Reading "classic" books

[realFedUp]

One of my goals this year was to
read as many "classic" books that I didn't
read in high school or college. I know each
is a classic for being important and or controversial at
the time it was written, but can I say
how depressing a lot of American classics
are. I know they reflect the times and
situations but oy! If I wanted to be more
depressed than I already am about America's
current situation...

anyway, my little rant on classics.
Willa Cather's My Antonia was wonderful though :-)

Got a favorite "classic"?

[stevebreeze]

1. grapes of wrath

1984
catch 22
slaughterhouse 5

[candy]

2. The Forsyte Saga-Galsworthy

Too contemporary to be considered a classic but an absolutely marvelous book.

[realFedUp]

3. can I just rent the video?

:-)

[candy]

4. No---never rent the video when you can read the book !!!!

I read the book long before the first TV series was done and wouldn't even watch the second TV series.

Read the book!

[Horse with no Name]

5. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Through it is often categorized as a coming-of-age novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is much more than that. Its richly-plotted narrative of three generations in a poor but proud American family offers a detailed and unsentimental portrait of urban life at the beginning of the century.
This was one of my all time favorite books and I still have it in my library 35 years after the first time I read it.

[justiceischeap]

6. The Jungle - Upton Sinclair (eom)

[CitySky]

22. a must-read

The images engraved in my head from this book help me stay aware of why we NEED some government regulation: corporations on their own will use their workers until their bodies break then throw them away, and they will offer the public the cheapest product they can sell, even if it's unsafe!

[Chelsea Patriot]

7. Anything by Jackie Susann and William Faulkner

Once Is Not Enough...Valley Of The Dolls

As I Lay Dying...The Sound and The Fury

American Literature at its best!

[DemBones DemBones]

18. First time I've ever seen Susann and Faulkner mentioned together!

:shrug:

[bklyncowgirl]

8. According to Mark Twain...

"A classic is a book that everybody wants to have read but nobody wants to read."

I'm sure he'd hate to have anything of his included in that catagory but a trip down the Mississippi with Huck and Jim is something every American should do even if they're not being forced at gunpoint by some English teacher.

[Richardo]

20. Well said, bklyncowgirl!

:D:thumbsup:

[Extremeleftwing]

9. Great choice

My Antonia is a classic. IMO it can't get any better than that. I also like the Grapes of Wrath.

[roguevalley]

10. Plato's Apology, Grant's Memoirs

[incrediblehulk]

11. Old Classics are the best

I'm reading the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer. Also the Politics of Right by Hegel. Heavy stuff.

[amjucsc]

12. A few:

The Illiad, The Odessey, Oedipus Rex, Philoctetes (also by Sophocles), a long list of Shakespeare plays, Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels...

[visceral]

13. Dante's Inferno.

Try Dante's Inferno for a unique perspective on what the Bushies have in store for them!

[Tux]

14. A few

Karl Marx' Communist Manifesto is good since it'll explain communism really is. Can't beat captialism.

Charles Darwin's Origin of Species is dull as can be but at least you'll know evolution as it started and can go from there.

J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is a must-read.

[Pirate Smile]

15. To Kill a Mockingbird.

[ianna_kur]

16. Some Political Science classics...

The Republic - Plato
Politics - Aristotle
The Second Treatise of Government - Locke
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality - Rousseau
On the Social Contract - Rousseau

These are a good start for understanding the foundations of our own governmental system. :-)

[Coexist]

17. To Kill a Mockingbird

The Great Gatsby (anything by Fitzgerald, actually)
Wuthering Heights
How Green Was My Valley
Washington Square
The Old Man and the Sea
The Big Sky (is that considered a classic?)


None of these are non-fiction, though.

[Richardo]

19. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

:wow:

[HuckleB]

21. This is certainly the year to read Cervantes' "Don Quixote" --

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=208x4320

And here's THE translation for newbies: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060188707/qid=1108141389/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/104-1052309-1597548

[CitySky]

23. Dostoevsky fan

I'm re-reading Brothers Karamazov right now.

Would love to learn Russian some day before i die, just to read Dostoevsky in the original.

[Sequoia]

26. "Crime and Punishment" was good too.

Read that in a Russian Lit class I took in HS.

[Igel]

30. His Russian isn't terribly complex.

Much easier than Tolstoy, and orders of magnitude easier than the "Siberian" writers. But tackle him only when the Russian isn't too much of a problem, otherwise you don't catch the rhythms. And read the Russian (preferably Slavonic) Bible first, at least the newt testament, otherwise a lot of allusions are meaningless.

Go for it. It's a fun language.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Try the greatet. "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy

I read this aloud to my wife and discovered why Leo Tolstoy is regarded as the greatest novelist of all time.

Or, if you prefer something shorter, "Anna Karenina".

[Sequoia]

25. A Tale of Two Cities; The Hunchback of Notre Dame;

All the President's Men to name a few.

[Broca]

27. I also like to take in at least one classic a year

but sometimes some must be mis valued. Jane Eyre was a dud. How did that get into the classic category? I like the works of Loren Eiseley (humanities/anthropology). You can't go wrong with the philosophers usually.

If I could only recommend two (not new or best sellers or anything):

The Watershed by Arthur Koestler (a biography of Johannes Kepler)

And one in which one might find an analogy to the cultural accommodation of the neocons:
Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco (a play written for reading)

[crispini]

29. Oh, man, I LOVE Jane Eyre.

Read it three or four times. Just goes to show, there's something for everyone. :)

[HuckleB]

28. I just read "The Man With The Golden Arm" by Nelson Algren...

This is truly one of the great American novels, although it has not received the attention it deserves. It belongs on any modern classics list around, IMHO.