“′Classic′ – a book which people praise and don’t read.” – Mark Twain
At my college preparatory school, our vacations weren’t unfettered thanks to “Summer Reading” that required us to read four books during break. Our list going from seventh to eighth grade was limited to four books so we had no choices. I only remember two – Pride and Prejudice and The Oxbow Incident. I’m sure none of the boys would have read Jane Austin and I promise I would have never read The Oxbow Incident if not forced to do so. I never regretted reading either book.
Going into ninth grade, we had to read Les Miserables. Consuming this gigantic tome wouldn’t have been quite as bad if we hadn’t had to read three other books as well before early September. Les Miserables was such an overarching requirement that I can’t remember the other three books. I do recall feeling quite upset when Fantine had to sell her hair, then her front teeth, then turn to prostitution to support her child she’d abandoned to unscrupulous innkeepers. I mean, how much money could a toothless, hairless prostitute earn? That autumn I quipped to the teacher that, “I would have been less miserable if I hadn’t had to read it.” She was not amused.
Tenth grade meant two more large volumes: East of Eden and Moby Dick. The others were shorter (I think one was another Jane Austin entry) but trying to tackle the unromantic Moby Dick felt all-consuming since it held zero appeal for me, a teen girl.
I thought the school wimped out when the following year they issued a list of about thirty books and let us choose. The boys immediately checked out the shortest books from the school library so I was stuck with longer ones. Ironically, I can’t recall any of the books I read for school that summer.
All this gloom despite the fact I love to read. I like long books when I find them on my own. For instance, I read Gone with the Wind in the seventh grade and read it again in the eighth grade.
My school was or is hardly alone. Students are assigned reading all the time, to everyone’s benefit. But I wonder what the authors would think of schools forcing unwilling and bored students to read their books. Novelists write for income but also for love of story and craft. Don’t all storytellers want readers to enjoy their work?
Maybe you’ll never write a book that students will be compelled to read long after your death. But if you can touch hearts and minds of your generation, isn’t that a gift from God?
Your turn:
What is your favorite book that would be considered great literature?
Do you want to write great literature?
Obstacles are a Pain
I grew up without reading the classics and without people encouraging me to read them. But I liked to read, hence I kept hearing their titles referred to by other writers. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I began to read some of the books you and others have mentioned. We lived in the mountains and life was slow and outside was snowbound, so I began to enjoy and absorb these great works. I enjoyed every one I read and felt more knowledgeable for the experience. It was great having a working knowledge and then affinity for the books and the authors’ writing styles. I think I’m an old soul at heart for I love the experience of slow plot formation and the copious dialogue found in many of them. Moby Dick, though, was a stretch, but I loved its opening line.
Ah, I suddenly crave a cup of hot cocoa!
I think the ones I remember most from our reading list was Huckleberry Finn, Alice and the Wonderland, and the Scarlett Letter.
I did not read Pride and Prejudice, but absolutely adore the movie adaptation with Keira Knightley. Have watched it too many times to tell.
By the way, love this post! The paragraph about Les Miserable was so funny, I read it to my son. Hysterical!
So glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
I have always adored the “classics” and continue to prefer them to many modern works. I have a nostalgic bent but also find the language, artistry, profundity of thought, theological wrestling, and pacing in a lot of the greats to be unmatched. Sitting down with Moby Dick or The Great Gatsby or The Song of the Lark is like savoring a superb meal composed of only the finest ingredients. Three of my absolute favorite classics are The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, and almost anything by Willa Cather. Faulkner, in general, makes me feel like an ant. Having said all this, I was never force-fed the dead geniuses, and most of their works I read outside of school of my own volition. They were never a burden and always a treasure. I think it’s important that children be exposed to such writers because they are the foundation on which present writers stand, and so many of our best modern authors draw heavily from their works.
As far as any ambition to write great literature, I would settle for writing something periodically beautiful and moving that points people to the Lord!
Laura, you list some great books! Going on Amazon now…
There are so many good novels, aren’t there? It’s fun to read about which stories spoke to different people. I’m with Jerusha Agen: My all time favorite is To Kill A Mockingbird, and it’s the book that made me want to write. The high point of my roller-coaster experience with self-publishing years ago was finding a handwritten thank you note from Harper Lee in my mailbox one autumn afternoon. I had sent her a copy of my novel, thanking her for “setting the bar we still aspire to.” I keep the note in a copy of Mockingbird given to me by a dear friend, a Boo Radley kind of friend. The book and the note feel like sunshine every time I see them.
Les Miserables is actually one of my all-time favorites, haha. But I did read it on my own in 9th grade. I was so enamored with the musical, I decided to read the book, and have read it a couple of more times since then. Nearly all of my favorite books are classics–The Three Musketeers, Le Morte D’Arthur, Jane Eyre, Paradise Lost, 1984, etc. But I like some more recent ones, too.
I never resented being “made” to read in school. That said, I read almost nothing for American literature. I just couldn’t bring myself to finish any of it. I’m pretty sure I’d rather sear my eyeballs with a branding iron than read one more word of John Steinbeck. But give me the British classics, and I’m in heaven!