AIBU to think classics are bloody hard to read?

[Blackbootswithredribbons]

Now, don't get me wrong, I've read some amazing classics in my time (Lord Of The Flies, Jane Eyre etc) but it definitely hurts my brain sometimes! Amazing stories but the long, pointless descriptions, written in that old fashioned way that makes you feel a little stupid sometimes .

So, AIBU?

I've recommended this before, but for those who love 19th century fiction and would like another long read on similar but different lines, try The Quincunx by Charles Palliser (marvellously Victorian name, fortuitously, as it's his real name ). Published in 1989.

This is what Wikipedia says about it. The Quincunx (The Inheritance of John Huffam) is the epic first novel of Charles Palliser. It takes the form of a Dickensian mystery set in early 19th century England, but Palliser has added the modern attributes of an ambiguous plot and unreliable narrators. Many of the puzzles that are apparently solved in the story have an alternative solution in the subtext.

What I particularly enjoyed about this was that Palliser was able to portray some of the realities of life in earlier times in a way that Dickens et al could only hint at. Prostitution, for example.

Thanks for the recommendation!
Sounds like a good read. Great name.

@Glitterybug

You do know that the marker of a good book is not whether it's an "easy read", right?

It is if that's what you enjoy reading. Who are you to tell someone else what makes good book and what doesnt?

Finding a novel enjoyable, finding a novel an ‘easy read’ and it being a good novel are three different things. They might be related, or they might not. That an individual doesn’t find Wuthering Heights or David Copperfield to their individual taste, or finds them difficult doesn’t mean they aren’t good novels. I can’t stomach any Muriel Spark, Trollope, John Steinbeck or graphic novels, but that’s no judgement on their worth, just that they don’t suit my individual taste.

I’d have to disagree with Melvin Bragg and say the first feminist novel is Mary Wollstonecraft’s Maria, which predates Tenant of Wildfell Hall by decades. And that definitely isn’t a good novel, it’s pretty much a feminist treatise thinly fictionalised, but it’s important.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I've recommended this before, but for those who love 19th century fiction and would like another long read on similar but different lines, try The Quincunx by Charles Palliser (marvellously Victorian name, fortuitously, as it's his real name ). Published in 1989.

This is what Wikipedia says about it. The Quincunx (The Inheritance of John Huffam) is the epic first novel of Charles Palliser. It takes the form of a Dickensian mystery set in early 19th century England, but Palliser has added the modern attributes of an ambiguous plot and unreliable narrators. Many of the puzzles that are apparently solved in the story have an alternative solution in the subtext.

What I particularly enjoyed about this was that Palliser was able to portray some of the realities of life in earlier times in a way that Dickens et al could only hint at. Prostitution, for example.

I’ve never read this, but if anyone likes a more emancipated take on the Victorian novel, I’d also recommend John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman, which is mostly a Victorian pastiche, but which has inter chapters on Victorian prostitution, leisure, sexuality, enclosure, class etc.

Or read Judith Flanders’ The Victorian House alongside any Victorian novel.

I agree OP. I find Dickens pretty much unreadable but I read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall last year and to my surprise I absolutely loved it. I also love Jane Eyre, Little Women & Pride and Prejudice. Found Villette unbearably dull.
I don’t often read classics because life is too short and I don’t particularly enjoy them, but I like to give them a go sometimes!

Often a “hard” novel is more satisfying than an easy read - the investment is worth it. Just the same as an involved Netflix-type series requires more time and effort than a 9pm tv drama but is way more satisfying.

Many people have said to me, “Oh, I couldn’t get beyond the first episode of The Wire/Breaking Bad/Spiral.” They don’t know what they’re missing!

The 'neo-Victorians' are pretty much a genre in their own right, although unlike the originals most are pretty complex and postmodern. That's stuff along the lines of A S Byatt's Possession, Julian Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot, Sarah Waters's Fingersmith, Margaret Forster's Lady's Maid etc.

I haven't read Quincunx or The Victorian House - those are going on my reading list so thanks PPs!

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

The 'neo-Victorians' are pretty much a genre in their own right, although unlike the originals most are pretty complex and postmodern. That's stuff along the lines of A S Byatt's Possession, Julian Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot, Sarah Waters's Fingersmith, Margaret Forster's Lady's Maid etc.

