WooWoo Posted September 7, 2010 Share Posted September 7, 2010 Personally peeps I love the old classic books that they make you read in school, the ones where everything is full of love and drama. Where a gentleman begged for your affections and made a proposal down on one knee! Bring back the old days with the sensational novels! Whos with me?????? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaraPepparkaka Posted September 14, 2010 Share Posted September 14, 2010 Well, if they're full of love and drama then I'm all for it! Classics are different from each other just as any books, so I can't say I'll love a book just because it's a "classic". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison10 Posted September 14, 2010 Share Posted September 14, 2010 I have always struggled reading Classics, never seem to really enjoy them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian Posted September 14, 2010 Share Posted September 14, 2010 They're something I've learned to appreciate as I've got older. I was introduced to some classics far too early at school. Result: I avoided them like the plague whilst still being an avid reader until well into my thirties. In a way it's been good. I can appreciate them now in a way I never could have in my teens/twenties, plus I have this whole genre of unread books to explore! I'm currently reading "Emma". I know that if I had tried to read this 10 years ago, I wouldn't have got past page 2. Where a gentleman begged for your affections and made a proposal down on one knee! Does nothing for me, I'm afraid! Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nursenblack Posted September 14, 2010 Share Posted September 14, 2010 I love all types of classics that tell a good story, but prefer a bit of romance/love in them. Give me Austen or the Bronte's anytime! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isabel Posted November 4, 2010 Share Posted November 4, 2010 I used to be a 'Richard and Judy' type of girl, but now I've become addicted to the classics, and nothing else seems to be quite good enough. Give me a Galsworthy, Steinbeck, Waugh or Somerset Maugham any day of the week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genevieve Posted December 13, 2010 Share Posted December 13, 2010 Me, I love the classics, since a tiny girl. The richness of the words, descriptions of velvet and lace, of the real and the fantasy being combined into a rich saga, how wonderful. I cannot say I like the way of life in some of the eras, the continual struggle for place and money in society in order to have the happy life, but I very much admire the fine minds of many of the characters and like to read how they surmounted these obstacles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thizzy85 Posted December 14, 2010 Share Posted December 14, 2010 just picked up a copy of "the odyssey" after reading through this little wiki article "monomyth". even though I had to read excerpts of "the iliad" and "the odyssey" in high school, I never enjoyed it. now its hard for me to put the book down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruth Posted December 15, 2010 Share Posted December 15, 2010 I adore Jane Austen's books. All of them One of my all time favourite books is Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. Also I love To Kill a Mockingbird, The Handmaid's Tale and A Clockwork Orange - all modern classics I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genevieve Posted December 18, 2010 Share Posted December 18, 2010 I wish in a way I never had read the biography of the Bronte sisters and brother Bram. It was to me horrifying and almost sick and then when I read their works after I could not get that out of my mind. shiver. Also when I read To Kill A Mocking Bird I felt so and stressed out, bigotry is so evil non? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted December 19, 2010 Share Posted December 19, 2010 I read a lot of classics in my younger years, and loved many of them .....John Steinbeck, Jane Austin, Evelyn Waugh, EM Forster, RF Delderfield, the Brontes, John Galsworthy, F Scott Fitzgerald, to name just a few. But I feel there are some big gaps in my classic reading and I've been trying to catch up on some of these. Recently I've added To Kill A Mockingbird (which turned out to be one of my all time favourites), The Hobbit, In Cold Blood, Dracula, Three Men In A Boat, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Maurice, Les Miserables, Wuthering Heights and The Sword in the Stone. It's wonderful when you come upon a gem of a book and you can completely understand why it's become a classic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigWords Posted December 25, 2010 Share Posted December 25, 2010 just picked up a copy of "the odyssey" after reading through this little wiki article "monomyth". Joseph Campbell made some good points, though his books have largely become a how to guide for authors to use in the creation of new works. There is something of a backlash against the Hero's Journey format being slavishly followed in new fiction. There are so many books lumped in together as 'classics' that it seems anything is open for inclusion as long as it is of a certain age. I prefer to view titles on their own benefits rather than looking for something in them which might not be there. There is also the consideration of both moral dissonance and archaic terms to overcome if a work is to be truly approachable by the modern reader; reasons largely given for the disappointing breadth of literary knowledge in some school-leavers. A minor (but very important) part of why I refuse to buy current reprints of classics has to do with the covers. I know this has been brought up before (and if someone wants to add the link for that thread, it would help my argument): wrapping a horrible sub-Twilight cover onto something which has managed to sell well for hundreds of years isn't merely a case of pandering to the audience, it is disrespectful to the work and displays a level of arrogance in branding. The novels which are considered 'classics' are NOT tie-in novels, nor should they be marketed as such. Also, regardless of whatever textbooks are suggesting now, the historical use of the term "classic" requires a text to have been in publication, or at least widely read, for no less than one hundred years before the status can be conferred upon it. As much as I would like to call some works published after 1910 classics, I can't quite bring myself to do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genevieve Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 I received Northanger Abbey for Christmas and I loved it oui, and I did not love it! I liked very much the easy openess of Catherine and the fact she seemed to come from a normal if you will family and was neither too shy or too forward. But the novel thing and her taking the writings of the good Mrs. Radcliffe to such a limit that she thought such ridiculous things about Northanger and about Henry's papa was to me rather silly. It disappointed me. And perhaps Ifeel the novel ended too neatly , oui and well, that is my opinion. Would I read it once more. WEll, Jane wrote it and it is my permanent gift, so Okay , I will! