Old works of literature.

The_Minister

We all know that while many works of literature are wonderful and classics and all that, many take more effort to read than a normal, modern book, and often are not worth the effort.
So, I'm going to try to set up this thread, where people can list off the older works they have read, and whether thay were worth it or not.

Worth-it: "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" by Thomas De Quincey. This book, while ending abruptly, is an interesting and well-written insight into the life of a drug addict from the early 1800's. The grammer can be hard though. Short piece, less than 100 pages.

Leave-it: "Jane Eyre". God that book sucked. Boring, washed out and full of pathetic self-pity. Good piece of writing but not enjoyable. Long, severral hundred pages.


EDIT: I'm adding the lengths, to make it easier for people to decide if they want to read something or not.

Valmont

Not because it is bad, but because it is so old it's very time consuming and hard to understand - Chaucer's Canterbury tales. Imagine the first time you tried to read Shakepeare and multiply that by 100. Basically don't buy it as a light read or a holiday book:p

Definitely worth the effort - Charles Dickens A Tale of Two cities, an amazing climax and finale make the hard parts worth it.

AJG

Worth it: I think I mentioned it in another thread but Honore De Balzac's Seraphita left a lasting impression on me. Its a strange story full of mysticism. If you can find it its well worth it.

Leave it: Edmund Burke's Reflections on the revolution in France bored me to tears. But I was never much one for political rants.

Esmereldina

Dante's The Divine Comedy. Really, don't bother. Specially if you have to read it in the 14th century Italian :mad: but I don't think it can be improved much in English. If you are interested in medieval culture, politics, theology etc then you might enjoy it, but if you think of it as a timeless work of literature, then I think you would be disappointed. Dante had nothing to say to me as a person living in the twenty first century, and I just found it quite distasteful reading about all the different punishments he had thought up for people who transgressed the moral code of late medieval society in the Inferno part. But then I think the whole idea of 'timesless classics' in literature a bit silly anyway...

Dave3x

Worth it:

John Milton, Paradise Lost. An epic poem in twelve books (as in 'chapter' books, not a series!) in which Satan is expelled from hell, plans his revenge against the Almighty, brings about the fall of man, etc. Also include the Messiah fighting off the entire army of fallen angels by himself. A true classic. Yes, the whole thing is in poetry, but it's not hugely difficult once you get past the first few pages.

Not worth it:

The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spencer. Argh. It reads like a badly written children's story (by which I mean written by a child!). As in, 'the fair knight was with his lady, and all was good, when they went down a path, and a monster appeared. And then the knight slew the moster and they continued'. Not a direct quote, obviously, but just don't bother unless you have a strong interest in medieval literature. (Might get shouted at for this one).

Extreme-LoopZ

Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte is excellent. It's just so passionate that you know Bronte felt that kind of love for someone, and it's very strongly written, the characters come to life in your mind's eye.

Avoid Dracula by Bram Stoker. Started off as excellent and then went downhill, it got very tedious, even for me who likes Gothic novels.:cool:

oh yeh, while on the subject of gothic novels, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is well worth a read.

John

This is the sort of thread where one person's gold is another's rubbish, I like it!

I second the Paradise Lost and Frankenstein recommendations and I second the Jane Eyre avoidance but I dispute the anti-Dracula stance. I loved Dracula, thought it was far better than any of the movies could ever hope to achieve.

Another I'd recommend is The Monk by Matthew Lewis. It's not the most perfectly written book but it is an interesting book with a decent, if convoluted, plot.

Red Hand

To paraphrase John, the Canterbury tales are gold to me. I admit that the Knight's Tale drags very much, so it isn't a good idea to read that tale first, but how can you disregard the Wife of Bath's Prologue, or the banter and jibes at those present that enter much of the stories? I'd be really interested in hearing it in Middle English spoken aloud some time as it were meant to be heard.

Leave it-Don Quixote...couldn't get into no matter what I tried. Now, if only Cervantes had done it in Middle English....:p

Faerie

I actually loved some of the books 'to be avoided' mentioned.
I really enjoyed Dracula and I loved Jane Eyre. I thought Jane Eyre was better than Wuthering Heights, which is good but really quite depressing.
I'd recommend anything by Jane Austen and I love Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
To be honest though, all the above books are easy reads.

