|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Oct 6, 2018 16:02:51 GMT
I thought it might be interesting to have a thread about literary classics, whether members have read them, and what they thought of them. You can add other titles to my list.
1. War and Peace. I guess I thought of this first because it is considered the definitive "smart" novel by many. I've never read it.
2. Crime and Punishment. Comes to mind after the previous. I have read Crime and Punishment, twice, and the last time quite recently. It was interesting, but I found it rather too long and implausible.
3. The Divine Comedy by Dante. I have read the translation by Dorothy Sayers. I was much more struck by the footnotes (also by Sayers) than by the poetry (I tend to think poetry is untranslatable). I was really surprised by the intellectual coherence of Dante's worldview and the worldview of medieval Catholcism.
4. Ulysses by James Joyce. Never finished it. I started reading it once but got bored.
5. The Aeneid by Virgil. I've never read it. I feel a bit bad about this.
6. The Oddyssey. I've read it in a couple of translations, one by George Chapman. I don't really remember it that vividly. I think I know the story (so far as I do) more from its refraction in pop culture than from reading it.
6. The Iliad. I read the translation by E.V. Rieu when I was seventeen or so. On the one hand, it was quite a slog-- it just seemed like page after page of clanging swords, punctuated by gods getting involved in the war in various ways. But I did take away from it a sense of the high tragedy and grandeur. I remember how dull the catalogue of ships was.
7. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. I read it but found it a bit of a slog. I like the atmosphere of merrie, Catholic England, and the whole set up-- I love stories within stories-- but the poetry itself is tough going.
8. Paradise Lost by Milton. I read this and found it surprisingly enjoyable, perhaps because of all the philosophizing (which I like). How Blake could have thought Milton was secretly of the devil's party, I have no idea.
9. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. I started reading this, but when I came to a vivid description of a chamber pot I found it so disgusting I stopped. That was the first volume, I think.
10. Don Quixote. I have never read it.
Well, I may as well stop at ten, but feel free to add other suggestions.
|
|
|
|
Post by cato on Oct 7, 2018 15:05:12 GMT
I like the idea of being well read in the classics but they are often very hard work to read and to appreciate fully but that probably says more about my laziness than anything about the works themselves.
I recently finished Newman's Apologia and was struck by his strangeness, seriousness and how some of the causes he got so worked up over are now footnotes in history books if remembered at all. He lived in a very different existence. I would like to tackle his Idea of a University soon.
As to your selection Msolsheachlann- I like Dante but have never read Paradiso. Hell and Purgatory are much more interesting! Be it in preaching or the scriptures the underworld seems to grab the imagination more.Heaven runs the risk of appearing boring.
I have read Ulysses and like it but have tried and failed to read Proust 3 times. Chaucer is on my to read list for several decades.
A few additions at random that I would pack for a desert island stay -Augustine's Confessions probably the first true autobiography.
The Greek tragedies especially Sophocles and Aeschylus The Orestia
Montaigne's Essays which are a pleasure to dip in and out of. A perfect bedside tome.
Shakespeare. The boss.
Lewis Carroll's Alice novels. How to understand modern life and the people you meet.
Mark Twain Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn ( mainly for their non PC language)
Chekov's Short stories. Thought provoking Gems.
E F Benson's Mapp and Lucia novels for humour .
Sherlock Holmes novels
I enjoyed the novels of the Athlone John Broderick which might be classified as minor modern Irish literary classics and plan to reread them .
I have never read a Dickens, Henry James, Hardy , Trollope or a Dostoevesky novel to my great shame so their complete works would need to come too. I may devote the next decade or two to them.
So many books so little time. My next project in time for Halloween is Melmouth the Wanderer.
Harold Bloom has a list of Classics at the end of his 'The Western Canon' which will make you cry when you realise how few great books you have read or ever will.
