Classics you'll never read (so we can talk you into it)

Another topic inspired by the TBR discussions. How about a list of classics we've written off as "don't care if I ever read this or not", so the people who have and enjoyed them can try convincing us we've made a mistake? Who knows, maybe we've overlooked something great!

Here's what you do:
- try naming ten classic titles you have no interest in reading
- outline your reasons. Maybe you've misunderstood something, who knows?

My top ten NWR (never will read) would probably be:

Heidi - this sounds like the most boring children's classic in existence. I'm not tempted.
Dr Doolittle - silly, and apparently there's racist elements? I wouldn't even try this on my kids.
The Pilgrim's Progress - outdated proselytizing that's lost its relevance
Utopia - I've heard the stories of how unrewarding this is
Gargantua and Pantagruel - why would I do this to myself?
The Naked Lunch - sounds disgusting, and I'm no horror fan
A Clockwork Orange - similar reason, and I don't want to decipher the language
Beloved - Toni Morrison's Nobel notwithstanding, Oprah's movie stunk
Jude the Obscure - waffling on this one, but I'm not enthused. What will make me appreciate it?
Anything by Charlotte Bronte besides "Jane Eyre" - loved that one, but nothing else looks good

OK, dernit. I wrote somewhere that I wouldn't Reply to pseudonymous posts, BUT in deference to the fact of Cecrow's apparently being Canadian, and not very far from me, and since s/he raises some interesting points, I'll violate my own little oath. And speaking of oaths, may a trolley-car grow in my stomach if I ever touch again, much less read again NAKED LUNCH, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, or BELOVED. My experience with each of those so-called "classics" makes me agree completely with Cecrow. Or in the words of the old song, "I've enjoyed as much as I can stand." I'm not so harsh on DR DOOLITTLE, though it is of the wimp-school of kids' books (like AA Milne), and thus loathesome to me (unlike the witty and thoughtful kids' books of Kenneth Grahame and EB White). I have studied More's UTOPIA closely, and again, you can go to the grave with a clear conscience if it's not on your Lifetime Readng List.

By contrast, I do want to put in a good word for THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. I freely concede that most readers -- but not all -- will find the theology pretty tough chewing. Still, Bunyan knew about suffering and human fraility, and draws us into a world that might just surprise a reader who puts aside, just for a few moments, the alleged hipness and know-it-all slickness of modern life. Anybody who seriously enjoys, say, Dante, or Dostoyevsky, or Thomas Mann, or even Shakespeare, will not be scornful of John Bunyan.

In kind of a hurry this morning, but I will promise myself a few leisurely minutes soon to give a pep-talk for JUDE, and indeed all of Hardy.

Now, as to what we might call a "Hall of Shame", let me nominate THE GREAT GATSBY, ULYSSES, Manzoni's I PROMESSI SPOSI, Edmund Wilson's MEMOIRS OF HECATE COUNTY (despite his many other extraordinary accomplishments) and THE POISONWOOD BIBLE. I suppose I am bending the rule slightly, as I have actually read those excresences, and hope to spare others some loss of time (and raising of blood-pressure). And, at the risk of calling down on myself a firestorm of hostile posts -- considering that LibraryThing is loaded to the gunwales with fictionistas -- I would add almost all fiction published in North America snce 1960 (always excepting my own masterpiece, naturally).

Let's keep this string going. Cheers to "yezz". -- Goddard

Re Charlotte Bronte: I liked Villette. It wasn't as good as Jane Eyre, but it made me think.

I'm not sure they're considered classics, but I've failed at every Don Dellilo book I've attempted.

In re #3, dear southernbooklady, you are dead-on right. Delillo is a vivid reminder that paper will put-up with anyting that's printed on it. Peace, -- Goddard

>3 southernbooklady: and >4 HarryMacDonald: Agree about Don DeLillo. I read White Noise and just didn't get the love.

>1 Cecrow: I can remember reading Heidi when I was 8 or 9 and loving it. Probably perfect for that age, and that era (40+ years ago)

Somethings I have no interest in reading:

American Psycho
Less Than Zero
John Banville - read Shroud and didn't 'get' it

I have tried, and failed, liking A Tale of Two Cities. I do not think I will ever like what I consider the childish humour of Dickens.

Same goes for James Joyce. It's just not my cup of tea. Give me Tristram Shandy anyday though.

#1

Heidi features LOTS of delicious fried cheese sandwiches.

That's a good enough reason for me!

In re #6. I concede that Dickens' humour often has the subtlety of a concrete-truck on steroids, but I had never thought of it as childish. That seems excessive. But while we're bashing the so-called "Great Tradition", as far as I'm concerned, you could shred all of Jane Austen, plus VANITY FAIR, then use the resulting product to line hen-coops, and the world would be a better place. I know, even as I write this, that there will be howls of indignation about the Blessed Jane A, and yes, I will concede that that consumate artist Patrick O'Bryan called her a model for his best work. Even so, I'll dig-in and hold on this one. Anyway care to join me in the trenches? Cool Yule to all, -- Goddard

Not me. I love Jane Austen. A more devastatingly sarcastic person never put pen to paper. I also adore The Great Gatsby--another novel which has been cited here, but which is the only novel I have ever been tempted to call "perfect."

Heidi I read as a child and liked, especially for the scenery. It did not weather the transition into adulthood, however, and when I tried to revisit it I found it to be saccharine and moralizing. The scenery was still wonderful though. Maybe someone could do a photographic edition that leaves out the words.

>9 HarryMacDonald: I read Emma last year and thought it was great, with intent to read more by her (unlike Charlotte Bronte) so I can't support you on that one. But then, I had the benefit of having read Wayne C. Booth's The Rhetoric of Fiction to prepare me for it.

>10 southernbooklady: I've read Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, and someday I'll pick up Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Even a 40yr old man such as myself can read children's classics aimed at girls and find something to like when they're as well done as that, but Heidi is just beyond the pale, however much I enjoy cheese sandwiches and nice scenery. I'm getting my fill of the latter right now from that same part of the world, in Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad.

In re #11. I'm with you on REBECCA OF SBF: she's gotten a bad rap over the years. 40yr old? You youngsters are re-assurance to me that the species hasn't gone to Hell -- yet. Meanwhile, see if you can't find A DECIDUOUS GIRL OF OLD WILLIAMSBURG. And don't forget to have yourself a grrovy little Solstice. Cheers, -- Goddard

Hi this is Karen. New to this group but already enjoying the humour.

I'm going to add to the mix .....

