2011- What classic are you reading now? - Part II

The last thread had reached nearly 250 messages. So, I thought I would start a new one. Happy reading fellow Classic lit lovers!

I am nearly finished with my current read Louisa May Alcott's Spinning-Wheel Stories, a collection of very sugary, moral filled tales for the young.

I'm reading (and very much liking) Tristram Shandy. It is hilarious.

Still working my way through Mill on the Floss. I'm enjoying it, but I need longer stretches of time to read it. Diverted myself today with Service with a smile by Wodehouse, a rather bland Wodehouse except for the presence of Frederick Cornwallis Twislteon, Lord Ickenham.

Not exactly for pleasure but I'm still struggling with Paradise Lost by Milton and Milton by Blake. I have another 3 weeks to get the assignment done and out of the way and then I can say goodbye to them forever. Can't say I'll be all that sorry to see them go.

#1: Louisa May Alcott Unmasked is sooo much better. I can barely read all the way through Little Women, but I love her "thrillers"!

Still ploughing through Phantastes. I'm happy to read 15 pages a day. I've read Lilith before and don't remember it being quite this bad, though still confusing; I did enjoy The Light Princess a few years ago.

I'm reading (and enjoying) Wilkie Collins' Hide and Seek. But I've just realized, when I stopped to think about it, that the plot seems to be only just starting now, some 200 pages in. I was too busy enjoying the characters to notice that up until now it's been mostly backstory and set up and very little action in the present.

Finished Loving and I'm puzzled. It's a good read, but why anyone thought it belonged on the Modern Library 100 is beyond me. It's about English servants on an Irish estate during WWII, told mostly in dialogue, and is sort of a mini-Upstairs, Downstairs a generation later.

I finished Swann's Way, and am now reading The Prisoner of Zenda, which is proving to be quite entertaining. I'm enjoying the change in pace from Swann's Way.

>8 sakayume:

That seemed pretty quick with Swann's Way.

The Prisoner of Zenda is a great little adventure, particularly when you want a break from novels that make you think.

I'm still dragging myself through Empire of the Sun. Did anyone else read this and find it hard work? Since I started it I've read 2 other books just as morale boosts.

#9 It was a set book when I did my BA and I found it tough going too. I just couldn't engage with the characters or care much what happened to them. Unless you're also reading for education rather than fun I'd suggest life is too short and you'd be better off reading something you actually enjoy.

>10 Booksloth:

I don't really understand the problem. Japan/China and world war 2 are big interests of mine. The descriptions are vivid, it's all very realistic. I really don't understand why I'm finding it such hard work.

Sense and sensibility (for the umpteenth time) has kept me moderately sane over a crazy weekend with two overnight train journeys.

>7 Bjace:
For me, Green's all about people talking without quite communicating: I don't know if I'd use the word "dialogue". It's a bit like internet discussions: people talking past each other, saying what comes into their minds (but not necessarily what they really think), never exactly answering the question that was asked.

>9 LipstickAndAviators:: It was hard to take a break from Swann's Way because the text isn't divided into conventional chapters so each time I'd read on and on in the hope of finding a suitable place to stop. I also really liked the beginning Combray part, so I got through that pretty quickly. :D

I've just finished my first ever reread of Treasure Island, which I loved when my father read it aloud to me as a little tyke. I also posted a review—more of a love letter, really, to this great little book.

Finished Spinning-Wheel Stories by Louisa May Alcott. A 'meh' experience for me.

I finished Cannery Row a couple of days ago and thought it was fabulous. Much more fun than I expected it to be. May have to "favourite" John Steinbeck as an author.

I'm reading a Henry Lawson story collection, Joe Wilson's mates, and liking it more than I expected. There's a little bit of Edwardian archness about it, particularly noticeable because the bushmen continually swear in blanking crimson euphemisms, but it's not at all romanticised. Very believable characters, and very interesting how he uses stories to tell us about the way stories are used to build up a common culture.

>16 Nickelini:
Cannery Row is great!

>17 thorold:
Cannery Row is great!

Thank you for agreeing. I loved this book so much I thought "Hello!! Why isn't everyone reading this?!"

Great review of Treasure Island! Makes me want to reread.

I've just started Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence. This is my first foray into Lawrence's work, and I can already tell that it won't be the last! This is something to savor.

I had just spent the entire summer reading through the Amelia Peabody series, which was a lot of fun, but it's wonderful to now have a book I can just sink into. (I think that will make sense to most readers.)

I don't know if it counts as a classic, since it seems to have been forgotten by the modern world, but I'm now reading The Shaving of Shagpat. I had high hopes for it, but the actuality is that it's an effort to get through. Although the story puts me in mind, vaguely, of Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

On the other hand, I really liked The Prisoner of Zenda. Probably more so than I like Dumas and Stevenson. It helps that Zenda is much more succinct. :P

I'm now rereading the Carson McCullers collection The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. I'd forgotten how much I love McCullers' writing.

I gave up on Phantastes.

#23 > I used to be a huge MacDonald fan, but that book really was a slog, wasn't it? Great imagery, but not much in the way of plot.

Continuing on my Stevenson kick, I've now started Kidnapped. Love it so far!

#24> I read Kidnapped earlier this year and enjoyed it a lot. Lots of fun!

>21 sakayume:

I loved Zenda too, but better than Dumas and Stevenson?!?! I guess it depends on which of their books you pick. It's certainly an easier and breezier read though.

I finally finished Empire of the Sun after about 3 weeks. It will stay with me but I shall never read it again.

Half way through The Quiet American now.

>26 LipstickAndAviators: I don't mean that Zenda is better than Dumas and Stevenson, exactly, but that I enjoyed it more. ;) I like Dumas, but he is somewhat longwinded. Understandable considering he was paid by the word. :P As for Stevenson, I'm afraid I have little understanding of his subject matter, and this has marred my enjoyment of his stories. I still want to read more of his work though. Also, I suppose I should have qualified my statement with the acknowledgement that I'm not really a huge fan of adventure stories, and usually read them when I have otherwise over-taxed my brain. So short and pacy, but frothy is appreciated. :P

I'm glad to hear you finished Empire of the Sun. :)

I find Dumas often varies depending on the translation you pick. I also only really love him because of The Count of Monte Cristo, and find the Musketeer sagas more longwinded (which is odd as most people seem tho think it's the other way round).

