Classics

[Trike]

Ruth wrote: "I received an orient express jigsaw puzzle for Christmas I’ve just got round to starting."

So was the puzzle done by everyone? XD

[Trike]

Steve wrote: "I've just finished reading The Catcher in the Rye for the first time and I think I can state quite confidently that, from the perspective of a 50+ year old man, Holden Caulfield is one ..."

I agree that Holden is annoying, but the writing of that book is amazing. I didn’t read it until I was in my 40s and I kept flipping back to the copyright page to confirm it had been published in 1951 and not the month before I read it. It feels so contemporary, especially compared to everything else written in that era. Salinger really was ahead of his time.

[Trike]

John (Taloni) wrote: "I have heard of many Russian authors but have read only a few. IIRC it has..."

[Tamahome]

I enjoyed Shapard's Annotated Pride and Prejudice. It's twice as long. In the ebook you get a little popup window. For example when Darcy gives Elizabeth a hand (intense!) to get into her carriage ("Mr. Darcy handed the ladies into the carriage"), the footnote says:

90. Handing ladies into a carriage was a standard courtesy. The several high steps required to climb into a carriage, and the long dresses worn, would make such assistance useful.

[Chris K.]

Even as a teenager, I hated Catcher. Holden is such an annoying snot.

[Clyde]

On the classics front, now reading Out of Africa by Karen Blixen (AKA: Isak Dinesen). A fascinating glimpse into an Africa that once was and is now gone forever.

[Ruth]

John (Taloni) wrote: "^ Okay. Pick one - ONE - that you would recommend. And I will consider powering through it.

I'm in a similar boat in that I have heard of many Russian authors but have read only a few. IIRC it has..."

I haven't finished reading all the plays yet, I will let you know when I'm done which was my favourite! As plays they're pretty short so you should be able to power through one pretty quickly.

On the opposite end of the length scale is War and Peace by Leo Tolstoywhich has a reputation for being a huge weighty tome but is actually a very lively and entertaining read imho, and not really any longer than a lot of fantasy doorstoppers. I'd recommend it for anyone looking for a classic of Russian literature to get stuck into.

The famous Russian author I've never read is Dostoevsky, I must get round to reading something by him!

[Ruth]

Trike wrote: "Ruth wrote: "I received an orient express jigsaw puzzle for Christmas I’ve just got round to starting."

So was the puzzle done by everyone? XD"

No, just me :P
my 3yo 'helped' for a bit (ie, mixed the loose pieces together with some bits of Lego)

[Scott]

Yeah, I really enjoyed War and Peace when I read it in high school. I tried to read The Brothers Karamazov once upon a time but the library version I got was not a good translation. It was bad enough I found it unreadable. (Don't remember which translation it was.) I got the newer one translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky a while back because I read a number of reviews that all agreed they really nailed the feel of the novel in the translation. Haven't read it yet, but definitely on my list.

[Clyde]

Chris K. wrote: "Even as a teenager, I hated Catcher. Holden is such an annoying snot."

What Chris said. 👍

[Tamahome]

I've watched a few adaptions of Far from the Madding Crowd and liked them, but the book is very archaic in its style, with lots of old references.

[John (Taloni)]

When this thread popped back up I thought "Haaa, great timing" because I had picked up Lord of the Flies and figured I'd have to go dig it out.

Well anyway. Lord of the Flies. Good God, what an awful book. Usually when I read a classic I feel like I've at least added to my store of cultural knowledge. Treasure Island? I bounced off the prose style but finally understood a wide array of cultural references. Hemingway? I don't relate to the structure of the "Great American Novel" but The Sun Also Rises had some great characterization, and The Old Man And The Sea was hilarious in that Hemingway says it's just about an old man trying to reel in a fish and I'm like "no, I see what all those English profs were getting at with the allusions."

Moving on...what was the point of Lord of the Flies? Did English kids of the day actually act like that? Because there's a counter story of some Danish kids that got marooned on an island and acted completely civilized.

There's a high-minded afterword that says the story is about Othering and how we could all descend to savagery and my reaction is sure, yeah, if it means that to you. Left me cold. I guess Piggy is doing himself no favors with the needy bit, and he didn't have to give up his previous nickname, but what is he supposed to be? The bureaucratic class of England, issuing reasoned analyses and being ignored? An amalgam of bullied kids the author saw?

I do not feel enlightened reading the book. Nothing against the author for writing it, but I don't see how it ever struck a chord. Or gained an audience.

