally got round to reading - my brain's gone dead - "Cathy!" "Heathcliffe!" - that one - I recognised the plot that I'd found in many derivative romances.

My favorites-- Wuthering Heights and of course, Frankenstein.

The Frankenstein movies are so different from the book. In the movies, he's a bumbling monster who can only moan displeasure. In the book, he's an intelligent if pessimistic creature who speaks French and reads philosophical books!
Damn you, Hollywood!

I've mostly not read "The Classics." (How's that for a horrific grammatical construct?) I moved around a lot in high school and it seemed like every place I went, we were reading what I'd just read the year before. I went through MacBeth three times, I think.

I've never read Dickens (though I've got a couple on my shelf that I'm working on getting to), Fitzgerald or any of the Bronte sisters. I do love The Count of Monte Cristo - perhaps my favorite "old novel." I have read a number of 20th century classics, such as Animal Farm, 1984, Farenheit 451, etc.

I'm very much a modern reader, I guess. Call me a heathen

Troilee, trust me. Go to the Junior section of the library. You can read 'em all in a week. You can follow the story line without stopping to wonder what the heck the author was trying to say.

I read Jane Eyre and the Count of Monte Cristo in under an hour each.

.....sort of like Reader's Digest Condensed Books....only a little more 'condensed'.

That's a really good idea. Thanks for the suggestion!

I don't even think kids should read those summarized versions.

Ewwwww!

Dpsi4 said:

You're suggesting she read those summarized versions for kids? Blegh!

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Yep. I am. Because they're easier to read and at least they'll get read that way. Otherwise, they'd sit on the shelf and personally, I'd never read them. The archaic sentence structure in some of those works is more than a turn off. <Insert your favorite hurling smiley here>

After you've read the condensed version you can decide if the original is worth reading.

Or perhaps you'd recommend Cliff Notes? <insert 2nd favorite hurling smiley here>

If the choice is reading a junior version or not reading them at all - I say - and I stand by saying it - read the junior version. At least you can get through it without saying to yourself, 'WTF?WTF?WTF?'

I "read" Wuthering Heights using the Cliff's Notes. Mostly because I only had three days before school started, and was supposed to have read it for summer reading. I got the gist of the story, and that was enough for me.

Sometimes the condensed version is worth it. You don't get the artistry of the author's language, or the full impact of descriptions, but you get the story.

High Schools still teach classics, but I don't think students have the attention span for that old language anymore. I didn't, and I'm about ten years removed from HS. Maybe I'm just weird.

I forced my way through Great Expectations and The Great Gatsby. I wanted to poke my own eyes out. Yes, I can say that I read and studied them, but I did not enjoy them. I would rather go blind than read any other books by Toni Morrison. Except for A Christmas Carol, I have never read Charles Dickens for "fun." I read the Children's Illustrated version of The Three Musketeers. I have a handful of classics on my shelves (Frankenstein, Catcher in the Rye), but if it's a choice between those and the latest Stephen King?

Guess which one I'm reading?

I really do envy those of you who can pick up a classic and read it all the way through. And actually enjoy it. I do. I wish I could do the same. But there aren't enough hours in my day to force myself to read something I don't care for, when there are dozens of books that I want to read collecting dust on my shelves.

::sigh::

Instead of summarized versions, ease your way into the classics with great books that are simple to read, but sink deep into your brain. A personal list comes to mind: 1984, the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, The End of the Affair, the Jeeves and Wooster stories, Lord of the Rings, Things Fall Apart, etc. There's a long list.

It's not necessarily true that the older something is, the harder it is to read. It's also not necessarily true that the easier something is to read, the better it is. A Sherlock Holmes story demands much less out of its readers than Anna Karenina. I don't say that to knock Anna Karenina (one of the best things I have ever read). You may have to prepare for the Anna Kareninas by reading books that are more solid than your favorite literary junk food. My mother once told me that she borrowed a mystery novel from a friend and didn't realize until she started reading it that she had already read it once, and forgotten about it completely.

Over time you will develop reading muscles, get a sense of the way novelists in a certain time and place speak and arrange their sentences. You'll start to hear individual books talk to you in the voices of their authors. But you don't get there by starting with Shakespeare because it's good for you and calling Macbeth broccoli and pushing it away, when it's really an enormous side of beef that needs to be carved, cooked, seasoned, chewed carefully, and digested for a long time to be enjoyed.

Cliff notes: empty calories, in my opinion. And abridged digests, for a similar reason, are not taking you down the path to better reading in the future. It's dulling your palate.

Times change and people change; writing styles change and reading styles change.

If the Classics are going to remain 'classic' - and part of our cultural heritage they have to be read and understood by many. In our age of instant everything - who, outside of a scholar is going to take the time and effort to read them?

I like to read; Nay, I love to read. Reading is my great passion. If I can't bear to wade through some of these books, how can you expect Josephine Average to plow through them? They won't. Unless someone makes them and very often when that someone 'makes' them, they end up hating it, not understanding the message of the book, and ignoring the rest.

Our librarians take great care in choosing good editions for our juvenile section. The ones I've read lost none of the story. Sure, the language is different but the story is there. The originals are in the adult section - sometimes people even go check those out to read them, too. If the choice is reading Jane Eyre in a translation or the latest edition of People, guess which one I'm going to recommend?

I just checked out The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The flyleaf blurb sounded interesting so I took it home. I got 30 pages into it and shut the cover and I'm sending it back. Bleh. The story sounded interesting but it took the author 30+ words to tell me he 'met her at the train station'. All 30 pages were like that. On and on and on and on. Just say it, already!

I don't believe people want to wade through and try and decipher what the author is saying. They just want to read the da** thing. If it piques their interest enough to try the original - great. If you like toothsome reading and enjoy figuring it out - great. I don't think that most people enjoy reading that way.

If they did, the classics would be flying off the shelves every week. Um. I don't see that happening - at least not where I am.

Dpsi4 said:

I know it's silly, but every time I want to read something more modern I feel a pang of guilt, that as a writer I should finish getting grounded in the classics before I spend time reading something that might be forgotten fifty years from now. I know, it's stupid.

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Personally, as someone who recieved an English degree, I don't bother reading anything written before 1920.

Yes. I have read a great deal of Restoration, Enlightenment, Victorian, Romantic, and other era writing.

And, honestly, it's a stretch for me to find anything in common with protagonists or what is happening in the stories. So, reading anything before the Modern era is a waste of my time. Twain being one of, if not the only exception to this rule.

I try to stay within 10 years of right now in my readings. And if I buy a book, it has to have been published within the last 3.

You know what Twain had to say about classics? They're books no one reads anymore.

Wuthering Heights? I'd rather read A Streetcar named Desire.
Dickens? I'd rather read Palahniuk.
Turn of the Screw? I'd rather read Catcher in the Rye.

you want to write in today's market?
Read what's being written now. The past is fine. But that's already be written. What about today? Has that been written yet?

Like Medievalist, I've been required to read a lot of things as part of undergraduate and graduate-level English programs. Some I knew I'd like, some I was suprised to enjoy, some were a major chore to read, and some I just couldn't quite finished, regardless of requirements. Like with everything else, tastes vary widely.