What Are We Reading - Classics

Well, a spin-off of the original thread. Here's a place to tell us about your classics reads (classics with a small 'c' or a big 'C'). I think we can define this as books older than, say, the 60s)

I'm about 150 pages into The Brothers Karamazov at the moment. I like it a lot, but the apparent lack of plot has made me feel like I can just pick it up and read a chapter, then put it down for a week, without really losing the thread of the story.

I've also just started Cakes and Ale by Somerset Maugham.

The book I just finished The Haunting of Hill House is a classic in my mind, though it might not make it for other readers. It does fit with your 'technical' definition.

I am on to another classic, again fitting your technical definition and definitely fitting my definition (which is somewhat indefinable)......The Body Snatchers

Another classi by any standards.....Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Reading Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

I am starting to read Hope Leslie, or Early Times in the Massachusetts by Catharine Maria Sedgwick, set in 1643, published in 1827.

Currently reading A Woman's Life by Guy de Maupassant from the 1001 Must Read list.

Another Guy de Maupassant here, The Best Short Stories from Wordsworth Classics.

Currently reading The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Bradbury. Whoa!!!!

Neil Simon, The Odd Couple, original undiluted or PC version.

#10 blackdogbooks: I read Something Wicked a couple of weeks ago, and surprisingly, enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

Msg #10 and 12, I posted a review on my thread. I loved it!!!!

I actually am reading Rogue's Return and Merlot Murders

I am reading the Grey Granite portion of A Scots Quair right now - something I've been saving for a couple of years. Like it so much, that I plan to read the whole thing again soon.

The Razor's Edge by Maugham and loving it. Finished a small Willa Cather Alexander's Bridge and very much enjoyed it.

Today I'm reading The Turn of the Screw in honor of Halloween.

BOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

For some reason Willa Cather's name keeps popping up in the posts I've read this week. I gues this means I need to pay more attention to her books and start to read them...(I'm smiling.)

My reserve copy of The New Annotated Dracula came in at the library on Halloween. How could I resist picking it up and diving right in? So far it's a very good edition!

Rereading my Boo above, I realized that it may not have come across in print that I was saying Boo in honor of Halloween not booing the choice.

It took me a minute--but I sort of figured that!

BTW I enjoyed The Turn of the Screw--a nice short read after dark on Halloween!

#20 drneutron: I am so jealous! I want that one, too. I put it on my Amazon Wish List - I may buy it for myself for Christmas.

I'm five chapters into Dracula. It's fantastic so far! Like other annotated volumes (especially the Holmes ones I've read), the editor indulges in a "deightful little conceit" by pretending that the book is Stoker's fictionalization of events that actually happened. So some of the notes point out timeline inconsistencies and other such things as evidence of the cover-up. And there's an intro by Neil Gaiman that I loved.

I remember reading Dracula again in the 90s and thinking how erotic one of the scenes was and how I missed it in prior readings. There's so much much to that novel when put in the context of the time.

drneutron

After avoiding vampire novels all my life I finally read Dracula last year and loved it! Give us the details (publisher, etc) so we can find the annotated edition--I may do a reread this year. I'd also like to read Gaiman's intro.

I readDracula within the last twelve months and thought it was weak! I recycled it!

- TT

The New Annotated Dracula has all the details. It's published by W. W. Norton, edited by Leslie S. Klinger, who also did the (I think) three volume The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. It's a beautiful book, a bit larger than normal, with lots of illustrations from covers of previous printings of Dracula and shots from many of the movies. There's also several essays at the end on the cultural impact of the novel, etc. that I haven't gotten to yet. All in all, I've been delighted with it!

Stoker produced a set of notes for the book and there's one typewritten manuscript still around with changes in Stoker's and one other's handwriting (possibly his publisher?) and many of the footnotes discuss the changes and how the story evolved from notes to manuscript to printed novel to the abridges paperback version that was published in 1910.

ETA: Here's the Amazon link - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393064506/ref=nosim/librarythin08-20

drneutron

Thanks you! The information made me "drool"--it will be worth it just to read all of that even if I don't reread the book right away. And the link was great--it is now on my wish list and the next Amazon order I make will include this--it guarantees free shipping!

TheTortoise

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it--but it's not to everyone's taste. I love Victorian literature and I love classic "good vs evil" tales and Dracula fits that bill--at least for me.

I know, I know, I always go back to something about Stephen King. But his retooling of Dracula and vampires in both Salem's Lot and Needful Things were great. Dracula is on my list for next Halloween

>29 MusicMom41: MM - I wasn't that impressed by Jekyll and Hyde either. It must be the period, or is it the writers, or is it me?!

- TT

>31 TheTortoise:. I read Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and when I finished I said, "That's it?" I was really underwhelmed, I haven't read Dracula yet but it's on the TBR pile so I'll get to it eventually and see what I think.

I think one of the main problems (maybe two problems!) for today's reader reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are first, we already know the secret to the mystery--when I read it I tried to imagine what I would be thinking if I didn't already know the answer to the "mystery"; and second our novel about "Good and Evil" today are more nuanced and/or ambiguous.

In the case of Jekyll & Hyde it is the two forces at war within the individual--and which one will "win?" In Dracula it is basically good, although "flawed" because they are human, people fighting "pure evil.'' Dracula has no redeeming characteristics.