William Faulkner -The Sound And The Fury which I have started now twice and not progressed beyond page 20 something. It's put me off reading anything else by him.

Tolkien The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Just hearing the characters names and the plot makes my toes curl.

If you are over fifteen and already know you couldn't get into Tolkien, I'd say don't bother and what a lucky escape!

The only thing I got out of the first 350 pages of LOTR is a lifelong passionate hatred of the hobbits.

> Thanks Lola - I'm glad I found the escape tunnel early on

In rebus 13, 14, and 15. I think we three should secede from the general reading public and perhaps organize a Republic of Good Sense, or at-least re-consecrate Voltaire's Temple of Taste. And yes, Karen, I'd pitch-in any Faulkner I might still have around the ol' place for a celebratory bonfire. Going back to your earlier post, Lola, in re toasted-cheese sandwiches, perhaps there is a broader principle at work among the Authors we've listed here: their prose has the consistency of the food-product, but not the nutritional value. -- Goddard

Harry: re Jane Austen, I would say start with Mansfield Park which has to be one of the funniest books ever written, with beastly Mrs Norris ever sucking up to her rich sister and picking on the child of the poor sister. And simultaneously getting out of ever doing anything herself.
My most passionate hate would have to be anything by Tolkein - to be fair I've never wanted to actually read his work, but did attempt to watch Lord of the Rings, and fell asleep.
Here's a query for readers: my father has often told me that the most boring book he's ever read was a school set book, The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade. I have bought a copy and set myself the challenge of reading it sometime. Anyone else read it?

Dear starbox. You are welcome to join Karen, Lola, and me in the Temple of Taste, if only for your scorn of Tolkein. As to THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH, I believe your Father may have over-reacted to the fact of the book's being required reading. It's certainly not the hot stuff which a couple of generations of Victorians believed it to be, but it is a cracking good story in the old-fashioned picareque style, complete with impossible scrapes and improbable but agreeable ways-out. I treasure my two copies (home and road). If you find you like it, you might want to try Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's MICAH CLARKE. As you may know, Conan Doyle considered his historical fiction vastly superior to his Holmes tales, and we shouldn't dismiss this as so much delusion (like his spiritualism): they really are good, at their best, and well worth a look. Let us know how you fare. -- Godard

>16 HarryMacDonald: and perhaps organize a Republic of Good Sense, or at-least re-consecrate Voltaire's Temple of Taste

Great art is rarely in good taste.

In re #19. We could discuss this for days at-least, considering that great minds have kicked it around for millennia. Suffice it to say that in Voltaire's sense -- which I am immodest enough to share --"tasete" is not a matter of persoanl preference, or safe concurrence with accepted values. It is in fact, that level in which we enjoy the lights and harmonies of eternal greatness. In the past couple of centuries, even the idea of deathless greatness has been pretty well shat-upon, but that only reflects on those who do such things, not the people or creations which are subjected to such abuse.

This is why, among other things, I stand back from most discussions of so-called "modern classics", as being discussions of a concept which has at best only a statistical or a socio-anthropological significance. While I am willing to concede that you may be perfectly right that THE GREAT GATSBY is a perfect novel; that by no means makes it a classic, except in the pantheon of those who choose -- with perfect right -- to put it into their particular pantheon. In music, I believe, for instance, that CPE Bach's Flute Concerton in d-minor is a perfect piece, ditto Chausson's VIVIANNE (Opus 5). But I certainly wouldn't put them beside THE MAGIC FLUTE, or Beethoven's late Quartettes. Thus, when we hang our personal prizes on this or that, we will not be talking, I think, about the things which make Homer, Dante, GILGAMESH, Mozart, the Gospels, Giotto, and MOBY-DICK virtually unassailable on that exalted level. Peace to you. Incidentally, I really do suggest that you look into Voltaire on this subject; ditto Diderot. -- Goddard

I think I am ready to read more of William Faulkner. As an Aussie teenager I was distracted and irritated by the southern US drawl in As I Lay Dying. Now that I am much, much older I reckon I can handle it.
But the book I will probably never read is Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. There is so much else to read of exceptional quality. Why would I want to do my head in with this tortuous stuff?

->5 JoLynnsbooks:

I read Less Than Zero and I did actually enjoy it. I appreciated what the author was trying to say about the 90s and their violence and just generally the way that rich people can get away with everything yet never feel a thing. I found Less Than Zero to be less violent and more compelling than his other work -- I have tried but not been able to finish Imperial Bedrooms and American Psycho both, and I still think Less Than Zero is his best work. That said, I haven't ever felt too motivated to go through his other novels: I already know what his books are about and I've absorbed the message of what he's trying to say.

This is sort of a mixed message so I don't know if I have effectively talked you into it...

*
Here are a few I've never felt interested in reading:

Wuthering Heights - The protagonist falls in love with an abusive jerk. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't end well. Yawn.
Clarissa - A woman tries to keep her virginity, as that is the only proper thing for a woman to do. Groan.
In Search of Lost Time - A million pages about a madeleine? Not my scene.

>22 sparemethecensor:: In defence of Wuthering Heights, what makes you think that Catherine is the protagonist? Wuthering Heights isn't a love story. It's a story of sadistic man who methodically exacts revenge against the family of the woman he loved as a punishment for forbidding him to marry her. Catherine's death happens early in the book. Heathcliff's revenge is exacted over the generations of her family. A lot of people describe Wuthering Heights as a "romance", but this misconception is based more on the fact that it fits into a literary movement known as the romantic period, and fed by the Hollywood film which isn't even an adaptation of the first quarter of the book. Wurthering Heights is, in fact, a horror novel written before the horror genre even existed.

My list of Classics I Can't Bring Myself to Read:
1. Ulysses by James Joyce - the literary equivalent of a labyrinth in which every path leads to an oubliette.
2. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut - a science fiction novel set during WWII: two of my least favourite things.
3. In Search of Lost Time by Proust - My fear of this one is based on people's mixed reactions to it. It seems to be either a love or hate thing, and I haven't yet overcome my prejudice.
4. Anything by Ernest Hemingway - I read The Sun Also Rises as part of a literature course, and swore I would never subject myself to Hemingway again.
5. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery - a feel good romp through the newly-settled new world: there's an contradiction in terms if ever I've heard one. These are the fairy tales that settlers had to tell themselves in order to kid themselves that their lives weren't utter crap.
6. Anything by Alexandre Dumas - His books are the 18th century French equivalent of the Dirty Harry films. Way too much testosterone for my taste.
7. I, Claudius by Robert Graves - love the British T.V. series, but I can't stand Graves agonizing, plodding writing style.
8. The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - I got this down from the library once, but couldn't get into it, which is strange because I normally enjoy the style of Russian literature. There's a real chance of changing my mind on this one for someone willing to take a crack at it.
9. The Poetry of Rudyard Kipling - poetry written by a devoted imperialist. Bizarre concept.
10. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott - Wonderful for adolescent girls, but rather pointless for those of us past puberty.