I'm not really sure what you need to be familiar with to read the famous Stevenson books (e.g. Treasure Island or Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde)? Perhaps for books like Catriona and Master of Ballantrae there are though.

I think I love Dumas an Stevenson both because they seem to come up with almost perfect plots, which they clearly have thought out and planned from the beginning and when you get to the conclusion you look back and see how it all tied up and it's extremely satisfactory (also I just love how Stevenson writes in general...). For all I know Hope made up Zenda as he went along! It's a great ride all the same though and I'd love to read something similar to get my brain in gear again after Empire of the Sun.

Glad you enjoyed it anyway :)

I'm starting The Count of Monte Cristo on audiobook (read by John Lee) today. It's unabridged, but that's the only way to do it :). I've read it before but never listened to an audiobook version.

I also just finished John Lee's reading of A Tale of Two Cities (what can I say? Apparently he is the classics reader of choice at my library!). It was excellent.

I enjoyed The Count of Monte Cristo when I read it, although it started quite slowly for me, and I remember Umberto Eco calling Edmund Dantes a whinger in the introduction to my volume. :P Following Monte Cristo as his plots for revenge unveiled themselves slowly, however, was fascinating. I fully agree with you it's satisfying to look back and see how the plot tied up so neatly. I've only read The Three Musketeers, out of the D'Artagnan romances, and also Marguerite de Valois. I didn't enjoy Marguerite de Valois as much, but I read it right after finishing Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and what I wanted to be reading was really a second Wilhelm Meister. I feel Dumas is on the whole very long, and when I'm not in a patient mood, longwinded, but to be fair to him, a lot does happen over the course of his stories.

The only Stevenson books I've read so far are Kidnapped and The Black Arrow. The Black Arrow was quite a fun read, but I stumbled over Kidnapped. To me he seems so Scottish, I forget about books like Treasure Island and think first of titles like Kidnapped. Which just goes to show I need to read more Stevenson, as I don't really know him yet.

>30 sakayume:

Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde are a world away from the 'Scottishness' of Kidnapped, Catriona and The Master of Ballantrae etc. Even his short stories like The New Arabian Nights and The Body Snatcher don't have that Scottish vibe. I'd definitely read Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde before dismissing him as too Scottish! I have to say I haven't yet read The Black Arrow (call myself a fan!) so I don't know what that one is like.

The Count of Monte Cristo is the only Dumas i've really loved, but oh how I love it! I agree with Eco though, I didn't give a damn about Dantes until post prison escape.

>31 LipstickAndAviators:: It's certainly wrong of me to jump to conclusions about Stevenson. The Black Arrow isn't 'Scottish', if anything it's '(Medieval) English'. :P I don't think Stevenson himself liked it much, as it was (according to the introduction of the copy I read) the only of his books he couldn't re-read, but it was apparently popular with the public. I liked it also partly because there was a romantic element to the story (although only to the extent there was romance in, for example, The Horse and His Boy :P), that was missing in Kidnapped.

Monte Cristo only picked up for me during (and after) the Rome scenes, once Albert and Franz appeared. I was amused to read the Manfred and Ruthven references to Monte Cristo, and society's general reaction to his appearance. Also, I enjoyed Monte Cristo's build up to his revenge more than the final showdown/unveiling. I like the Three Musketeers by default. I find the antics they got up to when not fighting for their lives and the various idiosyncrasies in their individual characters endlessly amusing , and they've crept so much into common knowledge I can't not like them.

The more I'm typing about Dumas, the more I find I like him. :P

The Scottish terminology really makes the first chapter or so of Kidnapped thick going, doesn't it? Thankfully, I found an online Scots dictionary and that's made things flow more smoothly. I'm really enjoying it, though. sakayume, I don't think you should have any problems with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or Treasure Island. The latter has a fair share of nautical terminology but most of it can be understood from context.

I think I ruined The Count of Monte Cristo (which is the only Dumas I've read) by seeing the movie first, which I thought had better character development. I liked certain aspects of the book, but I didn't think all of the subplots really fit in and I wanted to murder Maximillian Morrell.

Thanks for the link to the Scots dictionary. I've bookmarked it for the next time I read a Scottish novel. :)

I'm relieved I'm not the only one who didn't like Maximilian Morrel! I didn't have much of an opinion about him, either way, when he was first introduced, but in the later parts of the book once the action shifted to Paris, I really started to dislike Maximilian.

I think it's in his interactions with Valentine that Maximilian becomes really distasteful. He continually reprobates her for being engaged to another man—but considering it's an arranged marriage, she is hardly to blame! Doesn't he even threaten to throw himself off a cliff at one point if she doesn't show pity to him?

I'm a few chapters in on Barchester Towers and am still settling into the language and writing style. I read The Warden last year and quite enjoyed that. Would like to make my way through the Trollope canon but it seems ambitious just now!

# 36 I am reading Barchester Towers right now. This is my first Anthony Trollope.

>35 ncgraham:: I agree. I suppose it's also because the reader has a better understanding of Valentine's position and feelings than Maximilian in the story (presumably) does, that his actions appear more distasteful. However, I remember thinking he was quite the milksop when he was going through his lovelorn lamentations, and was always glad when the story moved back to Monte Cristo. Further, I got the impression when reading that Maximilian, and the other Morrels, was one of those persons of admirable character that are never able to arouse my interest in stories. In the story the line between 'good' and 'bad' characters appears to me to be drawn quite clearly (the 'good' characters the recipients of Monte Cristo's gratitude and love, and the 'bad' characters his revenge), with the Morrels very firmly on the 'good' side and forming a direct contrast to the corruptness of Danglars, Fernand, Villefort. I find such depictions too two-dimensional for my liking, and the 'good' characters like Maximilian particularly hard to like. It's just not very interesting when someone is (supposed to be) so wholeheartedly good. :P

I think Morrell is justa product of another time, but then he's hardly the least pleasant character in the book anyway!

I don't think the good/bad was too 2D (some of the minor characters could have gone either way), I guess characters like Albert are in their to shake up the good family/bad family angle. I guess the count himself is the one who lies firmly in the grey area between good and bad really, though since he hides behind his various guises for 3/4s of the book I can understand anyone thinking he wasn't developed much. 'Good' characters were mostly just ones that were trodden on by more important 'bad' characters lol.

On Kidnapped/Catriona etc, all my versions have a Scots glossary in the back or front of the books. I can understand them being rather harder to read if your editions don't contain this. I don't recall being perplexed by any nautical terms in Treasure Island, but then being a British male I was probably born with the terminology or something. Not that I've ever sailed.

