Quote:
Originally Posted by bill_mchale
I think the problem with classics is not that they are not good books, but rather because they are a certain subset of all reader's idea of what a good book is. The critics (academic or otherwise) tell us this book is great, therefore we should love it. This of course also extends to literary fiction as opposed to genre fiction (as if literary fiction was not a genre of its own).
The problem is, that this attitude often conflicts with the taste of many readers. I know I use to hate reading. Teachers would assign us stories to read that I hated; the result was that for a long time I equated school reading with reading period. Then in eight grade my teacher assigned us a book report a week. The cool part was we got to pick the book. It took me several tries, but then I found what sort of stories I liked. In the course of a year, I became a reading addict.
So, anyway, not that I would like to see the books go away, but I would like to see the label classics go away. You can read your Dumas, I will read Sabatini, and it is all good  .
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Bill |
It's interesting to me that you would use Dumas and Sabatini that way. Dumas is older, but they are almost a tomAto tomahto sort of comparison. But my all-time favorite novel is hands down the Count of Monte Cristo. Dumas had the guts to leave Mercedes an old maid, while Sabatini would have just made Maximilian his secret son and they'd all forgive Mercedes and live happily ever after....