Should I read the classics?

[Butterflyfriend]

Hello everyone.
I have to confess, I find reading Austen, Dickens and Shakespeare etc. a chore.
I have an English degree, so I can understand the language and appreciate their merit, I just feel they are mountains to climb rather than a pleasure.
Are they really worth persevering with?

[Movingonmymind]

Austen yes
Thackeray yes
Shakespeare yes but to SEE on stage, only way and then maybe to revisit the gems of some of the language after the event
Gaskell yes
flaubert yes
Dickens, mmm. Keep trying to like hi, his life is fascinating but I find his works a chore, full of caricatures and overlong descriptions.
Bronte no

[Themodernuriahheep]

Dickens, easiest after CC is a tale of two cities.

Greatest IMV are GE, DC and Bleak House, with Our Mutual Friend coming up fast. dC is far more like a normal Victorian autobiographical novel, still with caricature but also transfixing character, eg Steerforth and rosa Dartle.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

A Tale of Two Cities is my least favourite. It's a straight forward historical novel and the least "Dickensian".

Bleak House is a masterpiece, then I'd rate the following equally GE, Little Dorrit, The Old Curiosity Shop and DC.

[juneau]

I think it depends why you read. Do you read purely for escapism and pleasure, or do you want to challenge yourself and broaden your mind? If its the former, then by all means stick to the kind of books you find easy and purely pleasurable, if the latter then try one of the easier ones and see how you get on. I find that my needs from books change depending on how much else I've got going on, how tired I am, etc. When my DC were very small and I was exhausted I couldn't concentrate on anything very demanding, but now I can.

But should you persevere with something you're finding dull or a chore? IMO no. Life is too short.

[Themodernuriahheep]

Lass,, I'm with you on ATOTC but it is easy entry stuff. And a tear jerker.

And yes, in my view as a Dickens liker, BH trumps them all, up there with few other novels ( 3 Austen, Middlemarch, er that's it in English, prob). But not to include OMF, the other great poetic novel, and include TOCS instead? Shirley shome mishtake?

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

I do like OMF. It had been mentioned already. TOCS hardly ever gets a mention beyond referring to the Wilde quote about Nell's death. I think that's an unfair.

Quilp, and the Brasses are monsters, 3 of the most evil characters, probably only the Squeers family and Noah Claypole outdo them.

Nell's grandfather is quite subtle - on the face of it a kind ,gentle character who loves her, yet his selfishness and weak will cause considerable damage.

It also has the lovely incidental story of The Marchioness and Dick Swiveller. I read a criticism of TOCS which described their story as possibly the only genuine love story between equals in Dickens.

[MiddleAgeMiddleEngland]

Lass I haven't read The Master and Margarita - I will get a copy and give it a go.

[Butterflyfriend]

My degree was English language and literature. I studied through the open university where you select various modules, my three literature choices included one on creative writing and one on children's literature, so yes I think I probably did read comparatively few novels. I am finding now is the first time in many years I can read just what I want but don't really know where to start? I want something that is really engaging but doesn't feel like hard work.
I had been given a complete set of Austen, but every time I start one I get a few chapters in and grind to a halt.

[elephantoverthehill]

Ah that makes sense now Butterfly from your Jane Austin collection may I suggest 'Pride and Prejudice'? I am sure you have read or seen 'Bridget Jone's diary'. P&P is the original.

[2016Candles]

There are classics you might love, and those you'll hate. You just have to try them all out .

I can't get on with Dickens. Love films and TV adaptations of his work, but find his longwinded writing style a complete chore to read.

I admire Austen, but never fell in love with her books the way so many people do.

I absolutely LOVE lots of Shakespeare (and agree, you need to see his plays for it to really come alive). Love many of the sonnets, Hamlet, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice. His tragedies, basically. Can't fricking stand A Midsummer Nights Dream, though .

There are classics I finished and thought 'well, thats a few days of my life I'll never get back'. Tristram Shandy springs to mind. Middlemarch. Vanity Fair.

But there are others that have stayed with me forever. Wuthering Heights. Jude the Obscure. Germinal. Lots of stuff by classic American writers, especially Faulkner.

Knock yourself out and report back

[elephantoverthehill]

Forgot to say there is no mention of large pants in P&P.

[Destinysdaughter]

I think studying books can ironically destroy your love of reading as you are forced to read them and have to analyse them to death! Also, they're very of their time so a lot of the cultural references are lost on us now. There's so many great modern books around now that I really enjoy reading, I find I learn more from them than I do reading the ' classics' , especially if you've already got an English degree. You've done your time, read books for pleasure and fun, don't give yourself a hard time about it. I remember reading once that if Shakespeare was alive now, he'd be writing Eastenders! Read what you want to and fall in love with reading again, there's so many great books around right now.

[Butterflyfriend]

Thank you! It is exactly that, I am analysing everything I read rather than reading for fun.

