Does Anyone Read The ‘Classics’ Any More?

[naomi24]

This question was prompted by someone asking for book recommendations.  I have a friend who's an avid reader but has never read the Brontes, Dickens, Jane Austen, etc, and sticks solely to current novels.  Have you read the 'oldies' - and if not, why not?  I don't understand why anyone wouldn't.  They've all stood the test of time so they must have quite a lot going for them.

[chelle7272]

Yes I did, and do. I enjoyed re-reading them when my son did (some of) them at school. I used to enjoy Thomas Hardy a lot though not many others did.

 I still regularly read To Kill A Mockingbird. I'm currently listening to some Ray Bradbury books from the collection on Audible

[andy-hughes]

I have read a number of classics, but of course, they were written in a very different style, for a very different time and audience.

I find the density of prose hard to enjoy, so i do tend to read modern material from choice.

[nailedit]

Read a few when I was a member of a reading group some years ago. Never really took to many of them. Found Dickins almost impossible to read. Prefer modern stuff.

[david small]

Read most of Dickens. Alastair McLean. James Macdonald Fraisier. James Boswell. The Bible.

H.G.Wells. John Wyndham. Sherlock Holmes etc.

 

[nailedit]

I did enjoy 1984 & Animal Farm

[Old_Geezer]

Read some. But there were so many books and so little time.

[Buenchico]

Having failed to get any pleasure at all from the film versions of their stories, I know that the works of Brontes and Jane Austen simply wouldn't do anything for me.  Dickens could tell a good tale but I find his works a bit too wordy.

That doesn't mean that I wouldn't recommend any 'classics' to anyone though.  'Three Men in a Boat' is a fantastic read and the novels of J B Priestley, such as 'Let The People Sing', make the finest use of the English language possible.  Other literary gems, such as the wonderful 'Augustus Carp', while not necessarily being 'classics' are still really worth reading, as is almost anything by P G Wodehouse.

Some 'classics' though are probably better encountered in film, TV or radio adaptations.  For example, 'Vanity Fair' is one of the funniest books ever written in terms of its storyline but Thackeray's original work is very bloated, with modern adaptations being far better in my opinion.

Works written in other languages, or in early forms of English, often rely on a good translator to bring them to life.  For example, 'Don Quijote de la Mancha', which is often considered to be the first modern novel, is a great read if you can get hold of a good modern translation but possibly rather hard work otherwise.  (I read it, in a modern Spanish version, at school, after coming across it in the school library.  It was hard work for someone who hadn't yet got his O-level in the language but it was still worth the effort). 

[Much the same, of course, could be written about 'The Canterbury Tales'.  (We had to study the Prologue, written in the original English, at school and I absolutely hated it!)]

Other foreign works can lose a lot in translation too. For example, while 'Saturnin' is definitely a 'classic' of Czech literature, Mark Corner's translation is far too literal in places, frequently failing to match Czech idioms with appropriate English ones.

[dave50]

I've tried but I find a lot of them heavy going. Maybe it just me.

[TheWinner]

Try Book-a-minute, it's great for those short of time.

 

http://www.rinkworks.com/bookaminute/classics.shtml?fbclid=IwAR1wUPE6icBRwlBDs4KLXghyJSb168C2xkrPVojYFdZYZUVIAWkovhBtHUI

[Canary42]

Yes, some of them (Dickens, Austen, Hardy, Brontes, Eliot, etc.)which I regularly return to.

Others I've found hard to get into (Proust, Trollope).

[Vagus]

Nope, not me. I had to do many of them at senior school and they bored me to death.

Ive enjoyed some tv adaptations and learned something from them but as far as re reading them, no, I much prefer to read contemporary fiction.

[douglas9401]

Life's too short, and getting shorter.

 

[perseverer]

Going (slightly - ok, a long way) off the topic, but you could try Oor Hamlet by Adam McNaughton as a  new look at a 400 year old story

Eg https://mainlynorfolk.info/martin.carthy/songs/oorhamlet.html

[jourdain2]

I've read all the 'Oldies' and then some.  I was going to add ''of course".  I also can't understand why anyone wouldn't - unless it  is because of changes in the GCSE and A level curriculums (curiculae?).  They are wonderful and the basisof all study really.

My granddaughter is about to begin her 2nd yr at Warwick Uni. reading Eng. Lit..  I find few books on her curent reading list as ones Iwould have suggested.  However, plus ca change.......

She is fortunate in that I have provided and suggest texts outside the prescribed ones.  I recently sent her a short story I had written on the subject of Wilfrid Owen's death and I tied it up with 'Strange Meeting'.  Turns out she' d never read S.M. - she has now and is full of catching up with the WW1 poets. 

It's a tricky balance tbh, but I think the balance has swung too far away from the 'classics' - they need to be the basics i.m.o..

[jourdain2]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Buenchico

I loved, absolutely loved (and still do)'The Canterbury Tales' in Medieval English... I still read bits for pleasure! Just goes to show that one man's meat is another man's poison etc.  :)

[rockyracoon]

I've read a few Dickens which enjoyed and possibly one of my favourite books is Bram Stocker's Dracula. I find the old books a bit hard going tbh. 
 

[Khandro]

Homer; The Iliad and The Odyssey  (many times).

 On my 'must read again' pile lies The Wind in the Willows, (illustrations by E.H.Shepard) with which I'd like to settle down under a tree with a chilled bottle of rosé and escape. ☺ 

[Hopkirk]

I don't think I've read any classics, unless you allow War of the Worlds.

[Spungle]

This is a very good question, I'm a reader, I love literature and history, but I haven't ever read most of the classics.  I've read a bit of Dickens, Orwell Shakespeare and things like Sherlock Holmes but that's about it.  I've never read any Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Boswell, McLean, Fraisier etc.  I guess it may be to do with thinking novels are a waste of time, irrelevant in today's world, and the ready availability of media such as films and suchlike.  I could watch a film about, say, Ivanhoe or Treasure Island without picking up a dusty old tome.