Strategies for reading the classics?

[djulian]

Strategies for reading the classics:

1. Set a list that you don't mind changing as you move forward
2. Bounce from period to period--this will help with what I like to call "era fatigue" (I love Greek stuff, but after two or three, I need some Austen or Melville, and after Moby Dick, I needed some Flannery O'Connor, and after several of her short stories, I needed some Chaucer, etc.)
3. The recommendation to read the Bible is very useful--many of the classic works you will read depend on it, and it transcends the East/West issue because the Jewish culture out of which the Old Testament springs is hardly a Western society, and the Roman culture that shaped the New Testament is Western, but very different from Greek society. You don't have to read it first, but it will really help. The most readable popular translations are the NLT, the Message (a very modern version), or the ESV (my preference). If you are unnerved by the length (or just the length of the very dry bits), read the following very condensed selection for a great overview:
   • Genesis-Exodus
   • Judges-2 Samuel
   • Esther
   • Ecclesiastes (perhaps the most Western OT book and a personal favorite)
   • The Gospels (The Gospels can be read w/ a harmony. The first three Gospels are very similar, but each author has his own unique emphasis. if you want a Jewish perspective, read Matthew, if you want a brief but complex version which is geared to a Roman audience, read Mark, if you want a lot of detail, read Luke. John is useful and has so much that is unique to it, you should read it along with at least one of the others.)
   • Acts-Romans
   • Revelation (It's weird, but as it wraps up, it is so closely linked thematically to the beginning of Genesis that it's a critical way to finish a selected reading like what I'm recommending)
4. Translations matter! I hated Kafka's Castle when I tried to read it in the old Modern Library edition. The newer translation is much better, the whole book became much more enjoyable. This is definitely true with books like the Iliad and the Odyssey. (And while I'm at it, someone claimed that the Iliad was an anti-war book. It's not. That's an adjunct college professor's dim hope.)
5. Bounce points of origin (as with time periods). Read something American, read something French, etc.
6. Don't just read the shorter, minor works in the hope that you will get enough of the author to qualify as "getting the author." Read the works which are major for a reason. The Crocodile is great fun, but Brothers Karamazov will make you weep and will continue to feed your soul long afterwards.
7. For fun, read two books from different times and locations at the same time. Start them together and finish them together and think about the connections between the two. A great example pairing might be Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury alongside Aeschylus' Oresteia.
8. For Plato, read the shorter works and leave The Republic aside for a while. This is not in contrast to suggestion #6. His shorter works are actually often just as good as his major work.
9. And to repeat a comment from suggestion #1, feel free to drop anything or add anything at any time. You're the one reading these, you've got your own desires for personal development and/or entertainment. Read what helps you achieve those desires.

So that's a long post, but I hope it helps!

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by djulian

Strategies for reading the classics:

1. Translations matter! I hated Kafka's Castle when I tried to read it in the old Modern Library edition. The newer translation is much better, the whole book became much more enjoyable. This is definitely true with books like the Iliad and the Odyssey. (And while I'm at it, someone claimed that the Iliad was an anti-war book. It's not. That's an adjunct college professor's dim hope.)
   

That someone was me. As I am neither a college professor nor have I ever attended one this is what I read in the Iliad. For me it is an anti-war book because whenever someone gets killed not only does Homer give a description of the death cause and shows us thus how the person suffered, he also give details of the persons life, such as: he was good with kids or cared for his old parents and so on. It makes the victims of war what they are: victims. Very human, with faults and strengths and loved ones. And he does so for all that stay forever on the battle field, friends and enemies.

What is your argument for it being a war book?

[djulian]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

That someone was me. As I am neither a college professor nor have I ever attended one this is what I read in the Iliad. For me it is an anti-war book because whenever someone gets killed not only does Homer give a description of the death cause and shows us thus how the person suffered, he also give details of the persons life, such as: he was good with kids or cared for his old parents and so on. It makes the victims of war what they are: victims. Very human, with faults and strengths and loved ones. And he does so for all that stay forever on the battle field, friends and enemies.

What is your argument for it being a war book?

Hi Poppaea - Apologies if I gave offense. None was intended. The anti-war reading of the Iliad feels strained--I've heard it elsewhere and always thought, "huh?" And in my experience, the stranger readings of texts tended to show up in my literature classes. (Though some very insightful readings and analyses showed up as well!)

I don't think it's a "pro-war" book. Homer was certainly capable of saying, "Oh, the waste and horror and stupidity of war! Why must men give their lives for an evil ruler? Let the wars cease!" But he didn't. The war is a setting in which Homer develops several themes on human nature, the inscrutable and unreliable character of the Greek gods, the value of honor and loyalty when a person is faced with certain disaster, the foolishness of wounded pride, the way in which wrath drives our actions, the futility of fate, etc. He gives those who die in battle their due as characters, but he also portrays various warriors as heroic and their deeds in battle as heroic as well. At times, he glorifies acts of war and killing.