>23 Gail.C.Bull: Good call on Hemingway. Totally disagreed on Dumas. Have you actually read any? What about something nice and short, like The Black Tulip? As is typical for him, his history is a smidge off, but any copy should have the notes that clarify those little details, and it was definitely a fun read. I certainly don't see how it could be called full of testosterone. Plus, being short, it doesn't take up much time.

>23 Gail.C.Bull: If you haven't read Dumas, give him a chance. The Count of Monte Cristo is my personal favourite.

You're right about Little Women. I don't know what I was thinking, reading that one. It's a book only 12 year old girls should read.

I started Tristram Shandy once. I won't bother trying to read that again. The recent movie adaptation was just as pointless and stupid. Really, it's one of those classics that make you wonder why it is a classic.

>23 Gail.C.Bull:

You have convinced me on Wuthering Heights. A horror novel? Seen through that light, I am definitely in. Thanks.

I've been trying to nibble my way through Cloister and the hearth. It's a good book, but it requires time which I haven't been willing to give it.

As to classics I will never read:

Finnegan's wake and Ulysses

Most of James Fenimore Cooper. I'm going to give Last of the Mohicans a shot this year, but that's it.

Most of Henry James, whom I do not get.

Pretty much all Hemingway.

I'm going to give the second volume of Proust a try this year, but I probably won't finish it. I read Swann's way a few years ago and it was the longest decade of my life. The first 50 pages was devoted to some grown man's memories of his mother coming up to say goodnight to him when he was a child.

I too may be ready to read more Faulkner. I read 5 novels by him when I was 16 and have never had the urge to read another even though I liked the books I read.

I was unimpressed by To the lighthouse so probably no more Virginia Woolf.

>23 Gail.C.Bull: quote: "If you haven't read Dumas, give him a chance. The Count of Monte Cristo is my personal favourite."

Actually, I have given him a chance. I read The Three Musketeers when I was young and thought it was liking being a fly on the wall at an all-boys' piss up: "let's drink, and then fight, and drink some more, and then lament our dysfunctional love lives by convincing ourselves that all women are evil or crazy, and then let's fight some more and drink some more..." well, you get the idea. It was amusing for awhile, but by page 100, I felt like I'd had so much testosterone that I was in danger of developing chest hair.

I gave it a try again just a couple of years ago thinking maybe my interpretation would change with age. Sadly, that wasn't the case. I found it just as repetitive as ever.

>28 Gail.C.Bull: Well, different strokes for different folks. The Count of Monte Cristo is a much better story than The Three Musketeers, in my opinion. More complex characters, with a more satisfying plot.

Having seen the wonderful Gerard Depardieu as the Count of Monte Cristo, I do intend to read it one day.

I agree that Little Women/ Anne of Green Gables can't seriously be considered 'classics' and put forward for adult male readers - they are absolutely intended for young girls (and us older females recapturing our childhood!)
I do not like Hemingway one bit - when I skimmed through one (Green Hills of Africa?) and read of his wife wanting to go and shoot a lioness, I thought what ghastly people and didn't want to pursue it. Did go on to read Old Man and the Sea but didn't think it was anything special.

Would definitely disagree with people who dislike Wuthering Heights - it's one on its own, definitely not just another love story. And Robert Graves' Claudius novels (I found) really brought ancient Rome and its characters to life.

Sitting on my bookshelves for far too long, I have Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, Sterne's Tristram Shandy, also Slaughterhouse Five. I do sometimes get a nice surprise when I grit my teeth and read one that's gathering dust - Don Quixote was a laugh aloud work (for the first half at least.) Anyone read any Scott?

28 -
Yes, The Count of Monte-Cristo and The Three Musketeers are very different works, the former being more serious and complex. The latter is just supposed to be fun. And then Dumas' Queen Margot would be a mix of those two.

30 -
I loved Don Quixote. Couldn't put it down!

>30 starbox: You're so right about the classics sometimes being a delightful surprise - it's happened to me several times over the last few years, and why I try to include some classics I 'should have read' to my TBR list each year.

>31 lilisin:, I do like Dumas' writing style, so if The Count of Monte-Cristo is his work in a more serious vein, I may have to give that a try. I've probably been to hasty judging him on one work alone.

>30 starbox: I read Ivanhoe about a decade ago. It's a fun read, and one of Sir Walter's most popular novels. But it's just light entertainment- an adventure story.

The book is somewhat controversial for its anti-semitic characters (mostly the villains), but the Jewish character of Rebecca is one of the two heroines in the novel. Considering the time and place, both of the author and the novel's setting, I wouldn't consider it anti-semitic. In fact, the novel shows the value of tolerance.

I initially read the abridged version of Little Women and enjoyed it, then made the mistake of reading the unabridged version. Obviously they took out all the sanctimonious whining. One of the rare cases where abridging actually improved the book. One of my precious possessions is an unabridged Count of Monte Cristo, but I haven't re-read it recently because I'm not in a place in my life where I want to read about other people's misery.

I seemed to remember enjoying Price and Prejudice, so I think I'll give Mansfield Park a try.

I had to read Little Women and the sequel Good Wives for a recent lit course. Tortuous experience. So much sugar coating I needed the dentist immediately I finished reading.

What a great thread!

> 1
Read 10% of Gargantua and Pantagruel, any 10%, and then you are done. What a marathon of farty, poopy, genital-jokes. It's a great totally-obscure-vocabulary booster, though.

I wouldn't recommend 1% of Naked Lunch however. If you must watch gross-out videos on YouTube, instead.

> 6
Clifton Fadiman et al, consider A Tale of Two Cities to be Dickens' weakest novel. I liked it, perhaps because of its maudlin simplicity.

> 13
Review a good summary of The Sound and the Fury. Many folks are shut down after the first few pages, because they don't get the "pattern". Once you get used to the random, constant switches in characters' points of view, it's actually quite readable. Not a pleasant story, but readable.

>23 Gail.C.Bull:
Never give up on Ulysses! It's a writers' book, not a readers' book, but still, there are sections that are entertaining. As for Finnegan's Wake, yeah, we can all drop that one like a hot stone.