|
|
|
|
Post by assisi on Oct 7, 2018 18:53:19 GMT
I thought it might be interesting to have a thread about literary classics, whether members have read them, and what they thought of them. You can add other titles to my list. 1. War and Peace. I guess I thought of this first because it is considered the definitive "smart" novel by many. I've never read it. 2. Crime and Punishment. Comes to mind after the previous. I have read Crime and Punishment, twice, and the last time quite recently. It was interesting, but I found it rather too long and implausible. 3. The Divine Comedy by Dante. I have read the translation by Dorothy Sayers. I was much more struck by the footnotes (also by Sayers) than by the poetry (I tend to think poetry is untranslatable). I was really surprised by the intellectual coherence of Dante's worldview and the worldview of medieval Catholcism. 4. Ulysses by James Joyce. Never finished it. I started reading it once but got bored. 5. The Aeneid by Virgil. I've never read it. I feel a bit bad about this. 6. The Oddyssey. I've read it in a couple of translations, one by George Chapman. I don't really remember it that vividly. I think I know the story (so far as I do) more from its refraction in pop culture than from reading it. 6. The Iliad. I read the translation by E.V. Rieu when I was seventeen or so. On the one hand, it was quite a slog-- it just seemed like page after page of clanging swords, punctuated by gods getting involved in the war in various ways. But I did take away from it a sense of the high tragedy and grandeur. I remember how dull the catalogue of ships was. 7. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. I read it but found it a bit of a slog. I like the atmosphere of merrie, Catholic England, and the whole set up-- I love stories within stories-- but the poetry itself is tough going. 8. Paradise Lost by Milton. I read this and found it surprisingly enjoyable, perhaps because of all the philosophizing (which I like). How Blake could have thought Milton was secretly of the devil's party, I have no idea. 9. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. I started reading this, but when I came to a vivid description of a chamber pot I found it so disgusting I stopped. That was the first volume, I think. 10. Don Quixote. I have never read it. Well, I may as well stop at ten, but feel free to add other suggestions. Don Quixote I've read many moons ago and I remember it as readable and enjoyable. 'Gulliver's Travels' would be a good choice nearer to home. 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein' are also fine novels. I see from the profiles thread that Classical republican extols 'Moby Dick' which I have yet to read. Thomas More's 'Utopia' and Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' were very influential. Malory's 'Le Morte d'Arthur', about the tales of King Arthur would have been very popular. |
|
|
|
Post by Séamus on Oct 8, 2018 9:20:30 GMT
Out of the suggested ten, I like CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, very much and it's accurate portrayal of a depressed mind. His KARAMAZOV BROTHERS was also brilliant but, like a lot of long novels, (Hugo's are three classic example) the multiple threads become a bit messy.
All the poets and ancient ones mentioned, I've only read excerpts from, that's probably the limit I prefer.
ULYSSES is amazing in its own way, but it's more like study then enjoyment.
WAR AND PEACE was very good, but a bit tedious. ANNA KARENINA was much preferred for it's 'purity' I.e. No historical inserts or long philosophical discourses. WAR AND PEACE is said to compete with LES MISÉRABLES as the greatest novel ever. While Hugo borders on fantasy and falls into some of the same tedious diversions as Tolstoy,I find that I can just pick up Les M. and enjoy reading random pages or chapters, something I can't do with either WAR or ANNA.
Worth reading also is THE LIFE OF TOLSTOY by his English translator Aylmer Maude.
|
|
|
|
Post by Séamus on Oct 10, 2018 8:02:25 GMT
I thought it might be interesting to have a thread about literary classics, whether members have read ...etc ...10. Don Quixote. I have never read it. Well, I may as well stop at ten, but feel free to add other suggestions. I forgot to mention that often I avoid reading something because it's been spoiled, in a sense, to my mind, either because I read it when too young or because movie versions have spoiled it. I like Dickens very much and his masterful caricature of individuals, countries, social classes and professions, but OLIVER TWIST I can't read because the musical has really become the book rather than vice versa. Don Quixote,I read in a comic-book version when young which is one reason for not reading it now, the other being that it almost seems to be the Shakespeare of Spanish tongues- can it really be read outside of it's original vernacular? (interesting that married Italian saints Bl Luigi Quattrocchi and Maria Corsini-Quattrocchi reportedly learned English in order to read Shakespeare properly) I haven't encountered the same problem with Jane Austen or the Brontës partly because there are no definitive versions to these stories and I've not seen many of the productions made anyway. |
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Oct 10, 2018 8:55:48 GMT
When it comes to Dickens, I've read David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities (which I've heard is the best-selling novel of all time, rather strangely), Great Expectations, Barnaby Rudge, Oliver Twist and the Pickwick Papers. I've never actually read A Chistmas Carol, though I feel as though I have.
Despite this, and although his story-telling genius is unmistakeable, I can't claim to love Dickens. In more recent years, I've given up on several Dickens books. (I read most of the ones I read in my childhood to early twenties.) I find the caricatures too grotesque, his humour too laboured, his moralising laid on too thick...basically, everything overdone. This probably makes me a terrible person, but there you go. Chesterton adored him.
