I don't feel like reading classics any more!!

[R.Emerson]

Hi all..

I don't know exactly what is my problem. Every time I read a classic, Wuterhing Heights for example, I grasp anything from the text. It just gets boring to me. Not the same feeling in the classroom with the professor who focuses our attention on some details, kind of nitty-gritty ones, that help us appreciate the novel and taste it well.

Do you have the same problem or might have once faced it?

Also the language is so difficult and I had to check many dictionaries to get some sense of the word. Not to talk about the long sentences which you simply can't follow the whole idea.

Please help me or suggest to me some other titles. I used once to read for Sidney Sheldon, a pop story-teller, and I was simply appalled by his style and plots, but still his novels don't have deeper meaning or lesson:idea:

Waiting for your replies...

[CaptureLife]

Maybe it would help to simultaneously read the cliff notes, as they tend to be detail-oriented. As far as suggestions go, find an author whose style is most interesting to you, like Wilde or Wells or Twain (or Christie, though I don't really consider her to be classical literature). There are a million authors who don't write in run-on sentences or use exceedingly long words; you just have to find him or her. Literature preference is very personal and subjective.

[Bookworms Rock]

My Mom used to tell us the stories of many classics, so when i got old enough to read them i was able to easily pick out the storyline and skip the excess descriptions. however, one book i just could not get through was pride and prejudice. now i would not suggest this for most books, but the BBC movie, the 5 hour two disk set (not the new one with keira knightley), is virtualy word for word from the book. when i read the book after watching, i was totaly able to understand and enjoy it. i know that there are loads more BBC films based on classic novels, if they are just as accurate and well acted, they should help. youll eventually spot a "pattern" and learn for other books which parts are story and which are skipable

[malwethien]

you know..don't read too many classics in a row...you will get bored. Mix it up a little...read classics then follow it with some contemporary literature. There are a lot of good contemporary literature out there...check newspaper and magazine lists of notable books of the year...most of those are really worth reading. Also...try different genres...classics, sci-fi, fantasy...whatever...you will also learn a lot more that way. Don't limit yourself to just one genre.

[JCamilo]

Obviously, like everything in life, getting used to find the deeper meanings, to get the language ,etc is a matter of experience and knowledge. Your teacher have years of such experience and study you can not certainly expect to do like he did with the experience of Sidney Sheldon. And like everything, you need time.
Plus, you may be picking the wrong book, do not read it just because it is a classic, do not read it because you read in a review who manigifcent Wuthering Heights is.

[_Shannon_]

you know..don't read too many classics in a row...you will get bored. Mix it up a little...read classics then follow it with some contemporary literature. There are a lot of good contemporary literature out there...check newspaper and magazine lists of notable books of the year...most of those are really worth reading. Also...try different genres...classics, sci-fi, fantasy...whatever...you will also learn a lot more that way. Don't limit yourself to just one genre.

This is such great, great advice!! Have you read Ender's Game by Orson Card Scott (or is that Orson Scott Card:confused: ) ?? It's a sci-fi book and it is a great, and easy -but not fluffy- read. I often mix up my classics reading with literary non-fiction as well. Home Town by Tracy Kidder is one of the best examples- as well as being one of the best books I have ever read!

Also- I often struggle through books- just sort of sleep reading it feels like--and when the book is over it always turns out that have actually understood far more than what I thought I would!! I just keep reading despite not understanding everything--and usually in the end I get mmore out of it than I thought I would.

Can I ask you, too, are you a guy or a gal? If you are a guy- it might also be book choice. Although I am a woman I have a great soft spot for boys adventure novels... authors like Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Baroness Orczy (The Scarlet Pimpernel), H. Rider Haggard. Alexandre Dumas. I have 5 little kids and so it really helps to have books like these interspresed in between more intense works- they are great stories, exciting, and fun to read!

[R.Emerson]

Thank you so much for your replies. They really help although still waiting for more replies. I'm boy, Shannon.