On a side note I am loving The Quiet American, much easier to follow than the 2 other Greene novels I've read though I'm not sure if there is a big 'message' in this one? Other than perhaps to tell America etc to stop messing around with countries they have no business to mess around in?

#36 & 37 This year I challenged myself to finish Trollope's Barchester series and I'm pleased to say I'm on the last of the six books, The Last Chronicle of Barset. I have enjoyed my time in Barchester and will be sorry to leave but the memory of Obadiah Slope and Mrs Proudie will remain with me for a long time.

>39 LipstickAndAviators:: I thought Monte Cristo the most interesting character in the book (at least once he stopped being Edmund Dantes), and yes, a character very much in the grey area. Although Albert I think of as Mercedes' son, so it's natural to me that he ended up as a good character. Yeah, I did realise the minor characters were more ambiguous, but they're minor characters, so I wilfully decided to ignore them. :P

I can tolerate nautical stories, and am planning to read Treasure Island once I unearth my copy from somewhere amongst all the boxes from moving house. I don't understand the nautical terms well (I would if I actually bothered to look them up and remember them like I should), but I figure the terms will make sense eventually if I keep at it. :P

>40 socialpages:
I've got Last chronicle on my pile as well, hoping to get to it before the end of the year...
You don't have to leave Barsetshire when you've finished it - there's always Angela Thirkell with another thirty or so books dripping with Barsetshire placenames.

Have just finished Watership Down (loved it!) and are now reading King Solomon's Mines.

Have just finished Watership Down (loved it!) and are now reading King Solomon's Mines.

I'm still rereading Anna Karenina and in the meantime have finished Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Sailor. This has given me enough courage to someday pick up Moby Dick.

>42 thorold: I love it when someone recommends an author I've never heard of! I'm off to the library to see if there are any of Thirkell's books on the shelves

I read Pomfret towersby Angela Thirkell last fall. It was about a 30's English house party idealized. Thirkell portrayed the British gentry as they would probably like to think they are. I hope your library has some of her books. Mine didn't and had to borrow it on ILL.

I've been meaning to re-read Watership Down. I remember being surprised how good it was. I can't think of any other books that adopt the point of view of anthropomorphized animals and yet are best enjoyed after one has grown up. The closest I can come is Anthill, and there the ant sections aren't really fiction at all.

Have just added King Solomon's Mines to my to-read list.

>45 cbfiske: Don't be afraid of Moby-Dick. Just plan not to be in a hurry. A long sea-voyage leaves plenty of time for thinking.

Thanks KarlNarveson. I'll keep your words regarding Moby Dick in mind.

I'm just starting Night and Day by Virginia Woolf. I'm not at all far in yet, but I've pretty much loved everything else she's written, so I can predict that I'll probably love this, too.

I also recently read Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence, and loved it. I've never read Lawrence before, but I will certainly be reading more of his work now! His writing is so lush and sumptuous, it almost puts the reader under a spell!

Reading - or possibly re-reading - Jacques le fataliste. I know I've dipped into it before, but I don't think I ever read it all the way through.

I'm currently about halfway through Goethe's Reynard the Fox. It's quite a fun read (so far), and completely new to me as I wasn't familiar with the Reynard the Fox stories before I started reading.

I just finished A Tale of Two Cities. While I found the first two parts rather dull, boy did the last part and the ending in particular blow me away!

#t54, ukh, it's hard to beat that "It's a far, far better thing I do" line, isn't it. I'm trying to finish Mill on the Floss I like it very much but I like to read it in long swatches and I haven't had any time lately.

I recently listened to A Tale of Two Cities on audiobook (reviewed here). Absolutely fabulous.

I also recently read my first Angela Thirkell book, Before Lunch, and enjoyed it very much! She's satirical, but not nastily (reviewed here).

And I am listening to the unabridged Count of Monte Cristo read by the same author who read Two Cities, John Lee. It is excellent and I am scheming ways to get more listening time in, beyond my usual time during my commute.

Count of Monte Cristo is so good! It would be fun to hear it read out loud. Nine-tenths of me has never wanted a car commute ( I use mass transit to get to work), but the other tenth would enjoy having that time to listen to audio books.

Finally managed to review Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope. It was quite good. My review is here,

http://www.librarything.com/review/65135353

Or my 75 Books Challenge thread,

http://www.librarything.com/topic/120427

Just read If on a winter's night a traveller on recommendation from someone here and I'm still confused. I think this might've been one to read over a thoughtful weekend rather than a busy commute, very clever but I'm not sure if I could pull myself through it again (though the first chapter is extremely charming).

I've moved onto The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters now, which I'm enjoying as it manages that balance of being thought provoking but extremely easy to read.

# 59 Don't mean to be a nitpicker but is A History of the World in 10½ Chapters a classic already? If On a Winter's Night a Traveller may be considered a classic but I am kind of doubtful about that one too.

I'm currently working my way through Twenty Years After. I was mildly depressed at the start to read what a difference the lapse of twenty years could make, and overall I'm reading it in more sombre a mood than I did The Three Musketeers. But strangely, I've enjoyed Twenty Years After more.

Hm, I get confused over which books to put under the category of 'classics' all the time! Is there some sort of widely accepted guideline? I know there was an earlier thread with a list of 'classic' authors, but the list was extremely, extremely long, and therefore rather hard to peruse.

>59 LipstickAndAviators:: Sorry to hear you didn't like If on a winter's night a traveller

# 61 For me, anything published before the 1960's is a classic. There are, of course, exceptions (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), A Clockwork Orange (1962), Watership Down (1972) to name a few) but I mostly stick with the 'published before 1960's' rule.

>62 Porua:: Fair enough, I can understand not considering a book a classic because it is too recent. But what about books published before 1960, but have languished into obscurity? For example, I have George Moore's Ulick and Soracha, published in the 1920s, but it's hardly a popular book (a very unpopular one it seems) and there are apparently only 3 copies in LT. I don't know if I could consider it a classic. And also what about the Golden Age of Crime writers such as Dorothy Sayers etc. The Sherlock Holmes books are considered classics, but I'm never sure where to draw the line for genre novels. I don't think I mentioned reading Michael Innes' Hamlet, Revenge! in this thread because I wasn't sure if I could consider it a classic.

