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?

Yes, Nancy's story is heartwrenching. I love Oliver! (the film). The part where she sings 'As long as he needs me' reduces me to tears every time, knowing what I do about how it's going to end for her.

@WhiskyXray

I do see your point re the anti-Semitism. It’s not surprisingly cut out of the musical version obviously, as Fagin being Jewish isn’t mentioned.

Lionel Bart was Jewish, which to my ear is very obvious from the score of Oliver, especially in anything Fagin sings. (Ron Moody was Jewish too, which probably helped.) I believe Klezmer is the name of the musical style I'm thinking of. I wonder if Bart saw Fagin as a more sympathetic character than Dickens did.

Vanity Fair is one of my favourite books of all time, @TomPinch. Apart from it being a highly entertaining satire, I think Thackeray's characterisation beat most of the other novelists of the time hollow. Poor faithful Dobbin being too kind to reject the object of his desire when he finally obtains it, but no longer having any illusions about it.💔 That one got to me in a way that the more lurid melodramas never seem to.

I'm impatiently waiting for the copy of Bleak House I ordered from eBay to arrive, and tiding myself over with a recentish Colm Toibin (not sure how to make those accents; no offence meant) from the charity shop.☕

[quote LizzieW1969]@WhiskyXray

I do see your point re the anti-Semitism. It’s not surprisingly cut out of the musical version obviously, as Fagin being Jewish isn’t mentioned.[/quote]
That's interesting. I haven't actually seen the musical or the film version of it, though "Consider Yourself" is a fabulous stand-alone song.

That's also interesting, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g. I'm keen to see it now and see how Fagin is portrayed.

It's a brilliant film. Won the Best Film Oscar for its year. Directed by Carol Reed, who directed The Third Man decades before. Also a fabulous film.

Totally agree op, see also, The Bible.

The David Lean Great Expectations is v good.

In Anthony Trollope’s “The Way We Live Now” (listened on Audible) one of the landed gentry family verbalise some horrible anti-semitism against a Jewish banker which at one point their daughter is going to marry. However, the family are portrayed as snobbish, stupid and narrow-minded and the Banker is portrayed as intelligent and perceptive and you are kind of cheering when he ends an engagement with the awful daughter. Disraeli suffered from it and of course there was the Dreyfus Affair in France so the fiction of the time was reflective of real life.

I can't -I have hundreds of the damn things and never read any of them -all being boxed up over the next few weeks and charity shops. Borrow box and audio subscription are the way forward.

What a shame. I hope I come across your books in a charity shop!

Incidentally, dickens is more than plot or even larger than life characters. His skewering of various personality types is spot on. He had clearly encountered a fair few CFs in his travels….

Oh, do read Jane Eyre. I have never seen a decent adaptation of the book.
The play at the NT a while ago (was available to stream and may still be) is excellent. Feels like it felt when I read the book in my late teens: the same intensity, strangeness and wildness.

The Ruth Wilson & Toby Stevens adaptation of Jand Eyre was brilliant

@DottyHarmer

What a shame. I hope I come across your books in a charity shop!

Incidentally, dickens is more than plot or even larger than life characters. His skewering of various personality types is spot on. He had clearly encountered a fair few CFs in his travels….

😂

Now imagining Dickens saying ‘aibu that I gave all these little boys a home and now they don’t want to go out robbing for me? Or are they just CF?’

@Itsnotover

It depends which one. Silas Marner - literally dull as dishwater.

Bit late to the thread and not a fan generally of ye olde ‘classics’ but I did enjoy Silas Marner😁.

As an aside there was a really good BBC TV adaptation of SM back in the late 80s with Ben Kingsley, I remember watching it with my mum and have watched again as an adult. Can recommend it for people who prefer tv adaptations.

@Kanaloa

Or Mr Jarndyce could post a reverse AIBU about Harold Skimpole. Who, I've heard, was based by Dickens on an acquaintance of his in order to give the acquaintance a serve. Never piss off a famous writer!

@TheVolturi

Totally agree op, see also, The Bible.

OK, I can't let this pass.

Genesis is a cracking read. Exodus isn't bad either. Most of the history books carry the narrative well although there is plenty of overlap between 1 & 2 Chronicles and 1 & 2 Kings. The prophets are more of a mixed bag. Ezekiel is good because it has the vision of the valley of the dry bones. Tbh I find one Psalm like another although some of the other books of poetry are good. I'd avoid books like Deuteronomy.

The Gospels and Acts aren't hard or long to read. The Epistles are what they are. Revelations is crazy and very nearly wasn't included in the canon.

Anthony Trollope is great - what's more he was one of the first to crisscross people throughout his books so you get character development throughout. Thackeray is great - I don't know many who don't like Vanity Fair but he wrote other crackers.

M J Farrell, P G Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Barbara Pym ... so many. I think it's like a muscle you need to exercise if you have the time. I've just listened to Dostoevsky's The Idiot on BBC Sounds - I need to do a bit more Russian literature beyond War & Peace and Anna Karenina.

Read Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor.

God bless the Royal Mail, delivering me my new book just as I was seriously contemplating doing a little bit of work!

@crosstalk Russian literature is always rewarding. My personal favourites are Turgenev, Gogol and Bunin.

And I'm only on page one and have already had to look up "Greenwich pensioners" (I'm not originally from England and so have a lot of gaps in my knowledge). I'm hoping this new fact will help me win a speedboat or a lounge suite on a TV quizshow one day.

This is the best thing about reading the classics IMO- you learn stuff!

I think Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Taylor are a different sort of classic. I love their books, but they are not hard classics from another era.

Btw Mrs Palfrey is not to be recommended to an older person - imagine a lonely soul receiving that for Christmas

Thank you to the pp who recommended The Victorian House. I’m reading it now. So illuminating!

Russian literature is always rewarding. My personal favourites are Turgenev, Gogol and Bunin.

Oh gosh, i so love Turgenev. I'm going to read Fathers and Sons again soon, thanks for the reminder. Also to PP mentioning The Idiot on BBC sounds, I'll give that a listen.

Melvyn Bragg did a good episode of In Our Time on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which i listened to yesterday. That's one I've never read, not being a huge fan of the Brontes, so I'll give that one a go too.

I really didn't see much connection between The Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre - is it really better to read them one immediately after the other?

Jane Eyre first. You'll see the connection then.

I always saw Rebecca as a spin on Jane Eyre.

Must look up Wide Sargasso Sea! Is it about Bertha?