Posted on 03/02/2022 9:20:32 AM PST by C19fan
They're the books we know we’re meant to have read – but which many of us are too daunted by to actually pick up and start.
That hasn’t stopped nearly half of Britons from pretending to have devoured classics in an attempt to impress others.
An overwhelming 95 per cent of people find reading older novels and plays hard work, a poll has found. However many said they bluff their literary knowledge to appear more intelligent.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I’ve read it and a parody of Antony’s speech.
“Friends Romans Countrymen, Lend me your ears!
I will return them next Tuesday.
I come to bury Caesar because the times are tough and his family cannot afford an undertaker.”
It gets better from there. From Mark Twain’s Library of Wit and Humor.
I am reading the part THE GRAND INQUISITOR. Just a dozen pages or so but powerful. From The Brothers Karamazov.
WOW! I read most of those in High School!
Except THE SOUND AND THE FURY, ATLAS SHRUGGED,and some of the Shakespeare plays.
Also read FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS.
Wonder how many have read CUP OF GOLD: A Life of Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer (1929) It was John Steinbeck’s first novel. I have.
“It’s funny how the mind does that.”
When I think of Frank Herbert’s “Dune”, I always get reminded of the Black Flag album that I was obsessively listening to in high school while I read it.
I agree about Gatsby from a narrative perspective — it’s trite, formulaic, and contrived, as are the metaphors and narrative ironies, etc.
However, the writing unto itself can be brilliant. And it’s entirely wasted on generations of high school students who are stuck with silly assignments like “what does the green light represent?” or “how bad are rich people: bad, worse, or worst?”
I have to show students that the novel can be rather funny, the irony within the prose itself is vibrant, and, in fact, one could look upon the entire book as a satire of itself.
I am convinced we are told these overly verbose, and largely dreary tomes are deemed “classic” and “must read”. Their sole purpose is to enable and empower “Literature” professors to show how much better they are than everyone else.
First by possibly reading the whole thing. And having some sort of martyr complex.
And 2d to essentially to imbue and inflict anyone not able run away fast enough from receiving their whole philosphical outlook into that book. “Hamlet, of course is all about (fill in woke de jour philosphy here)”.
“Moby Dick is OBVIOUSLY Melville’s railing against women and disputing the confines of the patrirarchical, post humanist, consumerist, Capitalism....”
YMMV
I read it because I wanted to. I had seen the movie :-)
(A book I really enjoyed in my teens was very diiferent to my usual taste: Hemingway’s ‘Old Man and the Sea’. After more than 50 years, I don’t remember a lot of it, but I recall being fascinated for a couple of days.)
I read a lot, but I don’t remember most of those books.
but I did read all 10 books in the Mission Earth series by L Ron Hubbard,
all the Carlos Castaneda books,
I even tried to read the weird biblical books, like the book of Jasher, or the rise and fall of the roman empire.
When empires collapse it is never pretty, especially if you live in those interesting times.
One of the books I'm currently reading is "The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America" by Russell Shorto. It's the story of New Amsterdam, with bits of history thrown in about the beginnings of Albany (Fort Orange), and Rensselaerville, NY, which was originally known as Renssalaerwyck. Not long after I started reading it, I discovered the names of individuals who are supposed to be my 11th great-grandparents: Catalyntje Trico and her husband Joris Jansen Rapalje. They are mentioned throughout the book. It's quite an interesting read, because most of the history we know about Manhattan Island has been through the eyes of the British after their takeover.
The book is based on the archives of the Dutch colony that are held at the New York State Library in Albany. These documents have been gradually translated from the old Dutch language by Charles Gehring, who heads the library's New Netherland Research Project. The story is fascinating, and one that wasn't known when I went to school in Rochester, New York in the early 50's and mid-60's.
I never watched it.
Agreed. “Critical Theory” and “Deconstructionism,” via the Frankfurt School, killed literature. Mission accomplished.
Just saw a comment from Sam Elliot on the recent Benjamin Cumberbatch western "Power of the Dog." Haven't watched it, nor will I, even though I like Cumberbatch.
Sam Elliott rips gay themes in ‘Power of the Dog,’ calls it a ‘piece of s – – t’
I love Sam Elliott. He rarely says anything, so I found it interesting that he'd commented on this movie.
Sorry for the wrong first name above. That’s Benedict, not Benjamin Cumberbatch.
I can’t completely hate on it for the reasons you listed.
Fitzgerald’s powers of description cannot be denied. (”Tender is the Night” is fantastic in that regard.) What bothers me is that Gatsby was marketed and *hyped* as The Great American Novel. How such a cynical and depressing story was sold by our military as moral-boosting during the war is beyond me. It went out of print until our gov had to help it out. Now it has a permanent place in top ten lists because no one dares point out that it has no clothes.
I love Sam Elliot, but he needs to clean up his language.
It has a minor pre-requisite for reading it. You have previously mastered the entirety of English literature. Other than that, it's a walk in the park.
I was forced to read it in high school English. I thought it stunk! There are very few novels where I hate all the characters, this is one!
I went to high school from 1960-1965. None of those books were on the reading lists. We read books like Arrowsmith, The Jungle, My Antonia, Ethan Frome, The Iliad, and The Odyssey and several of Shakespeare's plays. My English teacher in 10th grade, who was also my homeroom teacher, assigned us "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Needless to say I never read it, and based my book report on what I found in the encyclopedia. The teacher wasn't fooled. That book was the only book out of all the books we were assigned to read during high school, that I passed on. I'm an avid reader, and have been my whole life, but I just couldn't get into that book.
“Classic Comics” were a thing in the 60’s. Lol.
“Agreed. “Critical Theory” and “Deconstructionism,” via the Frankfurt School, killed literature. Mission accomplished.”
I think this all started in the 60s and gained traction.
When “Jack and Jill” is read to the class. and then the teacher tells the students about the “underlying conditions”.
Jack’s father is an out of work acoholic. He can’t find a job because he did time. A trumped up charge upheld by a racist and corrupt judicial system.
Jill, who has been molested by her evil step father. Since her real father died of what would have been a nothing condition. But, becuase the US does not have universal health care rotted in an underfunded festering cess pool of a rehabilitation facility until he ultimately died of sepsis..
they were going to get water.. Because THE MAN had shut off both of their houses water supplies. Because the Water companies are run by greedy multinational corporations who only care about money...
It is truly the struggle of good and evil over evil capitalism and the fight for universal free health care..
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