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexie Posted January 5, 2011 Share Posted January 5, 2011 I would love to say that I love the classics just like that but I'm afraid I wouldn't be totally honest. I do love some classics but, for some reason, it seems that for some others it's still not the right time for me to read them. Yes, even though I'm in my thirties (unbelievable... still feel like a teen! ) I think that somehow books choose us and when the moment is right we end up reading the right book... sounds really silly, I know... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genevieve Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Non, that does not sound silly to me. Just as the time must be right to meet certain people in order to appreciate them, so too, books become friends or even enemies depending on the frame of mind we are in oui, and the circumstances. I like your opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexie Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Non, that does not sound silly to me. Just as the time must be right to meet certain people in order to appreciate them, so too, books become friends or even enemies depending on the frame of mind we are in oui, and the circumstances. I like your opinion. thanks Genevieve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToniLianne Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 I love the classics that I've read, I'm currently trying to read some of Jane Austen's books my friends were shocked that I had never read any of hers and recommended them to me!! I've just started Sense and Sensibility I'm finding it hard to get into but I'm sure I will love it once I do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bunce Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 The few classics I've read, I've loved. However, upon attempting Wuthering Heights I wasn't able to finish the book as nothing about it, at the time of reading, appealed to me. I might attempt to re-read the book again later on this year, but for now I'm quite tucking in to some other classics that do appeal to me, such as Great Expectations which is the book I'm currently working my way through. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thizzy85 Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 Moby Dick is great. I don't know how they expected me to read this at 16 but I am thoroughly enjoying it now. Its funny how long it has taken me to finish certain chapters. There was one that brought up the poem "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" well I had to read this poem before I continued on. This poem is basically a story like the flying dutchman. A guy shots an albatross and curses the boat. Really an epic poem. Well wouldn't you know the next chapter of Moby Dick was "the Albatross". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nadia220983 Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 I love old classics too, especially Nineteenth Century Russian Letterature! I suggest Crime and Punishment of F.Dostoevskij as a sample of the great magnificence of this kind of classics novels. It is said that Russian classic are sometimes too hard to digest, because they are too thick and difficult to understand. On the contrary, they are full of modern ideas. The characters are full of meanings. Passion and involvement are there on every page! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hayley Posted June 25, 2011 Share Posted June 25, 2011 I think there are two great things about classics: 1) they're classics because they've survived the 'test of time', so you already know there must be something good about them! They create a list of histories greatest authors. 2) The history behind them makes them even more interesting (for example Dickens portraying Victorian England and Gatsby Americas 'boom' years)... well it does in my opinion anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Butter Posted June 25, 2011 Share Posted June 25, 2011 Absolutely, Hayley! A spot-on analysis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delilah Posted June 29, 2011 Share Posted June 29, 2011 I love Victorian English novels like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I've read everything about them. The best biography about the Brontes is by Julia Barker I believe her name is! It contains many of Charlotte's letters which provide so much insight into her personality better than any biographer can do! I went to London a year ago but could not visit Haworth. Someday though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willoyd Posted July 16, 2011 Share Posted July 16, 2011 It's very easy to lump all the 'classics' together, but, as Hayley points out, the thing that makes them stand out is that they stand the test of time. That doesn't, however, mean that any one reader will, necessarily, like them all. I love quite a lot of classics: Austen, Dickens, Trollope, Gaskell, Hardy, Chaucer etc etc all number amongst my favourites. However, I can't be bothered with Lawrence, Fitzgerald, Defoe, etc. All that a classic means is that they've been marked out as a book that is generally recognised as a great, but need not be felt to be so by any one individual. As for the hundred year rule, I think that's a bit steep, although the implication that one has to wait to see what is regarded as a classic is spot on, and, given how far once prominent writers have slipped off the radar, it does beg the question as to whether one can actually predict who will be a 'classic' author in the future. However, I'd suggest that the likes of Virginia Woolf, writing less than one hundred years ago, are pretty secure as classic authors (and to my mind is one of the greatest). I have a fascinating book called "The Test of Time", published by Waterstones in 1999, where a wide range of people (mainly authors) were asked what their definition of a classic was, what they regarded as their 10 classics for the 21st century were, and what 10 maximum 'classics' did they regard as being mislabelled. Some fairly prominent writers featured in the latter, usually 'lesser' books in their list (e.g. Mansfield Park, Daniel Deronda). Some books featured in both lists (e.g. To The Lighthouse)! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Persephone1821 Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 I absolutely LOVE the classics! The artistic language in which they are written, despite the myraid of personal writing styles, is beautiful regardless of the story; tragic and happy alike. The language always challenges me to use my imagination to visualize a character, setting, or event.. not to mention to understand some words that are, honestly, foreign to me (Ah! big words! haha). Not only that, but the sort of hidden message or ideas entwined within a work of literature is fascinating to me. For instance, as Victor Hugo was writing his novel Hunchback of Notre Dame during the romantic era.. his emphasis on the personalities and depiction of raw human emotions of each character was something so new in Hugo's time (hence the Romance movement in both art & literature). I don't believe I've ever read any modern book that possessed such attention to detail nor that has made me come away with a feeling of inspiration and awe. Lamens terms... classical literature is just Oh My Gawww!! If anyone knows how I could get free money to go back to school to get a master's degree in literature, let me know!! haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.