15 ms·

Why Read the Classics? (1986)

310 points by constantinum 8y ago

ksdale 8y ago
In my effort to read some portion of the classics, I really experienced his observation of the difference between reading in school and reading later in life. I couldn't believe how much more I was impacted by some of these books just 10 years after reading them in high school. Many of the plights of the protagonists just didn't stir me at all when I was in school, either because I didn't understand the historical context well enough, or because I didn't yet have enough empathy to feel their pain and loss (it's always pain and loss in the classics...) Anyway, I highly recommend reading some of these books again as an adult. Even some of the ones I remember hating in school I ended up being engrossed by.
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  I reread the Count of Monte Cristo, there was a penguin edition on a garage sale table for $2. I found it much more enjoyable than I did the first time around. (it also shows you how much of our current storytelling was influenced by the themes in this book)
  - lmm 8y ago
    Is The Count of Monte Cristo a "classic"? It's great fun but I always thought of it as more of a pulpy adventure than a respected work of literature.
    - ChuckMcM 8y ago
      I am not sure, it makes a lot of '100 books to read before you die' lists[1]. Perhaps the best evidence to support it as worthy of the 'classic' moniker is perhaps the CSMonitor review [3] which points out that it has held up as a great story over several hundred years. How would you define a "classic" and what books would you put in that definition? [1] exemplar -- https://www.businessinsider.com/100-books-everyone-should-read-amazon-goodreads-2015-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/100-books-everyone-should-re... [2] Quora discussion -- https://www.quora.com/Why-is-The-Count-of-Monte-Cristo-considered-a-classic https://www.quora.com/Why-is-The-Count-of-Monte-Cristo-consi... [3] "Dumas published the book in 1846. It is no exaggeration to say “Monte Cristo” still ranks as one of the most exciting stories imaginable, one every bit as good as anything Steven Spielberg or J.K. Rowling could ever conjure up." -- https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2011/0206/Classic-review-The-Count-of-Monte-Cristo https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2011/0206/Class...
- cmplxconjugate 8y ago
  I’ve had a similar experience. I think it simply comes down to emotional maturity and more diverse life experiences. It makes it much easier to empathise with characters, as well as critically analyse the subtext. One thing I found quite difficult however is dealing with the different writing styles. Sometimes it could be a real slog to get through books that have a dated or less contemporary style.
  - jrumbut 8y ago
    I really recommend audiobooks here, it makes it so much easier to get through the 50 page sections of geneology or all-wrong speculation about the natural world that's included in a lot of classic works. So easy in fact you come to understand what role they play or why they're important. One thing I love about the classics is that they have an entirely different set of euphemisms and implicit assumptions. They don't know what you're supposed to pretend isn't true in the modern world. You end up with, for instance, the ancient Greeks being very explicit that their early rulers were the most effective pirates and cattle rustlers. You learn a lot more about how we got where we are and why some obviously bad structures are so hard to change. Many decision makers from the dawn of writing to the present day relied on these texts as playbooks.
  - ianai 8y ago
    The best books can be reread all through life. They have different meanings and lessons for a person during different life stages.
    - StillBored 8y ago
      Maybe, but I can tell you I got nothing from reading "Waiting for Godot" as a sophomore in high school. Age is something that is hard to relate to when your 14-15. Worse philosophy tends to be a luxury when your really poor and have more immediate concerns. I might have been offended by being called "emotionally immature" at that age but i also found Jane Eyre and similar to be pointless rubbish at that age. Although, maybe the point of a "classic" is that it should have broad appeal, but there is a difference between intellectually understanding something and being able to relate to it. I found Grapes of Wrath to be relatable, but tedious in high school, and noticed a correlation a between the amount of hate better off kids in class espoused for it vs the fact that I while I found it immensely depressing, I didn't mind it nearly as much as many of the other assignments.
- bena 8y ago
  Reading for assignment is a chore, reading for pleasure is a joy. I think you get caught up in the feeling that "this needs to be done" that you don't really get to get into the book.
  - abecedarius 8y ago
    Yep. A couple times in high school I refused to read an assigned book that I didn't want to ruin for myself. (Pride and Prejudice and Moby-Dick. Came back to them years later and still think I scheduled them correctly.) I guess the difference from some others which I actually enjoyed reading for school (Othello, Alice in Wonderland) was the ratio of effort to pulpish I-want-to-read-the-next-page quality.
- a_wild_dandan 8y ago
  Nothing sterilizes a book's emotional or intellectual impact quite like being forced to read it. It's like cultivating a person's appreciation of sushi by physically shoving it down her throat. What's worse is that I can only unhelpfully lament the current state of literature in education -- I have no idea how we may improve the system...
  - vixen99 8y ago
    Not necessarily. Depends on circumstances. Putting a book on a school or college curriculum is a form of enforced reading dictated however by people whose opinions you presumably respect.
  - DubiousPusher 8y ago
    That depends probably on whether you were a lit major or not. I can understand how someone forced into a lit class under general studies would be irritated by texts that seem uninteresting or irrelevant but if you're a literature student that's exactly what you're there for. Half the use of the classes was getting a syllabus someone had gone to great lengths to organize around an expert knowledge of some area or string of thought. I usually found a good deal of value, even when the author or work was not to my specific taste. My classical literature class had a cycle exclusively on Antigone. I was and am not as enamored by that play as was my instructor and the critic George Steiner who we were asked to read. But to loathe the requirement and not focus on deriving the best possible value from that assignment would've been a waste of money.
    - ksdale 8y ago
      Years after college, I still really enjoy walking through a university bookstore and looking at the books in the curriculum for each major. Pretty much everything that's not a textbook is regarded as a really important book by the experts in the field, and a lot of them are quite readable for nonfiction which I assume is a result of professors wanting to keep students interested.
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- StillBored 8y ago
  Besides (as others have pointed out) some of the classics aren't that great. Then, there is the problem that it seems frequently the books chosen for a high school reader are chosen based on some perceived quality of the book rather than what is going to be enjoyable, relatable and readable by someone who effectively doesn't have any adult life behind them. Worse they seem to be chosen without regard to length or readability. I had to read Grapes of Wrath over 3 weeks in HS (with everything else going on, and I know most students shared a cliff notes and prayed for a reasonable grade), but there are plenty of worse examples and the The Count of Monte Cristo in its 1000+ page unabridged addition was assigned my niece last year. I tend to be able to read pulp novels at 100 pages an hour, but older novels, Shakespeare plays etc, can easy bring it down to 30 pages an hour or less. Which for a 600 page book is a 20+ hour long drag if the novel isn't enjoyable. Surely the instructors can find shorter novels which are easier for the kids to read and relate to. I remember reading Cannery Row a few years ago and wondering why instead of Grapes of Wrath it wasn't assigned, or for that matter I read "This Side of Paradise" and am to this day 100% convinced that any teacher that assigns The Great Gatsby to a teenage student over it should seriously be examined (actually IIRC when I read it, it seemed the sexual content in this side of paradise probably makes it hard to assign, but that is another discussion, along with the fact that Gatsby was initially a failure with mixed reviews, the reasons should be understood but apparently aren't. I hated the Gatsby assignment, but suspect that I would have found it more enjoyable in my 20's when I read Paradise, which is likely one of those books that is less meaningful to people in their 50's). The bottom line, is that there are plenty of "classic" novels that are relatable to a wide audience (male & female, differing economic backgrounds, etc) and are short enough that a normal teenager can struggle through them even if they aren't enjoyable. The fact that it accepted to assign some of these book because everyone else is doing it is just a sign of bad instruction.
  - billfruit 8y ago
