Does anyone want to be "well-read?"

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by 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.

If that happens, I'll just see if I can get the book which is referenced and read it afterwards.

Originally Posted by 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.

But I don't have enough time to read everything some people think I should read to be "well-read", even though I might not like it.

To be honest, when I'm looking for a new book (not a new book by a known-author for me), I don't look at the author at all. I look at the description, at the classification and, though very rarely, at reviews.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

But I don't have enough time to read everything some people think I should read to be "well-read", even though I might not like it.

That's why I never pay any attention to what some people think I should read and use my own judgment. I don't care about being well-read, but rather widely-read, or well-rounded.

The truth of the matter is; I want to read everything. That fact that I'm going to ultimately fail at that goal is not the least bit disconcerting to me.

[wyndslash]

i just like to enjoy what i read

to be honest though, i find myself having a hard time starting a classic, but once i get started, i find myself enjoying most of it, actually. i think it's because that i have this perception that classics are "boring". i want to rid myself of that, actually, so i'm forcing myself to read better books

[queentess]

Originally Posted by Catlady

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

It's so much less painful to just read the Sparknotes And I'd argue I get more out of it, as summed versions typically include explanations of the text as well. I read Tale of Two Cities in high school, and we had looooong discussions about it, and I still gained more insight from just reading through the Sparknotes.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

If that happens, I'll just see if I can get the book which is referenced and read it afterwards.

Pity it doesn't work like that. There is no reference. There are hints and puns you will just not get. You will believe the book was boring, when it wasn't. It was just full of insider jokes. While your book had more than one blank page*.



*Who besides HarryT knows which book I am talking about here?

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by 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.

I highly suggest listening to The Canterbury Tales as an audiobook. It is my favorite classic, but the language is very archaic. But correctly pronounced, it is completely understandable. The spelling has changed a lot, but the spoken words not so much. It opened my eyes to how similar our modern lives are to the lives of the pilgrims on their fun journey. They acted just like us on vacation, with collecting souvenirs, telling tales in a group of people thrown together by circumstance, and the logistics of getting there with all of your necessities.

I have another book to recommend. It is an anthology of sea stories. It is an excellent and charming way to become acquainted with various authors of the classics. There is a story by Poe that I had never heard of about being on a boat and falling into a whirlpool, very eerie. Let me see if I can find the link to it, and I'll come back and post it.

EDIT: That was easy. It is the Oxford Book of Sea Stories.

EDIT 2: That Poe story became the subject of a paper that I wrote about how the sea becomes a character in certain stories with emotions and motives to advance its own agenda. Also central to the paper was the sea in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, one of my two favorite poems (both by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

[dadioflex]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

Pity it doesn't work like that. There is no reference. There are hints and puns you will just not get. You will believe the book was boring, when it wasn't. It was just full of insider jokes.

Once upon a time the sum knowledge of the world was, relatively, tiny and smart people all read the same books and were able to show one another how well-educated and erudite they were by punning hilariously over these classics. These classics were invariably written in Latin or ancient Greek and covered philosophy, mathematics and engineering, amongst other things.

The "classics"being discussed above, horribly modern books written in languages which aren't even dead, provide a similar, if rather less broadly based, experience for the literary reading elite.

In the last fifty years there's been an information supernova and society, for better or for worse, is less hidebound or dogmatic. Being "well read" is rather more of an option and less a necessity to measure one's worth. We have money for that now.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by dadioflex

Once upon a time the sum knowledge of the world was, relatively, tiny and smart people all read the same books and were able to show one another how well-educated and erudite they were by punning hilariously over these classics. These classics were invariably written in Latin or ancient Greek and covered philosophy, mathematics and engineering, amongst other things.

The "classics"being discussed above, horribly modern books written in languages which aren't even dead, provide a similar, if rather less broadly based, experience for the literary reading elite.

In the last fifty years there's been an information supernova and society, for better or for worse, is less hidebound or dogmatic. Being "well read" is rather more of an option and less a necessity to measure one's worth. We have money for that now.

Man! Am I glad to have had Latin and Greek at school, too, now that I am broke

[ebusinesstutor]

Originally Posted by Catlady

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

Yes, so I will post my list of my favorite science fiction and then everyone in the world has to read it so we can all discuss it.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by 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]

to everything you just said.

I have read far fewer classics than I should have, but every time I "force" myself to do so, I wonder why it took me so long to read a particular gem. Evidence earlier this year, when my wife talked me into reading The Count of Monte Cristo (took a real hit on my 100 books in 2011 challenge progress, as it is over 1400 pages long). What a wonderful book. The story will stay with me for the rest of my life, and I will no doubt return to it in a few years time.

As someone else in this thread said, they are classics for a reason.

[CommonReader]

Sorry for being so grumpy but I do fail to see much of a point in Ebert's rambling piece beyond "some authors stand the test of time better than others". He claims that he doesn't want to compile a "list", yet in that case what is the point of telling us about all the authors he has read, unless he only wants to show us that he is such a prolific reader?
The "list" he does not want to provide has some astounding holes. What about European literary giants as Homer, Virgil, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe?
I do not want to rant against lists of "Dead White Males" as I am a white male myself (fortunately not quite dead yet), but do we really still need lists that almost completely ignore all other great civilizations? What about Chinese classics like "The Dream of the Red Chamber"? Japanese literature? Persian? African authors? The only non-Western author seems to be Mahfouz. As a Nobel laureate hardly a very daring choice.
The unbelievable wealth of Spanish and Portuguese literature and all he comes up with are Marquez and Borges? Seriously?
I guess that his list wouldn't have been considered adventurous even 40 years ago. Today it seems exceedingly conservative.
(BTW, Georges Simenon was Belgian, just like Hergé, not French. Thanks.)

The way I see it has been stated by others. The “classics” earned that reputation. However, they may not be for everyone. I once attempted to complete another literary critics of “the 100 books everyone should read,” and in the end only finished about a third of these. Not for lack of trying, it was just that some, Lady Chatterley's Lover and The Tale of Gilgamesh for example, were a painful struggle to for each of the chapters I did complete. I look upon the “classics” and lists such as this as strong suggestions that one should at least make an effort to read.

This particular article is very European in its nature that is for sure.

[MV64]

Sinclair Lewis is really good, but people stop reading the "classics" because most of the classics were only considered so by critics and thus are just simply not good, especially 80-150 years later. I do enjoy adventure tales from around 1880-1920, though. There ARE good writers, they're just generally overlooked (like Sinclair Lewis) in favor of the more famous names who are just cumbersome.

[DixieGal]

No definitive "must-read" list can Nor should ever exist. Such an animal excludes modern popular books that have not yet been canonized. Or even conceived of yet.

Where are our important poets? Where are these distillers of truth? The world has not produced many in my lifetime. Except maybe McCartney and Lennon.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

But correctly pronounced, it is completely understandable. The spelling has changed a lot, but the spoken words not so much.

Oh? Does anyone know the correct pronunciation of 14th century English?