A problem with... classics

[Kell]

I'm pretty new to classics - I've spent most of my life unconsciously avoiding books written prior to 1900, so recently I decided to rectify that and make a concerted effort to try them.

 

For the most part I've enjoyed them, however I have found a slight problem with some of them...

 

I'll illustrate this particular example with Emma by Jane Austen (which I read last summer). What was it that really got my goat about this book? It was the fact that nobody ever actually DID anything! It was a continuous round of visiting neighbours to drink tea and discuss a letter that came six months ago from a distant cousin who tells all the news about visiting HER neighbours and discussing six-month old letters! I found it incredibly boring and found most of the characters very annoying.

 

It almost put me completely off Austen all together.

 

Fortunately, I tried Northanger Abbey earlier this year and loved it, which made me decide to try a few more of Jane's novels.

 

Anyway, I just wondered if anyone else had anything they didn't like about classics?

 

Or am I the only one?

[Icecream]

I found a similar problem with Jane Austen. I loved Pride and Prejudice, but I could not get to grips with Emma either Kell. Like you say it is too boring. I; not sure whether I will read the others but I might do.

 

Similarly I love Charles Dickens' Oliver but hated Great Expectations for similar reasons to Emma. It didn't go anywhere for half the book. I still want to read some of his others though.

[Karen1]

I have a number of the 'classics' on my bookshelf waiting to be read but I've just never got around to them. Well that's not strictly true because I've started some of them, but have given up after the first couple of chapters because I just can't seem to get into them.

 

I'm ashamed to say that I think I've only read one classic, Jane Eyre, which incidentally I loved.

[Nici]

I feel like the odd one out but classics have never appealed to me and I have never read one - they just don't interest me. Sorry!

[Karen1]

In all honesty I can't say that they really appeal to me either, but I feel I should try and read them because...well they're classics. Does that make sense?!

[Nici]

That makes perfect sense! You are a lot more disaplined (sp?) than me!

[Freewheeling Andy]

I'm loving War & Peace, but I think it's more because it's got so much history and substance as the basis. I've always struggled against all pre-1910 "normal books" (which means Frankenstein and Dracula and HG Wells and Robert Stephenson and Jules Verne are excepted). There's something in the language I really struggle with; and there's something in the action (or more, perhaps, both lack of action, and in the highly-strung reaction) that I rail against. It's particularly how much characters react to what in the modern idiom seem like utterly trivial events; and how much the author focuses on the psychological aspect of this reaction.

 

My feelings my be completely unfair, being based on very little as I struggle to read too much pre-1920 book, but that's what they are.

[Karen1]

I have to say though that I really enjoyed Jane Eyre and have read it more than once. I did find the first few chapters a little weird but once I got past them it was a really good read.

 

Maybe I should try and perservere with another one of the classics that I own. I might actually enjoy it once I'm over the first hurdle. I think it's the old style of writing and the way in which the characters speak that put me off though - they just don't seem to flow that well.

[angerball]

I'm not a huge fan of the classics; they are too wordy for me, and the writing style is quite different to modern language, so I can't read them as quick. I would like to try a few of the more popular ones though (Pride and Prejudice in particular) to see if they change my mind.

[KW]

For me, many of the classics simply plod along and are too thick with unnecessary details. A writing teacher once told us, "Today, most of the 'classics' wouldn't make it past the slush pile." ( because writing has changed that much. )

 

Shruggggs.

 

To each his own, I guess. I adored them in my teens, when I hadn't read as much as I've read in my adult life. I wonder what that means....

[Kylie]

I love classics, and for a lot of the reasons that other people don't. I adore the wordiness and different use of language. I find it very poetical and it greatly enhances my pleasure of reading.

 

I do find that it sometimes takes me longer to read them but I always feel very gratified at the end.

 

I don't really get it when people say classics don't interest them. They cover all genres so there should be something that grabs you and you can almost always be guaranteed a good read because these books have clearly stood the test of time and have been loved and enjoyed by many, many people before. Of course, some books will be enjoyed by people more than others but there should be something there to appeal to you!

[wrathofkublakhan]

Mebbe I'm a-thinking this thread is really about pre-1910 books.

 

I know that the Holmes books were published very late 1880's, Dickens was publishing about 30 years before that.

 

Was there some cultural shift? Could the use of Realism (George Bernard Shaw and Anton Chekhov) in the theater have had an impact on the writing of stories?

 

In any case, a classic should be a classic for a good reason - hopefully it's the writing and not because it was written in unusual circumstances.

 

I've loved some classics - The Jungle Books, Tarzan, The Secret Garden are all well done and good reading.

Like someone else wrote in this thread, the language can be an early challenge but is soon overcome. I know it's true for me when I read Othello or Hamlet, perchance to scream - but eventually I glom on it.

