Does anyone want to be "well-read?"

[BenG]

From Roger Ebert's Blog:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011...riters_mo.html

...Setting aside living writers, who is still read? I speak of considerable writers, not potboilers. Dickens, George Eliot, Austen and Trollope, and then some people get to Mrs. Gaskell. Dostoyevsky, Chekhov and Tolstoy. Kafka. Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal and Hugo. Poe. Mark Twain. James and Wharton. The big four Americans of the first half-century, Cather, Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald. The smaller Americans, Chandler, Steinbeck, Hammett. John O'Hara? Not so much. Sinclair Lewis? Not at all. Nabokov. From Britain, Conrad, Evelyn Waugh, Greene, Forster. Anthony Powell, Iris Murdoch, Virginia Woolf, Orwell, Wodehouse. From France, Georges Simenon endures and Camus hangs on. From South America, Borges and Marquez....

[ficbot]

I read many of these authors in school and will not read them again. Once was enough They weren't bad, necessarily. They did need to be read one time. But I do not think I need to spend my reading time reading them again when there are so many other great books I haven't gotten to.

And I do not think 'being well-read' has to mean 'reading an arbitrary list of books someone else tells you to read.' I love Dickens, for instance. He writes of a time and place that is past, but his work was still enjoyable for me to read. I did not love George Eliot though, from this same time and place. Why? Who knows. So what is to be gained by forcing myself to read George Eliot, when I could be reading Dickens instead? Or some other author?

My brother is another example, a non-reader for many years. All of a sudden, he picked up 'Shogun' one day, loved it, and it changed his life. I read a memoir recently where someone else describes her teenage son having the same 'revelation' when he read Murakami. Do we say one is the better book and not the other? Should we not be reading Shogun because some arbitrary taste-maker has decided we should read Murakami instead? That is ridiculous to me.

[Poppaea]

Am ashamed to have found five! authors on the snippet I have not read yet.

Powell, Cather, Woolf, Murdoch, Borges.

On the other hand I have read a lot of authors regarded as indispensable in world and German literature that will make up for my omissions, like Cervanes, Sterne, Hesse, Mann and others.

Yes, I think it is important to be well read. Literature tends to have a second layer woven into the books that you will only discover and understand when you have read the books referred to. There are puns and jokes you will not get until you are familiar with the cornerstones of literature and thus you will miss a lot of fun.

You can be entertained by Dan Brown, not everyone will find the same entertainment in Umberto Ecos "Foucault's Pendulum" unless your mind has been prepared to make sense of the hints. But then it will create a kind of deep and rich tapestry before your very eyes that is stunning.

The quality of literature is easy to determine by certain standards. Apart from these standards there is a simple method to discern the trash from the gem yourself. I guess anyone can determine it themselves when they are honest. The plots of classical YA books like "Treasure Island" or "The Count of Monte Christo" or "The Musketeers", one is able to tell for the rest of ones lives, this does not hold true for say No. 103 The Three ??? or any other bestselling book you read at that age.

Also arts are interweaved. There is no understanding of the classic paintings unless you know the Bible stories they depict. How are you to grasp what Picasso's Guernica is about without some knowledge of history.

I am sure one can lead a happy life without being knowleadgeable, but I for one prefer to make the most of the gift of reading and ownership of intelligence.

[Sweetpea]

Ok, I'm not wel-read then. Most of those authors I either don't like or haven't ever heard off. I agree with ficbot. Who decides what I should read? I read for pleasure, not to please somebody else.

[cfrizz]

You should read what YOU enjoy reading, not what someone says you should read to be "well read". If you start reading books just because someone else dictates that they are mandatory reading but don't enjoy them, you won't absorb whatever someone else expects you to absorb & you'll be miserable while reading it. Seems self defeating.

[HarryT]

On the other hand, the classics are "classic" because they are great books. If you don't like a particular author, fine, but one shouldn't write them off without at least having a go.

[BenG]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

You should read what YOU enjoy reading, not what someone says you should read to be "well read".

Which is what Ebert is saying.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

You should read what YOU enjoy reading, not what someone says you should read to be "well read". If you start reading books just because someone else dictates that they are mandatory reading but don't enjoy them, you won't absorb whatever someone else expects you to absorb & you'll be miserable while reading it. Seems self defeating.

But shared culture is important. I think we need at least minimal exposure to the same literary canon.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

You should read what YOU enjoy reading, not what someone says you should read to be "well read". If you start reading books just because someone else dictates that they are mandatory reading but don't enjoy them, you won't absorb whatever someone else expects you to absorb & you'll be miserable while reading it. Seems self defeating.

For me the joy of reading is reading a well written book with a well thought plot and good wording. This is what classics will give you. There is a reason to books being read over centuries by generations. The reason is: Because they are good!

[CWatkinsNash]

This topic comes up in my life almost annually in one place or another. Last time it was on another forum I read. I always recall an incident some years back with an acquaintance who stated emphatically that reading just for pleasure was mere gluttony, and without "substance", one might just as well read the back of a cereal box. (I put the word in quotes because getting him to define "substance" always led back to something akin to "I know it when I see it".)

I have no problem with The Classics, per se. I do love Dickens, Poe and a few others on that list. I think my disdain for the topic itself comes from high school. Our 11th grade English teacher would have us spend most of the week reading something and discussing amongst ourselves, then at the end of the week she would join the conversation and tell us that we were all WRONG. That gets old quickly.

[RoxyJ]

I would love to be well read. I find it gives perspective and insight when reading current novels. I also find that many authors include references to classic books that sometimes go over my head (because I am not familiar with the book), and often I'm excited when I do come across a reference I recognize. I am working on rounding out my reading.

[SeaBookGuy]

I know it may be heresy here in ebook world, but I can only read "classic" authors: Dickens, Trollope, etc. as audiobooks (UNabridged, thankyouverymuch). I have no desire to read Chekov, but have liked his work onstage. I don't think Stendahl and Hugo would be of much interest, but I plan on listen to Balzac's Cousin Bette.

I'm not a fan of Hemingway, and have no intention of trying Cather nor Fitzgerald.

[CHunter_Author]

I like to keep things within my lifetime. I'm a quantum leap reader.

[poohbear_nc]

Why does one want to be well-read? Why are the authors listed in the article listed there? Why read them at all?

Well ...

Perhaps to discover a compelling story that you will never forget, and will want to return to and relive again and again ...

Perhaps to marvel with widely opened eyes at an author's dexterity and expertise with language -- making it sing or speak in ways totally unexpected or beautiful to eye & ear ...

Perhaps to find yourself with tears coursing down your face as you are unable to tear your eyes from a page ...

Perhaps to meet people you might never meet ... or ever want to meet ... in person

Perhaps to find a new world of experience, sensations, thoughts, humor .... a boundless universe to explore

These are a few reasons I have, and will continue to, read authors in that list.

[and yes - being forced to read them in school can sour you for life ... but recovery is possible. Throughout college & grad school, I "had" to read Moby Dick at least 5 times, and was always glad to reach the final scene of the sinking Pequod. I read it again last year ... as if for the first time ... and discovered just how funny parts of it were ... and how tragically sad other parts were ... it was a different book]

[DiapDealer]

I focus on stuff I know I'll like, but I also make it a priority to read some things that I'm just not sure of or familiar with. That doesn't come from a desire to be "well read", but rather a desire to stretch myself a bit--to avoid complacency. Plus, my tastes constantly change and evolve, so I'm scared to death that I may miss out on something I'd love if I didn't sample absolutely everything.