>60 Porua:

Depends on what your definition of a classic is, there seem to be a lot of definitions around. I don't think I'd consider A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters a classic really, I was just saying what I'd moved onto I guess and contrasting it against If on a... (easy to read vs not so easy).

I think the definition of classic I use is more about the books impact on culture and it moving into the public consciousness (or at least on the consciousness of the literary community), rather than anything to with it's age. Either way I'd say If on a winter's night a traveller has as much claim as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Out of interest how long are you going to hold on to the 1960s rule? Is that a generational thing? Will it be 1960s til you pass on or in 2040 will you decide classics are anythign pre 1980s? (this is not me arguing, I'm genuinely curious)

>61 sakayume:

I didn't dislike the book, I just don't think I'd be able to read it again any time soon. The last few chapters felt quite difficult going, but I think in some ways that's what he was going for (if you don't get annoyed by endless beginnings and no resolutions you're a queer kind of reader). I also don't think I came away understanding it as much as I wanted to, I would quite like to read some kind of commentary on it or have a discussion about it to feel I can get the most out of it.

I think another reason I won't be rereading is it's the kind of book which is never going to be quite so 'wow' the second time, like other books that play with structure e.g. Cloud Atlas (which obviously was very inspired by this book, and feels a lot less original now I see it is just a continuation of Calvino's ideas).

It was very clever though and I'd like to read another of Calvino's books (it's also made me feel like I have to go back and reread some Nabokov).

>64 LipstickAndAviators:: Is Nabokov similar to Calvino (or would that be the other way round, depending on who preceded whom)? I've never read, nor felt the urge to, any Nabokov, but if they're at all similar I might have to give him a try.

I agree with If on a blah blah probably lacking the 'wow' factor on subsequent readings when one already knows about the endless first chapters.

>64 LipstickAndAviators:

I wouldn't say they are similar in the way they write (nabokov is a lot more verbose and possibly pretentious, though some of his writing is exquisite all the same - he also seems to go out of his way to write about controversial subjects which Calvino doesn't seem as into), but they both like to play with structure and metafiction. I'm sure I read somewhere that Calvino said his main influence was Nabokov too and you can see it in some parts of If on a...

I come away from Nabokov books with a similar feeling to this one, the sort of 'wow that was clever, very glad I've read it but never again'. For another book with a very clever approach though it may be worth taking a look aty Pale Fire, it's basically a poem by a fictional proffessor, with a fictional commentary/introduction/notes/index by another fictional professor... it can be read in a lot of different ways and tells different stories depending on what angle you look at it from. I think it most definitely was the kind of thing Calvno was reading when he came up with If on a...

By the way, did you see what the If on a... wiki page was changed to for a while by some clever person? They've taken it down from the real wiki page now (though the discussion of it remains in the 'talk' section) and it's still up here: http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~deepthi/If_on_a_winter's_night_a_traveler.html

Absolute genius.

>66 LipstickAndAviators: Pale Fire sounds intriguing, I'll have to check it (and Nabokov in general) out. I like the idea of fake/fictional books being written about as if they were real. But yes, I fully comprehend that feeling of finishing a book but not really understanding it. Calvino has that effect on me too, particularly also The Castle of Crossed Destinies. I don't mind that feeling though, as I like books that leave me thinking about them even after I've finished reading.

I hadn't seen that altered wiki page, so thank you for the link. It's a work of art, and whoever wrote it is brilliant. I agree with the pastiche, I prefer it to the real wiki page. XD

>66 LipstickAndAviators: Thanks for linking to that! I agree, absolute genius.

I'll also second the suggestion to read Pale Fire if you are looking for cleverness. It's a wonderful book.

#66 - terrifically clever! Thanks for that link.

>66 LipstickAndAviators: Best Wikipedia article I've ever read!

#66 Brilliant! Thanks for posting.

# 63 Personally, I don't think that a book has to be popular to be a classic. I consider Wilkie Collins' The Queen of Hearts to be a classic and it is definitely not one of his popular works. London Lavender by E. V. Lucas, which I read and immensely enjoyed last year, has only 'five' LT members but again I think it's a classic.

I've been reading on a Wilkie Collins theme this month and have just finished 3 short stories on audio by Wilkie Collins which coincidentally after checking out Porua's excellent review of The Queen of Hearts I have found that 2 of the 3 can be found in this book. I am now listening to Poor Miss Finch also by Wilkie Collins who was a prolific writer. I consider them all classics even though they aren't Collins' most well known or popular work.

I am also reading Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.

# 74 Thanks for appreciating my review! I really loved The Queen of Hearts and hope my review has done some justice to this very enjoyable book.

:-)

The Return of the Native is amazingly similar to another Hardy novel Far from the Madding Crowd. Have you read that one? Personally, I preferred Far from the Madding Crowd to The Return of the Native.

#74, Porua, I loved Far from the Madding Crowd I've just finished Mill on the Floss and found that much better than expected. (In The book of lists, it's listed as one of the 15 most boring classics of all time, but I really enjoyed it. Last night my friend and I read The Princess and the Goblin aloud.

I can't decide what to read next. I may read Forster's Passage to India

>75 Bjace: Reading The Princess and the Goblin aloud with a friend - sounds wonderful.

#75 Go for it, Bjace. It's a wonderful book and is one of my all-time favourites, along with Far From the Madding Crowd and The Mill on the Floss, so we must share similar tastes.

And never forget that every list that shows your favourite book as one of the most boring or worst novels, there will be another that lists it as one of the best books ever. There probably should be some kind of law about giving these books subjective titles - like 'The Books I Found the Most Boring' - it's just a matter of individual choice.

# 75 Glad you loved Far from the Madding Crowd.

I read A Passage to India in '09 and it was one of my best of the year. Hope you enjoy it!

#77> There probably should be some kind of law about giving these books subjective titles - like 'The Books I Found the Most Boring' - it's just a matter of individual choice.

I find such lists themselves to be boring, for exactly this reason.

#78 I have read and enjoyed Far from the Madding Crowd but my favourite Hardy is The Mayor of Castorbridge.

#77, 79 Mill on the Floss would not be on my personal list of the most boring classics. I have fond memories of reading this wonderful book and then going on to read Middlemarch. If I had to choose a book for this list from my reading this year, I would choose The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas. So disappointing a read after The Count of Monte Cristo.

I have read only one of the 15 books listed, Silas Marner and it didn't seem boring to me. I agree with Booksloth. It is a matter of individual choice. For example, I personally found The Prisoner of Zenda to be really irritating, if not boring but that book is a favourite of many.