    The unabridged Count of Monte Cristo is a blockbuster that puts Hollywood to shame in its scale. Even has a chapter on a bloodbath, that looked to me as something that could have inspired some one like Tarantino. Pirates, murders, poisoning mystery, Prison escapades, Roman banditi, political intrigue, it has all of it and more.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Similar experience with the Portuguese classics, I only got to enjoy the ones I have read before reaching the school level where they were compulsory.
adamnemecek 8y ago
I’m in the other camp. Reading unpopular books has been much more valuable to me than reading popular books. If the classics are good, you’ll understand them by osmosis even without having read them.
- Buldak 8y ago
  "Understand" to what extent? Knowing the plot? The morals in broad strokes?
- mwfunk 8y ago
  Popularity isn't a metric by which to prejudge content? Also, it really doesn't get less popular than the classics. And no, you will not understand them by osmosis. Lovecraft was a big influence on Stephen King but it's not like reading a Stephen King novel magically grants you the experience of reading Lovecraft. It's fine if reading older stuff doesn't appeal to you (it doesn't appeal to hardly anyone), but you don't get to pretend like you're not missing out on anything. Just own the fact that you don't like that stuff.
  - adamnemecek 8y ago
    I’m talking about nonfiction.
- trts 8y ago
  Classics are not that popular. The most downloaded book on Project Gutenberg (Pride and Prejudice) has been downloaded only 32K times. Moby Dick has 15K downloads and at least 10 of those are mine. I disagree that classics can be understood by osmosis. I'm not discounting the books you read or saying they wouldn't compare to the classics if they were better known. But there is an experience in reading something timeless that can only be experienced by reading it. And there are more experiences to reading them with age that makes them unique. They become richer instead of becoming banal.
- pvg 8y ago
  How much Balzac or Dostoyevsky would you estimate you've understood through osmosis without reading them?
tomcam 8y ago
I had to visit the Shakespeare festival in Ashland, OR many times as a kid. My parents didn’t push attendance on me, but nor did my dad explain why Shakespeare is so great. “It’s classic literature.” “How? What makes it better than Isaac Asimov or the Hardy Boys?” “It’s just great literature.” I found this frustrating and started telling people that Shakespeare should be taught as a second language (a joke one of my college professor friends likes to repeat even now). Fast forward 35 years. I have come to enjoy reading Shakespeare on my own. (Why is it great literature? Incredible prose, insane plot lines, and way way underrated comedy. Some of the best comedy I have ever encountered is in Shakespeare’s so-called tragedies, a situation that very much matches my own tragedy-marred life. Reread “Hamlet”, “Richard III”, and “MacBeth” for a barrage of hilariously inappropriate one-liners.) Anyway, a decade and half ago wife wants to take the kids, ages 7 & 9, to the Ashland Shakespeare Festival. I tell them they don’t have to see any of it. I tell them I didn’t enjoy anything but the comedies as a kid but that the staging and costumes were always good. No pressure at all; they are welcome to hang out in the hotel room with iPads or to watch TV, a luxury they lack at home. They go see everything, including histories and tragedies. And they totally get it. Apparently my children don’t know they’re not supposed to understand the antiquated English, because halfway through their first play (“Merchant of Venice”) I am sometimes having to ask them what’s going on, and my 7 year-old patiently and correctly gives me the 411. They attend pre-play lectures and, when asked by the lecturer, read better than most actors. We go many more times in the ensuing years and it’s now among my most cherished memories. To this day they quote Shakespeare accurately and mumble “Exeunt” under their breath when they want to get out of a boring situation.
- jgtrosh 8y ago
  Really off track, but I don't think iPads were a thing 15 years ago. (You can reply with “Exeunt”.)
  - tomcam 8y ago
    Fudging numbers a bit for privacy reasons ;)
- jkoschei 8y ago
hprotagonist 8y ago
The author of this piece is, himself, eminently worth reading. “If On A Winter’s Night, A Traveller” is just amazing.
vjsc 8y ago
We had Charles Dickens's Great Expectations in school. I was mesmerised by the incredible storyline and the shocking twist at the end. It introduced me to western classic literature for the first time and I was really impressed. Then in college, there was an ongoing bet that who could finish the entire unabridged version of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. It tool me three months to read the whole of it. It changed me as a person and made me aware of the fact that the problems faced by humans haven't really changed over the centuries, but only their manifestation has changed as per the present times. And what about The Count of Monte Cristo and other books by Alexander Dumas. The list goes on ...
- cjslep 8y ago
  I had the exact opposite experience reading Great Expectations in high school. To such a degree that even I recognize that my hatred of it is uncharacteristic of me.
adiusmus 8y ago
Why not? They’re called classics for a reason. Should read at least some of them. Reading the best of a genre is also worth doing, along with autobiographies of people you admire. Read Sun Tzu’s Art of War before you need to.
- tw1010 8y ago
  People who ask "why read the classics" might not want to spend their time on something just because an authority (who decided what the classics are, and what ulterior motives did they have?) said that's what they are, or because it's good in-group signaling. For these people, addressing their concerns and making clear that there's value in reading classics beyond the potential problems, is a necessity.
  - adiusmus 8y ago
    I’m not sure why I would particularly need to address someone’s concerns. I’m not selling them a book nor am I forcing my choice of what is good on someone else. Take it or leave it. I’d say that is an issue which a particular person has with authority in general. “Who decided it was a classic” and “what makes them so special” and “what right do they have to impose their choice on me” are all questions that someone should answer for themselves. Likely some deep introspection about their relationship with authority is possibly required. I’m not sure. If you ask someone what is the best book to read and they reply you now have someone’s preference for a great book rather than a mediocre one. That in essence is how a classic is determined, but at larger scale. Lots of people asked and a lot of people answered. Consensus formed and spread. I’m fairly sure I can ask a film buff what classic movies I should watch and if I asked a lot of film buffs, some movies would begin to bubble up as being seen as commonly known classics. Others could be seen as just popular. I don’t think that would be a surprising outcome. I don’t think it needs to be much more complicated than that.
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  - crpatino 8y ago
robin_reala 8y ago
As with every thread like this (seriously, tell me if you want me to stop) I’d recommend the project I contribute to: Standard eBooks: https://standardebooks.org/ https://standardebooks.org/ . We take the Gutenberg transcriptions and prep high quality electronic editions, then proofread against the original scans to make sure all the formatting is properly represented, and finally release them as public domain again. Being limited to pre-1923 means that we’ve focused on the ‘classics’, but we’re always doing more and should break through the 200 mark shortly. Currently I’m producing a Woolf and Pepys’ Diaries (although that last one is definitely a long term project). Let me know if there’s a book you specifically want to see produced and I can add it to the list or help you produce it yourself.
- mehrzad 8y ago
  That's wonderful and I will be recommending it to my friends from now on, but I've found in my experience of reading classic literature, it's at least sometimes much more useful to read such books with modern annotations, which is why I just check out annotated versions from my local libraries.
  - robin_reala 8y ago
    The Pepys I’m working on at the moment is stuffed full of footnotes (check the Gutenberg source); I’m currently nearing the 700th. These are being converted to a standard ePub endnote format, so compatible readers, i.e. most of them, will get popup modals with the annotation when you click on the note number.
- mrob 8y ago
  A warning: these books are not the original editions, but edited versions with modernized spelling and grammar. The editorial changes are kept in version control so they could theoretically be reverted, but they are mixed with the technical changes so in practice this is not easy. Some people might prefer the changes, but when I read classics I want to read something as close as possible to what the author originally wrote. Despite the name, "Standard Ebooks" are actually non-standard.
noonespecial 8y ago
Another good reason to read the classics is to maximize the number of "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"'s(1) you have with the people in the culture surrounding you. Note that may mean depending on where you are, you might need different classics. (1) And if you understood that reference right away, you got the point!
- esfandia 8y ago
  Yup, Star Trek is probably much more of a common ground these days than ancient Greek literature. Don't know if it's a good or a bad thing though.
  - vanilla_nut 8y ago
    Depends on age and cultural background. When I deal with non-technical folks of various ages, there's an OK (but not great) chance that they've read some classic literature that I enjoy. Unfortunately a lot of those were forced readings in high school, but it definitely depends on the individual. As much as I love Star Trek (particularly TNG), I'd say it's far, far less popular among folks in their early 20s these days than the classics. Probably why they're called classics :)
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- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  :). But the truth is, that makes Harry Potter and Game of Thrones much more of a "classic" than Shakespeare. Shared cultural context is something I believe we're losing anyway, or at least it's not scaling well with population size and civilization - these days they're just so many books being published, along with movies and TV series, that it's increasingly difficult to find things you've both read/watched with random people. Schools in a given country are forcing the same set of literature on people partly in order to ensure a shared cultural context, but as we all know (and as is discussed elsewhere in this comment thread), this only makes people know the titles but not read the books themselves.
elvinyung 8y ago
Here's a corollary: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/11/read-history-of-philosophy-backwards/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/11/read-history-of-philoso... tl;dr read the works of thinkers who were wrong in the past, in order to expand your search space to find out what you're wrong about in the present.
kartan 8y ago
> "A classic is something that persists as a background noise even when the most incompatible momentary concerns are in control of the situation." The article is more poetic than informational. I am so used to technical readings that I translate the sentences into something more concrete, maybe more journalistic. I guess that this sentence means that "classic books" define our cultural background, differences between the east and the west, between countries and cultures independently of what you can see now on the news. Translating it into more plain concepts allows for a better understanding. With this new wording, I can reflect on how current events, video games, streamed videos are shaping our society and will be identified in the future as "classic". > Every reading of a classic is in fact a rereading. I interpret this as you have already "read" the classic as it is part of other works that you have read or seen. That our culture has been influenced by "classic" works to the extend that you can feel like you have read them before. > The classics are the books that come down to us bearing upon them the traces of readings previous to ours, and bringing in their wake the traces they themselves have left on the culture or cultures they have passed through This confirms my previous interpretation. But, I have then to open the question. Do "classics" shape society or are only a result of it? If a "classics" was never written our society will be different our we will just miss a recorded piece of cultural history? > If the spark doesn’t come, that’s a pity; but we do not read the classics out of duty or respect, but only out of love. I do not agree. I am reading "classics" books out of curiosity or even duty towards being responsible to improve my own education, and last but not least for pleasure. Different people will have different motivation. Can anyone try to explain this other one? It sounds good, but if feels kind of bullshit. :) > We use the word “classic” of a book that takes the form of an equivalent to the universe, on a level with the ancient talismans. With this definition we are approaching the idea of the “total book,” as Mallarmé conceived of it. This post is an interesting read for a change.
idoubtit 8y ago
Italo Calvino is a likable person, and I'm glad he wrote one of my personal classics: "Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore" is an extraordinary book. I've also enjoyed most of his works, especially "Le città invisibili" & "Cosmicomics". If you haven't read any of these, try them or his famous trilogy: they all have that special signature of his, but they're different enough that you might like one and not the other. About reading the classics too early, I've experienced it, but I also had the opposite feeling. I had little pleasure reading Homer when I was a teenager, but was enthusiastic about the "Odyssey" twenty years later. The translation played a big part in that change of heart, going from prose to rimes, but I believe my age and my larger culture was necessary to fully enjoy it. On the other side, I read quite a few of Balzac's novels when in high school, and my favorites were "Eugénie Grandet" and "La peau de chagrin". Somewhere in my thirties, I reread the latter and thought it was awful, so pretentious and pseudo-philosophical that I dropped it before the end. Reading the classics is still the best way to travel for me. I feel I've lived many years in some kind of half-mythical Russia of the last two centuries. I saw the whole Mediterranean world through Herodotus' eyes. My years as a child were heroic thanks to Dumas and Tolkien. Later on, classics destroyed my condescending attitude to past ages. Reading "Orlando Furioso", I was astonished to read feminist opinions by a man writing around 1500. IIRC, Arioste wrote that a woman sleeping with a man before marriage was no big deal, that they should try a few guys before choosing the best one. Another Italian classic of the same period, "La Gerusalemme liberata", had the same impact on my vision of the late Middle Age, and was an even better read. For another example, as much as I adored Shakespeare as a young adult, when I discovered the Greek theater of Euripides and Sophocles, I saw that having emotional and deep characters was nothing new. Italo Calvino did not mention a special kind of classics that many people know in an altered way: the religious literature, and especially the Bible (not the King James). Some of these texts are boring to a non-religious reader, but other are fantastic, like Job and Qohelet. To dive in an even older world, "The Epic of Gilgamesh" and a bit of Sumerian literature gave me a strong connection to people that disappeared milleniums ago.
- nicolas_t 8y ago
  > About reading the classics too early, I've experienced it, but I also had the opposite feeling. I had little pleasure reading Homer when I was a teenager, but was enthusiastic about the "Odyssey" twenty years later. The translation played a big part in that change of heart, going from prose to rimes, but I believe my age and my larger culture was necessary to fully enjoy it. On the other side, I read quite a few of Balzac's novels when in high school, and my favorites were "Eugénie Grandet" and "La peau de chagrin". Somewhere in my thirties, I reread the latter and thought it was awful, so pretentious and pseudo-philosophical that I dropped it before the end That's interesting to me, I hated Balzac when I had to read it in school but I loved the Odyssey as a kid. Most of the classics I read and enjoyed as a kid (Voltaire's Contes Philosophiques, To kill a mocking bird, all the books from Maupassant, etc...) I read them for fun by myself without the school asking me to read them, on the other had I hated the books that I was forced to read (Rousseau's confessions, Balzac, Les Allumettes suédoises by Robert Sabatier) It does show that being forced to read something does color your perception of it. I sometimes wonder what the best way to introduce literature without shoving it down student's throat but still getting them to read good classics.
DubiousPusher 8y ago
I have found the opposite to be true. I had much greater faith in and patience for the literary cannnon when I was young than I do now. I think that writing just like everything else has improved with the 20th and 21st century's obsession with design. As such, not all but the best modern writing is much more expressive, concise and communicative. There is boat loads of super high quality writing rolling off the presses each year. Having taken Carl Sagan's axiom to heart that we have a very limited number of books we can read in our lifetimes and should therefore hold them dearly, I read few books older than 200 years. It's awfully reductive I know but generally the value/lb is just lower.
- abecedarius 8y ago
  I largely agree, but there's a broadening from visiting other times as well as other countries. Since a book is less immersive than actual travel, you need to read quite a bit of older stuff to get much of that effect. At least, I had to.
  - DubiousPusher 8y ago
    Oh absolutely. And if you really want to appreciate modern literature you need some grounding in cannpnical works. They establish our common tropes amd metaphors. You'll get a lot more out of most modern works having that background. Hell, you'll get more out of the Simpsons I still have a reading list of cannonical works. It's just shorter and I pursue it less aggressively. One thing I'd say too is that college lit classes and our popular notion of "classical" works both over index on books. You can get a lot more bang for the buck imo out of essays.
    - rectang 8y ago
