Most enjoyable classics

[Mr.lucifer]

For you, what are the most enjoyable classics?

[SwedishDemocrac]

Anna Karenina.

[_Shannon_]

Try this list (look just below the last book--there are links to 4 other pages of books) :
http://artofmanliness.com/2009/06/02/the-essential-man%E2%80%99s-library-adventure-edition-part-one-fiction/

I seriously love some adventure novels and find them so much fun to read.

I am reading "enjoyable" as "fun to read".

[Pryderi Agni]

Well, for me, they're the original, original classics: Iliad, Odyssey (add the 'the's yourself, please!), the Mahabharata etc.

[stlukesguild]

Is this not simply another way of asking what our favorite classics are? It would seem that are favorites would probably be those works from which we draw the most pleasure or are the most enjoyable... but that's just me.:crazy:

[blazeofglory]

Well, for me, they're the original, original classics: Iliad, Odyssey (add the 'the's yourself, please!), the Mahabharata etc.


The Mahabharata is of course mine too. This epical classic has no comparison. I have read it as a child I was moved then by its amazing stories and now I read it oftentimes as a book of philosophy, literature, ethics or social science. This is a matchless book and even after millenniums this books has relevance and we can learn immensely from this great classic. I think that children can learn tremendously if they read this epic, however the difficulty is there is no good and authentic translation of this book. It unquestionably can keep our generations from straying if we read the book carefully and keep to the values enclosed in the book

[Lokasenna]

Is this not simply another way of asking what our favorite classics are? It would seem that are favorites would probably be those works from which we draw the most pleasure or are the most enjoyable... but that's just me.:crazy:

I'm not sure, you know. For example, 1984 is one of my favourite novels, but I wouldn't say I gain any pleasure from reading it. That which makes it so brilliant is its ability to make you feel uncomfortable and scared.

[mal4mac]

1984 is one of my favourite novels, but I wouldn't say I gain any pleasure from reading it. That which makes it so brilliant is its ability to make you feel uncomfortable and scared.

Getting round, or out of, a difficult situation is very pleasurable. So it was a pleasure to see the two lovers getting round the obstacles put in front of them. Less of a pleasure to see them getting caught, of course.

[Lokasenna]

Getting round, or out of, a difficult situation is very pleasurable. So it was a pleasure to see the two lovers getting round the obstacles put in front of them. Less of a pleasure to see them getting caught, of course.

Though for me the real heart of the book is not the relationship (indeed, it is in itself rather toxic), but the repercussions of such a liason in such a society. I didn't find them a compelling pair; it is what they were subjected to that generates my emotional response.

[_Shannon_]

Is this not simply another way of asking what our favorite classics are? It would seem that are favorites would probably be those works from which we draw the most pleasure or are the most enjoyable... but that's just me.:crazy:That's not true for me. Dumas is so much fun to read in a way which, say Nabokov is not. I still love Nabokov--but it's a different sort of enjoyment, one which is more intellectually demanding and focused more on structure and language, etc. Flaubert rocks my world--but it's not "fun" like Haggard.

[minstrelbard]

The classics I have most fun reading are the ones I read and liked as a kid: Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, some Edgar Allan Poe, some Rudyard Kipling (Kim, Jungle Books, etc.), and Jules Verne.

As an adult, I've found Hemingway and Steinbeck enjoyable.

[Or So I Read]

I'm not sure, you know. For example, 1984 is one of my favourite novels, but I wouldn't say I gain any pleasure from reading it. That which makes it so brilliant is its ability to make you feel uncomfortable and scared.

I think both the prior comment and this one are true at the same time. For me the pleasure comes when a book speaks to you individually – in whatever way.


Though for me the real heart of the book is not the relationship (indeed, it is in itself rather toxic), but the repercussions of such a liason in such a society.


Beautifully said!!

[kiki1982]

You know it's a close call between Dumas and Austen for me, but I think it must be Austen. Dumas strikes a more emotional than a 'fun' string for me.