Final thought: Am I the only one throughout the LT community, that actually LIKED The Sun Also Rises?

>23 Gail.C.Bull:/26, I think you're on to something. The trick to helping someone reconsider a dismissed title is to describe how it might be viewed from a different perspective that eliminates the bias. Not sure I'm always up to it, but that seems like the way to go.

>23 Gail.C.Bull:, I'll plead for Anne of Green Gables, since it is partly autobiographical. The author is said to have misbehaved on occasion as a child on purpose, in order to accurately record the consequences, lol. Now that's dedication to the craft! Anne's charm is that she's a dreamer who doesn't face the difficulties you mention head-on, which means she's largely dismissed by the other characters until they begin to see the point of having some of this perspective in their own lives. I'm an adult male reader making this case, by the way.

>23 Gail.C.Bull:, I'm still enthused about reading The Master and Margarita someday since I've understood it's magical realism, a genre that intrigues me since I read One Hundred Days of Solitude. I've also understood it's a cloaked jibe at many things which couldn't be written about plainly in Russia at the time - and got away with it, apparently.

>30 starbox:, I'd discourage Ivanhoe since it's completely forgettable. I have no memory of what it was about. I often even forget that I've read it (>30 starbox:, just light entertainment? maybe that's why). Don Quixote is a favourite classic of mine by contrast, if that tells you anything. I've since been told to try Waverley if I want to sample Scott again.

On Hemmingway generally, I've been meaning to finally read him this year (A Farewell to Arms) and I have to say, y'all are making me nervous, lol. I sampled Henry James last year (The Turn of the Screw) and didn't find him completely intolerable albeit that was a gentle introduction.

> 38. My first experience of James was Portrait of a Lady. A tough one - it grew on me by the end but sometimes I found patience wearing very thin. He can take a whole page to describe something as simple as a woman opening an umbrella...

>38 Cecrow: I haven't read that one of Hemingway's yet, but The Sun Also Rises and Winner Take Nothing were wretched, and For Whom the Bell Tolls was...readable, and nothing I'd ever recommend.

>23 Gail.C.Bull:, 38

I HATE most magical realism but LOVED Master and Margarita. Again, it may sound like "work", and it's not "cheating" to read some summaries and critical commentaries. In addition to the 2+ plot lines, there are a lot of funny references to early socialist Russian life. I recall all the actions around foreign currency, getting an apartment, xenophobia, etc.

As one of the earlier LTers observed, this is a great thread, let's not let it snap. It interests me how low James Joyce's stock has fallen. I for one will not swim against that tide. I tried once again to read ULYSSES last Winter, paid about ten bucks for it, and was glad when I could recoup about half that on re-sale. Also, as to LM Montgomery, I have to agree with Cecrow that there really is something in her writing, certainly much more than Lovely Pride attributed to it in post #23. It is not simply escapism for people on the frontier of empire. Escape is one thing, escapism is quite another. I suspect I know vastly more about the Canadian Maritimes (then and now) than LovelyPride, and the life there, though rough, was a long way from "utter crap" I wonder how many Westerners who scorn LM Montgomery are aware that ANNE has been a classic for Japanese readers for decades. Cettainly they aren't fleeing the frontier! But peace to you, LovelyPride, I raise a glass in fellowship over the anaesthetics effects of Bulgakov, Hemingway, and Joyce, also much of Robert Graves, though I think COUNT BELISARIUS, KING JESUS, and WIFE TO MR MILTON are honourable exceptions to my strictures. -- Goddard

The thing about Ulysses is that every time I pick it up there is more and more to discover. I love Anne of Green Gables when I was a girl (because she wanted to be a writer) but every time I pick it up there is less and less to find in it.

I'm reading Ulysses now: my second attempt. The part where Stephen is walking along the beach is stream of consciousness taken to incoherency. Utter garbage. I don't care what the critics say. It's like a cook who mixes too many ingredients in a pot, or an artist who mixes colours into a muddy brown. I think that's where I gave up on it last time.

Fortunately, the next chapter seems to be slightly more coherent.

>42 HarryMacDonald:, "anaesthetics effects", lol

>44 madpoet:, this has a fun echo to it of my wife throwing down The Grapes of Wrath after trying to imbibe a certain tortoise crossing the road, lol. Mind, I love that book, she probably has a lower tolerance for literature than you, and I haven't tackled Ulysses yet myself.

With all the forewarning I'll eventually work up to Ulysses through Joyce's two earlier novels, and I'd better get some Homer under my belt too by the sound of it. I think I know the Iliad/Odyssey story inside out through a million references, but I've never actually read it. There's supposedly some good chapter-by-chapter reference guides to help with the Ulysses experience, too.

In re #45. Sorry about the typo in "an--". This will happen to you some day. Meanwhile, I must exempt A PORTAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN from my strictures on Joyce: you have a treat in store there, unless I very much miss my guess. Good stuffl; have fun. -- Goddard

>46 HarryMacDonald:, I was taking it as an intentional jibe (and a good one!) :)

#47. You Da Man! I raise a belated New Year's toast to ya (or "yezz", as we say in the Maritimes).

>42 HarryMacDonald:: The reason so many Westerners have a problem with Anne of Green Gables is that, for us, frontier living is still very much a part of living memory. We know exactly what frontier life is like because pre-1960 Alberta and Saskatchewan were still living that life. Conformity is of the utmost importance in the frontier lifestyle, because survival depends on it. Only with everyone working towards the same goal does everyone survive. A girl like Anne (and most likely, like Montgomery herself) may have misbehaved intentionally occasionally, but her spunk wouldn't have "won over" anyone. It might have been smiled at, even admired, in her childhood, but as soon as she turned 12, she would've been expected to contribute to the family's survival in some way and the entire community (not just her family) would've turned their attention to making her ashamed of her spunk. I'm willing to bet that Montgomery had to hide her true character from her family and community in order to preserve it; she wouldn't be the only one who has had to.

The reason the Japanese love Anne is that they have a soft spot for stories with lively young leads. Modern Japanese literature and arts glorify the beauty of innocence, and Anne fits that mold perfectly.

And you misread my comments in post 23. I didn't say that Anne of Green Gables was utter crap. I said the lives of the frontier's people were utter crap, and I stand by that statement.