I've heard a few people saying that watching a film ruins a book for them. I've never had this problem, in fact, I like contrasting the different treatments. But I can identify with not reading something because you read it when you were younger. There are books that seem to belong to a particular part of my life and, when I try to rediscover them, it feels disorienting.
|
|
|
|
Post by Séamus on Oct 10, 2018 9:50:37 GMT
When it comes to Dickens, I've read David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities (which I've heard is the best-selling novel of all time, rather strangely), Great Expectations, Barnaby Rudge, Oliver Twist and the Pickwick Papers. I've never actually read A Chistmas Carol, though I feel as though I have. Despite this, and although his story-telling genius is unmistakeable, I can't claim to love Dickens. In more recent years, I've given up on several Dickens books. (I read most of the ones I read in my childhood to early twenties.) I find the caricatures too grotesque, his humour too laboured, his moralising laid on too thick...basically, everything overdone. This probably makes me a terrible person, but there you go. Chesterton adored him. I've heard a few people saying that watching a film ruins a book for them. I've never had this problem, in fact, I like contrasting the different treatments. But I can identify with not reading something because you read it when you were younger. There are books that seem to belong to a particular part of my life and, when I try to rediscover them, it feels disorienting. Strange question- have your in-laws read him? I loved the satirical view of early America in MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT, which was all too short in the scheme of the whole; I'd be curious to know what Americans thought. |
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Oct 10, 2018 9:58:00 GMT
I don't know. I've never heard any of my American family or friends mention the Martin Chuzzlewit controversy or even Charles Dickens, as far as I can remember. They can often be excessively critical of America, in my view. Not my wife, who is patriotic, but some of her friends.
|
|
|
|
Post by Séamus on Oct 12, 2018 12:10:24 GMT
I don't know. I've never heard any of my American family or friends mention the Martin Chuzzlewit controversy or even Charles Dickens, as far as I can remember. They can often be excessively critical of America, in my view. Not my wife, who is patriotic, but some of her friends. I hadn't heard of it having been particularly controversial, although I'm sure any Americans of the time who wanted to populate the type of areas described would have found it unhelpful as propaganda. I remember, some years ago, it was an American judge who cited 'Jarndyce vs Jarndyce' (BLEAK HOUSE)when addressing a real life courthouse in the U.S., even though the fictional trial was a rub on the British law system of Dickens' time. The hilarious Mrs Jellyby of the same novel is generally believed to be based on Caroline Chisholm, often visited by Dickens whose pictured graced the first 60s-designed Australian $5 note and whose canonisation is prayed for by many. I doubt whether she would have really let her household (not to mention herself) go into ruin as depicted in the book, as anxious as she was to emigrate people to the New South Wales Colony(not Africa, as her caricature persona) and use her home as an unofficial embassy for the same purpose. He was probably biased against Catholics also, something also let slip in this particular book, as, from memory, mention is made of locals 'praying to pillars' in France. CHRISTMAS CAROL would be impossible to approach with any freshness, seeing that there's even been a Disney version,a Muppet show version, an Annie Lennox version(not really)... A media group called 'brunonews' recently listed authors who are known to have hated film adaptations of their own work- they mentioned Roald Dahl, Stephen King (who thought the supernatural aspect of 'the Shining' was downplayed), Anthony Burgess,P.L.Travers(who claims she wept bitterly during MARY POPPINS) and Bret Easton Ellis, who I wasn't familiar with but who stated that the whole thrust of his novel was the unreliability of the narrator. Which is all a bit strange, seeing that a living author is one of few people who can actually stop the whole thing taking place. Of course the authors we're discussing here never dreamt about the silver screen. And it's not always a bad thing. |
|
|
|
Post by Séamus on Oct 25, 2018 11:50:01 GMT
I like the idea....etc.. br] Shakespeare. The boss. [br...etc.... "this father stirs, she lives. If it be so,It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows That ever I have felt..... I might have saved her:now she's gone for ever. Cordelia,Cordelia!stay a little.Ha! What is't thou say'st? Her voice was ever soft, Gentle, and low- an excellent thing in woman. I kill'd the slave that was a-hanging thee" There's a high-profile defamation case in Australia at the moment concerning this scene of KING LEAR, actor Geoffrey Rush (who's also known on the silver-screen; he's won an Oscar) is currently counter-suing a media outlet after a #metoo accusation of groping Cordelia, the actress pretending to be dead at this stage. The director is testifying on Rush's behalf, saying that he instructed Rush/Lear to hold her torso. Reading the above and words, and others besides, it's a bit hard to envisage the scene without the king holding his executed daughter tightly. There was never much said about the 2005 'The Lion, the Witch&the Wardrobe' White Witch-meets-Edmund scene which had an slight and perhaps harmless, but unnecessary sexual tension that wouldn't have been passable had it been 'the white wizard-meets-Erica' |
|
|
|
Post by Séamus on Nov 27, 2018 11:54:56 GMT
I'm not sure whether Agatha Christie novels classify strictly as classic literature, but the British Red Cross is slightly increasing the perpetual Christie-spotlight at the moment by virtually-displaying the author's World War 1 Volunteer Service Card as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse on an online archive,celebrating the centenary of Armistice Day. She ended up serving mostly in the Devon dispensary and I can recall in her autobiography particular mention of an elderly Irish woman offering her a little bribe for a double-shot of the peppermint favour in her medicine, Agatha gave her the extra peppermint for free. So she said.
