Classics for those who don't like Classics

[Lilisa]

Loved Annerlee's description as well. I feel classics are to be savored, have such depth and are great for discussions -- Sarah -- great idea on reading the Woman in White over 40 weeks. Many of the "older" classics were written expressing the authors' views on the issues of the times disguised as fiction giving readers today a sense of time/place/issue. Some of my favorites are A Tale of Two Cities, Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, Of Human Bondage and The Picture of Dorian Gray. I love Shakespeare's plays and sonnets and Oscar Wilde's plays. Hands down, Oscar Wilde is by far the wittiest, smart as whip playwright (I think PoDG was his only book) - amazing command of the language with an astounding ability at satirical dialogue. I also love Wilde's The Ballad Of Reading Gaol - about his imprisonment - so sad.

[Travis]

Crime and Punishment is one of my favorite novels. War and Peace took me forever. I do 't know what I rated it but it was hot and cold fore and didn't leave a lasting impression.

Les Misérables fantadtic book. Super long. Can be tedious with all yhe side stories. Rusalka would absolutely tell you to burn it I velieve.

Anna Karenina. Hate it
Wuthering Heights hate it
A Tale of Two Cities another long slog yet Martin Chuzzlewit, Oliver Twist Great ExpectationsA Christmas Carol all great.
Bleak Househated The Pickwick Papers gave up on altogether.

Three musketeers dis not like
Count of Monte Cristo quite enjoyable I think

Ivanhoe absolutely loved

Don Quixote loved

Basically anything Dostoyevsky is very good because he focuses on the poor side. Poverty, jail, murder, gambling, stealing on the other sude Tolstoy likes to focus on rich oeople. I don't tend to care about the upper class . Another hot and cold book about upper class is The House of Mirth
Guess while we are in NYC I'll comment on Ragtime surprised me how muvh I enjoyed it. The Great Gatsby hate it with a passion

Cannery Row. Very enjoyable

Light in August loved this one while the only other faulkner I tried Absalom, Absalom! made me think I'd probably never try him again.

I like a lot of the classic sci fi. Its dated but fun.

Ray Bradbury. Here is a hot and cold author. Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes are fantastic whike aome of his others are just so so.

Enjoyed the entire Sherlock Holmes collection

Did not like Dracula the first time but was much betrer the second.

James Joyce I now avoid altogether

Silly yet fun and audio is great A Confederacy of Dunces


Fantastic audio and fantastic read even if you are not ibto westerns is Lonesome Dove


Basically I can't say what classics work amd don't for me. Even the same author can vary immensely. I just pick them up and if they are worthy of at least a 3 stick with them. Less than a 3 I just dump them now too much time wasted forcing my way through a few.

The Divine Comedy is a fantastic book but is so much work. And I have no idea about it at all now lol. I had to read it with a companion The Modern Scholar: Dante and his Divine Comedy the professor was favulous so I understood the book as I went theough it learning. 5 minutes later I had probably forgotten but when I was in the zone on a section it is just amazing what Dante did.


The Iliad/The Odyssey just fantastic to stand the test of time.


Not much explanations here . Juat a smattering of a bunch I read and some were good some bad

[Janice, Moderator]

Wow! That's awesome, Travis.

I have a vague memory of reading Anna Karenina. While I don't remember much about it, I doubt I would tackle it again.

It seems that I enjoyed reading classics more when I was younger. Maybe I was more patient, I don't know. I read Great Expectations when I was in school and recall that I enjoyed it. But, I tried to reread it a couple of years ago and couldn't finish it.

[Mariab]

Joan wrote: "I wonder if the pace of classics is jarring because we approach them like movies when they are written more like television sagas...think Downton Abbey or Orange is the New Black..."

Camilla wrote: "I pay more attention to what happens - or, in the case of most classics, doesn't happen - in the book than to the language.."

