The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
I need advice on classical literature
Fizban140
Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
Recently for some reason I have been in a mood to read some classical literature and I am not really sure why. Just anything that makes you think really, does anyone have any suggestions? Something interesting, nothing too boring.
Fizban140 on
0
Posts
Beyond that, I'd suggest reading "The Tin Drum," by Gunter Grass, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," By Milan Kundera, "The Bell Jar," Sylvia Plathe, "One Flew Over the Cuckoos' Nest" Ken Kessey.
Any Vonnegut, Any Fitzgerald, though "This Side of Paradise," and "The Great Gatsby," are his major works, IMO.
If you want to go further back then I'd suggest looking into Thomast Hardy's "Jude the Obscure," shit's fucking heartbreaking.
Also consider a bit of Charles Dickens. People complain that he is boring but if you read it as the kind of dry british humor you see on the office then you should enjoy it exponentially more.
If you're looking for the zenith of literary achievement, you have to go to James Joyce; this is, of course, an opinion.
Ryan M Long Photography
Buy my Prints!
Try Lolita?
I have never read Catcher in the Rye, would it be worth my time?
its true, i think the modernists were never really surpassed
Sure, why not? It isn't overlong or anything.
Try picking up an old, used english lit anthology. You can probably get one real cheap and it'll have a load of poetry and short stories.
You mentioned 1984, so my following selections are based on that. We by Zamyatin is great, as is Brave New World by Huxley. Both of these are modern, but We will be a translation unless you read Russian. Speaking of Russian, The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov is great as well. All of these novels tend to be fairly easy to read.
If you're looking for something with a more experimental writing style, I can wholeheartedly recommend As I Lay Dying as a good starting point for Faulkner. Mrs Dalloway, as bsjezz has already mentioned, is a great novel, but it is very hard to follow if you aren't used to modern literature or Woolf. That being said, it is definitely the easiest of her novels to follow. I'm sure there are online study guides that can help you out with this novel if you get completely lost.
An often overlooked (but absolutely brilliant) writer is James Baldwin. His collection of short stories Going to Meet the Man is great and can be found for cheap. Likewise, Giovanni's Room is amazing and was a major breakthrough in queer fiction.
Looking for a Hardcore Fantasy Extraction Shooter? - Dark and Darker
As others have mentioned, I would recommend Joyce's Dubliners, as it is incredibly captivating, and, as short fiction is a great in-road to other literature, Flannery O'Connor (starting with Everything That Rises Must Converge). She's great to read, and was one of the ignitions of my love for literature.
- Gary Busey
A Glass, Darkly
Very smart people (or, at least, very educated people) have worked, studied, and debated for many years in order to develop lists of essential Western literature:
The Harvard Classics
You can find other reading lists (though they're not limited to novels) by searching for "Western Canon" in Wikipedia.
FYI, if you're asking for "classical literature", most would define that as stuff from the 18th century and older. From that era, I would suggest the following:
Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
Voltaire, Candide
The novel really came into its own during the modern period, so most of my (and others') suggestions will be from the 1800's onward:
Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native
Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
All of these titles share a common element: They're deeply introspective. If you're looking for something that "makes you think", reading some H.P. Lovecraft or Hunter S. Thompson or Philip K. Dick mindfuck is well and good, but these books are all about the inner workings of a man's soul; they just happen to be framed with narratives involving whaling, or war, or what have you.
And aside from some of Joyce's work, I very much doubt that any of the established classics would be 'too hard' for an adult. It all depends on how much time you spend reading them. If you're willing to take a month or two and really digest every sentence and concept presented (this includes looking up words you don't recognize and taking notes, even when there's no professor to give you a quiz on the material), there's no reason why you couldn't get something out of even the most 'difficult' novel.
I just noticed you were asking for shorter stories, so I'll second Heart of Darkness. Most people call it a novella, which as far as I can tell is smarty-pants-lit-person-talk for "shorter than a novel; longer than a short story". You can finish it in a couple days and it's a great glimpse into the hearts and minds of its two main characters.
A word about Moby-Dick: It is by no means short, but I would urge you to read it at some point in your life. Many people describe it as the greatest novel ever written in the English language, and rightly so. It's fantastic.
"I AM TARZAN, KILLER OF MANY BLACK MEN"
The Russians are always good: Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, Chekhov's short stories, anything by Tolstoy (everyone complains about the length of War and Peace, but it's very readable if you get a modern translation and has a lot of relatable characters), and Gogol if you like absurdist humor.
I'm fond of Kafka, and everyone should read The Metamorphosis at some point. Great critique of modern life.
If you're willing to go back to ancient Greek stuff, try Euripides, particularly Medea.
The Once and Future King is glorious and funny and heartbreaking, and I'm re-reading it for the umpteenth time right now, so I'd be remiss if I didn't suggest it.
If you like biting social humor and don't mind a little girlyness, try Austen. Great stories about screwed-up people learning to grow up and deal with each other.
Oh, and Twain is always hilarious.
-Terry Pratchett
This thread helped me when I was looking for books, and there are some grand classics mentioned.