[Steve]

I can well imagine that Lord of the Flies feels very much a product of its time - shaped by the immediate aftermath of WWII and rooted in a rigid, class-conscious society. I haven’t read it in nearly 40 years, and then only as part of a school curriculum, but I suspect it hasn’t aged especially well. Today’s (generally) more nuanced understanding of society likely makes its stark, pessimistic view feel overly reductive.

[John (Taloni)]

Steve wrote: "I can well imagine that Lord of the Flies feels very much a product of its time - shaped by the immediate aftermath of WWII and rooted in a rigid, class-conscious society. "

Yeah, that's the thing. I went in thinking I would read it as a critique of British upper-class society of the day. From what I have read elsewhere the schools were brutal places.

I was hard pressed to see that critique though. It seemed more like a bunch of boys gone wild for no particular reason.

We had a pretty great critique of the East Coast upper class in Ninth House and I was hoping for insight of that caliber here. Didn't see it. Wondering what I could be missing. My daughter read the book for school and hated it, so perhaps it *is* dated. But how? What held then that doesn't now? I find myself just puzzled by the whole book.

[Ruth]

I've recently started reading two new classic books from the twentieth century:
On my Kindle The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier isn't strictly speaking an SFF book, but it does have a pretty unlikely premise (what if you bumped into someone who looked and sounded so much like you that you could just... swap into his life without anyone noticing (apart from his pet dogs)). In any case it's very well-written and a compelling story. I haven't read any DdM for a long time and I'm remembering why she was one of my favourite authors when I was younger.

And in audio: A Perfect Spy by John Le Carré, a classic tale of espionage, secrets, and hidden identities. Tbh it's a bit confusing in audiobook because the narrative skips around so much between time periods and points-of-view. I checked to see if my library had the paperback edition but they only have the audiobook too so I'm persevering with the audio and hoping it becomes a bit clearer as it goes on.

[Ruth]

John (Taloni) wrote: "^ Okay. Pick one - ONE - that you would recommend. And I will consider powering through it.

I'm in a similar boat in that I have heard of many Russian authors but have read only a few. IIRC it has..."

I have now finished reading all the plays and I will recommend you read The Seagull, as it's the one which I think has the strongest sense of the tragicomic and the least amount of people sitting around moaning about how bored they are with provincial life (it does have some of that, just not as much as the others).

[John (Taloni)]

You got it! Love that intro.

MASHA and MEDVIEDENKO come in from the left, returning from a walk.

MEDVIEDENKO. Why do you always wear mourning?

MASHA. I dress in black to match my life. I am unhappy.

[Tina]

Tamahome wrote: "I've watched a few adaptions of Far from the Madding Crowd and liked them, but the book is very archaic in its style, with lots of old references."

I love it and have read it a few times; I guess maybe because I used to raise sheep, loved all the farming references.

[Tina]

Not sure if it meets the criteria of a classic , but I’m reading The Mists of Avalon. I think it was a group read in the way-back times, but I never got the chance to read it.

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

We read that before Marion's horrific crimes were revealed.

Safe to say that we will never read another of her books for S&L

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_...

[John (Taloni)]

Tassie Dave wrote: "We read that before Marion's horrific crimes were revealed."

Beat me to it. Tho I was wondering if I even wanted to bring it up, given the content.

I've read the book put out by her daughter Moira Greyland Peet. Horrific.

Edited to add: I think a lot of people haven't heard about this but did have a positive experience of MZB's work. I don't want to be mean about those experiences. We are a friendly discussion board. In most cases I would say to separate the art and the artist. In this case, no.

[Melani]

The thing with Lord of the Flies is it's not so much a critique of British upper class society of the time as it is a critique of the idea that the British upper class is inherently more 'civilized' than other people. The reason the boys decended into brutal canibalism so quickly is that was how British society viewed other cultures (and how they justified their colonialism-those cultures NEEEEEEEED the civilizing of the British) and Golding wasn't saying that brutal canibalism and anarchy is the default of humanity, he was pointing out how ridiculous that idea is by putting the class of people considered 'most civilized' in that position.

[Tina]

Tassie Dave wrote: "We read that before Marion's horrific crimes were revealed.

Safe to say that we will never read another of her books for S&L

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_......"

That’s pretty disturbing.

[Linn]

Phil wrote: "The last non-sff book I read was The Raven in the Foregate, part of the Brother Cadfael series. They're about a monk in the 1100's who solves mysteries."

Thank you so much for posting this! I've been trying to remember what this series was called, and all manner of searches I have tried came up empty. Never would have thought I'd find the answer in Sword and Laser. :)

[Phil]

Glad I could be surreptitiously helpful. ;)