Which classics have you read?

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.


Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens), whom I liked very much as a kid, was a excellent writer but he is also known to have made assertions that were not really accurate...

I wonder whether I'm the only one here who enjoyed Catcher in the Rye.

My only problem with it is that since the protagonist is in prep school,
teachers think it is a good book to assign to high schoolers.

Ack, I forgot I had read that one. Yep, got it in High School.

Hmmm if a case is made that classics are books (and plays) that have stood the test of time and are present in popular culture, as movies, Broadway shows, the vernacular, etc. then Jane Austen fits the bill but Charles Dickens fits it even better. How many people have seen one adaptation or another of A Christmas Carol? Many know Oliver Twist, at least from the film Oliver!. Plus I think a lot of educated folks will recognize the phrase "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times", even if they have forgotten where it came from.

Conrad also fits the bill (Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now) as does Hardy (Tess was made into a film about 15, 20 years ago) and Shaw (Pygmalion/My Fair Lady). Kafka kind of fits the bill, more for the phrase kafkaesque hitting the language than nearly anything else. Orson Welles made a film of The Trial and I've seen a fairly recent (last 15 or so years) televised play of The Metamorphosis, with Mikhail Baryshnikov (!) playing Gregor. Without makeup or effects, by the way. But otherwise it's been tough to film his stuff.

Twain fits the criteria as does Cervantes. Homer and Chaucer not as much but that may be more due to a difficulty in getting those kinds of stories to the screen than any lack of literary merit. Hmm.

Candide by Mister Doctor Ralph(Voltaire)...

Short and sweet.

On Salinger, I presume much of the interest was in the context of a "new" style/content of writing relative to what went before in literature history. The same thing is watched for in the art world(s), as we all know.
My reading has not been benefitted by classes in advanced lit or criticism, though I've friends who've taught those. I'm your primitive avid reader.


Wouldn't mind hearing the plusses of Salinger's writing.

Yes, A definitive classic. One of my top ten books.

I liked the Catcher in the Rye the first time I read it. Then again, I was 16. The second time, not so much. I don't think I finished it then.

Because it blows thats why.

Amigo, Candide is hands down my favorite novel ever. I was reading the eleven pages of opinions and was awestruck when I realized that no one had mentioned it.

Another one to the growing list of things i must read. Sigh.

Toss your list out the friggen window and read Candide. It's the size of mice and men.

DO IT TOMORROW.

done. i ordered it online just now. i'll have it on monday or tuesday.

I would have sent it to you as a gift with a picture and signed the inside.

well, i guess you'll have to send me another book. surprise me.

I'll send it to the UPS depot so you don't have to give me your address or name with a Pacific coast souvenir.

i don't want to read it in a UPS depot. i'm scared of dark big spaces.