      > if you really want to appreciate modern literature you need some grounding in canonical works Cultural literacy can be raised in lots of ways besides studying the musty canon. And why limit yourself to the slice of modern entertainment where the canon is prerequisite? Deciding for yourself what art you value -- after questioning the canon, ignoring academics, critics and other authorities -- is the highest form of appreciation. Each individual owns their experience. The author is not the authority.
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rectang 8y ago
Because it preserves the power of those who are already familiar with them.
- quotemstr 8y ago
  I knew that something like this comment would crop. It's a damn shame: there's a great deal of complexity, elegance, and meaning in the world, and choosing to see literature through the hateful lens of power dynamics robs you of the change to see this beauty. One of my hopes is that we return to teaching the classics as timeless universals.
  - rectang 8y ago
    > choosing to see literature through the hateful lens of power dynamics robs you of the change to see this beauty. I enjoy selected classics quite a bit, and I've studied them in depth. One of my favorite pieces is Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, and I can talk about it in the context of evolution of sonata form. I also know my Duke Ellington and my Joni Mitchell, my Stevie Wonder and my Beatles -- all of which are similarly regarded as unassailable classics within certain circles of devotees. An appreciation for the classics is completely compatible with the conviction that they are not "timeless universals", but that every last one of them is a product of a specific time and place. And the clash between canons is in fact a disgusting political and cultural power struggle.
  - TuringNYC 8y ago
    I havent heard this sentiment in literature much, but i've witnessed insulated and exclusive sentiments w/r/t other art. For example, I was once told that not knowing some rare Broadway was uncultured of me. I'm thinking: - No, that is your culture. It is valid culture, but not the only culture. I watch films tackling other issues in other subsets of the population. Their issues may not be the mainstream issues, but that doesnt make it not part of culture. This has nothing to do with books, or music, or art. It has to do with people who want to use beautiful art to create a wedge or power dynamic or culture dynamic rather than simply enjoy or learn from the art. And it is a dangerous behavior, because as soon as one brands others (mentally) as uncultured or of a lower class, it helps them justify unjust behaviors.
scw 8y ago
If you're revisiting the classics I can't recommend enough Doug Metzger's Literature and History podcast [1]. It covers literature starting with Mesopostamian stories, at about the level of an undergraduate course, but is entertaining and insightful throughout. It's clearly had deep research put into every episode, but at the same time takes great effort to make the material relatable. Great stuff. 1. http://literatureandhistory.com/ http://literatureandhistory.com/
Ice_cream_suit 8y ago
I listen to Librevox podcasts when I go for my morning walk. I have finished listening to Tacitus' Peloponesian Wars, Xenophon's Anabasis and am now on the seventh book of Plato's Republic.
mannanj 8y ago
Lots of talk about fiction books here, but what are the classic nonfictions?
WheelsAtLarge 8y ago
"Why should we read the classics?" is what I ask. I've read a number of "classics" that were just not worth the struggle of figuring out the antiquated vocabulary and sentence structure. The vernacular changes over generations and figuring out what they meant versus what I understand is just not worth the time. I can read a few current books vs 1 classic. Yes, some are worth the trouble but most are not. Maybe there's a business in updating classics into modern versions. It has been done with Shakespeare and we see it all the time with movies. Why not others?
- mcguire 8y ago
  I wonder why they're considered "classics"?
- billfruit 8y ago
  Because reading older works may give one an appreciation of their time.
- checkyoursudo 8y ago
  It should be done with others! Except, how many times are those others merely updating Shakespeare into their contemporary times? Maybe everything is just continuously updating Shakespeare at this point. I jest, I jest. Or do I?
coleifer 8y ago
I got my degree in English lit, but it's only as an adult, with the benefit of life experience, that I feel I can really appreciate so many of the books I read in college and high school. The best books seem to say something true in a way that goes beyond black and white. A truth you can only find in the experience of living.
sdrothrock 8y ago
This post is really well-timed for me. I've been trying really hard to up my reading numbers to what I remember them being 5 or 10 years ago. As a part of that, I've been trying to keep an even spread of fiction and non-fiction. The other day I decided I should also revisit books I remember loving as a kid that I haven't read in decades. Specifically, The Count of Monte Cristo and Mysterious Island. I started the latter the other day. One of the things that strikes me again and again while I read this book is how much it embodies great improvisation; the characters are all "yes men" in the best possible sense of the phrase. When one character encounters a problem or has an idea, the rest are quick to say "yes, and!" to go on to cooperate to find a solution. This is especially amazing considering that the book is set at the tail end of the Civil War. I can't imagine a book like this being written today. The characters are so humanist in believing that they and each other can accomplish anything they set out to do; they cooperate without struggle; there are no hidden pasts or ulterior motives threatening them. It's really quite refreshing and invigorating. I wish I could read aspirational(?) fiction like this all the time and feel like my mood would be much better for it.
bsenftner 8y ago
Reading the classics is learning the state of civilization, learning the breath of human cruelty and understanding why it is essential to the human experience, essential to progress of the species, and is essential to the structure and formation of justice and law. The classics give one the background why things are they way they are, and why as messed up as things appear to be, they are the best we can manage. If one is not at least exposed to a few of the classics, I wonder what value foundation one has beyond their potential one sided religious up bringing. Without exposure to the classes, one is adrift in a sea of unknown pop cultural references, only picking up the severely watered down and over exploited Classic Themes when they appear on popular TV, film, and comic book quality regurgitation of their ideas. I tend to consider myself "over read" - I have read everything published by my favorite authors, their followers and their students. When I find a voice I like, I'll finish that entire school of thought. But I'm also very extreme in my reading. I started reading very early, isolated in Christian rural Iowa as a youth, I had a severe stutter, and read the library rather than engage in the other kids I could not manage to converse without sounding stupid. So, I sorta ignored "childhood" until the end of elementary, after which I was the oddest over intellectualized little shithead one could encounter. Why read the classics? They locate you in time and space to understand the state of society. That pretty valuable.
rumcajz 8y ago
There is stuff that you can't learn anywhere but classics. Take, for example, Nazi Germany. We tend to have this stereotypical image of it as evil murderous empire where everyone was either a murderer or a victim. Heinrich Böll's "Group Portrait with Lady"[1] is a book about that period. You expect particular kind of stuff in such a book: Gestapo officers torturing dissenters. Jew hunts. Nurnberg rallies. Etc. Then you read the book and Hitler or concentration camps and not mentioned even once. It's full of people trying to live their lives. Teenagers are in love one with another. People go to work. Try to build a business. Pay their taxes. Play piano. They have problems with their children and extramarital affairs. They have varied political opinions. They die of natural causes. It would be pretty hard to get that kind of (very terrifying, in a way) understanding of the period through history books. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Group-Portrait-Lady-Essential-Heinrich/dp/1935554336 https://www.amazon.com/Group-Portrait-Lady-Essential-Heinric...
- bloak 8y ago
  Nazi Germany? Only from classics? Perhaps you were born too late and too far away... I've drunk wine with people who were in the Hitlerjugend and fought in WW2. (As far as my politically and militarily uninterested informant was concerned, Hitlerjugend was mostly about camping and raft building, and fighting was mostly about keeping your head down, literally and metaphorically.)
  - rumcajz 8y ago
    It's 73 years since then. They are dying out.
hakdbha 8y ago
As always, the people in power decide which books should be read to be properly educated. In this case, it’s a bunch of old books written by history’s most revered white people.
lou1306 8y ago
This essay is required reading in many Italian high schools, especially in Liceo Classico, one of the few secondary school types where ancient Greek is still a compulsory course. After all, the questions "Why learn ancient Greek?" and "Why read the classics?" are quite intertwined.