#72: Thanks for answering my questions, Porua. I was (and still am) genuinely curious as to opinions on what constitutes a classic since I'm not at all sure of the answer myself.

I too agree that lists like the 15 Most Boring Classics are necessarily subjective, 'boring' being a subjective quality after all. I read Silas Marner earlier this year, and loved it. I didn't find it at all boring. On the other hand, I just finished Great Expectations, which I did find occasionally very boring, despite the dryly humorous narrative voice and the book being another well-loved classic. It would have been better for my enjoyment of the book, I feel, if it hadn't been so popular. The plot is so much common knowledge that the story held no surprises for me. I only really started to enjoy it towards the end, although the audience participation Hamlet scene had me snorting with laughter.

I'm not sure whether to read another Dickens (is there such a thing as overdosing on Dickens?) or Vathek next.

I suspect "classic" is almost as subjective a term as "boring" — every time it's discussed, someone comes up with a different definition. We generally end up resorting to wooly expressions like "...generally considered to have stood the test of time...", which is only a step or two away from "I know it when I see it".

I agree about the way the familiarity of the stories sometimes makes it difficult to read Dickens. I could re-read Pickwick or Bleak House any time, but I think you'd have to use threats or violence to get me to pick up David Copperfield or Oliver Twist again...

I started reading Byron's Don Juan last night, courtesy of Project Gutenberg. Great fun: I can't think why I never read it before. I suppose it's just that I'm so used to living in the era of the novel that I forget all about the pleasures of narrative verse. I should know better: I had a great aunt of late-Victorian manufacture who used to read me chunks of Hiawatha and The Idylls of the king when I was a small child...

Reading Thirty Nine Steps - halfway through and it's a lot of fun and exitement. And have just started Murder on the Orient Express. Poirot is sleeping and I think a murder is going to take place in the cabin next to him.

And then I just finished Siddharta which must be on my top 10 list this year. Wonderful poetic.

#82: 15 Most Boring Classics? That's easy:

01. Dubliners by James Joyce
02. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
03. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
04. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
05. Dr. Johnson by James Boswell
06. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
07. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
08. Pere Goriot by Balzac
09. Hunger by Knut Hamsun
10. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
11. A good man is hard to find by Flannery O'Connor
12. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
13. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
14. Candide by Voltaire
15. Billy Budd by Herman Melville

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........

Gosh, you've got some of my favorites there, like Waiting for Godot, Hunger and Candide. Of course I have noticed people starting to nod off around me . . .

# 82 I on the other hand, really like Great Expectations. See, individual choice! ;-)

# 83 "...you'd have to use threats or violence to get me to pick up David Copperfield or Oliver Twist again."

LOL! I haven't read Oliver Twist and don't really intend to. Charles Dickens is one of my favourite authors but I've got to agree with you on David Copperfield. Wouldn't read it ever again.

I love The Pickwick Papers!

# 84 The Thirty-Nine Steps is one of my 'comfort' reads. Short, uncomplicated and exciting. Murder on the Orient Express is pretty good too.

# 85 Once again, I have read only one of these books, Catch-22. Boring isn't the word I would use to describe it but reading it wasn't a breeze either.

#83: I suspect you're right about the subjectivity of the 'classic' label, much as I wish there would be an exhaustive and definitive list of classics (I'm sure I'm asking for an impossibility here!). Bleak House and The Pickwick Papers are the two Dickens novels I most want to read, while I have considerably less enthusiasm towards Oliver Twist.

#85, 86: I really liked Candide, but when I enthusiastically tried to recommend it to other people, I noticed they weren't at all keen...

#87: Yes, and there's no accounting for taste too. ;) I was expecting to love Great Expectations.

Murder on the Orient Express is one of my favourite Poirot mysteries, and one of the not so many whose plot has actually remained with me after reading.

I ended up reading and finishing Vathek. It was vaguely in the style of Voltaire and I enjoyed it. Moving onto The Mystery of Edwin Drood now.

#86,87,88: Maybe I should make a revised list, because on second thought Candide may be a lot of things, but boring it's not with all the adventure going on. Yet for some reason I didn't connect with it.

Well, maybe the list should rather be named: Books that bored ME. For different reasons - and maybe one could read them another time, another place, in another situation in life, and have liked it.

I loved David Copperfield by the way - and would gladly read it again someday - also Great Expectations. But not Bleak House.

Yesterday I was ill, and I managed to finish in a single day Old People and The Things That Pass by Louis Couperus. I had read three of his novels so far, and I liked Eline Vere very much. I liked Old People... as well, but it didn't give me the same thrill. I suppose Couperus isn't very well-known outside of the Netherlands, but he really is well worth a try if you like fin-de-siècle stuff.

#89: I'm sorry if it seemed like I was criticising your list in saying I liked Candide, as that was not my intention at all. :) I understood your list to be a personal list.

I'm about a quarter of the way through The Mystery of Edwin Drood now. The pages went by too fast, and I'm not looking forward to reaching the end. I also read The Story of Dr Dolittle, thanks to Project Gutenberg. Some aspects of the story haven't stood up well to the passage of time, but I greatly enjoyed it all the same (and it was a quick read). It's exactly the type of book I would have loved as a child, what with the talking animals and fantastical journey.

Cry the Beloved Country. Sad but good.

Working on One Hundred Years of Solitude. Happily it's a whole lot easier to read (and fun!) than I was led to believe. I don't know if every edition comes with the family tree at the front, but it sure helps a lot.

Going through The Glass Menagerie and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for classes just now. Really loving the former. The latter, eh, not so much.

I'm reading more Dickens, this time Our Mutual Friend. It's such a thick book it's going to take a while.

I want to re-read Count of Monte Cristo but my only print copy is a 4-inch thick, thin-paper edition that my sister stole for me from our high school library. I was the only one to check it out in 20 years, ie, my name was the only one on the card, and no one had checked it out since I had graduated 10 years before. While book-stealing is generally reprehensible, it was considered I was the worthy inheritor of the copy.

I've got an ecopy that I can put on my Nook, but I want the experience of curling up with that big chunk of paper with the pictures I know.

#93> Wow! I am jealous that you are getting to read 100 Years of Solitude for the first time. One of my all-time favorites!

I have started War and Peace a couple of times, but the conversation at the beginning bogged me down. Did I need to remember the interactions between the children the aristocrats were discussing? Was this important?