Avoid: Portrait of the Artist as A young Man by James Joyce. I found this fairly hard to read and it's really not worth it. It's pretentious and self-indulgent and people just like to go on about it because Joyce was Irish.

Worth it: If you're a fan of Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion. It's hard to read only because there's no real plot, characters, basic storyline etc It's just loads of background information on Middle Earth and is basically an entirely made up mythology which is really cool!

The_Minister

Oh, I forgot

WORTH IT: The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
Good book, bit pretentious and verbose, but still a good read.

Pyjamarama

The_Minister wrote:

Oh, I forgot

WORTH IT: The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
Good book, bit pretentious and verbose, but still a good read.

Got a bit bored with it half way through - the snappy dialogue just makes you realise Wilde is a playwright first and a novelist second.

I enjoyed Dracula, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights!

Not worth it: Hard Times - Charles Dickens, Sons and Lovers - D. H. Lawrence - two of the most tedious books I've ever read!

Robbiethe3rd

Anyone read the great Gatsby? Any good?

Pherekydes

Pyjamarama wrote:

Got a bit bored with it half way through - the snappy dialogue just makes you realise Wilde is a playwright first and a novelist second.

Ditto to Dorian Grey. Couldn't hack it.

I thought Crime and Punishment was a great read, sometimes tough, but worthwhile in the end.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, now that's going back, and not a novel, but worth the read.

randylonghorn

Personally, anything by Dickens gets a thumbs up.

Actually enjoy his earlier books more, even though they wouldn't be of the same calibre from a purely literary point of view as his later work (The Pickwick Papers for example are very funny).

Esmereldina

Robbiethe3rd wrote:

Anyone read the great Gatsby? Any good?

Yep, I really liked it.

AnBealBocht

1920s/1930s aristocratic England.
Oh, and ' Make Way for Lucia '.

Pyjamarama

Robbiethe3rd wrote:

Anyone read the great Gatsby? Any good?

I liked it a lot, it was really enjoyable, you really get a feel for the time and setting, very descriptive. It's short too so it's not like getting half way through Middlemarch and forcing yourself to finish for the sake of it.

johnnyskeleton

Robbiethe3rd wrote:

Anyone read the great Gatsby? Any good?

Brilliant. Human side to the decadence of rich 1920s society. Makes up for all the pretentious, yet well respected rubbish that passes for the greats of American Literature (Hemmingway, Sallinger, James, the beats, Auster/Roth/DeLilo/other modern pretentious authors).

Worth it: The Count of Monte Christo and The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas snr -who says great writers can't have actioned packed plots and sensational twists and turns.

Worth it: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - long but intricate.

Worth it: Pride and Prejudce by Jane Austen - what it lacks in plot it makes up for in social observations and attention to detail that is second to none.

Worth it: John Buchan books - although described by the author himself as yarns, these spy/adventure stories are brilliantly written.

Worth it: Les Miserables by Victor Hugo - tough going, but Jean Valjean is probably the greatest tragic hero ever written and the casual interspersions of history, politics and social commentary range from the sublime (what causes revolutions) to the ridiculous (the superiority of the Parisienne sewer system).

Worth it: Gullivers Travells - wierd, wonderful and heavy on the satire

Worth it: Crime & Punishment - the claustrophobic account of a intellectual social outcast that obviates the need for Sartre and Camus to have ever taken up their pens.

Definately worth it: Shakespeare, the complete works thereof.

To be honest, pretty much anything that is still around after 50/100/200 years must have something going for it, and at €2 a pop they are much better value than modern literature. I'm not mad about Dickens, Flaubert or the Brontes, but I would rather them than some of the rubbish that passes for literature these days (Ian McEwan etc)

BenjAii

If you are at all interested in literature than you have to explore and read 'classic' literature, it gives you a vocubulary to understand modern day writing.

