Does anyone want to be "well-read?"

[bZkindle]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Actually the Philistines came from the Aegean. They invaded the Middle East, but that wasn't where they came from.

HarryT.. You are so 'well read'!

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by bZkindle

HarryT.. You are so 'well read'!

It all starts and ends with the Book of Books

[Salgueiros]

Originally Posted by faithbw

+1

Me too! It's such an elitist attitude and yet people who think this way will become very angry if you point this out. We tend to treat literary critics' opinions as being 100% completely objective truths that we must never, ever disagree with.

The opposite is also annoying, i mean those who just because they liked a book assume that book is awesome, no matter how bad in reality that book is and how limited is their capacity to objectively judge the literary value of some work. Those types of people make everything relative, and some things are good or bad in absolute terms.

We need critics and we need elitist readers.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by Salgueiros

The opposite is also annoying, i mean those who just because they liked a book assume that book is awesome, no matter how bad in reality that book is and how limited is their capacity to objectively judge the literary value of some work. Those types of people make everything relative, and some things are good or bad in absolute terms.

We need critics and we need elitist readers.

+1 and K for you.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by Salgueiros

The opposite is also annoying, i mean those who just because they liked a book assume that book is awesome, no matter how bad in reality that book is and how limited is their capacity to objectively judge the literary value of some work. Those types of people make everything relative, and some things are good or bad in absolute terms.

We need critics and we need elitist readers.

and K.!

[faithbw]

Originally Posted by bZkindle

Right. I see your point and the distinction.
Still, insert 'critics choice' instead of 'classics' and my point still stands.

But since I wasn't referring to classics in the first place, your point doesn't stand.

Can we all agree that studying the ingredients labels on soup cartons will not make someone 'well read'?

Really? This is what you got from my post?

Originally Posted by Poppaea

Not liking it is a matter of taste. Not getting it is a matter of not being well-read.

Not necessarily. I really think this goes back to what is the definition of being well-read. Does being well-read mean reading primarily fiction that usually makes the lists of "books you must read before you die?" If someone read 100 books every year and most of those books are mysteries, are you not well-read? Does reading famous non-fiction from a particular subject make you well-read? If I make a reference to Mircea Eliade's idea of homo religiosus and you don't get get it (I'm not saying you do or you don't), does that mean you're not well-read? What's the criteria?

I know we all think that we know what it is to be well read but if we're hard pressed to really say what that means then I think it becomes difficult to really define.

[faithbw]

Originally Posted by Salgueiros

The opposite is also annoying, i mean those who just because they liked a book assume that book is awesome, no matter how bad in reality that book is and how limited is their capacity to objectively judge the literary value of some work. Those types of people make everything relative, and some things are good or bad in absolute terms.

We need critics and we need elitist readers.

It would be annoying to meet someone who told me that I must absolutely love Twilight because they loved it and that it is the best piece of literature ever because they loved it! Yes, I agree that I would probably not like this person or at the very least, not discuss books with them. Now, if someone likes Twilight, I don't have an issue with that and most of the people I know who have read it don't say that it should win the Pulitzer Prize. On the flip side, I'm sure I would be equally annoying if I said that you must absolutely love Jane Eyre and that you must not know good literature if you don't like it. It works both ways.

I still think that doesn't address the issue of what it means to be well-read. That addresses the quality of a work and even that isn't static.

[bZkindle]

Originally Posted by faithbw

But since I wasn't referring to classics in the first place, your point doesn't stand.

There's quite a bit of overlap between books that are 'critically acclaimed' and 'classics', wouldn't you say?
After all, 'classics' are by necessity 'critically acclaimed'.

Originally Posted by faithbw

Really? This is what you got from my post?

It was rhetorical.

[DixieGal]

Page 8 of the thread, and the arguments are getting personal and boring. Time to hit the "ignore" button. 'Bye!

[bZkindle]

Originally Posted by faithbw

On the flip side, I'm sure I would be equally annoying if I said that you must absolutely love Jane Eyre and that you must not know good literature if you don't like it. It works both ways.

I understand what you're saying in your posts and I do agree, but I really haven't met anyone who says 'you don't know good literature' and get "angry" (not your word I know) if you don't like such-and-such a book.

It's not about loving Jane Eyre (which I don't); it's about recognizing that it's good literature (which I do).

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

Not liking it is a matter of taste. Not getting it is a matter of not being well-read.

+1 to that.

As I said before it's a matter of knowing common cultural symbols and advanced terminology.
I remember fellow kids complaints from school about my usage of such during presentations. Only answer to that was: " I see no reason to use a whole sentence where one word is sufficient because you are a moron."