[Themodernuriahheep]

I found that with plays. It took me years before I went to see a play and I never ever read them now, save occasionally for the poetry. Ie I might read them, but rarely for the play itself.

And I rarely read serious modern novels...

There are lots of 20 century classics that are good reads as well as classics. Just read for the story. And actually, that's what Dickens was doing, really. Telling a story. His serials were exactly the equivalent of Eastenders or Corrie. And people waited for and discussed the next episode, so all the chapter ends had to have cliffhangers of some sort as otherwise sakes would fall...hence the crowds in New York waiting on the docks to hear if little nell had died..and Oscar Wilde's sarcastic comments

How about - mainly short, mainly 20 century-
Portrait if the Artist as a young Man
Howard's End
A room of ones own, not a novel, but great work beautifully written
Jane Eyre - read fast for story, or see the recent film,
Precious Bane
All quiet on the western front
The great gatsby
The sun also rises
A farewell to arms
The end of the affair
Our man in Havana.
Maupassant's short stories

Read quickly, for the story. Skip the boring bits, you can always come back and reread.

[Themodernuriahheep]

Sales not sakes, stupid fingers

[IndridCold]

Personally I love 'the Classics', however reading is for pleasure, surely? If you don't enjoy reading them, don't bother. There's plenty of other good stuff out there.

[cressetmama]

Love some (JA Persuasion, P&P; Dickens Nicholas Nickleby; Great Expectations) and hate others... the Brontes topping that list. Quite like Hardy, adored Vanity Fair, War and Peace is long but so is Middlemarch. You choose, and stop 100 pages in if you aren't enjoying the book. It's not a set text now, you don't have to finish anything you don't like, or pass an exam on the language and structure, which was why I refused to do English Lit at uni. It spoiled the enjoyment of reading.

I'm with Indrid, it's about pleasure. I like crime novels, some are even well written .

[Themodernuriahheep]

If you feel you ought to know the plots, then there are wonderful cribs you can get!

I love crime novels ! And IMV Ngaio Marsh, DL Sayers, Sarah Paretsky, Val McDermid all write well. Ian Rankin too. And the late Anthony Price.

[Movingonmymind]

Cresset- am a fellow Brontes hater, never got their work or enjoyed it. Love JA, Thackeray however.,
Having been to see a Shakespeare play recently, I do think it's easy to miss some of the many gems which flow through his work if you never read it also. So am dipping into a couple of key speeches to catch up on what i missed. Yes, he'd probably be writing soaps if he were around now but the lyricism, imagination and beauty of his language is breathtaking and a shame to miss.

[OhShutUpThomas]

I didn't like any of the Brontes except for Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which I think is amazing.

[IAmAPaleontologist]

If you've not read many of the classics then you won't get most of the jokes in the Jasper Fforde books. That is the best reason I can give for reading them. Anything else is just about taste. I love some, I hate others. Some people like Kate Atkinson and others don't. Some think Harry Potter is amazing and can spend hours unravelling the story yet others think it a poorly written piece of tosh. There is no point reading something just because you feel you ought to.

[Moln]

Don't read because you 'have to'. Keep reading a pleasure.

I've read a handful of Bronte but find them so tedious. It's not the writing but I just think the life it revolves around brain numbingly uninteresting. I would try another Bronte but if I'm near the beginning and not interested I'd stop. Too many other books!!

I'm was considering war and peace. Though I felt Tolstoy went off on (and on and on) a tiresome self indulgent philosophical ramble in Anna Karanina. It made me want to bang my head off the book with frustration. I got the idea from the bbc version there might be more of the same in War and Peace!! Yet I know someone who adores it

I adore Dickens's stories. But his writing not so much.

Count of Monte Cristo is amazing (imo)

My advice get them out the library, try them but don't keep on reading if you find it a task. If you feel you should because other people are hand wavingly horrified you haven't then if you've tried them you'll have a reason why.

Met someone once who was disgusted I didn't think Animal Farm was as marvellous as he did. Honestly I read for enjoyment not to look good. I'm currently reading a children's classic - it's very enjoyably (and nostalgic)

[cressetmama]

Loved Dumas, but then I have always been a sucker for a good swash and buckle with lots of politics and skullduggery, for preference.

The library service should be everyone's friend. We have to use them or we will lose 'em.

[angie95]

The Mysteries of Udlpho ,(think thats . the correct spelling) is wonderful, a gothic classic. The Monk is good too, Jane Austens are all great.

[lemonymelanie]

oh I love a Bronte! I'm re-reading them all at the moment. Infact it was Anne Bronte's birthday yesterday, so in honour, you could start with her - Agnes Grey is easier to read than the Tenant. Other Brontes -Jane Eyre is easy too, Wuthering Heights not difficult - Shirley and Villette a bit harder to get into, but worth it. Also Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte B, a classic biography and so interesting :-)