Anyhow, please forgive me if I offended you. Literature allows for many opinions!

[Poppaea]

Don't worry, you didn't offend me. I do sound harsh sometimes, I know this, problem is: I don't know why

[astra]

Originally Posted by khalleron

We really need a negative Karma button. Sigh...

Originally Posted by khalleron

May I enquire why someone who holds the classics in disdain is commenting on a thread on which classics to read?

It would be like me giving tips on football or military strategy.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by astra

Hmm, sitting here, wondering. Isn't this the equivalent of negative Karma???

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

Hmm, sitting here, wondering. Isn't this the equivalent of negative Karma???

Yeah, astra's trying to give me a negative because I complained of his/her obvious trolling.

Makes us even, I guess.

:shrug

[astra]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

Hmm, sitting here, wondering. Isn't this the equivalent of negative Karma???

Very shrewd of you

Originally Posted by khalleron

Yeah, astra's trying to give me a negative because I complained of his/her obvious trolling.

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory[citation needed], extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community

Mine was neither. Some people say that reading classics boosts intellect

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by astra

Very shrewd of you

Yeah, you are like an open classical book for me

[astra]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

Yeah, you are like an open classical book for me

I wonder. Am I that simple or there is a grain of truth in

Originally Posted by astra

Some people say that reading classics boosts intellect

I hope for the latter

please?

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

Yeah, you are like an open classical book for me

Originally Posted by astra

Very shrewd of you



Mine was neither. Some people say that reading classics boosts intellect

Originally Posted by astra

I wonder. Am I that simple or there is a grain of truth in
I hope for the latter please?

I've read a lot of classics, maybe they boosted my intellect? Or I said so because I wanted to flatter you with comparing you to the intellect boosting classical book. Or there is a grain of truth in all of these. Or its as simple as you being simple.

Choose your favourite


OMG are you sweet and beautfull! Those speaking eyes. Gosh. :Iloveyou:

[astra]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

I've read a lot of classics, maybe they boosted my intellect? Or I said so because I wanted to flatter you with comparing you to the intellect boosting classical book. Or there is a grain of truth in all of these. Or its as simple as you being simple.

Choose your favourite

I think I gotta read some classics

Let me check my TBR list...
Best Served Cold ? or Everything Is Illuminated or maybe Watching the English

Ah, I know. It must be all time classic.
Memories of Ice (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #3)

No?
The last, third, lucky one? attempt:
The Red and the Black
The Old Man and the Sea
One Hundred Years of Solitude
All Quiet on the Western Front
East of Eden

will it do?

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by astra

Very shrewd of you



Mine was neither. Some people say that reading classics boosts intellect

While cutting and pasting dubious info from Wikipedia obviously doesn't.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by djulian

Hi Poppaea - Apologies if I gave offense. None was intended. The anti-war reading of the Iliad feels strained--I've heard it elsewhere and always thought, "huh?" And in my experience, the stranger readings of texts tended to show up in my literature classes. (Though some very insightful readings and analyses showed up as well!)

I don't think it's a "pro-war" book. Homer was certainly capable of saying, "Oh, the waste and horror and stupidity of war! Why must men give their lives for an evil ruler? Let the wars cease!" But he didn't. The war is a setting in which Homer develops several themes on human nature, the inscrutable and unreliable character of the Greek gods, the value of honor and loyalty when a person is faced with certain disaster, the foolishness of wounded pride, the way in which wrath drives our actions, the futility of fate, etc. He gives those who die in battle their due as characters, but he also portrays various warriors as heroic and their deeds in battle as heroic as well. At times, he glorifies acts of war and killing.

Anyhow, please forgive me if I offended you. Literature allows for many opinions!

I think it helps to consider the context of Homer's audience as well. The Spartans for example were big on military things so a total anti-war poem would have gone over like the proverbial lead balloon.

[astra]

Joking aside.

The problem with classics fans is:

Classics are classics BECAUSE they are great books. Dickens, Trollope, Austen, etc, are all fantastic reads.

and they persist on foisting this idea on everybody around them. They completely disregard that the very definition of Great books is different for every reader. There is no authority that has a power, means or intellect to decide it.
For one reader Dickens is a classic, for another reader it is Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Jordan is classic yet for another reader.

The question is why don't Jordan's fans try to push this idea and force everybody to read him, when so called classics fans think of themselves that they are superior and can do it and request of us

you have to "get into" them?

For the life of me I don't see how Dickens is any better than Steven Erikson. It is exactly the opposite for me but I don't feel superior and think less of people who don't like Steven Erikson and don't see his works as classics. I would not insist on his books to be a compulsory reading of school curriculum.

To each its own.