310 points by constantinum 8y ago

In my effort to read some portion of the classics, I really experienced his observation of the difference between reading in school and reading later in life. I couldn't believe how much more I was impacted by some of these books just 10 years after reading them in high school. Many of the plights of the protagonists just didn't stir me at all when I was in school, either because I didn't understand the historical context well enough, or because I didn't yet have enough empathy to feel their pain and loss (it's always pain and loss in the classics...) Anyway, I highly recommend reading some of these books again as an adult. Even some of the ones I remember hating in school I ended up being engrossed by.

ChuckMcM 8y ago
I reread the Count of Monte Cristo, there was a penguin edition on a garage sale table for $2. I found it much more enjoyable than I did the first time around. (it also shows you how much of our current storytelling was influenced by the themes in this book)
- lmm 8y ago
  Is The Count of Monte Cristo a "classic"? It's great fun but I always thought of it as more of a pulpy adventure than a respected work of literature.
  - ChuckMcM 8y ago
    I am not sure, it makes a lot of '100 books to read before you die' lists[1]. Perhaps the best evidence to support it as worthy of the 'classic' moniker is perhaps the CSMonitor review [3] which points out that it has held up as a great story over several hundred years. How would you define a "classic" and what books would you put in that definition? [1] exemplar -- https://www.businessinsider.com/100-books-everyone-should-read-amazon-goodreads-2015-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/100-books-everyone-should-re... [2] Quora discussion -- https://www.quora.com/Why-is-The-Count-of-Monte-Cristo-considered-a-classic https://www.quora.com/Why-is-The-Count-of-Monte-Cristo-consi... [3] "Dumas published the book in 1846. It is no exaggeration to say “Monte Cristo” still ranks as one of the most exciting stories imaginable, one every bit as good as anything Steven Spielberg or J.K. Rowling could ever conjure up." -- https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2011/0206/Classic-review-The-Count-of-Monte-Cristo https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2011/0206/Class...
cmplxconjugate 8y ago
I’ve had a similar experience. I think it simply comes down to emotional maturity and more diverse life experiences. It makes it much easier to empathise with characters, as well as critically analyse the subtext. One thing I found quite difficult however is dealing with the different writing styles. Sometimes it could be a real slog to get through books that have a dated or less contemporary style.
- jrumbut 8y ago
  I really recommend audiobooks here, it makes it so much easier to get through the 50 page sections of geneology or all-wrong speculation about the natural world that's included in a lot of classic works. So easy in fact you come to understand what role they play or why they're important. One thing I love about the classics is that they have an entirely different set of euphemisms and implicit assumptions. They don't know what you're supposed to pretend isn't true in the modern world. You end up with, for instance, the ancient Greeks being very explicit that their early rulers were the most effective pirates and cattle rustlers. You learn a lot more about how we got where we are and why some obviously bad structures are so hard to change. Many decision makers from the dawn of writing to the present day relied on these texts as playbooks.
- ianai 8y ago
  The best books can be reread all through life. They have different meanings and lessons for a person during different life stages.
  - StillBored 8y ago
    Maybe, but I can tell you I got nothing from reading "Waiting for Godot" as a sophomore in high school. Age is something that is hard to relate to when your 14-15. Worse philosophy tends to be a luxury when your really poor and have more immediate concerns. I might have been offended by being called "emotionally immature" at that age but i also found Jane Eyre and similar to be pointless rubbish at that age. Although, maybe the point of a "classic" is that it should have broad appeal, but there is a difference between intellectually understanding something and being able to relate to it. I found Grapes of Wrath to be relatable, but tedious in high school, and noticed a correlation a between the amount of hate better off kids in class espoused for it vs the fact that I while I found it immensely depressing, I didn't mind it nearly as much as many of the other assignments.
bena 8y ago
Reading for assignment is a chore, reading for pleasure is a joy. I think you get caught up in the feeling that "this needs to be done" that you don't really get to get into the book.
- abecedarius 8y ago
  Yep. A couple times in high school I refused to read an assigned book that I didn't want to ruin for myself. (Pride and Prejudice and Moby-Dick. Came back to them years later and still think I scheduled them correctly.) I guess the difference from some others which I actually enjoyed reading for school (Othello, Alice in Wonderland) was the ratio of effort to pulpish I-want-to-read-the-next-page quality.
a_wild_dandan 8y ago
Nothing sterilizes a book's emotional or intellectual impact quite like being forced to read it. It's like cultivating a person's appreciation of sushi by physically shoving it down her throat. What's worse is that I can only unhelpfully lament the current state of literature in education -- I have no idea how we may improve the system...
- vixen99 8y ago
  Not necessarily. Depends on circumstances. Putting a book on a school or college curriculum is a form of enforced reading dictated however by people whose opinions you presumably respect.
- DubiousPusher 8y ago
  That depends probably on whether you were a lit major or not. I can understand how someone forced into a lit class under general studies would be irritated by texts that seem uninteresting or irrelevant but if you're a literature student that's exactly what you're there for. Half the use of the classes was getting a syllabus someone had gone to great lengths to organize around an expert knowledge of some area or string of thought. I usually found a good deal of value, even when the author or work was not to my specific taste. My classical literature class had a cycle exclusively on Antigone. I was and am not as enamored by that play as was my instructor and the critic George Steiner who we were asked to read. But to loathe the requirement and not focus on deriving the best possible value from that assignment would've been a waste of money.
  - ksdale 8y ago
    Years after college, I still really enjoy walking through a university bookstore and looking at the books in the curriculum for each major. Pretty much everything that's not a textbook is regarded as a really important book by the experts in the field, and a lot of them are quite readable for nonfiction which I assume is a result of professors wanting to keep students interested.
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StillBored 8y ago
Besides (as others have pointed out) some of the classics aren't that great. Then, there is the problem that it seems frequently the books chosen for a high school reader are chosen based on some perceived quality of the book rather than what is going to be enjoyable, relatable and readable by someone who effectively doesn't have any adult life behind them. Worse they seem to be chosen without regard to length or readability. I had to read Grapes of Wrath over 3 weeks in HS (with everything else going on, and I know most students shared a cliff notes and prayed for a reasonable grade), but there are plenty of worse examples and the The Count of Monte Cristo in its 1000+ page unabridged addition was assigned my niece last year. I tend to be able to read pulp novels at 100 pages an hour, but older novels, Shakespeare plays etc, can easy bring it down to 30 pages an hour or less. Which for a 600 page book is a 20+ hour long drag if the novel isn't enjoyable. Surely the instructors can find shorter novels which are easier for the kids to read and relate to. I remember reading Cannery Row a few years ago and wondering why instead of Grapes of Wrath it wasn't assigned, or for that matter I read "This Side of Paradise" and am to this day 100% convinced that any teacher that assigns The Great Gatsby to a teenage student over it should seriously be examined (actually IIRC when I read it, it seemed the sexual content in this side of paradise probably makes it hard to assign, but that is another discussion, along with the fact that Gatsby was initially a failure with mixed reviews, the reasons should be understood but apparently aren't. I hated the Gatsby assignment, but suspect that I would have found it more enjoyable in my 20's when I read Paradise, which is likely one of those books that is less meaningful to people in their 50's). The bottom line, is that there are plenty of "classic" novels that are relatable to a wide audience (male & female, differing economic backgrounds, etc) and are short enough that a normal teenager can struggle through them even if they aren't enjoyable. The fact that it accepted to assign some of these book because everyone else is doing it is just a sign of bad instruction.
- billfruit 8y ago
  The unabridged Count of Monte Cristo is a blockbuster that puts Hollywood to shame in its scale. Even has a chapter on a bloodbath, that looked to me as something that could have inspired some one like Tarantino. Pirates, murders, poisoning mystery, Prison escapades, Roman banditi, political intrigue, it has all of it and more.
pjmlp 8y ago
Similar experience with the Portuguese classics, I only got to enjoy the ones I have read before reaching the school level where they were compulsory.

adamnemecek 8y ago

I’m in the other camp. Reading unpopular books has been much more valuable to me than reading popular books. If the classics are good, you’ll understand them by osmosis even without having read them.