Lisa wrote: "It makes perfect sense to me, Sarah. Some classics are very slow in terms of plot development and don't contain a great deal of action or atmosphere..."

This is a good point, no doubt. I think the visual arts (movies, TV) and recently the social media has changed or shaped how the different generations perceive the world and each of them (the media) has set a "pace" in which said generation feels good or comfortable. Today, all must be fast, graphic and in movie pace (I hate how many books appear to be written, to be sold as screenplays... perhaps this is the author's final goal, after all...)

I'm guilty as charged, I'm afraid. I love classics. Nobody has "forced" them upon me. They were, anyway, the only books I could or would get in my youth... and I simply love them, no matter how old or odd the language is (I enjoy poetry from the S. XV, for example).
And because my partiality toward them... I cannot make a good "seller" of them.
That said... I don't enjoy reading detective and mystery books so much, not anymore. I think, I have "over-read" myself with them as a teen

[Mariab]

Cherie wrote: "I made it halfway through Crime and Punishment and gave up, intending to try it again someday. I have never attempted W&P.

Travis is the only one I can think of. I think he listened to it and lik..."

And Gavin, too, I think. I recall him saying he was reading it...
I, for my part, gave it up in the middle (a thousand years ago...)

[Travis]

I definitely don't force myself through a classic anymore but that doesn't mean quitting necessarily. Sometimes its set it down and when the mood is right come back. Now if I try it 2-3 times and it still is a dud I dump it. Now I remember War and Peace was really dragging and I almost quit it. At halfway I set it down for a long time. I'm thinking like 6 months. Then I ended up really enjoying the second half of it. I probably should have taken more breaks in first half. Also with War and Peace it helps if you find a group reading it or that has read it where you could chek the discussion. I joined Classics and the Western Canon just for that book

[Mariab]

I think I can recommend a classic for all those who enjoy the dry, witty humor of Oscar Wilde... Gustave Flaubert, Bouvard et Pécuchet

[Books With Chi]

Lisa wrote: "Out of interest, has anyone here tackled the monster that is War and Peace? If so, how did you find it?"

My cousin's reading it. He says it's pretty good and he's actually enjoying it. I think he said he likes the peace section better than the war section.

[Books With Chi]

I have tried to stay away from classics since school. Being forced to read them has made me not like them one bit. However, ever since I started wanting to read horror, people have been recommending Dorian Gray to me a lot so I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and give it a try. The lady in White sounds interesting as well.

[Cherie]

Books with Chi - I think as you move away from those mental image of having been forced to read specific books in school, and mature and become more well read - simply by reading again, that you will find that your interests have changed. You will be more open to trying books labeled classics. They are not all horrible and hard to read. They come in all different shapes and sizes - some better than others and some really dreadfully boring. You won't know until you try them though.

I can say these things because I have seen it happen. My youngest daughter hated to read anything after she got out of school and only picked up books if her older sister got her interested in them first. The next thing I knew she was walking around reading anything she could find that was over 500 pages because she was blowing through them so fast. She has discovered audiobooks now and has been listening to classics because they are longer and she is in her car more because of her work. She told me she had loved The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask, both books that I had suggested to her over the years. She is suggesting titles to me now. I love it!

[Books With Chi]

Cherie wrote: "Books with Chi - I think as you move away from those mental image of having been forced to read specific books in school, and mature and become more well read - simply by reading again, that you wi..."

That's awesome she became and avid reader! I'm definitely going to try and read Dorian Gray and the Woman in White and if those turn out good, I'll definitely be more open to classics.

[Dorottya]

This is such a great discussion idea.
I would not make recommendations per se, even though some classics are more approachable language-wise than others... but I would tweak recommendations to what the certain reader is more interested in. I could go on how Jane Austen can be a great starter to classics when that certain someone loathes romance novels, even if they are contemporary. Or if someone is feeling uneasy reading about murders, I would not recommend them Crime and Punishment (which I loooooved as a teen).