Classic Reads: What Makes a Classic Read? #NewClassicReads

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Classic Reads: What Makes a Classic Read? #NewClassicReads

First of all, thank you to Christine Nolfi, Molly Greene, Rachel Thompson and Terri Giuliano Long for hosting this fantastic event. From the moment I heard about Classic Reads I have been both excited about it but also dreading it. I wanted to write something, of course, but in conveying what a classic read truly is, well, that’s no easy task.

What Makes a Classic?

Every reader will have their own idea of what constitutes a classic read. Years ago I would have defined a true classic as a book that is [image error]pretty old, the traditional classics like Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice, Don Quixote or The Count of Monte Cristo, those books that have their own section at my local Waterstones store. Age gives one much-needed perspective though and I do now believe that a book published today can be regarded as a classic. It just needs some crucial ingredients.

Rather than offering you a recipe with essential criteria for a classic read, I want to suggest different qualities a book can have to meet my definition of being a classic. To assist me in my endeavours I have called upon who I believe are some truly great authors and their remarkable novels.

First up is the sense of escapism a book can offer. Some books I read and I still feel very much attached to our world. These are not bad books but they don’t have the power to draw me away from reality. The best books completely submerge me in their world, I feel everything that the author shows me about this unfamiliar terrain, I live with the characters and get to the very core of their beings, and when I end my visit for a time it takes me a moment to readjust to the real world. Very often it’s such a shame to have to leave the realm I have escaped to. Books that can do that to a reader are surely classics.

[image error]Characters are important and if the author does their job well with the dramatis personae then a classic read is in their grasp. It’s not just about falling in love with characters, it’s about hating them as well. I’ve mentioned this more than once online but Ian McEwan’s Atonement does an excellent job with the characters. Robbie and Cecilia are great characters as is Briony but I can seldom think of any other character that made me as angry as she did. That a character and their actions can make one so furious is a testament to great writing. Characters that make us feel are essential to a classic read. There are few worse journeys than joining a group of characters you have no interest in. One of my favourite novels, A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz, is full of fun, vibrant and interesting characters that I never wanted to leave behind. They’re the ones that left me.

You can take me to another world, you can put me in the company of a great bunch of characters, but if you want to really please me then give me a good story. Great stories don’t have to be action-packed. I love fantasy with epic quests and battles between good and evil, but I take as much pleasure in a quality crime novel or fascinating character studies such as Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory or J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. I feel the same of films too. There are some films I adore where little happens. It’s what is said that matters, rather than the events that take place, and the same is true of many great books.

Books that don’t leave me even when I have closed them for the final time are also worthy of the classic reads tag. Aldous Huxley’s [image error]Brave New World and Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin are just two examples of novels I have pondered for hours, days, weeks, even months afterwards. A book that really makes me think, makes me care, makes me question aspects of the world, that evokes something within me, that is the kind of powerful read that I may consider a classic.

It’s hard for a book to have all of these elements at the same time and that’s why I don’t consider them all to be essential within one book. If I read a book that has some of these features though, then it will not only be rated highly by me but it is likely to be considered a classic too.

Just to round off I wanted to share some of the authors who I believe are worthy names to be breathed alongside the words Classic Reads:-

Haruki Murakami

[image error]Author of my favourite novel, Norwegian Wood, Murakami’s books intoxicate my mind. His is a beautifully simple writing style, like Hemingway, but his prose is magical, making the most mundane aspects of daily life sound interesting. Norwegian Wood is a rare stray into realism for Murakami but its story haunts me to this day, the main protagonist Toru Watanabe torn between the fragile and troubled Naoko and the outspoken but delightful Midori. This book instantly ousted The Lord of the Rings as the finest book I have ever read. I wasn’t sure what to expect with Murakami’s other novels but I read two last year – Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. The latter of those two books was my top read of 2012. In my own writing I try to draw on both Murakami and Hemingway’s simplicity but always fall well short of these geniuses.

J.R.R. Tolkien

[image error]One of the masters of escapism, Tolkien’s Middle Earth is an astonishing place to visit and I have been there in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Tolkien’s world building has often been considered so good that Middle Earth has more character than its inhabitants. There is something about that landscape, how familiar so many aspects become to you. If you asked me where places were in the UK I would know some but not all, whereas with Middle Earth I could confidently pinpoint many of the places in Tolkien’s books. I have those maps imprinted in my mind, that’s how much of an impact the novels have had.

George Orwell

[image error]I studied Orwell’s Animal Farm at school and later tried 1984 which instantly became one of my favourite novels. Orwell’s observations of the developing world around him and his foresight for the future were simply remarkable. Not all of 1984 has come to pass in modern times but some of Orwell’s predictions do ring true. More than just fiction, I consider Orwell’s work to be valuable contemporary records of his period of history, Animal Farm being an allegory of the Russian Revolution and a diatribe against the ideals and later the flaws of Communism. That he could put all of that into a simple story that can be read on a basic level on the surface is nothing short of miraculous. As for 1984, well, it is a dystopian master class, the complete collapse of freedom in society and though I can’t speak for anywhere but the UK, I do feel more and more than Orwell’s nightmare vision is slowly developing around us.

John Irving

[image error]I’m quite new to Irving having read The World According to Garp and Widow for One Year so far. I can already tell from just these two books that Irving is a master at characterisation. The plots are not action-packed but they are always interesting. However, it is the characters that are the most absorbing for me. I haven’t found any of them to be beyond the realms of imagination yet. They are ordinary, everyday people with flaws and difficulties trying to carve their own way through life. Garp was the superior of the two books for me but I have heard from many people that A Prayer for Owen Meany is arguably Irving’s best and I will be acquainting myself with that one in the near future.

These are just four authors who I believe have written classic reads. I could name many more but these four are amongst my favourites. With that I must say farewell and urge you to visit the other bloggers that have taken part in this event. There is never enough time to read every book we might want to but there is always time to discover the next Classic Read.

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A Story of Love, Loss, Connection, and Grace

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What happens when a workaholic serial remodeler falls in love with an old stone cottage built by an ornithologist and his eccentric Irish wife? If you’re Madison Boone, you kick your budding romance with handsome Psych Professor Coleman Welles to the curb and lose yourself in a new project.

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Dr. Mary Chance needs a sabbatical from medicine to grieve the loss of her closest friend. But when she inherits a struggling restaurant in Liberty, Ohio she isn’t prepared for Blossom Perini. Mary can’t resist falling for the precocious preteen—or the girl’s father. The bond they forge will transform all their lives and set in motion an outpouring of love that spreads across America.

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