I was just reading Umberto Eco's essay on translation, A Rose by Any Other Name, http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_guardian94.html, and he discusses the problem of that first dialogue, which was written in French in the original Russian text. Apparently the point of the dialogue isn't to understand what they're talking about, but to see that amongst themselves they speak in the fashionable language that has very little to do with Russia itself.

I shall now reattempt War and Peace, paying attention to how their speaking to each other and not worrying about what.

89 > I'd be interested in hearing your reasons for disliking Bleak House. Most Dickens fans I know rate that as either his best or second-best.

Forgot to mention that I am still reading Kidnapped, only with all my school reading it's been hard to make time for it, despite its being such a short and easy-to-read book. Also, I finished A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man today. On to Ulysses! (Note the faked bravado in my voice.)

In other news, I've finally posted a review of Jane Eyre: http://www.librarything.com/work/2204/reviews/71034982

89 > I'd be interested in hearing your reasons for disliking Bleak House. Most Dickens fans I know rate that as either his best or second-best.

Yes, me too. I understand if you're not used to how Dickens rambles in general, and I know it's very daunting (my edition was over 1,000 pages and I had to read it during a 12 week uni course along with 5 other books, so I get the trepidation over its length). But I loved, loved, loved it, and it's my favourite Dickens of the five I've read. Actually, it's the book that turned me into a serious Dickens fan. So I too would love to hear from someone who likes Dickens but didn't like it. It has lots of flaws, but which ones were unforgiven?

Bleak House has to be my favorite as well. Who can forget the parasitic Mr. Skimpole, the downright evil of Mr. Tulkinghorn, and the wonderful Inspector Bucket? For me, in Dickens, it's all about the minor characters--they are the life of the stories.

Yes, the minor characters are wonderful! Who cares about saintly Esther? I can't remember the names, but I loved the crazy fundamentalist Christian woman with all the kids. Horrible woman, but she made me laugh, and part of that was because I've run into characters like her in my life. Nicholas Nickleby had similar characters--horrible, abusive people that I find funny, somehow. I must need a lot of therapy, because as I type this, I realize I can't be right.

Right now i have started to read Anna Karenina by Tolstoy.

>99 ncgraham:, what led you to read 'Portrait' first - did you see it as a pre-requisite? I've Ulysses on the shelf at home and have leaned towards jumping straight in ... uh, when I get around to it, that is.

I loved Bleak House too. I've heard other people say it's the most Austenian of Dickens' works, so that is probably why.

Nathan, that's a fabulous review. In it he says everyone should read Jane Eyre; I say everyone here should read his review of it :)

And I'm on disc 17 of 18 with The Count of Monte Cristo. How is Dumas going to wrap everything up with just one disc to go???

> 104, Portrait was assigned first, so I read it first. ;) We actually started out with Dubliners (or, really, parts of it), then we read Portrait, and now we are finally to climb Mt. Ulysses. The idea, my professor says, is to gradually get used to Joyce's style as it becomes gradually more and more experimental. Also, Joyce reused characters and themes in all his books—there are jokes about Joyce simply writing and rewriting one book for all of his life, and others about him only writing about the same 12 characters in Dublin. That's not quite accurate, but it's good to have the earlier works as background, I would think.

Someone more used to experimental modernist literature would probably have an easier time jumping straight into Ulysses than I would. Such a person could probably bypass Dubliners easily. But I would still recommend they read Portrait, because apparently the protagonist of that book, Stephen Dedalus, has an important reappearance in Ulysses.

It probably would be worth at least reading the story "The Dead" in Dubliners.

Cry, The Beloved Country was much better than I expected. Powerful and moving.

Put me down as another person who loved Bleak House although I read it over 20 years ago and don't remember it well.

All this love for Bleak House is encouraging me to read it but alas my schedule is so tight right now! And lugging around such a gigantic book is not an option. Sigh! Hope I can get to it soon.

Just back from a short holiday during which I finally got around to reading Les liaisons dangereuses - more complex and interesting than I expected - and read half of Mann's Doktor Faustus, a book I've failed to start several times in the past. It's a struggle, but I think I might get through it this time, despite all those abstract nouns.

I already outed myself as a Bleak House fan above - no harm in saying it again, though!

>90 Steven_VI:
People outside the Netherlands definitely should try Couperus! Van oude mensen... took me a few weeks to read, on and off, though - it was so good I didn't want to rush it. I read Eline Vere a long time ago, when my Dutch was still rather patchy: I must find time to re-read it.

>85 ctpress:

LOL!
Catch-22 Repetitively boring
Mrs. Dalloway Stick Pencils in my eyes. Arghh. 'Heck of a long day.
Candide Beatings? Earthquakes? Boring?

Speaking of boredom, I'm 200+ pages into that tubercular doorstop, The Magic Mountain.

Just started reading The Screwtape Letters. #110 I love Liaisons - so pleased it has another fan.

I've been thinking about this. 15 books that bored me:

1. Silas Marner
2. To the Lighthouse--maybe irritated is a better word
3. Swann's Way--haven't been able to face the rest of Proust
4. The Ambassadors--which I couldn't finish
5. Little Men--Actually most of Alcott except Little Women
6. Little Dorritt--my least favorite Dickens so far
7. Postern of fate--Late Christie; a Tommy and Tuppence that should never have been published
8. Mansfield Park
9. Sons and Lovers
10.Shirley
11.Hunchback of Notre Dame
12.Lorna Doone
13.Agnes Grey
14.The Princess--by Alfred Lord Tennyson
15.Villette

On the other hand, I loved War and Peace and Great Expectations and literally couldn't put down Cousine Bette Go figure.

Silas Marner is so short. How did you find time to be bored?

#114, ncgraham, I was 15 and it was required. That one was probably not fair. The others I read on my own.

Now reading Conference at Cold Comfort Farm. So glad to see this and several other Gibbons books newly reissued.

Just picked up The Picture of Dorian Gray. So far, so good. :)

Bjace: Understandable. Junior high or high school assignments seem to have ruined Silas Marner for a lot of people.

Booksloth: Why must you tell me this??? As if I needed more books on my TBR list! What publisher is reissuing Gibbons? I loved Cold Comfort Farm and now that I know some of her books are becoming easier to find, I'll have to seek them out. *grits teeth*

Having not been assigned Silas Marner, I enjoyed reading it much later in life.

I just read Cold Comfort Farm this year, and it was way better (and funnier) than I expected. I'm glad to hear her others are becoming more available.

