It's embarrassing to admit, but I am woefully ignorant of "the great books." I've read Lord of the Rings, Moby Dick, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, Flannery O'Conner, Frog and Toad and, well that's about it. So when I hear other writers reference Dickens, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Chekhov and Joyce, I usually begin secretly praying they don't ask which is my favorite.
Recently, in an interview on my blog, Mark Bertrand said this:
So I am following Mark's advice and putting a hold on contemporary books in favor of the classics. Which leads to this question: Where do I begin?
I realize that's a terribly broad question, subject to taste and decades of scholarly spin. Perhaps the starting point should be different for everyone, and the pathway incidental to the destination. I am not a fast reader, which only compounds the intimidation quotient and limits the pace at which I can travel. (In other words, I'll be lucky to finish three a year.) Which makes it seem like such a monumental task. But I need to make a run at it.
So how do you folks approach reading the classics? And what criteria should I use for making my choice? Is there a standard starting point for newbies, a set of agreed-upon, must-read greats? Or should I cast lots? Then again, maybe I'm just making too big a deal about it all together...
Mike (Classic Dummy) Duran
DeCompose
Recently, in an interview on my blog, Mark Bertrand said this:
Quote:
My advice to readers who want to grow is simple. Put a hold on contemporary books. Put a hold on genre books. Nothing wrong with them, but set them aside for the moment and focus on a few of the big awful books everyone talks about and nobody reads, the ones you will have only encountered in school. Read them for pleasure not for class, and you'll be surprised at how different they seem. Read Dickens. Read Jane Austen. Read Henry James. Read Balzac and George Eliot and Chekhov and Oscar Wilde. Read some twentieth-century authors like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor. They'll be so different from one another it might seem like they have nothing in common, but when you return to your regular reading, you'll find that they do. They will have challenged you and stretched you. And they'll serve as good guides through the underworld of contemporary letters...
So I am following Mark's advice and putting a hold on contemporary books in favor of the classics. Which leads to this question: Where do I begin?
I realize that's a terribly broad question, subject to taste and decades of scholarly spin. Perhaps the starting point should be different for everyone, and the pathway incidental to the destination. I am not a fast reader, which only compounds the intimidation quotient and limits the pace at which I can travel. (In other words, I'll be lucky to finish three a year.) Which makes it seem like such a monumental task. But I need to make a run at it.
So how do you folks approach reading the classics? And what criteria should I use for making my choice? Is there a standard starting point for newbies, a set of agreed-upon, must-read greats? Or should I cast lots? Then again, maybe I'm just making too big a deal about it all together...
Mike (Classic Dummy) Duran
DeCompose
So you're to be commended for even considering it. But there is a lot, and you want to weed through.