[Kell]

Like someone else wrote in this thread, the language can be an early challenge but is soon overcome. I know it's true for me when I read Othello or Hamlet, perchance to scream - but eventually I glom on it.

Strangely, I've never had a problem with the language where Shakespeare is concerned - even as a kid I loved the way everything was so expressive, yet set out so rigidly (oh, that iambic pentameter!). It's later on that I seem to have a problem with language. For example, going back to Emma again - I've been assured there's a fair bit of humour in that one, but I completely missed it. Perhaps it was because the writing and language style was so new to me, or perhaps it was just that this particular book bored me, as when I listened to an audio book of Northanger Abbey, I "got" it all and loved it. And when I followed that by reading Pride and prejudice, I found whole swathes of humour.

 

I've always struggled against all pre-1910 "normal books" (which means Frankenstein and Dracula and HG Wells and Robert Stephenson and Jules Verne are excepted).

I know what you mean there - I read Dracula when I was very young (I think I must have been only 9 or 10 at the time) but loved it, and I recently read Frankenstein (for reading circle) and enjoyed that too. I think that genres within the realm of classics are slightly more clearly definable too: You can pick out the gothic horrors, the romances, the social comentaries, the detective/mysteries, and the sci-fi/fantasy more easily than you could with contemporary writing, which ALL seems to be multi-genre these days (not that I'm complaining either way!).

 

Incidentally, although I've never been a reader of romances, classic romances seem to be a different thing altogether - I adored Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice - both very romantic novels!

[clockwork frog]

If you are not into the serious classics but fancy reading something 'vintage' give Jerome K. Jerome a try. A refreshing, witty, well paced and brilliant social observer and you can find his stuff in most junk/second hand book shops for a couple of quid. I even think some of his most obvious stuff is still sold new under the Penguin 'Classics' series.

He writes in a style that manages to keep pace with modern reading and the first time I picked up one of his books was in the school library one lunch time, many years ago . I was so gripped by it that I bunked off maths that afternoon to read the book in one sitting!

[Freewheeling Andy]

Kell, I wouldn't really pin my problem down to one of genre. It's just that most of the genre-fiction that I've read, from Sherlock Holmes to Jules Verne, is basically aimed at teenage readers or was written originally in magazine form for a mass market. It's not "serious" fiction.

 

What I feel is that my pre-1910 problem may actually more be a problem with 19th century fiction. When I've read pre-19th century stuff then although the language is a problem, the books themselves aren't.

 

I may just have a problem with the Victorian mentality.

[clockwork frog]

There's something in the language I really struggle with; and there's something in the action (or more, perhaps, both lack of action, and in the highly-strung reaction) that I rail against. It's particularly how much characters react to what in the modern idiom seem like utterly trivial events; and how much the author focuses on the psychological aspect of this reaction.

 

I think you make some very valid points here. Writing styles and reading tastes, interlinked as they are, reflect somewhat the social climate of the day and what you have said above puts me very much in mind of my own interpretation of the Victorian psyche generally, that is to say, social, political, industrial and Imperial developement capped by a heavy duty sense of manly restriant. There are as many reading tastes as there are writing styles and it clearly makes sense that we all have certain styles for which we have empathy and others for which we have no time. It may well be, as you later said, that you simply struggle with the Victorian mindset. For my part, I have very little interest in most things written during Defoe's era.

 

Regards.

[~Andrea~]

I've struggled with Jane Austin. Among my favourite classics are probably Wuthering Heights (hard work but worth it) and Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I also enjoyed Jane Eyre. Some of those books do require a bit more effort but if i'm in the mood then I do find the language very rewarding.

That said, Wuthering Heights IMO is unnecessarily verbose in places.

[etheline]

I love classics, and for a lot of the reasons that other people don't. I adore the wordiness and different use of language. I find it very poetical and it greatly enhances my pleasure of reading.

 

I do find that it sometimes takes me longer to read them but I always feel very gratified at the end.

 

I don't really get it when people say classics don't interest them. They cover all genres so there should be something that grabs you and you can almost always be guaranteed a good read because these books have clearly stood the test of time and have been loved and enjoyed by many, many people before. Of course, some books will be enjoyed by people more than others but there should be something there to appeal to you!

 

I agree with everything Kylie said. I absolutely love classics. The language, the fact that these books obviously made an impact on people's lives at that particular time, and the fact that they passed the test of time. I don't know why, but it just amazes me.

[Purple Poppy]

I agree with Kylie and Etheline.

I love classics...not all of them, but most of them. The language is fantatstic and they took time to describe things properly. Jane Austens character portrayal is second to none. She knows people inside out, but then you would expect her to...