#49. Thanks for keeping this thread going! The problem -- whether a sender-problem or a receiver-problem is irrelevant -- is the breadth of the term "settlers". I certainly agree with you about the Prairies. I was taking it in the somewhat broader sense of any new community at the fringe of an empire or society, whether on the coast or inland. Your observations about the Japanese are very interesting, and I have no reason to doubt them. Obviously, though, the constituency of which you speak is not the same one which glorifies Mishima, or vomits-out the endless sadistic videos. Or is it? Hmmm. Peace to yezz -- Goddard

#50 quote: "Obviously, though, the constituency of which you speak is not the same one which glorifies Mishima, or vomits-out the endless sadistic videos. Or is it? Hmmm."

Had to smile when I read this, because there is a rather rebellious movement in the Japanese arts community in the last couple of years that is determined to make Japanese art "grow-up". Mishima is part of that movement. I do contract work at a various art colleges and so I hear about new exhibitions from around the world. Last year there was an Japanese exhibition that took the traditional glorified images of youth (think Hello Kitty & Anime) but put them in very adult context (think sex and violence). I'm sorry to break it to you, but even the Japanese might think of Anne as bit quaint in a few years: a book they might find in their parents and grandparents personal libraries, but not something they would actually want to read themselves.

>49 Gail.C.Bull:, I don't believe the society portrayed in Anne of Green Gables lines up with the rugged survival life you're describing. If I remember correctly, Anne grows up to become a school teacher and her husband a doctor. In this novel we're talking about a well established PEI society where farming is only a part of the makeup, those farms having been well established a few generations back. There's universities to attend and balls to dance at, etc. It's not taking place in a frontier setting at all.

>52 Cecrow:: I think you're confusing survival with civilized society. The pre-1960 Prairies had radios, television, film theatres, and universities, but survival comes down to one simple equation:

Food supply - food supply needed to feed your population = survival (or not)

You can own every technological gadget known to man but if you don't have a large enough food supply to feed your population, you're still starving. The Prairies had plenty of land, but not enough people to work it. That's why they were giving land away. A family-operated farm keeps about 10% of what it produces to feed the family, and the other 90% goes to market. The more small family farms you have, the more food there is at the market.

My maternal grandfather was a carpenter-contractor and my grandmother ran the movie theatre of the small town they lived in. They were considered to be one of the "wealthy" families in town, but they still relied on my grandfather's autumn hunting trips to provide enough food to see them through the winter.

Cree (an aboriginal tribe of North America) Prophecy:
"Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."

Wow, classics, from Anne of Green Gables to Ulysses.

Now THAT's quite a spectrum.

>52 Cecrow:-53 I think that Cecrow has a good point: Anne of Green Gables isn't set on the prairies, or anywhere near the frontier. The people in PEI weren't living in sod houses or clearing virgin land. I haven't read the book, but I remember watching the mini-series on TV, and if it's anything like the novel, it didn't look like a hardscrabble existence at all.

>53 Gail.C.Bull:, well, that does leave me in a bit of a spot as far as continuing to recommend Anne to you. I can't see a means of getting out from under so broad a definition as that. I think it is exactly the point being made in the novel, however, that while what she represents is precisely the value you place no stock in, gradually the other characters are brought around to perceiving her worth in their society. Sure it's a Pollyanna story, but minus all the bucket-loads of syrup, which makes it more palatable.

It's gone quiet in here so I'm stirring it up by throwing Tale of Two Cities into the ring. I have tried reading this now three times and each time I come to a halt at more or less the same spot. After my final attempt this week I shall give it up for good I think

>57 Mercury57:. I liked A Tale of Two Cities, but if you don't, then why torture yourself? Maybe try another Dickens. Everyone has his or her favourite. I had the same problem with The Pickwick Papers, and even though I persisted, and the book got better, it's still not one of my favourites.

Of course, I'm saying this while I'm torturing myself, trying to get through Ulysses.

>57 Mercury57:. I agree with #58 -- I found Tale of Two Cities dreadful to try to get through and was turned off of Dickens for years because of it. Then, I read Great Expectations, which I didn't love (so wordy! so much useless meandering about that criminal guy whose name I forget!), but I did like it and find it engaging. I've heard good things about Our Mutual Friend if that interests you.

In re #59. OUR MUTUAL FRIEND is very fine, but very quirky, as if Dickens knew he was coming toward the end of the road, and no longer cared whether what were once eccentricities had at-last become downright roadblocks to readers. That being conceded, give it a try. Here is a cautionary true story. Some years ago my partner and I were reading it more or less in tandem, using a four-volume Nineteenth Century edition. She would read Vol 1, then when she finished that I would take it up as she picked up Vol 2, and so on. At one point she said to me that she was more than usually confused about certain characters and situations. I asked her to show me the book, and noticed that she had read 150 pages into Vol 3 (instead of Vol 2) without realizing it. The point being, of-course, not that she was spaced-out, but that one can too readily become accustomed to Dicken's discursiveness and stange plot-constructions, and assume that somehow he'll pull it all together. Give it a try: it IS long, but hey, we have three or four lives at-least -- or so some people tell us.

Bleak House is my all-time favorite Dickens, followed by Little Dorrit. I'm listening to an audiobook of LD right now. Both are very, very long.

I just read The Pickwick Papers this past year and did find it long - it's not a very cohesive novel, more like a series of episodes. Someone recommended it be read in pieces, and I'd second that if anyone has trouble with it. It's very easy to put down and pick up again and get right back into, with not very many main characters to keep track of. It has a unique brand of breezy humour that I understand Dickens never duplicated in his later works (I haven't read much of him yet so I couldn't say.)

I've had Pierre, or the ambiguities on my shelf for years, to the extent that it's now almost certainly my oldest unread book. I decided to have a go at it last night, and got as far as the third paragraph:

The verdant trance lay far and wide; and through it nothing came but the brindled kine, dreamily wandering to their pastures, followed, not driven, by ruddy-cheeked, white-footed boys.

Can there be any sane reason for reading a book that contains that sentence?

Come onnnnnn. If that doesn't make you want to grab an easel and a box of colours, what would?

Put on L'Après-midi d'un faune and enjoy! :)

>64 LolaWalser:
Maybe that's the problem: I have a mental block about Debussy too. :-)

Reading that sentence made me:
- feel slightly nauseous
- look up "trance" in the OED to discover that it was a Scots term for a ginnel
- wonder how anyone walking behind cattle could keep their feet white

As far as I can see, the whole book is written in that quaint "Scott-on-a-bad-day" pastiche medieval style. Am I missing a joke somewhere?

What's that figure of speech called in which one word is substituted for another, connected in some way? Maybe he didn't mean that their feet were white. :)

Metonymy. Hmm. Could be. If the cows were coming towards him, he certainly wouldn't have seen the boys' feet, would he?
I realise now that I was visualising the whole scene from behind, including the ruddy cheeks...