One of my problems with the only Robert Ludlum book I ever read (I think it was called Gemini Contenders--it was many years ago!) was that the characters seemed flat because one was soooo Good and the other sooo Evil. That idea worked better in the 19th century than it does in the 20th or 21st. IMO (BTW I did enjoy the Bourne movies--maybe Ludlum works better when it is a film rather than a book.)

Offering a different perspective on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, I found it very enjoyable. For me, all of the various adaptations and re-tellings took away from the story, one of obssession and human weakness. Though I knew the secret, it took on a very different meaning in the context of the original. And I didn't find the period nature of the story off-putting. But this is just my feelings and not every book is meant for every person!!

blackdogbooks

I'm so glad you like the book! I did, too. I thought it was very well done in the style of that time and engrossing. Of course, although I usually don't read "horror" I read a lot of 19th century literature so this one was right up my alley. I also really liked Dracula--which I didn't expect because I had always avoided vampires.

Currently reading A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene. It was published in 1960, so I am not sure if it counts as a classic or not, but it is very good so far.

I have picked up (finally) The Bridge on the Drina, published in 1945, and Two on a Tower, published in 1882. I am looking forward to reading them both!

ETA: Correct date for publication of The Bridge on the Drina.

> 36 Stasia, A Burnt-Out Case is the only Greene I have read and enjoyed. After reading a biography of Greene I went off him completely. Strange!

- TT

#38 TT: I do not know that it is all that strange actually. I do not know anything about Greene's personal life, but perhaps there was something in his biography that disturbed you enough that you just cannot face the books any more. I do that sometimes. Rarely do famous people live up to our expectations of them.

> 39 Stasia, you are right - I ended up really not liking him very much, and I guess that colours my feeling about his books. Yet, other authors, whom I love, I wouldn't let anything in their personal lives put me off enjoying their books. Even stranger!

- TT

#40 TT: What can I say? The human heart is fickle.

I'm reading Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus -- I expect it to take up most of December, so I definitely won't be reading 75 books this year.

#42 rebeccnyc: I have read the Goethe version of the Faust story, but not Mann's. I will be very interested in seeing your thoughts on it.

Currently, I have my nose buried in The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh, which I am enjoying very much and next up is A Lost Lady by Willa Cather and then The Stories of Anton Chekov.

>44 alcottacre: Stasia, let me know what you think of Chekov. Am planning to read Chekov's stories plays and biography during 2009.

I have never heard of The Loved One by Waugh - also planning to read several of his novels during 2009.

- TT

TT: Prop2gether wrote a nice review of The Loved One. You might want to check that out. That's how I learned about the book.

>46 alcottacre: But then see FicusFan's review!

- TT

I enjoyed it more than Ficus Fan did, that's for sure. Prop2gether put a larger review on his/her thread here on the Challenge.

I'll vote for The Loved One being good fun too. TT, I don't know how much Evelyn Waugh you've read, but I'll recommend Brideshead Revisited and Vile Bodies if you're planning on reading more next year.

I really enjoy Waugh, although I did find that when I read a lot together, the general bleakness that is always in the background of his work started to get me down a bit towards the end!

I'd also recommend Brideshead Revisited; I read it this year and enjoyed it. I'm planning to get to some of his other works at some point.

I'm currently working my way through The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and really enjoying it.

LOL--I'm a she--and I really enjoyed The Loved One by Waugh. I've got Vile Bodies to read, but I do separate out his work with other readings so I don't get bogged in his style.

#51: I should get brownie points for not calling you an 'it'! Let me know how you like Vile Bodies. I really did enjoy the sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek style of The Loved One.

>49 flissp: & 50: I tried reading Brideshead Revisited and had to stop reading it - I don't like the sound of The Loved One haven't got that one in my library anyway.

I thoroughly enjoyed Scoop and plan to read Decline and Fall, Black Mischief, A Handful of Dust and Put Out More Flags because they are the ones I have in my library.

I will probably revisit Brideshead if I enjoy those listed above.

>49 flissp: fliss, I never read more than one or two novels in succession by any one author, even if they are my favourites - I like to chop and change. That is why I like to read five books at a time, in several different categories, fiction and non-fiction. As I told Stasia, everyone is crazy in their own way - this is my crazy!

- TT

...no, i think that's very sensible - if i like someone, i have a tendency to work my way through their stuff, then either don't want to pick them up again ever (Agatha Christie), for a long while (Evelyn Waugh, Margaret Atood), or run out of their stuff to read and have nothing new to look forward to (Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell)!

I do also do the reading several books at once thing - but it's not normally more than 3! ;)

Just began reading Willa Cather's novella Alexander's Bridge.

Stasia--you do read fast! I just read your comments on Alexander's Bridge on your 75 thread. You just might get those 15 books read by midnight Wednesday!

I loved Alexander's Bridge--it is a beautifully written story. Hope you enjoy it.

#57: I did enjoy Alexander's Bridge, but thought it definitely showed that it was early Cather, not her later stuff. She will probably be one of my all-time favorite writers before all is said and done. My Antonia is one of my favorite books. Her prose is absolutely lovely.

Stasia

Have you read Death Comes for the Archbishop? That is my favorite Cather--although I read that one fairly recently and I read My Antonia when I was much younger. I still have it--I should probably reread it since it seems to be everyone else's "favorite!" I also have O Pioneers which I haven't read yet. Maybe some Cather in my "classics" category?

I did read Death Comes for the Archbishop and I know a lot of people prefer it to My Antonia, but not me. I read Antonia prior to Death and still like it better.