Let me ask then about these titles which one is the most interesting.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A Passage to India by E.M.Forester
The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier
To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
The Secret Life of the Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Memories of Geisha by Arthur Golden

They are all put into the shelf for sometime without being able what to pick. I'm really obsessed by speed reading till I lose the enjoyment of what I read at the time.

[_Shannon_]

Of that list without any doubt or reservation I would say To Kill a Mockingbird....followed by Catcher in the Rye. Personally I find Forrester dreadfully boring. :yawnb:

Last year I taught lit in a little co-op school and made my seniors read TKaM before graduating (it was a class of all boys)--and they all loved it. That is one of those books I think everyone should read- to me it is the quintessential American novel, as well as being a great,great read!

[nps_marina]

I would give the exact same advice as Shannon. Try To Kill a Mockingbird first (it cured me out of an 'I don't feel like reading' bout this summer), and then The Catcher is a good book also (it will happen that right after Mockingbird nothing will seem good enough... but The Catcher is).

As a matter of fact, they are both in my 'favorite books' pile (my avatar)

[Pensive]

Thank you so much for your replies. They really help although still waiting for more replies. I'm boy, Shannon.

Let me ask then about these titles which one is the most interesting.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A Passage to India by E.M.Forester
The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier
To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
The Secret Life of the Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Memories of Geisha by Arthur Golden

They are all put into the shelf for sometime without being able what to pick. I'm really obsessed by speed reading till I lose the enjoyment of what I read at the time.

I have read two books out of this list which were The Kite Runner and Memoirs of Geisha. Both of them proved to be very much interesting to me. I would strongly recommend you to read them! The language is quite simple and easy to understand but the concepts are not too easy. You can get lost in them. But anyway, they are good novels to try. :)

As for your problem of reading classics, I think many of us feel this way. People don't like them for different reasons for example the racialism in many, the society at that time annoys teenagers now a days, and some other reasons. There is this class-fellow of mine. Once she asked from me some books recommendations and insisted I shouldn't suggest any classic. When I asked from her the reason, she was like, "There are no slangs in them, and less swear-words." Perhaps she meant to say the language was less colourful. Anyway I personally have not faced much problem against most of the classics but some have really irritated me. Perhaps you should try Jane Eyre. It's good and easy to understand. And if you can't bring yourself to read classics, there are other good books as well. :)

Try to read Stephen King! His works are much better than Sidney Sheldon, at least in my opinion.

[JCamilo]

Reading Kafka is easy, understanding ? If you put together 100 literature teachers with specialization in Kafka they will probally agree to disagree.
However, it is the really only great book in your list.

[Mark F.]

Kafka, Salinger and Lee. I haven't read the other books on your list but theirs are all great. "The Metamorphosis" is a more demanding read than the other two, so it depends on what you're looking for.

[PeterL]

Hi all..

I don't know exactly what is my problem. Every time I read a classic, Wuthering Heights for example, I grasp anything from the text. It just gets boring to me. Not the same feeling in the classroom with the professor who focuses our attention on some details, kind of nitty-gritty ones, that help us appreciate the novel and taste it well.

Do you have the same problem or might have once d it?

Also the language is so difficult and I had to check many dictionaries to get some sense of the word. Not to talk about the long sentences which you simply can't follow the whole idea.

Please help me or suggest to me some other titles. I used once to read for Sidney Sheldon, a pop story-teller, and I was simply appalled by his style and plots, but still his novels don't have deeper meaning or lesson:idea:

Waiting for your replies...

Several questions are suggested by your comments and questions:

What do you expect to get from a classic?
How do you define a classic?
Why do you read?

If you want to read for pleasure, and you don't want to read only "high literatur", then you might try reading some recent, well regarded authors. Just because something is recent doesn't mean that it sn't as god as a classic. You might also want to read some of the great authors in sub-genres. Some science fiction would be regarded as fine literature, if it weren't tarred with the same brush as lousy space opera. Poul Anderson is one such author.

You might also want to read some of the great detective novels, which speak to the same themes as the classics.

