Breaking someone into great literature

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

I thought of Pride and Prejudice and 100 Years of Solitude, mostly for their readability but also for their status.

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I've given up on 100 Years of Solitude twice, so you might want to give her "heath warnings" about that one!

Do you honestly thinks it's readable? I can see, perhaps, a modernist praising it for its experimentation and "breadth", but readability?

"Room with a View" surely can't fail. You might have to promise to take her to Florence, though...

"Great Expectations" by Dickens

"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" is a great suggestion - she might be more forgiving the first time she sees you drunk :)

Twain has to be good - go for Huck Finn?

Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck

Why not Lawrence? Not the Rainbow (or Lady C!) - maybe "Sons and Lovers" or "Women in Love"?

Kafka - Metamorphosis - maybe the best one to start with for the modernists? (maybe the best one anyway...) If she likes that:

Dostoevsky - Notes from the Underground

Walter Scott - Ivanhoe (not just a superb adventure, but great female characters...)

Jane Eyre and P&P are good ones. Indeed, plot-driven and not too bad vocab wise although I found P&P a bit weird in terms of mindset when I first read it (that may be only me though)

Dorian Gray is also a good suggestion.

For Dumas, I would definitely start off with The Three Musketeers. You can't not love it. You just get thrown into the action and the characters will never ever leave you :).
I personally started with Monte Cristo, but I had been enthralled by it on TV in my teenage years and I knew, although it was slow to get going, that it was going to be one hell of a story once it did. So that got me through the first 600 pages of it. Maybe the sheer size of it (unabridged) is a put-off, although if she reads regularly and fast she may not mind.

Les Misérables I would personally leave until a later date, or she has to read it in abridged version. It's too long and patchy. I read it when I was about 17-18 abridged in Dutch (horrendously abridged, I think it was about 300 pages...) and then I read it again in its full French version about 7 years later.

Maybe Far from the Madding Crowd?

Agree about Dickens, Dr Jekyll and Scott, although at times I found Ivanhoe a little bit funny with the vocab. Maybe not for a real first-timer, but after a few, you could throw it in. Why not. :)

I just started reading great literature and I must say I enjoyed reading 'The Great Gatsby' a lot. I have also read three books by Jane Austen (P&P, S&S and Persuasion) and I intend to read some more by her. In school there were a lot of people that read Animal Farm of 1984 for lit so I guess these are fit for beginners as well. And of course the best of luck with the girl ;)..

I second "Jane Eyre." Such a great novel and deeper than Austen (though Austen is great too).

East of Eden

Does she really need to be "broken in" like an untamed warrigal? If she's already reading and finishing books, it sounds like she just needs some gentle guidance, like when you cast your child into the water on their first visit to a public pool.

When giving recommendations, the best way to shoot yourself in the foot is by pushing some abstruse brick of a book that'll just discredit you. So short stories are ideal to begin with -almost anything by Flannery O'Connor ("The Life You Save May Be Your Own", "The Geranium", "Wildcat", "Everything That Rises Must Converge") will ease a fledgling reader into the great stuff. Hubert Selby Jr, Angela Carter, and Salinger are other good lead-ins to an immeasurable body of works.

If you're looking for a more direct bridge between YA subject matter and literature, I'd also champion Wilde(whilst acknowledging that some passages in the extended edition are skippable), and The Turn of the Screw is another popular one. Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow might be a softer step up, but three-hundred pages of quasi-verse isn't to everyone's taste.

Without knowing anything about this person you want to train in literature, it's impossible to make suggestions.

The first writers who really got me excited about literature were Camus, Sartre and Gide (I studied French at university so my scope was biassed).

But for some people all that theoretical s*** is a complete turn-off. From my observation, it tends to appeal more to the male than the female psyche.

I don't think I'd have enjoyed "Pride and Prejuduce" when I was 19. However, I imagine a romantic 19-year-old woman would appreciate it more than the pretentious swot that I was at that age. (I finally read it in my late 20s and thought it was great.)

"100 Years of Solitude" is definitely one of those love-or-hate books and I'd be surprised if it would appeal to someone who's read nothing but teen-lit. I loved it, personally, but I nevertheless found it hard work (owing to the dense, poetic prose and the characters who all have the same names).

This may sound stupid, but I think War and Peace would be a great start. Tolstoy just has the genius to him, which is universally understood.

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Originally Posted by loe

How about "Gulliver's Travels" or "Don Quixote"?