I haven't read Quincunx or The Victorian House - those are going on my reading list so thanks PPs!

The Victorian House is brilliant for illuminating tiny details of Victorian novels I was always mildly puzzled by the way in which Katy handles the nursing of Amy Ashe when she's ill in Rome, especially the rearrangement of the room she's sleeping in, until I read JF's chapter on the sickroom, or even something minor like Mrs Fairfax in Jane Eyre and the instructions she gives to Leah the maid when Jane first arrives and just general stuff about mourning clothes, visiting card etiquette, laundry, domestic lighting etc.

Every time I think my life is too hard, I read the section on laundry and thank the powers that I am not a Victorian maid of all work.

I mostly don’t like “faux” Victorian literature. It just strikes a bit of a discordant note. I liked Fingersmith, though.

Not the right period, but I have to say that my all-time worst historical novel was The Miniaturist. The anachronisms just kept heaping up.

Sorry, @MarieIVanArkleStinks what I intended to write is that The Victorian House isn't a novel, it's basically a wonderfully detailed tour around the rooms of a Victorian family home (she takes the middle class as her baseline, but branches out above and below) parlour, morning room, dining room, kitchen, scullery, bedroom, sickroom, bathroom etc etc, talking about whatever is relevant to that room, like nursing techniques, food preparation, women's clothes storage (when did clothes hangers come into use?), when bedside tables started to be used etc etc.

@Clandestin, in which case I'll definitely read it! Sounds fascinating.

As a child, it took me ages to figure out that 'Roman fever' was actually malaria. And I don't even want to imagine a world in which smallpox was still about!

Not the right period, but I have to say that my all-time worst historical novel was The Miniaturist. The anachronisms just kept heaping up.

That book was absolute nonsense. And if you'd taken the whole miniaturist element out of it it wouldn't have altered the story in any way. The author based the whole book around this magical miniaturist who turned out to be extraneous to the entire plot.

I have completely got back into classics with audible books. I love the language and the voices . It's a whole experience. Everything comes alive. I just recently listened to Anna Karenina and it was fabulous. Looking forward to my next one.

@Classica

Not the right period, but I have to say that my all-time worst historical novel was The Miniaturist. The anachronisms just kept heaping up.

That book was absolute nonsense. And if you'd taken the whole miniaturist element out of it it wouldn't have altered the story in any way. The author based the whole book around this magical miniaturist who turned out to be extraneous to the entire plot.

Yes, I thought that novel was extremely silly in plot and characterisation. The protagonist seems to have a lot of magic business acumen, given that she's a sheltered teenage bride who's never worked a day in her life, and her husband would be considered unusually indiscreet in his sexual encounters for an emancipated gay man in 21st century Europe, far less in 17thc the Netherlands where sodomy gets you a death sentence! The whole thing felt like Dynasty with a sellotaped-on dolls' house.

I remember trying to work my way through Dante’s Divine Comedy when I’d just started uni. I’d always pretentiously whip out this massive old tome when travelling or on holiday - from the outside I hoped I looked like a casual intellectual just devouring a classic for fun.

Internally it was enjoyable in parts but also depressing and I felt ashamed and confused that it felt like wading through linguistic mud at points as I love reading, so persevered… truthfully I was yearning for some chicklit instead.

I think I was reading it on and off for about 18m-2yr (mainly on holidays/when travelling) and got all the way through Inferno and Purgatory and ultimately couldn’t even be arsed to go through Paradise. Lol

The main thing I took away is that it’s not actually a comedy but is biblical in proportions.

The heroine being oh so cool with homosexuality - yep, that would happen - not. And yes, her wandering all over Rotterdam or wherever unaccompanied and knowing where she was going when she’d never been out before - yep. Bilge.

I can’t bear modern sensibilities bolted onto the past. That is one reason why I don’t care for historical fiction. Of course, for example, there were gay people in Victorian times, but no one was out and proud! I think you can be very, very sure that most people would not even have known what it was.

My df had no idea that his own db was gay and that was in the 1940s. It wasn’t until at least the decriminalisation in the 60s that it was on people’s radar, and even until recently people would cover it up. (And some in public eye still do.) So the notion of Ru Paul’s drag race in 1850 is preposterous.

