Classics

[in_the_attic]

Hello!

I have a rather odd question: Does anyone else find reading classics easier to read than reading contemporary fiction, young-adult, or anything modern? I can relate to the characters better in a classics, the stories seem more realistic, and every time I try to read something new, I end up throwing the book away, especially young-adult books. The situations just don't seem real.

It'd be nice to know if anyone else is like this! :)

-In_the_Attic

Comments

Re: written while (unironically) wearing a Wuthering Heights t-shirt

[in_the_attic]

I know you really wanted people to say, yeah books written after Romanticism ended are just not as good, but I have these feelings and that disease, you know that one, where you can't keep yourself from explaining or talking or trying to figure things out.

Ha! I enjoyed the comment immensely. You've really given me somethings to mull over. And the list idea is a great one!

And I have not heard the term 'absurdist' until today, and had to go look it up, and while this has nothing to do with the term, it made me think of how I love literary nonsense. And while I do love Carroll, I find his other works much more fun than Alice. :D

Re: written while (unironically) wearing a Wuthering Heights t-shirt

[major_general]

Thank you for reading the comment!

I love to freak out my students (and random other people) with my ability to recite Jabberwocky. I've never read much of Carroll beyond Alice, but his skills with nonsense verse are something to be applauded.

I was a theater minor years and years ago. I have an insane love for the forms of theater that developed in the 20th century. I love Beckett, Artaud (Theater of Cruelty), and Brecht(verfremdungseffekt!). Really, I love anything that plays with notions of reality and makes the audience participate in the narrative. No passive theater audiences! But I think this is why we diverge in terms of what we appreciate in literature. I appreciate when an audience/reader has to confront the fictionality of the narrative in which it/he/she invests time. My favorite painting does just that in such a marvelous way: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/caulfield-after-lunch-t02033

However, this notion of different levels of reality was used in Atonement and even though I recognize it as masterfully done there, I truly hate that book. There is no way that Briony could ever atone. See and there I'm unable to let go of the catharsis. Brecht would be so disappointed.