There are current main-stream authors, like Umberto Eco, who are on the level of the "classic" authors, but who have not achieved the same popularity. H. P. Lovecraft was as great a crafter of stories with the classic themes, although cast in horror, who still hasn't been enshrined with the great classic writers, although he was a better writer than most.

Just grab a book at random. You might love it. Exploring books is like exploring wine: you have to search until you find what you like.

[malwethien]

This is such great, great advice!! Have you read Ender's Game by Orson Card Scott (or is that Orson Scott Card:confused: ) ?? It's a sci-fi book and it is a great, and easy -but not fluffy- read. I often mix up my classics reading with literary non-fiction as well. Home Town by Tracy Kidder is one of the best examples- as well as being one of the best books I have ever read!

Thanks, Shannon...I don't know if you were asking me or Emerson about Ender's Game...but just in case it was me you were asking...yes, I read the Ender Trilogy (at the time I read it it was just a trilogy...I think I read somewhere here that there are more now)...and I enjoyed it very much!


Let me ask then about these titles which one is the most interesting.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A Passage to India by E.M.Forester
The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier
To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
The Secret Life of the Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Memories of Geisha by Arthur Golden


Read The Cather in the Rye first....then To Kill a Mockingbird...then you can follow it with more 'newer' novels...The Lady and the Unicorn is ok...but not great...Memoirs of a Geisha is better. The Metamorphosis is kinda heavy..it seems like an easy read, but the hidden meanings and symbolism is not that easy to comprehend. Passage to India begins kinda slow...but you might get into it after a while.....

[tudwell]

I'm surprised no one mentioned Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. While I wouldn't put it up there with The Metamorphosis and To Kill a Mockingbird, it's still a good book (besides its historical impact). The Catcher in the Rye is pretty good, too.

[Turk]

Try to read foreign books. I rarely read Turkish novels, because as my grampa says "man's life is novel" and as a person who lives in Turkey i don't like reading Turkish novels. Things i've experienced are much interesting than novels.

But on the other, i really enjoy reading Russian, American, French or any foreign literature. Because it's more fun and better for my imagination (aahhh old days... no one can know how many times i've read Robinson Crusoe :)). Try to read foreign books, especially Dostoievski he's the best novelist ever and number one person Russia ever produced after Boris Yeltsin. :lol:

[R.Emerson]

Thank u all guys for ur replies. I think I want to make a richer reading experience from these books.

Do u have any site helping me out? I bought two books on improving the reading experience: How to Read Literature As a Professor and The Complete Idiot's guides on critical reading. Perhaps they will help.

If you know how can I make my readings richer, then give me ur opinions.

[malwethien]

Emerson....you can search for Book Lists...and see which books make it on those lists....for example, you can look for Pulitzer Prize winners, Booker Prize Winners, you can also look at the Time's Notable Books list - they come up with a list every year...there is also the NY Time's Book Lists....I mean I don't guarantee that they are all good...but it's a start...at least you know what books people are reading and think worthy.....you can start from there...

[Aiculík]

Hi all..

I don't know exactly what is my problem. Every time I read a classic, Wuterhing Heights for example, I grasp anything from the text. It just gets boring to me. Not the same feeling in the classroom with the professor who focuses our attention on some details, kind of nitty-gritty ones, that help us appreciate the novel and taste it well.

Do you have the same problem or might have once faced it?

Also the language is so difficult and I had to check many dictionaries to get some sense of the word. Not to talk about the long sentences which you simply can't follow the whole idea.

Please help me or suggest to me some other titles. I used once to read for Sidney Sheldon, a pop story-teller, and I was simply appalled by his style and plots, but still his novels don't have deeper meaning or lesson:idea:

Waiting for your replies...

You might want to try "modern classics": Language is more natural, and there's "deeper meaning" as well. I'd recommend Lodge, Patel, Eco, Marquez, Rushdie...

I had the same problem few years ago (and actually I still have it, but have to read classics for school) - so I searched for the list of Nobel prize winners. I still haven't read all of them, but those that I did were really awesome - Morrison, Kertesz, Golding, Marquez, Canetti, Koetzee... I can recommend any of these.