@StrongSunglasses

I remember trying to work my way through Dante’s Divine Comedy when I’d just started uni. I’d always pretentiously whip out this massive old tome when travelling or on holiday - from the outside I hoped I looked like a casual intellectual just devouring a classic for fun.

Internally it was enjoyable in parts but also depressing and I felt ashamed and confused that it felt like wading through linguistic mud at points as I love reading, so persevered… truthfully I was yearning for some chicklit instead.

I think I was reading it on and off for about 18m-2yr (mainly on holidays/when travelling) and got all the way through Inferno and Purgatory and ultimately couldn’t even be arsed to go through Paradise. Lol

The main thing I took away is that it’s not actually a comedy but is biblical in proportions.

You were right to hold off on the Paradise section, though -- it's incredibly dull, as if he'd used up all his ingenuity on the gruesome hell punishments, and all the complex palaver about the rules of purgatory and having P carved on your forehead by grumpy angels.

I think that there were less distractions and people saw less of the world, so the descriptive writing would be more interesting that nowadays (even if you don't travel you see a lot through tv). Plus that books were expensive, so you'd savour each chapter.

At the risk of being flamed, doesn't it depend on your level of education? 🤔

Depends on a lot of things. I posted earlier about that.

I'll find it.

Also, for me. The way I was taught at school. With poetry, plays, books etc.

Really stripped the ability to enjoy. To just... There was no opportunity to be encouraged to appreciate the whole, to engage with and find things that you liked, that sort of thing.

They were done in parceled up segments for analysis.

And the analysis... When a teenager. For some/ many lack of lifec experience and maturity surely means you are less likely to get what are often experiences/ things you know little of. And especially if you aren't encouraged to go with it, as it were.

I think there's a lot of problems with the way we teach this area in schools, the more I think about it.

There is huge value in, taking a work you enjoy, relate to etc. And delving into meanings and etc you may have missed.

And the things we did. It's all things that teens are unlikely to really... Get? Iyswim.

As an adult things like the horrors of war, relationships, love, domestic violence I get.

As a child I just didn't. I knew intellectually these things were bad but the emotional visceral understanding, no.

DD is going practice GCSE stuff and it's so odd. Love and loss. Domestic violence. Murder.

Hmmmm. As at a population level likely to turn many away rather than switch them on .

Thinking out loud there!

@Brefugee

I'm another who loathes Catcher in the Rye. And for those with me on this, how do you feel about The Bell Jar? which i also loathe but for different reasons.

YY to Evelyn Waugh and a massive YES! to Olivia E Butler. The Parable of the Sower is so good it's almost perfect.

Read at maybe 13 and engaged enough to read all through but in the end at 13 I didn't really get it obv

Still on shelf should re read.

Muriel spark read loads as a kid still have as well.

Again. I was too young.

With my own kids I take a wait until they are ready approach. So they enjoy and understand.

My mum pushed, always for us to do things we were not ready to do in terms of maturity, experience, attention span, anything.

I remember a film at 10, scared the shit out of me. Can't remember the name but mentioned it in English at school teacher looked shocked. B&W film maybe German, children ? Taken in. Terrible time. It's the ?aunt burning to death that stayed with me. It's a classic though!

And who takes a 3 and 5 yo for a full length ballet at the royal opera House? We were bored and worn out and grizzley and they had to leave at interval and have never let us forget.

These things should be a pleasure. They need to be seen as accessible, known about. All the arts. Not for this type of family or this sex or this class etc etc.

The door needs to be open, for anyone to go through. And that too young is not good.

IMO.

Fanny and Alexander! 1982.

Ingmar Bergman.

Fucks sake.

Not a classic then, contemporary.

Still fucks sake.

'I can’t bear modern sensibilities bolted onto the past. That is one reason why I don’t care for historical fiction. Of course, for example, there were gay people in Victorian times, but no one was out and proud! I think you can be very, very sure that most people would not even have known what it was.'

Oscar Wilde? Court case? I mean came to mind. Of course people knew what it was.

I am fairly sure that there were establishments etc for gentleman to meet.

And etc. I mean just top of head but don't think the picture was as simple as your comment suggests.

Picture of Dorian gray was 1890. V clear aspects re homosexuality. Which would have been understood by readers who were in any way likely to notice.

Now THAT is a really really good book.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g. That sounds like a very interesting book but more to the point, is it a thick book with thin paper and small writing. Because that might make it a big, fat no.