And when someone is interested in vampires then "Dracula" would be worthy to read (if she doesn't already know it).

I absolutely agree with the recommendation of "The Picture of Dorian Grey" and I would like to add "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" and "Frankenstein".

I wouldn't recommend 100 Years of Solitude. I remember it as a rather long-winded experience.

Here in german-speaking countries Herman Hesse and Max Frisch are very popular among young people. I am not sure how famous they are outside Europe?

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Hesse would be great. He was one of the first great novelists I got into. Demian, Stepphenwolf and Siddhartha would probably all be good. Peter Camenzid as well, a beautifully nostalgic and plain book.

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Originally Posted by Calidore

Well, congratulations.

Couple more thoughts and suggestions, if you'll forgive the liberty:

1) Make sure she feels free to drop something she ends up hating, rather than forcing herself to finish it just to please you.

2) Allow her to make recommendations to you also. I've been supplying a friend's kid with books for years, and found some YA stuff that I liked a lot as well. Give and take is important.

I would also submit, since this is a dating situation, that Pierre's suggestion of Lolita could be seen as unsubtle.

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I know, when I saw Pierre mention Lolita I laughed because she just turned 19 and I am 23 and its the biggest age gap I've ever experienced relationship-wise. And I'm going to give her a few books and just suggest that she check them out. I won't tell her she must read a book because its my favourite and I'll no longer respect her if she doesn't like it lol. I leant the Iliad to a friend a few years back. They hated it and I never regarded them the same henceforth.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

I've given up on 100 Years of Solitude twice, so you might want to give her "heath warnings" about that one!

Do you honestly thinks it's readable? I can see, perhaps, a modernist praising it for its experimentation and "breadth", but readability?

"Room with a View" surely can't fail. You might have to promise to take her to Florence, though...

"Great Expectations" by Dickens

"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" is a great suggestion - she might be more forgiving the first time she sees you drunk :)

Twain has to be good - go for Huck Finn?

Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck

Why not Lawrence? Not the Rainbow (or Lady C!) - maybe "Sons and Lovers" or "Women in Love"?

Kafka - Metamorphosis - maybe the best one to start with for the modernists? (maybe the best one anyway...) If she likes that:

Dostoevsky - Notes from the Underground

Walter Scott - Ivanhoe (not just a superb adventure, but great female characters...)

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I do not understand many person's dislike for 100 years of Solitude. I've read it 5 times, the first two times I simply could not put it down except to go to work or prepare meals. It carried me along like a river after a glacial melt, exhilaratingly fast.

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Originally Posted by kiki1982

Jane Eyre and P&P are good ones. Indeed, plot-driven and not too bad vocab wise although I found P&P a bit weird in terms of mindset when I first read it (that may be only me though)

Dorian Gray is also a good suggestion.

For Dumas, I would definitely start off with The Three Musketeers. You can't not love it. You just get thrown into the action and the characters will never ever leave you :).
I personally started with Monte Cristo, but I had been enthralled by it on TV in my teenage years and I knew, although it was slow to get going, that it was going to be one hell of a story once it did. So that got me through the first 600 pages of it. Maybe the sheer size of it (unabridged) is a put-off, although if she reads regularly and fast she may not mind.

Les Misérables I would personally leave until a later date, or she has to read it in abridged version. It's too long and patchy. I read it when I was about 17-18 abridged in Dutch (horrendously abridged, I think it was about 300 pages...) and then I read it again in its full French version about 7 years later.

Maybe Far from the Madding Crowd?

Agree about Dickens, Dr Jekyll and Scott, although at times I found Ivanhoe a little bit funny with the vocab. Maybe not for a real first-timer, but after a few, you could throw it in. Why not. :)

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I think 3 Muskateers might be one of the first I recommend. It has romance too if I recall correctly. I think Dumas is light but respectable, a great intro to the classics.

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Originally Posted by Haunted

East of Eden

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Yeah, Steinbeck might be a good choice. I've only read Grapes of Wrath but it was a brisk fun read.

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Originally Posted by Svidrigailov

Does she really need to be "broken in" like an untamed warrigal? If she's already reading and finishing books, it sounds like she just needs some gentle guidance, like when you cast your child into the water on their first visit to a public pool.

When giving recommendations, the best way to shoot yourself in the foot is by pushing some abstruse brick of a book that'll just discredit you. So short stories are ideal to begin with -almost anything by Flannery O'Connor ("The Life You Save May Be Your Own", "The Geranium", "Wildcat", "Everything That Rises Must Converge") will ease a fledgling reader into the great stuff. Hubert Selby Jr, Angela Carter, and Salinger are other good lead-ins to an immeasurable body of works.