# 113 Shirley bored me to no end too.

The three musketeers. And Captains courageous Sort of an impetuous young men kick.

Into Ulysses now. And I must amend my earlier statement: you really must read Portrait of the Artist beforehand, Cecrow, else you won't get half the references (little actions in the first book have huge repercussions in the later work). Ulysses is a difficult enough book with that background. Without, I can't imagine....

Also rereading The Mill on the Floss for another class! And loving it, Eliot geek that I am. I ate up the whole of Book I yesterday afternoon, stood up, and wondered, "This is school?"

I'll have to remember you said that, although it doesn't seem like there's any kind of concensus out there one way or the other.

Finished and reviewed One Hundred Years of Solitude, moving ahead to Rudyard Kipling's Kim.

Things Fall Apart is interesting, and I'm respecting it, but I'm not moved by it.

Still bogged down in the abstract nouns of Doktor Faustus, so I've put it aside for a bit to read Aurora Leigh - I'm obviously going through a narrative verse phase at the moment. Enjoying it so far - doesn't read at all like a book written by an invalid expiring on a sofa...

I'm reading Agnes Grey. I'm not very far into it, but it seems pretty good so far.

...Still on the sofa, although I've now moved back from Florence to Wimpole Street with The letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1845-1846 — Gutenberg and archive.org make it fatally easy to pursue this kind of 19th century connection. As always, you feel a bit sorry for the poor Victorian postman dashing backwards and forwards across London several times a day laden with letters, manuscripts, books and locks of hair, but the letters are a wonderful mix of intelligent romance and technical discussion about poetry.

The Annotated Persuasion by Jane Austen and David M. Shapard. I'm liking the explanation of then current day references that ain't so current today.

Joe, I have the same The Annotated Persuasion that you have touchstoned, and I even know where it is. I've been toying with reading it instead of the Norton Critical Edition, my choice for the previous five. Do you have any feel for which might provide the richer experience?

Robert

In addition to my previous listed reads (Ulysses and The Mill on the Floss for school), I've also started Great Expectations on audiobook. Really enjoying it thus far.

I have several classics in my life these days, it seems.

>129 Mr.Durick: Robert, I have a recollection of reading some criticism that mine (the Shapard) was too pedestrian in its annotations, very nuts and bolts - what a baronetage is, why William Walter Elliot would have married someone beneath him instead of Elizabeth, that kind of thing. Pedestrian is okay for me at this point, but the Norton Critical Edition looks good and may be in my future. You asked about the "richer experience"; to me it sounds like it's probably the Norton.

Thank you.

Robert

Just finished The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a Halloween read. Now I'm reading Night by Elie Wiesel, which is *practically* a classic, imo.

I finished Dracula a few days ago-- a fun, atmospheric, spooky classic, perfect for reading in October.

Also celebrating October, I'm reading The Woman in White and The Turn of the Screw.

#133> Night is a classic in my opinion.

Ditto.

MsTrust - I read Turn of the Screw a few Octobers ago, and now that you mention it, I think I'll put The Woman in White on the list for next year.

My book club's selections for next week's October meeting are 3 Edgar Allan Poe stories: Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Purloined Letter and The Mystery of Marie Roget. I'm reading them out of an edition with a collection of Poe stories, and in one he even mentions Mrs. Radcliffe (of Udolpho fame). Who needs Twilight when there's Poe?

I'm reading a collection of short stories by H.P. Lovecraft. Not sure if I want to read them late at night before I go to sleep though... Creepy stuff!

The Castle of Otranto - as a huge fan of the Gothic I really should have read this years ago.

The Annotated Persuasion edited by David M. Shapard was a real pleasure. My only quibble is there were many more word definitions than needed, but otherwise the annotations added a lot to the pleasure of reading a favorite.

King Lear last week. Not the most cheerful story.

Just started Kim.

Kim was great, I especially loved the setting as depicted.

Reading Animal Farm, featuring the cute photo of a pig on its cover. Great fun explaining to my seven-year old what it's about, lol. "Well, it's about a farmer and his animals, and there's this pig-" "Why are you reading baby stuff, dad?" He's welcome to tease all he likes, he'll get his come-uppance when it's assigned in highschool!

Working on The three musketeers

I'm slowly reading Jude the Obscure.

#147 Oh wow! One of my favourite books.

#148 - yes, so far it's good. I just don't have much time for reading these days, so it's going slowly.

148/149 - that's encouraging, it's on my tbr shelf but I've been avoiding it. Never liked Hardy in university, found him too depressing. Maybe I just needed more years to appreciate him - hoping so, anyway.

Interesting. I enjoyed The Mayor of Casterbridge and plan on reading more Hardy, but aimed to skip Jude the Obscure.

I've finished The Mill on the Floss (for school) and Great Expectations (audiobook), both of which I loved. A couple weeks more and I'll be done with Ulysses too. Meanwhile, I have chosen To Kill a Mockingbird (which I have of course read before) as my new commute-to-school audiobook.

Thomas Hardy is depressing. I liked his Far from the Madding Crowd. The Return of the Native was good too but very similar to Far from the Madding Crowd, only even more depressing. I have been trying to read his The Woodlanders. I keep picking it up and putting it down. This one I am finding even more depressing than his other works.

From what I understand Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure are two of Hardy's most depressing works.

It's Hardy's bleakness that I love (and his writing, obviously). If you don't like that then you should definitely stay away from Jude - you don't know what depressing is until you've read that one.

Jude is the only Hardy novel I've never wanted to re-read. It's certainly a book you should read once, but there are pages there that I wouldn't want to turn a second time. After reading Jude, you are likely feel like reading a bit of Solzhenitsyn or Primo Levi to cheer yourself up...

After reading Jude, you are likely feel like reading a bit of Solzhenitsyn or Primo Levi to cheer yourself up...

This made me laugh.

I just read Jude, too, and while I can see how it is really depressing, I mostly thought that all the major characters were just absolutely batshit crazy. Even Jude, although he is less horrible than Sue or what's-his-name. Of course nothing good should happen to characters that awful! Sue Bridehead, especially, is infuriating. Who behaves like that?

I love this site - Solzhenitsyn or Primo Levi to cheer up(!), the characters in Jude are batshit crazy. Where else can you get comments like these?

Speaking of batshit crazy characters, I'm currently reading The Castle.