Buldak 8y ago
"Understand" to what extent? Knowing the plot? The morals in broad strokes?
mwfunk 8y ago
Popularity isn't a metric by which to prejudge content? Also, it really doesn't get less popular than the classics. And no, you will not understand them by osmosis. Lovecraft was a big influence on Stephen King but it's not like reading a Stephen King novel magically grants you the experience of reading Lovecraft. It's fine if reading older stuff doesn't appeal to you (it doesn't appeal to hardly anyone), but you don't get to pretend like you're not missing out on anything. Just own the fact that you don't like that stuff.
- adamnemecek 8y ago
  I’m talking about nonfiction.
trts 8y ago
Classics are not that popular. The most downloaded book on Project Gutenberg (Pride and Prejudice) has been downloaded only 32K times. Moby Dick has 15K downloads and at least 10 of those are mine. I disagree that classics can be understood by osmosis. I'm not discounting the books you read or saying they wouldn't compare to the classics if they were better known. But there is an experience in reading something timeless that can only be experienced by reading it. And there are more experiences to reading them with age that makes them unique. They become richer instead of becoming banal.
pvg 8y ago
How much Balzac or Dostoyevsky would you estimate you've understood through osmosis without reading them?

tomcam 8y ago

I had to visit the Shakespeare festival in Ashland, OR many times as a kid. My parents didn’t push attendance on me, but nor did my dad explain why Shakespeare is so great. “It’s classic literature.” “How? What makes it better than Isaac Asimov or the Hardy Boys?” “It’s just great literature.” I found this frustrating and started telling people that Shakespeare should be taught as a second language (a joke one of my college professor friends likes to repeat even now). Fast forward 35 years. I have come to enjoy reading Shakespeare on my own. (Why is it great literature? Incredible prose, insane plot lines, and way way underrated comedy. Some of the best comedy I have ever encountered is in Shakespeare’s so-called tragedies, a situation that very much matches my own tragedy-marred life. Reread “Hamlet”, “Richard III”, and “MacBeth” for a barrage of hilariously inappropriate one-liners.) Anyway, a decade and half ago wife wants to take the kids, ages 7 & 9, to the Ashland Shakespeare Festival. I tell them they don’t have to see any of it. I tell them I didn’t enjoy anything but the comedies as a kid but that the staging and costumes were always good. No pressure at all; they are welcome to hang out in the hotel room with iPads or to watch TV, a luxury they lack at home. They go see everything, including histories and tragedies. And they totally get it. Apparently my children don’t know they’re not supposed to understand the antiquated English, because halfway through their first play (“Merchant of Venice”) I am sometimes having to ask them what’s going on, and my 7 year-old patiently and correctly gives me the 411. They attend pre-play lectures and, when asked by the lecturer, read better than most actors. We go many more times in the ensuing years and it’s now among my most cherished memories. To this day they quote Shakespeare accurately and mumble “Exeunt” under their breath when they want to get out of a boring situation.

jgtrosh 8y ago
Really off track, but I don't think iPads were a thing 15 years ago. (You can reply with “Exeunt”.)
- tomcam 8y ago
  Fudging numbers a bit for privacy reasons ;)
jkoschei 8y ago

hprotagonist 8y ago

The author of this piece is, himself, eminently worth reading. “If On A Winter’s Night, A Traveller” is just amazing.

vjsc 8y ago

We had Charles Dickens's Great Expectations in school. I was mesmerised by the incredible storyline and the shocking twist at the end. It introduced me to western classic literature for the first time and I was really impressed. Then in college, there was an ongoing bet that who could finish the entire unabridged version of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. It tool me three months to read the whole of it. It changed me as a person and made me aware of the fact that the problems faced by humans haven't really changed over the centuries, but only their manifestation has changed as per the present times. And what about The Count of Monte Cristo and other books by Alexander Dumas. The list goes on ...

cjslep 8y ago
I had the exact opposite experience reading Great Expectations in high school. To such a degree that even I recognize that my hatred of it is uncharacteristic of me.

adiusmus 8y ago

Why not? They’re called classics for a reason. Should read at least some of them. Reading the best of a genre is also worth doing, along with autobiographies of people you admire. Read Sun Tzu’s Art of War before you need to.

tw1010 8y ago
People who ask "why read the classics" might not want to spend their time on something just because an authority (who decided what the classics are, and what ulterior motives did they have?) said that's what they are, or because it's good in-group signaling. For these people, addressing their concerns and making clear that there's value in reading classics beyond the potential problems, is a necessity.
- adiusmus 8y ago
  I’m not sure why I would particularly need to address someone’s concerns. I’m not selling them a book nor am I forcing my choice of what is good on someone else. Take it or leave it. I’d say that is an issue which a particular person has with authority in general. “Who decided it was a classic” and “what makes them so special” and “what right do they have to impose their choice on me” are all questions that someone should answer for themselves. Likely some deep introspection about their relationship with authority is possibly required. I’m not sure. If you ask someone what is the best book to read and they reply you now have someone’s preference for a great book rather than a mediocre one. That in essence is how a classic is determined, but at larger scale. Lots of people asked and a lot of people answered. Consensus formed and spread. I’m fairly sure I can ask a film buff what classic movies I should watch and if I asked a lot of film buffs, some movies would begin to bubble up as being seen as commonly known classics. Others could be seen as just popular. I don’t think that would be a surprising outcome. I don’t think it needs to be much more complicated than that.
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- crpatino 8y ago

robin_reala 8y ago

As with every thread like this (seriously, tell me if you want me to stop) I’d recommend the project I contribute to: Standard eBooks: https://standardebooks.org/ https://standardebooks.org/ . We take the Gutenberg transcriptions and prep high quality electronic editions, then proofread against the original scans to make sure all the formatting is properly represented, and finally release them as public domain again. Being limited to pre-1923 means that we’ve focused on the ‘classics’, but we’re always doing more and should break through the 200 mark shortly. Currently I’m producing a Woolf and Pepys’ Diaries (although that last one is definitely a long term project). Let me know if there’s a book you specifically want to see produced and I can add it to the list or help you produce it yourself.

mehrzad 8y ago
That's wonderful and I will be recommending it to my friends from now on, but I've found in my experience of reading classic literature, it's at least sometimes much more useful to read such books with modern annotations, which is why I just check out annotated versions from my local libraries.
- robin_reala 8y ago
  The Pepys I’m working on at the moment is stuffed full of footnotes (check the Gutenberg source); I’m currently nearing the 700th. These are being converted to a standard ePub endnote format, so compatible readers, i.e. most of them, will get popup modals with the annotation when you click on the note number.
mrob 8y ago
A warning: these books are not the original editions, but edited versions with modernized spelling and grammar. The editorial changes are kept in version control so they could theoretically be reverted, but they are mixed with the technical changes so in practice this is not easy. Some people might prefer the changes, but when I read classics I want to read something as close as possible to what the author originally wrote. Despite the name, "Standard Ebooks" are actually non-standard.

