Reading the Classics

Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Louanne Learning, Aug 14, 2022.

  1. Friedrich Kugelschreiber

    Friedrich Kugelschreiber marshmallow Contributor

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    I like Anthony Trollope a lot. I read his Palliser novels and one or two of the Barchester novels but there's still a lot I need to get through. I have a whole shelf. Trollope really funny, and he's good at evoking a sense of the milieu he's writing about. The political orientation of his books is interesting--he's really concerned with how humans interact with institutions, which is the kind of emphasis that resonates with me for some reason. It's like, how do ridiculous or noble or greedy people move and relate with each other and fulfill their ambitions within an institutional framework? He explores some other interesting themes. The whole backdrop of the parliamentary novels is the liberal/conservative dialectic during the 60s-80s with all the reform bills, so Trollope gets a lot of thematic mileage out of this idea of a liberal aristocracy supporting these reforms that are steadily eroding their own place in society. One of the best characters ever written is Plantagenet Palliser, who is a great example of political integrity, but he runs into this problem, especially in the last couple novels, of being a liberal aristocrat--it's like a contradiction in terms. How can you embrace the spirit of liberalism and still hold onto the idea of a hierarchical society of orders and a privileged class?

    And the books are kind of crazy too. Like Middlemarch is just about several people's unhappy marriages, but when Trollope writes about an unhappy marriage he includes a legal battle over a priceless diamond necklace and foxhunting and blackmail and bitter parliamentary elections. It's more interesting. And the whole thing is set in the same cinematic universe, sort of a Marvel thing, so that's cool. It's kind of a remarkable creation. If you read about a single character over like six fairly thick novels, you really start to get invested in him or her. And these characters are really worth getting invested in. They're really well-drawn. I can't think of another Victorian writer who did something on that scale.

    Maybe his stuff isn't the greatest example of literature and it's probably not, but it's my favorite.

    I read East of Eden this summer. That's one of my favorite books. It's really good. It's like this generational recapitulation of the story of Cain and Abel...it's like, free will vs nature, what does it mean to be good in the face of that...like moral complexity and all this shit. And those characters are incredible too. From what I've read since, I don't think that Steinbeck maybe actually understood how Hebrew worked but I can forgive him that. Samuel Hamilton is another one of those characters who kind of lives in my head now.
     
  2. JLT

    JLT Contributor Contributor

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    For which I await the screen treatment, although I doubt that Coppola would be interested in doing it.

    But Puzo, I'm told, had been persuaded that the book wouldn't sell without those parts. Like many writers, he was better at writing than at analyzing the market.
     
  3. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    So I just started reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Read the letters and am now on Chapter 5. It's kind of boring. Does it get better?
     
  4. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Not particularly.
     
  5. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    That has the odd effect of making me want to read it to the end.
     
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  6. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    The language is a bit... boggy by modern standards. Certainly doesn't have the snap and sensual chill of terror I experienced reading Dracula, but I was glad I read Frankenstein. Persevere.
     
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  7. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    Yeah, I'd say so.
     
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  8. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    The thing with Frankenstein is that the initial letters bit is just a framing device, and I'm not sure it's always successful - but it gets the point it needs to across. Where the book becomes really interesting is after Adam is born and Victor tries to run from it like the silly scaredy-cat he actually is.
     
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  9. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    I continue to read. I am on chapter 8
     
  10. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    It probably helps to know about the story of Prometheus (the subtitle is 'The Modern Prometheus' after all), and have at least a basic knowledge of Paradise Lost by John Milton (it's name dropped directly in the narrative).

    It's all about playing God, and the amount of responsibility we should take for our own creations. Victor has created life, and it's actually a pretty impressive thing - strong, smart, it is just abandoned because it isn't 'perfect' in the eyes of its creator. Its 'God'.
     
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  11. Seven Crowns

    Seven Crowns Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    I need to read that one too. I'm always looking at the lists of famous books you're supposed to have read, and Frankenstein is always on it.
     
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  12. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    I think I've read Frankenstein but it's hard to tell. I recognise a lot of prose from it, but that might have come from reading it in other mediums and excerpts of it.
     
  13. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    To Kill a Mockingbird. It's one of those books we were made to read in class, but I enjoyed it enough to read ahead and finish it off, and proceeded to get very bored in class while we were reading it out load.
     
  14. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    There's a lot to learn from diving into the literary cannon. I do think reading a lot of classics and just reading a lot in general has helped my writing tremendously.
     
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  15. w. bogart

    w. bogart Contributor Contributor Blogerator

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    Dune. Frank Herbert did a masterful job of weaving plots within plots within plots.
     
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  16. JLT

    JLT Contributor Contributor

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    Not long after Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein came out, I saw that title in a bookstore. It was described as a novelization of the movie. So here we had a book made from a movie made from a book. I thought about buying it, but then decided to wait for the movie that would be based on the book based on the movie based on the book.

    I also bought a paperback copy of Lew Wallace's Ben Hur at a garage sale, only to find out that it was a rather severe abridgment of the original. It had cut out everything except what happened in the 1959 movie. So I guess that also qualified as a book based on a movie based on a book.
     
  17. GrahamLewis

    GrahamLewis Seeking the bigger self Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    In my experience, not much better. I suppose it's because I'm so conditioned by the movies.
     
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  18. GrahamLewis

    GrahamLewis Seeking the bigger self Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    I've always found literary cannons to be a blast. Not so much literary canons, though.
     
  19. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    I got about half-way and then kind of stalled. I have read other books from the 18th century that have kept my interest. Maybe it's just where I am at this point in time in my life.
     
  20. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    19th century :)

    But, yeah, I found Frankenstein incredibly dull and I like other works from the era.
     
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  21. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    I didn't make it very far with Frankenstein before I started skimming. Great concept but I bogged down in the onslaught of words and ponderous philosophy. On the other hand, I was spellbound by Bram Stoker's Dracula.
     
  22. JLT

    JLT Contributor Contributor

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    Well, it was conceived by a bored teen-ager who didn't have much experience in writing, and used style models that were prominent at the time. You've got to cut her a little slack, since she was busy inventing the genre of science fiction.

    Stoker was fifty when he wrote Dracula, and had been a professional writer for years.
     
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  23. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I don’t agree Frankenstein represents the invention of Science Fiction. You can go back to at least Kepler’s Somnium.
     
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  24. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    Yes, she was young. Yes, he was older. Yes, I understand the style models of the times differed from modern standards. I even understand the novels were written almost a century apart with accompanying stylistic changes.

    That being said, in terms of readability in the field of creepy classics, I bogged down in the onslaught of words and ponderous philosophy in Frankenstein, and was spellbound by Dracula.
     
  25. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    She was also surrounded by writers, her mother was a famous writer and proto-feminist critic. She wasn't a bored teen ... at all.

    There were almost certainly parts of Frankenstein that were written by Percy Shelley. Especially the bit where Victor sails down the Rhine river. That's pure Romanticism.

    But I think that's part of the problem - Frankenstien has been a victim of popular culture. You think of the monster and you're likely to think of something stocky, dumb and has two metal things in its neck, and Adam just isn't anything like that. He's a corruption of beauty, frighteningly intelligent and articulate - and yes he is also strong. For Victor he's a disappointment because he aimed for perfection and missed - for the monster, Victor is dad and God. It's a Romantic novel (not a romantic novel), not a gothic horror like Dracula which is more likely to interest modern readers' tastes.

    Edit: I like them both well enough, but they are very different books.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2022
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