I'm delving into the classics. Many that I've read (but not in a long, long time) and many that I somehow missed.

The first one up is one that I missed. And I don't know how. Maybe it was assigned reading in college or high school and I was just lazy and read the Cliffs Notes version of it. I can't imagine how this one passed me by for 31 years.




I love it! It's a trip! It's fucking hysterical. If I'd known, I would have read this a long time ago.



So what's your favorite piece of classic literature? I'd really have to rack my brain to remember mine. And I'll also use yours as suggestions when I go to the book store and my mind draws a blank when I'm looking for something to read.
[Edited 2/16/08 2:44am]

subject change.

SUbject change?

chillichocaholic said:

it had a different subject before. now it has this one. answer the question!

Raze said:

I hate to say this, but I dont really have an answer, I dont think I know what a classic is anymore

chillichocaholic said:

well it ain't the Da Vinci Code or anything by John Grisham

Penthouse, September, 1984 issue with Vanessa Williams in it.

Raze said:

Im a confirmed romance novel reader I tried to read the Old Man and The Sea one. Nearly fell asleep

Romeo and Juliet or Henry V

Oh well. Or The Bible (but that's more fables, innit?) or The Lord Of The Rings, as that is a book I re-read so often. Until the shoddy movies, that is.

Here's a link to a list:
http://selfknowledge.com/index.shtml

I like Henry James, "Turn of the Screw".
I also like Edgar Allen Poe.

I forgot to mention Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, Aesop, the list is long.....

Define classic, because my favourite novel of all time is The Great Gatsby and it's not even 100 years old

Nevertheless, here's my top10

1.The Great Gatsby
2.The picture of Dorian Gray
3.Hamlet
4.The Catcher in the rye
5.Tragedies (Sophocles)
6.The House of Bernarda Alba
7.Julius Caesar
8.1984
9. Crime and punishment
10.Dracula

Oh, and the Postman Always Rings Twice.

Love that one.

I bought Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" at the same time I picked up Don Quixote, so I'll be busy for a bit. My reading extravaganza has slowed down quite a bit this week. I'm enjoying the recommendations, though.

I think I'm going with "Wuthering Heights" or the "Hunchback of Notre Dame" next, though. I've always wanted to read these, and I'm pretty sure I was supposed to in high school and didn't.

Julius Caeser

Anne of Green Gables

some Edgar Allan Poe: The cask of Amontillado

fall of the house of usher

the tell tale heart

Macbeth

taming of the shrew

The Odyssey

The Trojan War

Hamlet

Little Women

Invisible man

Soul on Ice

When it comes to reading classics, isn't it nice to browse second hand shops y'all? Well, y'all except Isten, of course.

I love going to second hand book stores and fish out a great binding of, in this case, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and other cheap stuff.

HamsterHuey said:

I wish there were second-hand shops here. I've had to buy them all in paperback. And the sucky part is, I'm pretty sure my dad has most of the ones I'm going to be reading back at home in really beautiful gold-leaf editions.

Oh well. I'm here and they're there. And Borders has a bunch of really cheap editions that they've published themselves, so I guess I'm not out much. I'd prefer hardback with these (usually not the case with most of my reading), though.

Raze said:

There are many a beautiful binding of classics, but I just love the second hands. They are already a little run down, so I do not have to be careful with them, you know? I mostly read in public transport and it is hard to keep books neat that way. My books always look run down.

HamsterHuey said:

That's why I usually prefer paperbacks, because most of my reading is done at the beach and I don't have to worry about messing up something nice.

But I know what you mean about second-hand books, especially really old ones. And reading the classics, it's nice to have that musty old book smell.

"Itchy eyes, darling. Itchy eyes."
[Edited 2/17/08 1:28am]

HamsterHuey said:

I like it when libraries have sales. I found "100 years of Solitude" and some other books I don't remember for 10 cents apiece. Haven't read 'Solitude' yet. Ironically since I've been in school I haven't read anything that wasn't required. now that I'm out I can start again. reading this thread I'm reminded of how much of a book worm I used to be.

Not too musty, please. I don't wanna sneeze opening the page.

heybaby said:

Wow. Even though the books on my list were mostly dumb Dutch literature, there were some beautiful books to pick from.
I got my book reading-tic from my parents. My dad used to have a whole bunch of old books in old-Dutch, with 19th century spelling, which I used to read to get points, as the titles were so obscure. Most students went for the modern stuff with little pages, I turned in reports on books that no one read. That already earned me points.

The best grade I got was when I wrote a report in old-Dutch as well. LoL
That earned me an A+.

Starting in college, I read this every year. I finally bought the unabridged version (about 1,000 pages), and I promptly stopped reading it every year.

I hope to read it this year.

ThreadBare said:

BEST. NOVEL. EVER!!!!!


I'm going to attempt a second reading of this. So much going on. So many themes. So many characters and motivations, none of them pious and altruistic---not even Edmond Dante's after his imprisonment. It's the ultimate smackdown revenge story, but with a resolution that leaves you yearning for more.

Lawd, I love that book.

Middlemarch and The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Persuasion by Jane Austen (I like all her novels, but Persuasion is my fave)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
The Age of Innocence and The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens


And then, there's David Copperfield by Dickens. This is a sentimental favorite - because it's the first piece of classical literature I ever read. I was 9. Saw the miniseries on TV and decided I wanted to read the book. Let me tell you how people laughed at a 9-year-old lugging around that big, fat hardcover book. They thought I was kidding when I said I was reading it.

Marlowe's Dr. Faustus

L'Assomoir by Zola.

benyamin said:

pfft. l'oeuvre is so much better.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Middlemarch by George Eliot
East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Newer books I love:
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller