Category: About the journey

General posts about the journey to read 100 classic novels

Classic Literature isn’t always easy, or good!

There are many reasons for reading classic literature. For me personally (not that anyone should necessarily care!) is that so many of them have worked their way into general language and discourse, and I wanted to acquaint myself with that. I also wanted to understand what these great works had to say about the human condition since, I despair at the general level of conversation and general decorum in society today. I am aware that sounds pompous. Apart from that I wanted to appreciate how some of our greatest literary geniuses express themselves and put together a story. It teaches us logic, metaphor, symbolism, social commentary, historical context, the zeitgeist and, as I wrote before, illuminates what it means to be human.

I am getting all of that from my reading so far. I have especially fallen for Dickens and although his representation on this list is very limited, I am working my way through his canon in parallel to this challenge. I guess you could say for the sheer enjoyment of his prose and story telling. I have been disturbed by the mind of Kafka, enthralled by George Elliot’s use of language and social commentary and impressed, as ever, with Hemingway’s ability to surprise.

However it isn’t all plain sailing and there have been books I have read already, that I found very hard going and got very little from personally. I guess this is the way with classic literature, especially genre changing prose. I expected to find works such as Ulysses and War and Peace a challenge. Both of these are long, but I have come to realize that length isn’t what makes a book a challenge. If the story is moving and developing, lengthy works can really suck you in. I haven’t tacked either of those two highly rated books yet, but others have been very difficult for me.

There are a number of Faulkner works on this list and if they are all like “Absalom, Absalom!” I am in for a hard time. “Catch-22” was another that passed me by totally and I found hard to follow exactly what Heller was driving at. I own that this is my fault and I don’t understand the literary techniques but when a sentence runs on for a page, or the flashbacks become difficult to follow, I tend to lose the plot.

I am thinking that this is OK. Not al great works, or indeed any fiction, is going to appear to everyone. It is expecting too much to be thrilled and enthralled by all 100 books on this list. I am coming to the conclusion that there is a style with which I just don’t gel. I am in for more of these on this journey, of that I am sure. There is also the possibility that as I read more widely, my skills will improve and these books will become more enjoyable. I am certainly open to approaching them again in the near future. In the meantime though, I will rate them as poor or difficult reads, accept that says more about me than the book, and move on with the quest to read all 100 of these works!

Reading the Classics – a personal challenge

It’s been a long time coming, but at the ripe old age of 53 (actually I started when I was still 52 but it took a while to get really motivated) I decided that my life would be better if I read more classic literature.

I have long had a love of reading but like many of us I suspect, I didn’t really make the time in between less developmental activities such as watching TV. However as the shows on offer became less and less interesting, as the news became more partisan, as politics became more “nervous breakdown” inducing, I decided that I should dedicate more time to reading, and specifically, break from my habit of consuming non-fiction and try some of the classics of human achievement that is, classical literature.

So where to begin?

Classics are in the eye of the beholder to a large extent and I spent some time perusing lists online and of course, there is no definitive answer to what makes a classic, and even less consensus as to what the “100 greatest works” list would comprise.

So I started with books I had always meant to get to and had been put off  since my school days. The first was Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens. I was immediately hooked by the prose, the humor, the social satire and I knew this was a path I wanted to follow before I became too much older!

However I wanted to plot a path through the great works and I came across the following website which is the source of the books that I have set myself to read: The Greatest Books.org

This list actually changes as it is compiled from 116 other lists of the great and the good so there is always some movement especially within the top 100 but as a snapshot in time, this will suffice for my purposes.

So the plan is to work through the top 100. No time scale, no particular order but the list will provide a framework for the next few years most likely. The plan is to share the journey, and some insights that hopefully come up along the way. Many people don’t read anymore and I think that’s a shame, hopefully some will be inspired to get back between the pages of a great book.

Here we go…..