 

Kell said;

I'll illustrate this particular example with Emma by Jane Austen (which I read last summer). What was it that really got my goat about this book? It was the fact that nobody ever actually DID anything! It was a continuous round of visiting neighbours to drink tea and discuss a letter that came six months ago from a distant cousin who tells all the news about visiting HER neighbours and discussing six-month old letters! I found it incredibly boring and found most of the characters very annoying

.

 

Last night I had just finished reading this post and logged off. I then snuggled down to read a library book and by coincidence found that the next chapter was about ...

 

 

A Riot of Writers. A RompThrough English Literature.

Terrance Dicks. Illustrated by Ray Jelliffe

 

I had to smile. But seriously, this is an issue about time. Cultures change over time. The pace of life is very very fast these days. If you watch films from the sixties and seventies, or TV soap operas in the early days, the pace is very slow. The reason for that is because life was generally lived at a much slower pace. Everyone (including me) is in a hurry to jam as much into a day as possible, and from the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to bed you are under constant pressure, whether you know it or not. We expect stories to be action packed. We expect to be able to communicate immediately. We expect to be able to buy something yesterday.

But 150 years ago, the world was very different. It is very sad, I feel that we cannot slow down enough to observe what Jane observes and what her characters feel and how they react. Yes, of course they scrutinise every detail of something that seems very trivial to us, but so would you if you had been around at that time.

A GP once told me to go home and destress and said that the best way to do it, she found, was to curl up and immerse herself in Jane Austen. If you can get into Austen's and slow down, it is the best relaxation, and very rewarding.Quite apart from the social commentary.

Slow down and smell the coffee....or whatever. Quantity is not quantity.

Most classics would get published today; the only drawback is the language which could be rectified. Very few writers today write with the same level of ability, the same grasp of the English language as many of the classics writers. And many classic stories, like Jane Austens are just the first of a particular genre, in her case Romance, and have been repeated in varying ways ever since.

Unfortunately, people do not change that much over time, so even if you cannot relate to the situations, you should be able to relate to the people.

I wonder how many 20th century books will pass the test of time!

Rant over

Pp

 

 

[JudyB]

I love the classics and love the way that they are written. In terms of wordiness they vary with Dickens being very wordy and Zola having a modern feel to his writing. Hardy is so poetic and I love Jane Austen for her humour and the Brontes for their atmosphere - Dickens does atmosphere well also. I also love the mysteries of Wilkie Collins.

 

One of the things I like best about reading the classics is that through them you can learn so much about life during that time - although works of fiction they do have a historical truth about them (for example there are things that I think of as modern that were actually in existance during the 19th century) and it's also interesting to look at the language and see how much it has changed or how they articulate for example, a medical condition, before it has reached the point of being given a recognisable label it's interesting to see how they articulated depression - the language can be very telling.

[Sedge]

I wouldn't normally have ventured into classics, but I recently decided to delve into the wife's bookshelves and read Wuthering Heights. I must say it was a lot more impressive than I was prepared for, so I've now moved onto The Mill On The Floss.

 

Once you get into it, the style of writing is quite soothing and the characterization is brilliant!

[Icecream]

Well said PP. I like the language i classics. I think it is good, although if at first challenging, to read the language that these people used. It is cultural and part of our heritage which should not be lost, but above all I find it most interesting.

[kitty_kitty]

I love classics - i love the language and the stories can be fantastic.

 

I find that i have to sit down and get used to the language etc.

 

I do feel a bit proud of myself for reading them though and a part of me feels like i should read them too

[~Andrea~]

I wouldn't normally have ventured into classics, but I recently decided to delve into the wife's bookshelves and read Wuthering Heights. I must say it was a lot more impressive than I was prepared for, so I've now moved onto The Mill On The Floss.

 

Once you get into it, the style of writing is quite soothing and the characterization is brilliant!

 

Oh good luck. I did MOTF for A Level and found it hard going! Silas Marner is quite good, and a lot shorter. I should probably try some more George Eliot.

[Fiona]

I want to read more classics - particually those by Austen (read P&P) Gaskell and Henry Fielding. I read Tom Jones as a kid but I'd like to read it again as an older person.

 

I've never got on with Dickens stories really - but one day I shall read Bleak House and Great Expectations as I did kinda get into those once but never really took it beyond a few pages at the time.

 

I'd like to read War and Peace, but the size is beyond scary and perhaps one day finish reading Crime and Punishment. I enjoyed it, but Russians have about 5 different names for themselves and two people I suddenly realised was one.

 

I love Dumas though - the 3 Musketeers and especially The Counte of Monte Cristo. I'd say Dumas is the best and easiest classical author to get into - possibly as it is translated and maybe not as heavy as the original French (going you can read French)

 

Classics I do find hard going and you need a bit more commitment to them.