If someon 'd ask me how my room looks like I could answer: "Like Augean stables filled with remains of an androids dreams." and just look who gets it.

btw. it's simiolar with cineasts: a friend of mine told following story:

Movie theater; "Inependence Day" - the scene where Levinson opens his notebook and you hear "Hello Dave" accompanied by an red laser-eye login screen. My friend his two pals and 3 other ppl spread somwhere in there start laughing like maniacs.
the rest turns heads looking at them as if they were from mars - they simply didn' get the reference

[GlenBarrington]

It's one of the sillier ones. Remember High School? We all had to read a couple of 'classics'. How many of us actually got anything from it?

That's right, not many of us, even among the 'serious' readers in the group. There is a difference between reading a book and getting something out of it. Just because you read it and maybe even memorized pieces of it for an exam, that doesn't mean you are even CAPABLE of getting something from it.

It isn't intelligence I'm talking about, it is having the 'head space' and 'emotion space' available to process it. Seems to me, a lot of 'well read' people are looking for bragging rights.

I've read a lot of books that went, Phew! Right over my head and I'm not stupid. I just read them too soon. Now I read what reflects what is going on in my life and in my head. Sometimes it's a classic, sometimes it's trash, but mostly it's somewhere in between. (But Man, I do love trash)

Man! I can't change a spelling error in the header! ARGHHHH!

[wodin]

To answer the OP: I couldn't care less!

[Requiem]

I know I am late on this but I believe the classics are important, especially when reading the "New" literature. For example, is Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake" the same without reading Gogol's "Overcoat"? Is Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" as enriching if you have not pondered Yeat's "The Second Coming"? (I understand the last two are not "old" classics, but they are classics all the same) The answer for ME (important point, as this is how I view the classics) is that I read the classics to see the basis of the new works by up and coming authors. I see peculiar overlaps between stories, such as "The Kite Runner" and "The Namesake", through their similar classical themes.

I actually read in two different ways, I read pop authors, i.e. King, Brown, Grisham etc. only for instant gratification, I read them when I do not want to have to think. I read the classics, i.e. Kafka, Hemingway, Carrol, Lewis, Cervantes, etc. when I want to learn something, maybe something important about life for them, something I can take from and better myself or my surroundings.

I always believe that it is important to read things that are applicable to you, and I believe that is the basis of our tastes in stories. Do they relate to us? Can we see ourselves or our lives in the words of the author? Those are the questions that make certain authors your own personal classics. Without any impact on the reader, a work is nothing but words and paper.

[Andrew H.]

1. By any measure I would be extremely well-read: I've read most of the authors listed in the article, many (Kafka, Chekhov, Simenon) in the original language.

2. Being well-read doesn't mean that you are smarter.

3. Reading classics won't make you smarter. It won't. I like Trollope, and I like some David Weber. I think that Trollope is much better, his stories more interesting, his characters more realistic, and his style much more engaging. But in the end, reading novels is really just about entertainment. While I find Trollope more entertaining, I'm no smarter after reading Trollope than I would be after reading Weber.

4.To my mind, the difference between reading the classics and reading conventional genre literature is basically like the difference between skiing the green circle trails or skiing the black diamond trails. In both cases, you are skiing. If you are used to skiing on the green, it's hard to just jump onto the black trails...and even if you are able to finish the trail/book, you may not enjoy the experience.

Until you get used to them, a lot of classics *are* harder to read. The language is typically different, and the novelistic conventions are also different. You kind of have to build up to them (which is why so many students get turned off by the classics in HS - they weren't prepared for them yet). However, once you are able to comfortably ski/read the black diamond runs, you can find it a richer experience than sticking to the green runs. You may find some green runs are now too boring, or too predictable, but there are some you will still enjoy.

5. Reading classics gives you the opportunity to read some really really good books. They aren't like medicine - if you find yourself really struggling through one, just put it down and read something else. (But don't give up too early, either). The reason people still read Trollope (or Jane Austen or Theodor Fontane) is because they write really good, really entertaining books. The reason these books are still in print is not because people force themselves to read them out of a sense of duty.

6. At the risk of being repetitive, reading classics won't make you smarter and it won't make you a better person. It will just make you more entertained. But it does so by giving you access to a form of entertainment you can't get anywhere else. That ought to be enough.

7. [Edit] A lot of those books are kind of weird choices for classics - P.G. Wodehouse, Simenon, Evelyn Waugh. I think they were actually put in the list because there have been popular PBS shows/miniseries based on works by these authors.