If you're looking for a more direct bridge between YA subject matter and literature, I'd also champion Wilde(whilst acknowledging that some passages in the extended edition are skippable), and The Turn of the Screw is another popular one. Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow might be a softer step up, but three-hundred pages of quasi-verse isn't to everyone's taste.

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That's why I started this thread. I don't want to give her Crime and Punishment or a similarly deep book right off the bat. I want to beat her a clear easy path before she enters into the deep forest of books.

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Originally Posted by FranzS

Without knowing anything about this person you want to train in literature, it's impossible to make suggestions.

The first writers who really got me excited about literature were Camus, Sartre and Gide (I studied French at university so my scope was biassed).

But for some people all that theoretical s*** is a complete turn-off. From my observation, it tends to appeal more to the male than the female psyche.

I don't think I'd have enjoyed "Pride and Prejuduce" when I was 19. However, I imagine a romantic 19-year-old woman would appreciate it more than the pretentious swot that I was at that age. (I finally read it in my late 20s and thought it was great.)

"100 Years of Solitude" is definitely one of those love-or-hate books and I'd be surprised if it would appeal to someone who's read nothing but teen-lit. I loved it, personally, but I nevertheless found it hard work (owing to the dense, poetic prose and the characters who all have the same names).

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Gide is a wonderful suggestion. Thanks. I've only read The Immoralist but his style is one that would be good in this context. Its not that I want to train her, its just that she is at that age where its good to start transitioning to great literature but not everyone has in their life someone who can tell them the right books to read. It took me a lot of misses before I made the few nice hits that really set me off on my journey and love affair with literature.

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Originally Posted by Alexander III

This may sound stupid, but I think War and Peace would be a great start. Tolstoy just has the genius to him, which is universally understood.

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No, I understand why you'd mention Tolstoy. The sheer size may put her off, but his writing itself is clear and flowing, his stories pregnant with actions and ideas.

I can see going about this two ways. One would be to first find out what genres she likes (I think you know that already) and introduce her slowly, maybe first giving her some contemporary works of a higher literary value and then working back. Or, just jump right in and give her something crazy like War and Peace or Moby Dick and see what happens. You may scare her off or she could discover a love for the classics.

Plus, remember that introducing someone to great literature means making them read super-hard novels written over a hundred years ago. There's nothing wrong with something like Franzen, Delilo, Roth, Vonnegut, McCarthy, Pynchon, etc. I haven't read all of them, but you get the idea.

I think Jane Eyre would be a good start if you decide to go that route. Women seem to love that novel.

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi

Or, just jump right in and give her something crazy like War and Peace or Moby Dick and see what happens. You may scare her off or she could discover a love for the classics.

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This made me laugh really hard for some reason Mutatis. I think I'll not suggest Moby Dick or War and Peace or Brothers Karamazov or Don Quixote until after she gets at least a few solid classics under her belt. You mentioned McCarthy.... I've only read Blood Meridian and I think that after reading mostly only light-hearted popular teen fiction that book might pack a wallop of shock. I hear All the Pretty Horses is a little tamer, and I plan on reading it soon, so maybe that one might work.

Yes, I would not recommend Blood Meridian, lol. I was just rattling off contemporary authors as they came to me (and, yes, I know Vonnegut is dead, whoever was going to point that out). I've heard the same about All the Pretty Horses; probably why I've not read it.

Murakami might be another option.
Haven't read his stuff but from all reports he's got a good literary sense and knows how to weave an interesting story.

Someone already mentioned this, but I would also suggest Frankenstein... I actually bought this book for my my ex-boyfriend, who had not read much literature up to then and especially not the classics, and he really loved it... (not to mention that this novel has a lot of great themes that run through so many classics and through the romantics... it has elements of Paradise Lost, of the Bible, Byron, etc) Same thing with Steppenwolf.. generally I would recommend Hesse.

Also, for more modern stuff, Kazuo Ishiguro is great, and VERY readable ... Never Let Me Go was an enjoyable read.

All these suggestions are terrific. My other suggestion is to take her to the library and let her pick from some of these titles. The Great Gatsby is a great book- everyone likes it. W and P is big, but for me- that's what got me reading. The Stranger could be another recommendation. I'm almost done with The Plague. Camus is very easy to read. Good luck!