This week's international edition of EXPRESS ponders over the possible connection between Christie's VAD training during both world wars and the large amount of her characters who poison or get poisoned; for those who like Tennyson this includes cyanide used in THE MIRROR CRACK'D FROM SIDE TO SIDE, in which the poem LADY OF SHALLOT plays a role. The centuries make little difference either-DEATH COMES AT AN END, the only story set in an ancient times (despite Agatha's love of archeology )includes one death by poison and, more unusually,a self-poisoning. Poison is used also in my personal favourite, APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH.... I'm always a bit curious about the lady that administered it- an American-born member of Britain's House of Commons. She almost resembles real-life Viscountess Astor- American, the first woman to actually take a seat in the House and second elected after Countess Markievicz, Nancy Astor was an MP from 1919 until the 40s,APPOINTMENT was published in the 1930s. People couldn't but have made a link.
The article included two quotes "poison has a certain appeal. It has not the crudeness of the revolver bullet or the blunt instrument" cf They Do It With Mirrors...."give me a decent bottle of poison and I'll construct the prefect crime"
I've noticed that one of the rare times that we note Hercule Poirot as a catholic is amongst some Irish characters in TAKEN BY THE FLOOD... He solves the problem largely through entering a church where a presumed wealthy Irish widow is seen obviously distressed (she's actually a Catholic housemaid who had been constrained to masquerade as her defunct Irish protestant mistress)
|
|
|
|
Post by cato on Nov 27, 2018 13:52:51 GMT
Agathie Christie is very popular in Japan as her novels are used for English language classes. Apparently they are quite easy for non English speakers to grasp.
Christie of course is reputed to be largely responsible for saving the Traditional Latin mass in England by signing a protest letter in the Times against its abolition by Pope Paul Vi. Paul , a Christie fan responded by signing an indult granting permission after reading the letter. Christie was an Anglican but married to a catholic.
|
|
|
|
Post by Séamus on Nov 28, 2018 0:58:49 GMT
Agathie Christie is very popular in Japan as her novels are used for English language classes. Apparently they are quite easy for non English speakers to grasp. Christie of course is reputed to be largely responsible for saving the Traditional Latin mass in England by signing a protest letter in the Times against its abolition by Pope Paul Vi. Paul , a Christie fan responded by signing an indult granting permission after reading the letter. Christie was an Anglican but married to a catholic. Her autobiography mentions that they married in a church, I'm not sure how unusual this was, she being divorced. Most of her novels were published after this time and yet she continued using the name of her first husband. She dealt with the break-up quite gently. Her main concern marrying the second time was the prospect of leaving a younger husband childless something she was frank about |
|
|
|
Post by cato on May 4, 2020 14:29:37 GMT
One of the glimmers of light in the present gloom is the rise in sales of certain books on line. I recall visiting a semi deserted Hodges Figes a couple of days before the official closure in March and picking up my "summer" books. Now we are restricted to browsing on line which isnt the same but is better than nothing I suppose. Publishers also seem to be putting many new titles on hold at present . Classics including the bible the most classical book of all, are growing in popularity in on line sales.
My reading is a bit chaotic at present and I am spending much too much time on line. And watching Covid related news.
I have read John Kennedy Tooles A Confederacy of Dunces at the start of the lockdown. It's main character is an eccentric anti modernist Ignatius J Reilly as he battles every day reality in New Orleans while living with his long suffering mother. Worth a read. The other classic was Albert Camus's The Plague which the above mentioned book shop had prominently stocked near the check out. It might be too close for comfort for some readers at present but I read it slowly over a few weeks and found it oddly therapeutic.
Another book related theme of the present troubles of Covidtide is the display of various TV presenters living rooms. I am intrigued by those with bookshelves and like to work out what titles they have on them . It is comforting that others read and love, their hopefully well thumbed tomes.
Has anyone else managed to read a classic recently?
|
|
|
|
Post by cato on May 4, 2020 21:48:41 GMT
I made reference in the previous post to getting amusement from reading the titles on various media personalities book shelves. UK minister Michael Gove is in trouble on Twitter because professional Trotskyite polemicist and Guardian journalist Owen Jones spotted Holocaust denier David Irving's Hitler's War trilogy on Gove's shelves. Therefore Gove is a Nazi. Obviously.
The books in question are from the 1970s and were well regarded being written from a German perspective based on original German language sources. Irving is a rather unpleasant character but doesn't deny the holocaust in these books as far as I recall. I have them somewhere in the house along with his 2 volume hatchet job on Winston Churchill. It's funny how leftists now advocate censorship and seek to shield people from outrageous views.
Some people now believe to read a book indicates support or approval for all it contains. Owning a controversial book makes you into a secular heretic. These views are slowly suffocating the notion of the liberal arts ,the purpose of which is in part to teach people to think for themselves.
|
|