noonespecial 8y ago

Another good reason to read the classics is to maximize the number of "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"'s(1) you have with the people in the culture surrounding you. Note that may mean depending on where you are, you might need different classics. (1) And if you understood that reference right away, you got the point!

esfandia 8y ago
Yup, Star Trek is probably much more of a common ground these days than ancient Greek literature. Don't know if it's a good or a bad thing though.
- vanilla_nut 8y ago
  Depends on age and cultural background. When I deal with non-technical folks of various ages, there's an OK (but not great) chance that they've read some classic literature that I enjoy. Unfortunately a lot of those were forced readings in high school, but it definitely depends on the individual. As much as I love Star Trek (particularly TNG), I'd say it's far, far less popular among folks in their early 20s these days than the classics. Probably why they're called classics :)
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TeMPOraL 8y ago
:). But the truth is, that makes Harry Potter and Game of Thrones much more of a "classic" than Shakespeare. Shared cultural context is something I believe we're losing anyway, or at least it's not scaling well with population size and civilization - these days they're just so many books being published, along with movies and TV series, that it's increasingly difficult to find things you've both read/watched with random people. Schools in a given country are forcing the same set of literature on people partly in order to ensure a shared cultural context, but as we all know (and as is discussed elsewhere in this comment thread), this only makes people know the titles but not read the books themselves.

elvinyung 8y ago

Here's a corollary: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/11/read-history-of-philosophy-backwards/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/11/read-history-of-philoso... tl;dr read the works of thinkers who were wrong in the past, in order to expand your search space to find out what you're wrong about in the present.

kartan 8y ago

> "A classic is something that persists as a background noise even when the most incompatible momentary concerns are in control of the situation." The article is more poetic than informational. I am so used to technical readings that I translate the sentences into something more concrete, maybe more journalistic. I guess that this sentence means that "classic books" define our cultural background, differences between the east and the west, between countries and cultures independently of what you can see now on the news. Translating it into more plain concepts allows for a better understanding. With this new wording, I can reflect on how current events, video games, streamed videos are shaping our society and will be identified in the future as "classic". > Every reading of a classic is in fact a rereading. I interpret this as you have already "read" the classic as it is part of other works that you have read or seen. That our culture has been influenced by "classic" works to the extend that you can feel like you have read them before. > The classics are the books that come down to us bearing upon them the traces of readings previous to ours, and bringing in their wake the traces they themselves have left on the culture or cultures they have passed through This confirms my previous interpretation. But, I have then to open the question. Do "classics" shape society or are only a result of it? If a "classics" was never written our society will be different our we will just miss a recorded piece of cultural history? > If the spark doesn’t come, that’s a pity; but we do not read the classics out of duty or respect, but only out of love. I do not agree. I am reading "classics" books out of curiosity or even duty towards being responsible to improve my own education, and last but not least for pleasure. Different people will have different motivation. Can anyone try to explain this other one? It sounds good, but if feels kind of bullshit. :) > We use the word “classic” of a book that takes the form of an equivalent to the universe, on a level with the ancient talismans. With this definition we are approaching the idea of the “total book,” as Mallarmé conceived of it. This post is an interesting read for a change.

idoubtit 8y ago

Italo Calvino is a likable person, and I'm glad he wrote one of my personal classics: "Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore" is an extraordinary book. I've also enjoyed most of his works, especially "Le città invisibili" & "Cosmicomics". If you haven't read any of these, try them or his famous trilogy: they all have that special signature of his, but they're different enough that you might like one and not the other. About reading the classics too early, I've experienced it, but I also had the opposite feeling. I had little pleasure reading Homer when I was a teenager, but was enthusiastic about the "Odyssey" twenty years later. The translation played a big part in that change of heart, going from prose to rimes, but I believe my age and my larger culture was necessary to fully enjoy it. On the other side, I read quite a few of Balzac's novels when in high school, and my favorites were "Eugénie Grandet" and "La peau de chagrin". Somewhere in my thirties, I reread the latter and thought it was awful, so pretentious and pseudo-philosophical that I dropped it before the end. Reading the classics is still the best way to travel for me. I feel I've lived many years in some kind of half-mythical Russia of the last two centuries. I saw the whole Mediterranean world through Herodotus' eyes. My years as a child were heroic thanks to Dumas and Tolkien. Later on, classics destroyed my condescending attitude to past ages. Reading "Orlando Furioso", I was astonished to read feminist opinions by a man writing around 1500. IIRC, Arioste wrote that a woman sleeping with a man before marriage was no big deal, that they should try a few guys before choosing the best one. Another Italian classic of the same period, "La Gerusalemme liberata", had the same impact on my vision of the late Middle Age, and was an even better read. For another example, as much as I adored Shakespeare as a young adult, when I discovered the Greek theater of Euripides and Sophocles, I saw that having emotional and deep characters was nothing new. Italo Calvino did not mention a special kind of classics that many people know in an altered way: the religious literature, and especially the Bible (not the King James). Some of these texts are boring to a non-religious reader, but other are fantastic, like Job and Qohelet. To dive in an even older world, "The Epic of Gilgamesh" and a bit of Sumerian literature gave me a strong connection to people that disappeared milleniums ago.

nicolas_t 8y ago
> About reading the classics too early, I've experienced it, but I also had the opposite feeling. I had little pleasure reading Homer when I was a teenager, but was enthusiastic about the "Odyssey" twenty years later. The translation played a big part in that change of heart, going from prose to rimes, but I believe my age and my larger culture was necessary to fully enjoy it. On the other side, I read quite a few of Balzac's novels when in high school, and my favorites were "Eugénie Grandet" and "La peau de chagrin". Somewhere in my thirties, I reread the latter and thought it was awful, so pretentious and pseudo-philosophical that I dropped it before the end That's interesting to me, I hated Balzac when I had to read it in school but I loved the Odyssey as a kid. Most of the classics I read and enjoyed as a kid (Voltaire's Contes Philosophiques, To kill a mocking bird, all the books from Maupassant, etc...) I read them for fun by myself without the school asking me to read them, on the other had I hated the books that I was forced to read (Rousseau's confessions, Balzac, Les Allumettes suédoises by Robert Sabatier) It does show that being forced to read something does color your perception of it. I sometimes wonder what the best way to introduce literature without shoving it down student's throat but still getting them to read good classics.

DubiousPusher 8y ago

I have found the opposite to be true. I had much greater faith in and patience for the literary cannnon when I was young than I do now. I think that writing just like everything else has improved with the 20th and 21st century's obsession with design. As such, not all but the best modern writing is much more expressive, concise and communicative. There is boat loads of super high quality writing rolling off the presses each year. Having taken Carl Sagan's axiom to heart that we have a very limited number of books we can read in our lifetimes and should therefore hold them dearly, I read few books older than 200 years. It's awfully reductive I know but generally the value/lb is just lower.

abecedarius 8y ago
I largely agree, but there's a broadening from visiting other times as well as other countries. Since a book is less immersive than actual travel, you need to read quite a bit of older stuff to get much of that effect. At least, I had to.
- DubiousPusher 8y ago
  Oh absolutely. And if you really want to appreciate modern literature you need some grounding in cannpnical works. They establish our common tropes amd metaphors. You'll get a lot more out of most modern works having that background. Hell, you'll get more out of the Simpsons I still have a reading list of cannonical works. It's just shorter and I pursue it less aggressively. One thing I'd say too is that college lit classes and our popular notion of "classical" works both over index on books. You can get a lot more bang for the buck imo out of essays.
  - rectang 8y ago
    > if you really want to appreciate modern literature you need some grounding in canonical works Cultural literacy can be raised in lots of ways besides studying the musty canon. And why limit yourself to the slice of modern entertainment where the canon is prerequisite? Deciding for yourself what art you value -- after questioning the canon, ignoring academics, critics and other authorities -- is the highest form of appreciation. Each individual owns their experience. The author is not the authority.

