CLASSICS: The Foundation of our Literature

Kafka's The Trial - very scary, very moody, I dunno, it just sorta spoke to my then-teenaged soul.

A Separate Peace, by John Knowles.

I just re-read it recently. It's still the greatest book EVER.

Amen Kicky. Had to read it my junior year. Couldn't get it out of my head.

I'm perpetually re-reading the works of Charles Dickens. After 40 years, I'm familiar enough with the plots to find them ideal for pre-bedtime reading when I'm not quite ready for sleep, but I don' t want to start a new book.

Oh yeah. I read David Copperfield many years after high school. Loved it. Great holiday reading. Dickens has such great characters.

kickycan--

Dickens is a wonderful storyteller. Granted, his heroines are a bit gooey, but he was paid by the word and gooey heroines sold copy.

I loved most of the classics I have read - and I have read a lot.

Okay, i have to say I like dickens best for wit, but my condition makes it difficult to read anything above a 3rd grade level, so I'm going with "Island of Blue Dolphins" and "The Bridge to Teribithia."

kickycan,

I read a Separate Peace in sophomore year and I thought it was great too! (minus the work, term paper of course).

Let me see, one classic play I definitely love is...
The importance of being ernest." Oh my god, that play rocks!

I'm watching the movie version of "The Importance of Being Ernest" now. It's the one with Reese Whitherpoon...has anyone seen this one?

Like dlowan, I really loved most of the so-called classics we had to read. I was really impressed by James Joyce's Ulysses when I took a course in Modern Lietrature at University. Of course, I didn't even try to read and understand the whole book then; no time for that, one has to know just enough to pass the finals. Then, a couple of years after graduation I set myself the task of sitting down, reading it word for word, and researching anything I couldn't understand. It was an exhilarating experience. I had set myself a deadline -- Bloomsday! -- and I made it just under the wire.

When I was young I started doing this thing where whenever I went to the library I would walk to a random aisle, close my eyes, turn around, wave my hands, let it land on a book. I would take that book home and read at least three chapters. Worked out well more than a few times and that is how I came upon Lavengro by George Borrow. It is the first book I carried around for a week after reading it just to have it near.

wow, mayo, that is awesome! You know what's funny, I did the same thing too for the longest time. But the bad thing was that after awhile, I knew about the names of the ailes with with my eyes closed, lol. The good thing is that I picked what I read on fate instead of on what the media say, so I guess that's good.

By the way, did anyone knew that my name, "Zedd" is based on a character in a book I read? Can anyone figure out what book or book series?

My favorite classic is Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. I'm very sad that my high school no longer includes this great novel in its curriculum. My oldest sister got to read it with her class, but I don't get to...

But I did get to watch the A&E version of the book in my freshman world history class!

Classics? My favorite are Sophocles' Oedipus trilogy, Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and Oedipus at Colonus.

wow, you guys read some pretty tough classical books...*sigh*

I really love Les Miserable, tho...

For some reason I could never get into Dickens when I was a kid. Oliver Twist, for example, always seemed like such a goody two-shoes to me I couldn't sympathize with him. And the Deus ex machina endings always seemed contrived. Would you believe that in high school I actually loved Shakespeare? After seeing the Laurence Olivier Hamlet on the big screen (only way to see it then -- there were no VCRs yet), I suddenly, in a flasg of insight, began to understand the Bard's English. Then came Julius Caesar with Marlon Brando as Marc Anthony and James Mason as Brutus and I was hooked.

Let's see...

From high school I liked

The Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Perfume - Patrick Süskind
Batallas en el Desierto (maybe Battles in the Desert) - José Emilio Pacheco

I don't recall having to read any classics except Romeo and Juliet. (maybe I just didn't listen to the day's instructions or something, possible.) But when I was teenager I did read Wurthering Heights and some other book like that I have forgotten the name of. (It was about the English gentry and something..)I read Gone With The Wind several times, does that count?

Anyway, lately I have been scrolling through the classics in search of rhymes on the internet. I have read bits and pieces of Shakesphere and I have found that I like Emily Dickerson. When I am on a down day, she fits right in. She sure had a thing about death though.

On the whole I find most of those classics to be incredibly high brow and boring. I don't think I could get through a whole book of Shakesphere which is a shame because I think there would probably be a lot I would find interesting.

btw-please excuse my spelling. I have been on the internet for quite a while and I don't want to take the time to look all the many words that I can't spell.