Now that's picturesque.

The trouble is that Herman Melville was writing before the age of film, when people enjoyed lengthy, picturesque descriptions without giving much thought as to what perspective the boys were being viewed from. In the modern age, we automatically try to picture how a filmmaker would capture such a scene. But then, people just enjoyed the imagery without considering whether it was realistic or not.

"White-footed" was intended as a symbol of the boys innocence and purity, not to be taken literally as a description of their feet or their race.

Reality kills a great piece of literary imagery.

#58 and 59
Tale of two cities hasn't put me off dickens totally thankfully. I've read Great Expectations, Dombey and Nicholas Nickleby. Am about half way through Bleak House but its not doing much for me so have switched to Little Dorrit for now.

>69 Gail.C.Bull:
Yes, up to a point... I agree that I was being deliberately obtuse in trying to read Melville as though he were Hardy or Zola: obviously it's not meant to be a realistic description, and he's presumably trying to do something like the opening of Gray's Elegy, to build up an atmosphere of pastoral innocence, timelessness, etc., which is going to be contrasted sooner or later with the harsh reality of the story. Since it's Melville and not some third-rate amateur, I assume there's an element of parody involved as well, but if there is it isn't very obvious from the first twenty or so pages.

>71 thorold:: Or perhaps you did notice it and didn't realize you did. You made fun of the convoluted sentence structure and the word "verdant". Both of those things were overly used in pastoral romances of the time and were something the readers of his time would have immediately picked up on as being a parody of a pastoral romance, but it's a structure that modern readers aren't overly familiar with.

In rebus 63 and 64. Thorold, I owe you a note on another topic; I haven't forgotten. Meanwhile as to "white-footed boys", I can assure you, as somebody who does much outside work barefoot whenever the Northern weather allows, that even around cattle, or in my case mucking in marshes or planting trees, somehow one's feet are almost continually white: this happens, I think, because they are naturally the coldest part of the body anyway (always excepting the boss's heart -- which is another story), and because of friction with surrounding matter, or the water-content of wherever you happen to be. Also, human skin is naturally smooth. The proverb tells us that "shit sticks", but I think that mostly applies to public discourse (especially politics); the physical reality is quite other. Meanwhile, give Debussy another try. I can undersatnd your disinclanation to the perhaps over-played PRELUDE TO THE AFTERNOOM, but give the Piano Preludes a shot, or the late Trio Sonata (flute, viola, and harp). -- Goddard

I think Thorold knows why I recommended the Faun for Pierre... :)

Damn ambiguities!

>73 HarryMacDonald:
Interesting - I'd never have imagined that. Obviously I spend too much time indoors.
>74 LolaWalser:
...And in case I didn't, my edition has some lovely camp illustrations by the late Maurice Sendak!

OK here are some classics I don't plan on ever reading:

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - too long, I'll watch the movie
The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - I really don't much care for his style & can't keep track of who is who...
A Clockwork Orange & A Naked Lunch for the same reasons mentioned in post #1

and here are a couple I started & then abandoned:
Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
Crash by J.G. Ballard

Some I am considering reading but without enthusiasm:
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
something by Henry James, maybe The Ambassadors

I did push myself to finish Ulysses by James Joyce. While I will never be a fan of Joyce, there were some quite fun parts & I can see why some people love it. It was just too much like doing schoolwork for me.

After years of trying to avoid it, I'm actually working on Portrait of a lady, which I thought I'd never do.

Books I don't intend to read:

Ulysses and Finnegan's wake
Don Quixote--I tried a couple chapters and couldn't summon up the interest
Most Hemingway--I've read Farewell to Arms and am not anxious to go any farther
I've read the first two volumes of Proust and will probably leave it there.

>76 leslie.98: I think if you watch a film version of War and Peace you will miss a lot. Tolstoy used his novel to discuss/pontificate on many themes, from the nature of history to the meaning of life. A film treatment would gloss over all of that, and leave you wondering why everyone considers it such a great novel.

Not all long novels are worth the effort (I think Don Quixote might be a good example) but W&P certainly is.

>76 leslie.98: & 78 I agree with madpoet here. If there's one book on your list that I'd encourage you to read, it would be War and Peace.

I had put off W&P for many years, but when I finally took the plunge a few years ago, it was well worth it. And the best film version just can't do it justice. If it helps at all, I did it as a group read on LT, & the discussion kept me motivated to keep reading on. It's a great story, historically (mostly) accurate and Tolstoy makes you think. I need to re-read it, but that will be a few years down the road.

And just think, after you're done, you can watch Woody Allen's "Love & Death" and get all the W&P jokes!

Well, I was pleasantly surprised by how readable Anna Karenina was when I read it this past winter, so I will put War and Peace onto the "maybe" pile...

My long classic right now is Les Misérables which I am starting today :)

>76 leslie.98:, War and Peace and Moby Dick are both classics I read when I was too young to fully appreciate them with all the finer points going over my head, and even so I got all the way through them and enjoyed them, kid that I was. Unlike some classics (*cough* Proust *cough*) they have rocking-good stories to them. Alright, MD got bogged down in whaling details sometimes but ... to my grade seven eyes it was an adventure story and my pulse was going faster and faster with every chapter. I'll have to re-read that one someday and see what I think.

Wow! Great thread that I just stumbled upon, although I'll admit that I haven't carefully read the last half of it. Just some personal observations for those expressing disdain for Austen and for Don Quixote: Austen's Emma and Cervante's major work are on my top 10 list for funniest books I've ever read. Moby Dick I found fascinating, as well. But I like to get absorbed into longer works from time to time, and I know that's not everyone's cup of tea.

Here are my actual contributions to the topic:

I was made to read A Tale of Two Cities in high school and didn't much care for it. My wife likes a lot of Dickens' novels, though. So it's possible that someday I may give one of his other novels an "Oh, what the hell" try, it's most likely that I won't.

I was made to read Women in Love in college and hated it with a passion. While I'm OK with some of Lawrence's short stories, I will never read any of his other novels again, unless Hell consists of being forced to read authors you despise.

I probably won't read The Pilgrim's Progress or, for that matter, The Canterbury Tales. Not out of any animus, though.

If you like funny classics, then if you do give Dickens another shot you should go straight to The Pickwick Papers. Wonderfully funny like none of his other works. The hunting party in Chapter Nineteen .... I will never forget it, LOL

I was made to read Lawrence's Sons and Lovers and I don't have a warm spot in my heart for him either. Oddly enough, Women in Love is exactly the title I've considered for giving him another shot!