Those assistants in the castlewere a little freaky... that book was over my head and I can't say I enjoyed it. I'm not sure what I got out of it, something about dictatorships or socialism? I needed to read that book in a class; not on my own. I've just ordered the woman in white hopefully I'll be reading it by Mon... that's a book more along my line.

I read The Castle twice for enjoyment, not a class, and that may have helped. I've always really liked it. The absurdity of bureaucracy, and the difficulty in overcoming it, has always stuck out as one theme for me. But the vividness of the story as he tells it is what really grabs me.

Twice for enjoyment, that makes me smile... I can't even imagine. Thank goodness for people like you. The vividness of cold is what grabbed me, so much snow. It seems like I looked up a little info on Kafka when he wrote it and he was staying in a castle somewhere really cold and I thought... no wonder.

Correction: I just looked it up, Kafka was not staying in a castle, it was a mountain resort in the Czech Republic.

Have been bounding through 17th Century France with d'artagnan and The three musketeers and am now taking a pause to re-charge my Kindle.

I finished The Woman in White and really enjoyed it. All the ups and downs of a rollercoaster.

Our Book club read Cannery Row and I fought it tooth and nail.....until I read it and thoroughly enjoyed it! I loved the unique characters and the extremes!

I'm new to this group, and currently enjoying Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens.

I haven't posted to this group for quite a while.

I just finished Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. It left me feeling ambivilent. The writing seemed uneven, if absolutely brilliant much of the time. I think the translation might to blame for that. Also, the only character I could work up any sympathy for was a very minor character - Berthe. On the other hand....Flaubert was gifted in the way he used literary devices. The book was rich wth symbolism and foreshadowing.

Now, I'm having a terrific time reading Roman Fever and Other Stories by Edith Wharton. It's confirmed her place as one of my favorite writers. I think her short stories are even better than her novels. This book would certainly be a good recommendation for anyone looking for an introduction to Wharton.

Our Mutual Friend is in my TBR pile and should come out fairly soon. I started it once and liked it, but Dickens requires time and I hadn't any then.

Just picked up War and Peace. I was half way through last time I checked it out of the library, but was distracted by other books in my TBR pile. Crossing my fingers that I get through it this time. I remember really enjoying it the first time I tried it.

#168: I spent most of September and most of October reading War and Peace. It was definitely worth the time!Good luck!

Nearly finished Northanger Abbey, which I've been re-reading with a great deal of pleasure over the weekend, in between the serious work of clearing out the oldest residents of the TBR shelf.

I've just started Richard III by William Shakespeare. Incredible! I think I'm loving this even more than any Shakespeare work I've read before. Such great stuff!

I'm currently reading Villette by Charlotte Bronte. I'm enjoying it, but I only had one semester of French, and the French sections are just way above my head, and my edition doesn't have the translation. Does anyone here know if there's an online source for translations of the French sections, or at least an edition that translates the French?

I'm reading Euclid's Elements. Next year will be 10 years since I first read one of the best books ever written and I felt it was time to dust off the old tome that became my best friend during my geometry classes in college.

Once I'm finished I'll probably read Christmas Books by Dickens to get me into the holiday spirit.

I'm reading Bleak House by Charles Dickens, now. (Just reading over the thread, I see it has a lot of fans!) I like it, so far.

I had planned to read 12 Dickens novels this year, but it's December, and this is only No. 7, so I guess I won't make my goal. Well, there's always next year...

Reading Dickens' The Chimes ; also Kipling's Plain tales from the Hills

Madpoet - seven Dickens novels in one year is quite the accomplishment! Well done.

Re: my post #172--I was able to find two editions of Villette that translate the French conversations. The most recent Penguin edition & the Oxford University Press (2008) edition have the French translated, as well as wonderful notes.

I'm a little over half-way done--if you haven't read Villette and are at all interested in Charlotte Bronte, I highly recommend it. It is much more complex than Jane Eyre (which I love) and is somewhat autobiographical. If you read it carefully, it takes you into Bronte's psyche as a female writer, and her conflicts on becoming a "public" persona. But you can also just read it for the story, and be satisfied on that level as well.

>176 Nickelini: Thanks!

I just finished Sandition and other stories, a collection of unfinished Jane Austen novels, a novella, and a lot of her juvenile writings. None of these are as good as her published novels, of course, but it is really interesting to see what she would have published next, and it was a riot to read her earliest writings. So melodramatic! Yet still with that Austen humor peeking through - you can tell that writing was a gift she had from the start, although she did put in a ton of work too.

>179 jfetting:
You might be amused by Reginald Hill's A cure for all diseases - a completion of Sanditon that turns it into a detective story set on the Yorkshire coast and rather ingeniously morphs Austen's unpunctuated text into email-style. Sounds crass when you describe it like that, but actually very funny when you see it.

Read The Chimes by Dickens--which is a sort of odd book, but was interesting. Am trying to finish Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which for some reason is going slow and am starting Tristam Shandy

I'm reading How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn, and loving it. I'm not sure it would fit everyone's definition of a classic., though.

I have How Green Was My Valley and have tried to sell it to my book group, but they haven't bought it. I should read it anyway, but there are so many.

Robert

>182 bookwoman247:,183
I think it's more in the category of "ex-bestseller" - one of those books you see all over the place as a tatty sixties paperback. But it is a great read if you're in the right mood for sub-Dylan-Thomas romantic cadences. Probably better as a film.

I started Eugénie Grandet the other day, having another go at filling the big gaps in my knowledge of the 19th century French classics.

#184: Maybe. Or possibly a modern classic.

#184, thorold, I enjoyed Eugenie Grandet, but not as much as I loved Cousine Bette, which I almost couldn't put down. I need to get back to reading more Balzac.

>186 Bjace:
I picked E.G. to start with because I've heard of it and it's available in French on Gutenberg. Enjoying it so far. It was reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning's letters that reminded me to think about Balzac: she was a huge fan. Also of George Sand, of whom I know even less.

Christopher Logue's War Music, his re-visioning of the Iliad in free verse. Technically, perhaps, not a classic, but brilliant in its evocation of the original (which is the prototype of classic) in a modern idiom.

Also reading, slowly, at intervals, Hobbes' Leviathan; I'm impressed once again that he was once of the great English prose stylists.

Received an e-book for Christmas, which is a great chance to catch up on classics since most of those are free downloads. I'm starting with Treasure Island since it holds the record for sitting on my TBR pile (27 years!)

The New Thread is here,

http://www.librarything.com/topic/130070