How do you actually 'enjoy' older fiction?

[boundarybabe]

Thread title is vague, I grant you.

I'm going to do a literature course through the OU later this year. Not sure which one yet so I'm going to work my way through the reading lists for each one and see which list I enjoy the most!

What I find really tough is actually enjoying older novels - I've never (gasp) read any Dickens and I'm about to have a go at 'Great Expectations' - but the old fashioned language of such novels always makes me struggle to read them - I'm so busy reading I'm not actually taking it in IYSWIM. I find it much easier to grasp the subtleties/jokes etc. once I've seen a TV adaptation/play/film. This is unlike me as I'm normally an avid reader who can do a book a day given the right conditions!

As a result I've avoided older fiction in the past (with the exception of children's novels). But I really, really want to get past this and start getting through some of the real classics. Does anyone else have this problem? Any tips?

Hi there

I love older fiction, but I grant you it can be hard.

I did Eng Lit at uni so have read a lot of older books, and it does get easier as you get into them. For example, I always find Thomas Hardy a trial for the first few pages, and then you get into the swing if it, and it is easier.

If you think you'd struggle, I'd choose my course carefully, though!

I think Dickens is a particular problem tbh

I read lots of fiction of the same vintage or older - Austen, the Brontes etc right back to Chaucer via Shakespeare - without problems, but just don't get on with Dickens' style - far too wordy.

Hey, I'm planning on doing an OU Eng Lang/Lit course. I'm currently up to my neck in the AA100 (yawn) foundation course and I'm looking forward to finishing that and getting onto the actual literature.

I've read quite a bit of Victorian fiction and I'd say that starting with Great Expectations might be a bit daunting for me! If you want to get into Dickens, why not start with A Christmas Carol which is nice and short and you'll know the story etc. Then you'll get used to the language and can work up?

I find that if I read a lot of Jane Austen, for example, I end up writing and speaking more like she did/the characters do. I think it's about immersing yourself in it a bit.

As for Thomas Hardy - ouch, ouch, ouch!

Which modules are you considering?

I think Dickens is a hard read, and I enjoyed reading Chaucer! I find that for older fiction stuff like Edgar Allen Poe is much easier, thankfully.

Hi, thanks all. I'm considering doing approaching literature or children's literature.

I've read most of Jane Austen, but haven't forayed much into other authors of that time or earlier. I've just spent DS's naptime reading the first 40 pages of Great Expectations and it's easier than I expected! I think it's one of those things that always seemed a bit inaccessible. And as for Hardy - after being forced to plough through 'Far From the Madding Crowd' for GCSE I did swear I'd never subject myself to him again..........!

I find that if the language is archaic or unusual then I need bigger chunks of time for reading. Dickens is no good for bedtime as it takes me half an hour to get into the rhythms and language. But give me an hour and I'm away!

Try Hard Times first. It's less complex in story line and less wordy perhaps. I love ickens but you do have to immerse yourself in it. The language has to become part of the pleasure it itself.

you could try the audio version first instead of trying to read it 'cold'

I also hated Far from the Madding Crowd at O level, but re read it last year, and really enjoyed it.

Have you read Jane Eyre? that's pretty accessible.

Also maybe try Checkov's short stories. Or Thomas Mann "Buddenbrooks." (not sure if you are limited to english novels though?)

BB, I'm probably going to do the Children's literature, Approaching Literature, The Nineteenth Century Novel, The Art of English and Exploring English Language as modules towards BA (ho ho ho, I can dream) in Eng Lit/Lang. But not all in the same year!!

I must be mad.

Some "older" novels are daunting, but on the other hand a lot of them have quite a strong plot and are quite accessible, really, just long.

I read some Victorian novels, even some Dickens who I'd always hated, with an online reading group at yahoogroups. At that time we read and discussed about 100 pages a week.

Some ideas to try:

Borrow audio versions from your local public library.

Set yourself a reading goal each week and combine a chunk of a big Victorian novel wiht something shorter/different.

Are there any options for studying plays/drama? Then watching film versions is much easier to justify! Or are there short story/poetry options?

I find it much easier to grasp the subtleties/jokes etc. once I've seen a TV adaptation/play/film

I don't have much time for reading now but I used to love 19thC fiction - thanks to the BBC classic serial. Really, if there is a good adaptation (or two) do watch them first.
(or listen - there was a good Our Mutual Friend on R4 recently).

Mind you, there are a couple of Dicken's I never managed to get into - Pickwick and Martin Chuzzlewit somehow didn't grab me. Maybe should retry sometime

I've just started Approaching Literature and I thought I would find it hard to read the older books too, but once I knuckled down I have found that I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed Fathers and Sons and I thought I would find that really hard.

I only started the course last week and already I'm finding it so interesting, I can really recommend it.

I think reading it slowly is the key - don't feel that you're not up to your usual reading pace just because you only read a few pages in a go. It's like appreciating a good wine rather than necking a cheap can of lager. Also I find some of the humourous content of older books can be missed if you read too fast as they tend not to be as obvious as modern novels.

Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte are quite readable - perhaps start with one of their novels and then move on to a more intimidating one as hopefully the style of language will feel more familiar by then.

evilg love the drinking analogy!

Maybe you could try and find an older novel that shares some of the same themes you enjoy in modern literature, or at least a similar genre. I find Dickens rather dull and seldom read anything but C19th and early C20th novels. What I enjoy is thriller-type books, with lots of melodrama and evil characters etc, so something like The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins) or Lady Audley's Secret (M E Braddon). You could browse in a decent library and see what takes your fancy.

I'm doing The Nineteenth Century novel at the moment. Most of the course books are fairly accessible, Hardy, Austen, Bronte and so on. I think Dicken's (on this course Dombey & Son is the prescribed novel) is the least accessible of the books on offer in fact. But I agree that reading them slowly is the key, and reading them twice is more or less essential.

I suggest to my students that they treat the first two pages as a 'tuning in session'.

If the first paragraph sounds odd, go back and start again and keep doing this 'back to the start' thing until you can read the first two pages really fluently. Then start again and set off.

The trick works because you let your mind focus on the practical aspects of reading first, and then try to decode meaning.

Normally in the first few pages of a book we are frantically trying to get up to speed with the world of the story, the character of the narrator, other characters etc. Switch that tendency off and then on again.

I know the tv adaptations can be helpful, but in the last few years it has led to essays which focus on characters and 'plot' {things that happen} rather than 'narrative discourse' {the way the story is told}.

All your markers will be aiming to mark your observations on narrative discourse, and it is very hard to unpick in your mind which assumptions about a novel came from the textual details and which from the filmic ones.

The TV adaptation is itself always in interpretation of the text, shaped by its own time, context and audience.

Sorry if that sounds negative: I would say just trust yourself to tune in ... My three year-old has suddenly figured out this week how to listen to voices on the radio (with none of the clues you get from face-to-face interaction) and that moment of realising you are in on the conversation is very exciting ...

Reading now ahead of the course is a great idea. Good luck.

If I'm finding language particularly dense and impenetrable apart from abandoning book (which is not appropriate for a degree course )
I read out loud.
This concentrates your mind brilliantly and sentences that seemed very wordy and complicated are sorted out by your brain in the bit between eyes and mouth (very scientific - but I mean between what you read and what you say.
Honestly it works!
Might be hard to find quiet time/place and probably not recommended for reading while commuting....

Thanks all.

Polly am laughing at the thought of you reading out loud on the train. Perhaps using your finger to follow the words.... sounds like a TRigger Happy TV moment!

Keep plugging away and you'll soon be following sentences that are a paragraph long.

Great Expectations is fantastic.