Austen is just so much fun! I think I must start again once I have finished the collection, and that will be a very sad day indeed. :(

[WildWildEast]

Well, these are the classics that kept me entertained and thrilled at the same time; The Sound and The Fury, Tess of The D'Urbervilles and 20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

[stlukesguild]

I'm not sure, you know. For example, 1984 is one of my favourite novels, but I wouldn't say I gain any pleasure from reading it. That which makes it so brilliant is its ability to make you feel uncomfortable and scared.

But isn't that still a form of pleasure? Just as I may thrill to the tragedy of Hamlet or even the thrill of a good horror film or a roller-coaster ride? By the same token, some books represent the greatest cognitive challenges, and yet for some readers, there is a perverse pleasure to be had in this... just as there is something similar in solving a cross-word puzzle. If we didn't take pleasure in it... how could think of the work as "enjoyable?"

[Drkshadow03]

I'm not sure, you know. For example, 1984 is one of my favourite novels, but I wouldn't say I gain any pleasure from reading it. That which makes it so brilliant is its ability to make you feel uncomfortable and scared.

But isn't that still a form of pleasure? Just as I may thrill to the tragedy of Hamlet or even the thrill of a good horror film or a roller-coaster ride? By the same token, some books represent the greatest cognitive challenges, and yet for some readers, there is a perverse pleasure to be had in this... just as there is something similar in solving a cross-word puzzle. If we didn't take pleasure in it... how could think of the work as "enjoyable?"

Kind of like Grunewald's Crucifixion. Something can be so ugly that it's beautiful (by which one means it's a moving piece of art in its "ugliness").

http://www.arthistory.cc/auth/grunewald/crucifixion/crucifixion.jpg

[mortalterror]

I'm not sure, you know. For example, 1984 is one of my favourite novels, but I wouldn't say I gain any pleasure from reading it. That which makes it so brilliant is its ability to make you feel uncomfortable and scared.

But isn't that still a form of pleasure? Just as I may thrill to the tragedy of Hamlet or even the thrill of a good horror film or a roller-coaster ride? By the same token, some books represent the greatest cognitive challenges, and yet for some readers, there is a perverse pleasure to be had in this... just as there is something similar in solving a cross-word puzzle. If we didn't take pleasure in it... how could think of the work as "enjoyable?"

I totally see what he's talking about. As much as I love Moby Dick, it is a pain to read. Sometimes Milton is nice, but it's not a laid back high, it's crack not marijuana, makes you feel frustrated and exhilarated at the same time, like trying to do calculus in your head while playing three dimensional chess. I interpret "fun" as a more mellow kind of pleasure, which I can get out of Hemingway, Shakespeare, or Dante. Ovid and Racine are two different drugs which will take you on trips in opposite directions from each other.

[Or So I Read]

You know it's a close call between Dumas and Austen for me, but I think it must be Austen.(

A total aside -
Didn't Virginia Woolf in “A Room of One’s Own” liken Austen to Shakespeare? Something about her sophisticated character development? (read it so long ago.)

[Barbarous]

I find Don Quijote to be a pleasurable, smooth read. If one were to read an earlier translation, that is a different story! I had read the Jaris translation that was published around 1740 and thought it to be awful and boring. Yet my opinions were assuaged by the John Rutherford, which was published in either the 90's or 2000. Along with Cervantes in modern translation, I'd say what I have read of Flaubert in translation is very comfortable, pleasurable.

[DonovanTalbot]

Carmilla - Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Turn of the Screw - Henry James
Dracula - Bram Stoker
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea - Jules Verne
The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells
The Island of Dr Moreau - H. G. Wells
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

[dfloyd]

I have primarily read the classics all my life. I finish all I have started except for Virginia Woolf whom I can't abide. The books most pleasureble to me are the Adventure classics such as The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Prisoner of Zenda, Scaramouche, Captain Blood, Treasure Island, and others of like ilk. I also find Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway a pleasure to read. More serious works such as Les Miserables, Madame Bovary, Bleak House, Jude the Obscure, and Crime and Punishment are pleasurable, but require more effort on the reader's part.

[PrimordialBeast]

Robinson Crusoe
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Dr. Zhivago
The Call of the Wild
White Fang
The Hobbit
A Clockwork Orange
Taras Bulba
Fathers and Sons
War and Peace


just a handful I find most enjoyable and could reread over and over again

[IceM]

I still find myself favoring Siddhartha above all others.