The Canterbury Tales was another funny read, especially the Miller's Tale. I'm not really keen to try Pilgrim's Progress either, though.

>83 Cecrow: I was made to read Lawrence's Sons and Lovers and I don't have a warm spot in my heart for him either.

I came to Lawrence through his travel books, and was so enamored of Twilight in Italy that I immediately went and found everything else I could by him. So I ended up reading the fiction in a very receptive frame of mind.

I just read Lady Chatterley's Lover a few months ago. I was quite underwhelmed. But then, it's not his best novel, I hear.

Just wanted to let you all know that I am now reading Moby Dick (well, actually listening to the audiobook). I am enjoying it, so thanks for encouraging me to read this!

You'll hit a few chapters where you'll learn more than you ever cared to about whaling in the 19th century, but it's worth wading through them.

I came to Moby-Dick rather late, but loved every over-the-top, tedious and florid moment of it. I think it might be the most beautiful book I have ever read.

The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl might head my
list of "FiyNWRt".*
On the other hand, (though buried deep
in my TBR pile is a re-reading of The Sacred Fount. I
have very mixed feelings about James. I think he's over-rated,
(within a limited circle, I mean - - he may be widely UNDER-rated,
too. Anyway, to me (unlilke some instant critics), "over-rated is not
synonymous with "no good" or "trash". In fact I think
you have to BE pretty good to be commonnly called.

I read Moby DIck at age 19, War and Peace at age 24
- -the latter in French. Can't say I read the original,
but some of the dialogue is French in the original, so
I was reading the original of those bits.
Tolstoy says of the language "our grandparents not
only spoke French, but THOUGHT in French."

A re-reading of both is in the back of my mind--way,way back.
I would expect to get more of the Tolstoy re-reading
than the Melville.

* FiyNW Rt: Of course you know that this is short for
FACE it: you NEVER WILL READ this!"
over-rated.

Sorry to revive a zombie topic, but since I was its OP maybe I get a dispensation?

I need to get re-motivated to read The Red and the Black. I've been passing over it on my shelf for a few years, and someone whose opinions I respect in a challenge group claims she barely survived it. Is there a fan here who can at least level the anticipatory playing field?

>90 Cecrow: Sorry, I can't help. I read this last year and I am definitely not a fan. It left me very much underwhelmed.

>90 Cecrow: I am aware of 2 people who have read it, much to their dismay. All I remember from them is the word "slog."

>90 Cecrow: I read that book a very long time ago and remember enjoying it, but that's about all I can remember about the experience.

>90 Cecrow:

That's my favourite of the Stendhals I've read. It helps if you have an interest in politics or history. Sorel is an ambitious social climber who makes a "Napoleonic" decision to conquer the world, meaning, high society. One can compare him to Balzac's Lucien de Rubempré and Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov (the latter in particular also suffered from "Napoleonism" and it's telling how differently the Frenchman and the Russian interpret their goals.) He's not a loveable character, perhaps, but he's so very much of his times--and foreshadowing ours--that I found his rise and fall completely fascinating.

>90 Cecrow:

I read it many years ago along with Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary. I certainly finished it, and I believe I found it more digestible than Mrs B. My memory does not extend further than that.

As an aside, I reread Anna K. a couple of years back and was once more impressed by it, albeit for some different reasons.

Alright, so it sounds like a bit of work but worthwhile if I'm looking past surface level.

>90 Cecrow: Re-read it recently. Read it first time in a first year French course. Had put it off as too hard and too long, but the exam was looming. Prof’s general advice in course was to read French the way one had read books in English in childhood—-not looking up unfamiliar words, but just getting the idea from the context. Plunged in, and by the end of the weekend—-I could read French! Would have good memories of the book just for that reason, but reread last year and with the benefit of a lot more life experience found many more things to appreciate in Stendhal’s penetrating look at ambition and its follies.

>97 booksaplenty1949:, that's sounding better. I have zero ambition, so I'd probably enjoy reading how terrible it is, lol.

Very interested in the experience of reading a book in early youth,
perhaps as a student, and then reencountering it in maturity. You apparently can’t step in the same river twice, and I certainly think you can't reread a book. Henry James’ The Ambassadors: on first encounter Mme de Vionnet was battening on Chad, the victim. When I subsequently reread it at Mme de Vionnet’s age, he was the luckiest man in the world, only to show himself a heartless cad.

>99 booksaplenty1949:, I've a plan to revisit a few authors I couldn't stand in my school days (Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence foremost among them) and see whether I appreciate them differently now. Or appreciate them at all, I should say.

>99 booksaplenty1949:, >100 Cecrow: In high school we read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I hated it and frankly didn't get it--it was just dark and boring. I read it as an adult 50 years later, and it was excellent. There are so many layers to the book, not to mention that he was writing from a 19th century perspective about 17th century society and morals. I don't know how anyone could expect 14 year olds to understand the nuances of Hawthorne's book.

The only reason I re-read it was because for my book club we read The Blithedale Romance, and I loved Hawthorne's writing. So I decided to give Hester Prynne a second try, and I'm so grateful I did.

On the downside, I re-read Catcher in the Rye recently (another one read in high school) and Holden Caulfield did not improve upon re-acquaintance. It was OK as a kid; it's just tedious now.

>101 kac522:
The Scarlet Letter and Moby-Dick are two that I didn't appreciate as a youngster, but loved upon re-reading as an adult.

>101 kac522:, >102 Betelgeuse:

This story was told us by an instructor at library school, a high school librarian, to caution us about second-guessing students' book selections.

In her school, The Scarlet Letter was taught in the grade 11 academic stream English course. A grade 11 boy from the non-academic stream came to her at the desk one day to ask, "Do you have that book about the hooer?"

"Yes, we do. I'll show you where it is." Her first impulse was to warn him that the book would be very difficult, but instead said nothing and signed the book out to him.

Weeks passed. The book became overdue and then more overdue. But the librarian said nothing and sent out no notices because when she saw this student from time to time in corridor, he always had the book with him and she could see from its condition that it was being painstakingly read.

Eventually, some months later, the boy reappeared at the her desk to hand back the book, by now thoroughly grimed and dog-eared.

She thanked him and asked what he thought of it.

"She weren't no hooer," he replied, and walked away.

My instructor felt the occasion warranted a quiet celebration.

>103 librorumamans:, well, that's progress, I guess! Funny!

>104 Betelgeuse:

Oh, it's one of those moments in a teaching career that you cherish.

