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Ok, now I feel bad! I really did give VF a try CCL! It just lost me about 100 pages in. Maybe someday I'll try again.... It's not like I'm intimidated by it (for cryin' out loud, I read War & Peace for fun!), I just didn't get into it.
Another nominee for the not-so classics list: Clarissa. UGH.
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' - Isaac Asimov
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
Originally Posted by nausicaa
How anyone could not like Steinbeck is beyond me.... He's like your lovable, sensitive Marxist uncle who talks about proleteriats like they're puppies.
Social realism...aww.
Perfect description of Steinbeck. He's one of my favorites along with Austen (go figure). I can see why his work's not for everyone though -- does get bogged down with sentimentality sometimes. I don't care. Love him still.
[threadjack]
CCL, and Critical, I had no idea Richardson's books were in print. I've been wanting to take a look at her work since I found out Austen was a "fan" of hers. I'll have to look harder for those! [/threadjack].I've never read Clarissa. But I have read Pamela - it was rather crappy. I think Richardson had issues with women or something.
But on the topic of not-so-classics, I'm gonna agree with the Hemingway nominations. Stylistic prose and tough, virile sentences are one thing (), but 200,000 words about a guy dragging home a fish is quite another (
).
MotherSister - Richardson was a male. I think maybe you're confusing him with Frances (Fanny) Burney? I know that Austen was a fan of hers. For example, Austen named her book Pride and Prejudice after a line from Burney's novel Cecilia. Both Richardson and Burney tended to name their novels after female characters (ie Pamela & Clarissa - Richardson; Cecilia, Camilla & Evelina - Burney) so it is easy to get them confused, title-wise (heck, who wouldn't get confused with all the C names being bandied about!).
d'oh! I did have Richardson confused with Fanny Burney (lol, all the C names). I never see any of her books about. But I do wonder if they're still in print. . . The only thing of Richardson I've ever seen is Sir Charles Grandison, which was Austen's favorite book. Has anyone ever tried to read that? I peeked into it once, but it was so looong that I had to look away. Might try it over the summer though.
Back on the subject of not-so-classic, I may be kicked out of the thread (!), but I can't go without naming Wuthering Heights. For all the cool symbolism and detail in the writing, the overall book I found quite boring.
MotherSister - I was in a bookstore today and saw Burney's Evelina in stock (which is not surprising because Evelina is her best-known work). I've seen her other books online so it is probably easier to order online if you're interested in reading a book other than Evelina.
I didn't really like Wuthering Heights either. It is kind of hard to love a book when you hate all of the characters.
I just loved Life of Pi...I would completely disagree with you in that the beginnning totally sets up the last few pages of the book (the transcription section). A critic somewhere said that this book will make you believe in God...that's the point of the whole story--did it happen? Who cares? It's what you want to believe...
I gotta say this thread makes me a little uncomfortable...I just spent an exhausting Friday trying to explain to my ninth graders why the Odyssey is so fun to read. That's probably something a lot of people wish they would never would have been assigned. (But maybe they didn't have a teacher like me who relishes in the sex and violence of the story!)
Still, there are several books I was required to read that I never fully appreciated until I read them voluntarily... Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, The Sound and The Fury, and Bleak House come to mind. But what I think is that I had been allowed to just read them and not do some dumb project over them when I was done, I would have enjoyed them more.
I was so surprised to see people list The Mill on the Floss--that was one of my favorites that I was ever assigned! I didn't know many other people read itI also like The Razor's Edge and On the Road...I think a lot of high school students would like both quite a bit (their parents probably would let us teach them, though).
Misscrispy, I liked The Odyssey!Bring on the sex and the violence, I say!
(I wonder if it's not just a little too taxing for ninth-graders, though. Maybe save it for their junior or senior Lit curriculum?)
Sometimes mandatory reading lists can be a good thing. I would never have discovered Steinbeck without being forced to read Of Mice and Men. Ditto Faulkner. (Though we started out with As I Lay Dying, which isn't nearly so labrythine as The Sound and the Fury.) But 'tis true, likely I would have derived more pleasure from them (at least at first) had it been voluntary.
I haven't read Mill on the Floss, but Middlemarch ranks close to the top of my list, so I figure it can't be that bad.
MotherSister, do not, I repeat, do not bother reading Richardson unless you're a nascent masochist. He's horrible. Back when I was nerdy beyond redemption (not that I'm much better now :rolleyes), I thought I would scale Clarissa, which I viewed as the Mount Everest of English novels because it was so damn long. Urgh. Worst. Mistake. Ever. The titular character is blah and Lovelace is one creepy dude (heart in a jar? Um. okay.) It's not bad if you want to look at it for literary technique, since it's a pretty good example of a polyphonic epistolary narrative, and almost an ur-psychological novel. But the story itself? Teh Suck.
Yeah.Guess who really, really didn't like it.
Hmm, nausicaa, it is surprising that you would like the Odyssey, what with your screenname and all.
There is something to be said about being assigned a book to read in class, not only because it means you are exposed to things you wouldn't necessarily have chosen yourself, as nausicaa writes above, but also because it is often illuminating to hear other people's perspectives on a particular work, especially with regards to "classics" and their multiple layers of meaning, language usage etc.
Well, that was a long sentence wasn't it? Now I have to rest.
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