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rectang 8y ago

Because it preserves the power of those who are already familiar with them.

quotemstr 8y ago
I knew that something like this comment would crop. It's a damn shame: there's a great deal of complexity, elegance, and meaning in the world, and choosing to see literature through the hateful lens of power dynamics robs you of the change to see this beauty. One of my hopes is that we return to teaching the classics as timeless universals.
- rectang 8y ago
  > choosing to see literature through the hateful lens of power dynamics robs you of the change to see this beauty. I enjoy selected classics quite a bit, and I've studied them in depth. One of my favorite pieces is Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, and I can talk about it in the context of evolution of sonata form. I also know my Duke Ellington and my Joni Mitchell, my Stevie Wonder and my Beatles -- all of which are similarly regarded as unassailable classics within certain circles of devotees. An appreciation for the classics is completely compatible with the conviction that they are not "timeless universals", but that every last one of them is a product of a specific time and place. And the clash between canons is in fact a disgusting political and cultural power struggle.
- TuringNYC 8y ago
  I havent heard this sentiment in literature much, but i've witnessed insulated and exclusive sentiments w/r/t other art. For example, I was once told that not knowing some rare Broadway was uncultured of me. I'm thinking: - No, that is your culture. It is valid culture, but not the only culture. I watch films tackling other issues in other subsets of the population. Their issues may not be the mainstream issues, but that doesnt make it not part of culture. This has nothing to do with books, or music, or art. It has to do with people who want to use beautiful art to create a wedge or power dynamic or culture dynamic rather than simply enjoy or learn from the art. And it is a dangerous behavior, because as soon as one brands others (mentally) as uncultured or of a lower class, it helps them justify unjust behaviors.

scw 8y ago

If you're revisiting the classics I can't recommend enough Doug Metzger's Literature and History podcast [1]. It covers literature starting with Mesopostamian stories, at about the level of an undergraduate course, but is entertaining and insightful throughout. It's clearly had deep research put into every episode, but at the same time takes great effort to make the material relatable. Great stuff. 1. http://literatureandhistory.com/ http://literatureandhistory.com/

Ice_cream_suit 8y ago

I listen to Librevox podcasts when I go for my morning walk. I have finished listening to Tacitus' Peloponesian Wars, Xenophon's Anabasis and am now on the seventh book of Plato's Republic.

mannanj 8y ago

Lots of talk about fiction books here, but what are the classic nonfictions?

WheelsAtLarge 8y ago

"Why should we read the classics?" is what I ask. I've read a number of "classics" that were just not worth the struggle of figuring out the antiquated vocabulary and sentence structure. The vernacular changes over generations and figuring out what they meant versus what I understand is just not worth the time. I can read a few current books vs 1 classic. Yes, some are worth the trouble but most are not. Maybe there's a business in updating classics into modern versions. It has been done with Shakespeare and we see it all the time with movies. Why not others?

mcguire 8y ago
I wonder why they're considered "classics"?
billfruit 8y ago
Because reading older works may give one an appreciation of their time.
checkyoursudo 8y ago
It should be done with others! Except, how many times are those others merely updating Shakespeare into their contemporary times? Maybe everything is just continuously updating Shakespeare at this point. I jest, I jest. Or do I?

coleifer 8y ago

I got my degree in English lit, but it's only as an adult, with the benefit of life experience, that I feel I can really appreciate so many of the books I read in college and high school. The best books seem to say something true in a way that goes beyond black and white. A truth you can only find in the experience of living.

sdrothrock 8y ago

This post is really well-timed for me. I've been trying really hard to up my reading numbers to what I remember them being 5 or 10 years ago. As a part of that, I've been trying to keep an even spread of fiction and non-fiction. The other day I decided I should also revisit books I remember loving as a kid that I haven't read in decades. Specifically, The Count of Monte Cristo and Mysterious Island. I started the latter the other day. One of the things that strikes me again and again while I read this book is how much it embodies great improvisation; the characters are all "yes men" in the best possible sense of the phrase. When one character encounters a problem or has an idea, the rest are quick to say "yes, and!" to go on to cooperate to find a solution. This is especially amazing considering that the book is set at the tail end of the Civil War. I can't imagine a book like this being written today. The characters are so humanist in believing that they and each other can accomplish anything they set out to do; they cooperate without struggle; there are no hidden pasts or ulterior motives threatening them. It's really quite refreshing and invigorating. I wish I could read aspirational(?) fiction like this all the time and feel like my mood would be much better for it.

bsenftner 8y ago

Reading the classics is learning the state of civilization, learning the breath of human cruelty and understanding why it is essential to the human experience, essential to progress of the species, and is essential to the structure and formation of justice and law. The classics give one the background why things are they way they are, and why as messed up as things appear to be, they are the best we can manage. If one is not at least exposed to a few of the classics, I wonder what value foundation one has beyond their potential one sided religious up bringing. Without exposure to the classes, one is adrift in a sea of unknown pop cultural references, only picking up the severely watered down and over exploited Classic Themes when they appear on popular TV, film, and comic book quality regurgitation of their ideas. I tend to consider myself "over read" - I have read everything published by my favorite authors, their followers and their students. When I find a voice I like, I'll finish that entire school of thought. But I'm also very extreme in my reading. I started reading very early, isolated in Christian rural Iowa as a youth, I had a severe stutter, and read the library rather than engage in the other kids I could not manage to converse without sounding stupid. So, I sorta ignored "childhood" until the end of elementary, after which I was the oddest over intellectualized little shithead one could encounter. Why read the classics? They locate you in time and space to understand the state of society. That pretty valuable.

rumcajz 8y ago

There is stuff that you can't learn anywhere but classics. Take, for example, Nazi Germany. We tend to have this stereotypical image of it as evil murderous empire where everyone was either a murderer or a victim. Heinrich Böll's "Group Portrait with Lady"[1] is a book about that period. You expect particular kind of stuff in such a book: Gestapo officers torturing dissenters. Jew hunts. Nurnberg rallies. Etc. Then you read the book and Hitler or concentration camps and not mentioned even once. It's full of people trying to live their lives. Teenagers are in love one with another. People go to work. Try to build a business. Pay their taxes. Play piano. They have problems with their children and extramarital affairs. They have varied political opinions. They die of natural causes. It would be pretty hard to get that kind of (very terrifying, in a way) understanding of the period through history books. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Group-Portrait-Lady-Essential-Heinrich/dp/1935554336 https://www.amazon.com/Group-Portrait-Lady-Essential-Heinric...

bloak 8y ago
Nazi Germany? Only from classics? Perhaps you were born too late and too far away... I've drunk wine with people who were in the Hitlerjugend and fought in WW2. (As far as my politically and militarily uninterested informant was concerned, Hitlerjugend was mostly about camping and raft building, and fighting was mostly about keeping your head down, literally and metaphorically.)
- rumcajz 8y ago
  It's 73 years since then. They are dying out.

hakdbha 8y ago

As always, the people in power decide which books should be read to be properly educated. In this case, it’s a bunch of old books written by history’s most revered white people.

lou1306 8y ago

This essay is required reading in many Italian high schools, especially in Liceo Classico, one of the few secondary school types where ancient Greek is still a compulsory course. After all, the questions "Why learn ancient Greek?" and "Why read the classics?" are quite intertwined.