Here's one of mine: Grade 10 general-level classes are really a challenge, the most difficult age group to deal with in my experience. One year I had a bunch that were pretty much unmanageable, by which I mean that these particular students were even more unruly, rude, and unmotivated than usual.

Nothing on the regular curriculum was working with them, so I decided to gamble and try Shakespeare. The American Conservatory Theater put on an amazing production of The Taming of the Shrew in the '70s, now available — thank goodness — on DVD. The comedy is played very broad, and the two principal actors are gorgeous.

There was almost a rebellion when I announced that the next unit would be a play by Shakespeare. "We can't do Shakespeare, no way!" "That's too hard; you can't make us do that!" "This is a compulsory credit and you're going to make us all fail!"

I suggested that they trust me, and if it didn't work, we'd stop. I didn't give them texts, just the video. We watched a couple of scenes each class, followed up with worksheets to make sure they got the gist of what was happening, the important aspects of characterization, the motivations behind the action, etc. And, of course, the unanswerable question in that play: Who's taming whom?

The payoff for me came the third class when one of the most troublesome boys asked shyly and hopefully at the start of the period, "Are we going to be watching more of that video today, Sir?" accompanied by general nods and agreement from others. The payoff for them, I think, was: hey, we're doing Shakespeare, and we're getting it!

Connections.

And I wish there were more productions like that one available.

>103 librorumamans: Congratulations! It's almost impossible these days to get kids to look forward to Shakespeare -- I know, I've tried!

A former teacher I know who at one time taught in a program for kids who were high school age but had not successfully completed the elementary school curriculum—-pretty low-level students, in other words. But he always included a Shakespeare play. He said that, at the very least, in later life when a crowd was talking about high school English and how much they hated Shakespeare, he wanted his students not to feel left out.

>107 booksaplenty1949:

Hmmm. I'm not on board with that rationalization.

I sometimes also taught Macbeth to Grade 12 general classes alongside The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz because they are, essentially, the same story — my minor intention being an exercise in synthesis (Bloom's taxonomy) and my larger intention to demonstrate to them that they were in fact capable of handling challenging texts, as many of them looked ahead to community college.

With the exception of The Merry Wives of Windsor, which is pretty dire, Shakespeare borrowed all his plots. They are not what makes him great. I do agree that his language is an obstacle if you can’t see the forest for the trees. This is where a well-directed performance can be very useful.

>101 kac522: The Scarlet Letter is one of my favs, however, I didn't read it until I was in my 40's. Not reading: Dune or Don Quixote. I've started Quixote 3-4 times and I just can't do it!

>110 Tess_W:, loved Scarlet Letter in my 40s like you; and Dune in my teens, Don Quixote in my 20s, not so much like you, lol.

>110 Tess_W: Funny how tastes differ. I read Don Quixote for the first time in my 40s and loved it. I consider it to be among the top five funniest books I've ever read. C'est la vie!

I would say that I had the hardest time reading The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. Being of non-Christian faith, it became much harder so I didn't enjoy it, even though it is a part of the 100 Best Novels Written in English by the Guardian UK newspaper:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-eng...

But I respect it as a novel of its time. I read widely and never judge too harshly, while trying to keep an open mind, as well as understanding the time period of when things were written and its context.

I love everything Hemingway after reading A Moveable Fest and my favourite The Old Man and the Sea that I read yearly. With regards to The Sound of Fury by Faulkner, I would suggest either standard edition or the limited edition by The Folio Society; they published it with individual colours indicating timelines and characters as originally intended by Faulkner but this type of printing was not possible at the time the novel was published so yes, many readers dislike The Sound of Fury, but mainly because they are unable to follow the complex dialogue.

I read somewhere, whom said that the Victorians were well-read and highly educated (the higher classes, of course) than compared to other eras because they didn't give up just because a novel or book became hard to read. They consumed literature at the same level we consume the internet and social media.

>113 ironjaw: I would say that is very true about not only the Victorians, but readers of other ages, also (except the current age). Having been a teacher for 30+ years of high schoolers and also a antique school book collectors, I can tell you that today's students (11-12th grade) could in no way be able to read from a McGuffey 6th grade reader. (Nor be able to learn the lists of spelling and vocab. words)

>113 ironjaw: I attempted The Pilgrim's Progress last year and ended up abandoning after I got to the second part. I would like to try it again sometime down the road, but I do consistently struggle with the style and language of pre-19th century English literature.

>114 Tess_W: Wow, now I really want to browse through a McGuffey 6th grade reader, maybe the younger stuff, too!

>114 Tess_W: >115 Majel-Susan:

When I looked at McGuffey's readers when they were reprinted in the 70s, I was once again made grateful that I had not been born one hundred years earlier. They were even worse than the pap that comprised my own elementary school readers.

I'm still on the fence (almost a decade after my OP) whether to try More's Utopia. It sounds interesting in principle, I just don't know how much work it would be.

>117 Cecrow:

If you pick up an urtext English edition, it will be a very tough read. Years ago when I was immersed in sixteenth-century English prose I tried and bogged down. (I'm assuming that the Latin original is out of the question — although More's Latin may well be clearer than his English.)

The Anatomy of Melancholy is easier and much wittier.

>117 Cecrow:

FWIW, today and tomorrow only, you can download for free Fredric Jameson's Archaeologies of the Future from Verso Books.

The discussion begins, I understand, witih More's book.

More did not translate Utopia. So there is no reason to stick with an early translation which simply adds an extra level of inaccessibility to the text.

>120 booksaplenty1949:

Thanks! It was a long time ago that I tackled it, and I had forgotten that I used Ralph Robinson's translation of 1551.

Thomas More did not translate Utopia into English. There are a number of modern translations which make the book more accessible than those by his near-contemporaries. Unlike original works, translations become dated and less useful as time passes. While we’re on the subject, does anyone have an opinion on the various translations of Don Quixote?

>121 librorumamans: Sorry, repeated myself before I saw your comment.

Most anything sci/fantasy: Brave New World, most Isaac Asimov, most Robert Heinlen, The Game of Thrones, J.R.R. Tolkien.

The above being said, I have enjoyed Fahrenheit 451, 1984, as well as Outlander.

>124 Tess_W:, I might suggest Ursula Leguin or Margaret Atwood, if you lean that way again.

Reading Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz apropos of seeing a recent movie version set in present-day Berlin. A German classic although I imagine difficult to translate owing to its use of puns, contemporary advertisements and drinking songs, and other local references. A bit like Joyce’s Ulysses.