11 ms·

"I only enjoyed about 700. The other 300 were books I felt I had to read; classics that everyone told me I was a fool to miss..." Classics are just the books t

by thret 12y ago

"I only enjoyed about 700. The other 300 were books I felt I had to read; classics that everyone told me I was a fool to miss..." Classics are just the books that millions of people, over dozens of generations and hundreds of years, have enjoyed more than other books. Of course that is the list you should start from.

throwawaymsft 12y ago
To paraphrase Twain, many classics are books people want to have had read.
- Houshalter 12y ago
  "'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read."
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Classics are often a function of their socioeconomic milieu. It's harder to identify older books that are more relevant to modern times than the time of their original publishing.
    - dublinben 12y ago
      On the contrary, many books that now live in the literary canon as "classics" were barely appreciated or noticed in their own time. It is almost certain that even a commercial success like Great Expectations or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer enjoy more readers in the 21st Century than the 19th.
      - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        That seems like a certainty. Isn't it true that there are more people alive now, than have every lived before? Geometric growth works like that. So conceivably, everything is more popular in absolute terms, than it can every have been in history.
        dublinben 12y ago
        Only works that are still remembered would be more popular (in absolute or relative terms). There are countless authors whose works were enjoyed at their time of publication, but have been completely forgotten. This is the fate of almost every one hit wonder.
      - walterbell 12y ago
        As long as a critical mass of copies were printed and migrated forward. If a book received a strong negative reception, not many copies would survive for evaluation by future audiences.
ashark 12y ago
I'm wary of anyone who dismisses classics en masse like that. My experience has been that if I don't like a classic, it's usually my fault, not the book's, and if I wait a few years, read and learn some more things, and try it again I'll likely get a lot more out of it. [EDIT] A closer reading of the linked article has revealed that only some of those 300 were what the author had been told were must-read classics, making my criticism less relevant.
learc83 12y ago
I don't think that's true at all. Sure many classics are great, but what is and isn't considered a "classic" is dictated to a large extent by what literature teachers choose to teach, and it is heavily biased towards what literature teachers find enjoyable. Classics definitely aren't picked because millions of people over dozens of generations have enjoyed them more than other books. If that were the case, high school students would spend a year just reading Agatha Christie. And I can count on one hand the number of science fiction and fantasy books we read in high school and college literature classes (1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451).
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  The criterion isn't 'enjoyable' - it's 'improving.' There's a strange belief that reading certain books will make your mind better. (For ''better', read 'more middle class' - at least, that's how it works in the UK.) It may even be true: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/07/reading-good-book-make-better-person-nathan-filer-costa http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/07/reading... There's an entire series of books by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu where he pulls apart culture as a symbol of status and social distinction. He's well worth reading on the topic. (But being middle class, I would say that...) A lot of people miss the fact that literature is about teaching moral lessons. If you read books about novel writing, you'll see that some recommend that you start with a premise - which is a moral point you want to make. You can then use the writing to dramatise the premise. This is more persuasive than stating it outright as an opinion, and also gives the book a focus it wouldn't otherwise have. This is a slightly old-fashioned view now, but I think it applies to many old-fashioned classics - maybe not so much to modern fiction, a lot of which is either escapist or nihilistic or horrific for the sake of it. 1984, Brave New World, and F451 all have a strong premise, IMO.
  - ashark 12y ago
    As a mostly-sic-fi reader who later broadened his horizons to include lots of classic literature, I think a lot of sci-fi fans don't have a great sense of how "good" sci-fi writing compares with the sorts of things that end up in the literary canon. Often the basic craft of the writing isn't even up to the standards of a typical "canonical" work (see: Asimov, with his hopelessly flat characters and dialogue), let alone the finer qualities that take a work from "a fun read" to sublime.

by thret 12y ago

throwawaymsft 12y ago

To paraphrase Twain, many classics are books people want to have had read.

Houshalter 12y ago
"'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read."
- walterbell 12y ago
  Classics are often a function of their socioeconomic milieu. It's harder to identify older books that are more relevant to modern times than the time of their original publishing.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    On the contrary, many books that now live in the literary canon as "classics" were barely appreciated or noticed in their own time. It is almost certain that even a commercial success like Great Expectations or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer enjoy more readers in the 21st Century than the 19th.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      That seems like a certainty. Isn't it true that there are more people alive now, than have every lived before? Geometric growth works like that. So conceivably, everything is more popular in absolute terms, than it can every have been in history.
      - dublinben 12y ago
        Only works that are still remembered would be more popular (in absolute or relative terms). There are countless authors whose works were enjoyed at their time of publication, but have been completely forgotten. This is the fate of almost every one hit wonder.
    - walterbell 12y ago
      As long as a critical mass of copies were printed and migrated forward. If a book received a strong negative reception, not many copies would survive for evaluation by future audiences.

ashark 12y ago

I'm wary of anyone who dismisses classics en masse like that. My experience has been that if I don't like a classic, it's usually my fault, not the book's, and if I wait a few years, read and learn some more things, and try it again I'll likely get a lot more out of it. [EDIT] A closer reading of the linked article has revealed that only some of those 300 were what the author had been told were must-read classics, making my criticism less relevant.

learc83 12y ago

I don't think that's true at all. Sure many classics are great, but what is and isn't considered a "classic" is dictated to a large extent by what literature teachers choose to teach, and it is heavily biased towards what literature teachers find enjoyable. Classics definitely aren't picked because millions of people over dozens of generations have enjoyed them more than other books. If that were the case, high school students would spend a year just reading Agatha Christie. And I can count on one hand the number of science fiction and fantasy books we read in high school and college literature classes (1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451).

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
The criterion isn't 'enjoyable' - it's 'improving.' There's a strange belief that reading certain books will make your mind better. (For ''better', read 'more middle class' - at least, that's how it works in the UK.) It may even be true: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/07/reading-good-book-make-better-person-nathan-filer-costa http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/07/reading... There's an entire series of books by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu where he pulls apart culture as a symbol of status and social distinction. He's well worth reading on the topic. (But being middle class, I would say that...) A lot of people miss the fact that literature is about teaching moral lessons. If you read books about novel writing, you'll see that some recommend that you start with a premise - which is a moral point you want to make. You can then use the writing to dramatise the premise. This is more persuasive than stating it outright as an opinion, and also gives the book a focus it wouldn't otherwise have. This is a slightly old-fashioned view now, but I think it applies to many old-fashioned classics - maybe not so much to modern fiction, a lot of which is either escapist or nihilistic or horrific for the sake of it. 1984, Brave New World, and F451 all have a strong premise, IMO.
- ashark 12y ago
  As a mostly-sic-fi reader who later broadened his horizons to include lots of classic literature, I think a lot of sci-fi fans don't have a great sense of how "good" sci-fi writing compares with the sorts of things that end up in the literary canon. Often the basic craft of the writing isn't even up to the standards of a typical "canonical" work (see: Asimov, with his hopelessly flat characters and dialogue), let alone the finer qualities that take a work from "a fun read" to sublime.