If you are that limited in imagination that you think anything before your lifetime is 'boring', just stick to Cecilia Aherne or Dan Brown.

While I agree reading should be a pleasure,you should be able for the occasional challenge as well.

stolenwine

Roman Novels

Longus "Daphnis and Chloe"
Lucius Apuleius "The Golden Ass"

ZorbaTehZ

"Old Works Of Literature" is almost exclusively what I read. I blame my father.
Though that said, I do read a lot of Sci-fi/Fantasy too.

If I had to choose only one that was worth it, it would probably be Robinson Crusoe by Defoe.

Mr. Presentable

Three men in a boat - Jerome K Jerome, is surprisingly readable. Look, a lot of literature is of its time, and as such has little relevance nowadays. We need to start qualifying our standards with more modern works.

johnnyskeleton

nipplenuts wrote:

Look, a lot of literature is of its time, and as such has little relevance nowadays. We need to start qualifying our standards with more modern works.

Can I ask what literature in the last decade has been even remotely relevant to our lives? Philip Roth's imagined oppression? Paul Auster's idea of nothing is happening, isn't that weird? Ian McEwan's take on life that only paedophile/incestuous/murderous characters are worth reading about?

I think that the great works of literature have as much if not more to offer us than modern works. There is every possibility that a literary genius will pop up at any moment, but I see nothing special about the current lot.

I also think that since literature is about expanding your horizons, it is more important to read about a time\place with which you are unfamiliar than it is to read about what you know. Is War & Peace no longer relevant and have we learned the lessons from 1984\Animal Farm?

Mr. Presentable

johnnyskeleton wrote:

I also think that since literature is about expanding your horizons, it is more important to read about a time\place with which you are unfamiliar than it is to read about what you know. Is War & Peace no longer relevant and have we learned the lessons from 1984\Animal Farm?

Through rereading my post you will observe I did not say "all literature" .....

BenjAii

johnnyskeleton wrote:

I think that the great works of literature have as much if not more to offer us than modern works. There is every possibility that a literary genius will pop up at any moment, but I see nothing special about the current lot.

A lot of people would agree with you. I wonder how much of this down to the fact that perhaps all that the novel can do has been done already. Many of the writers we look on as great, were so because they broke new ground in the history of the novel either in form or substance.

You could argue that both technically and in terms of subject matter we will never see any new developments in the novel. it's all been done before.

Not that that will preclude world class writers in an old form, Seamus Heaney and poetry spring to mind. It's just that the power of great novels comes from being startlingly original and in retrospect milestones and it seems less likely among the vast sea of novels published yearly now that anyone could stand out in this way.

McGinty

It is argued that in essence the novel is dead, but setting aside the fact that novelists are revamping old stuff, it can be lovely to lose yourself in a great book/plot even if it has been done before.

As for classic literature, well like others I love the Canterbury tales, and since I have also done some old english texts, having said that there were some great texts such as the wife's lament, beowulf and the wanderer, I find middle english easy to read and translate now. I also love a lot of other medieval texts, espicially the religious stuff. Later on I ditto whoever mentioned 'Gulliver's travels' a great read. Loved 'The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy' it is very funny and a wonderful play on the novel, also pre-empted the modernists and post modernists. I am currently reading a play called 'The roaring girl' by thomas decker and middleton and its fantastic, a wonderful play on role reversal (a woman dressing as a man), also Falstaff is a wonderful and funny read, wonderfully bawdy humour. Can't say I am a fan of Dickens but maybe I will come round. I like any of the bronte's works. Hate virginia wolfe I find her work painfully analytical and too much navel gazing.

Milton's paradise lost is awesome as well and am halfway through it, anyhow that is all I can think of for now.

eclectichoney

I'm half way through Moby Dick and really liking it so far - definitely worth it! And that's coming from a girl who only normally reads contemporary stuff

howaya

rather surprised at some of the posts here - surely everything is 'of its time', but what is considered literature is writing with an appeal beyond the immediate and the factual. I would think that anyone who enjoys sci-fi and/or romantic stuff would really enjoy some of the Old and Middle English works, as there is often a focus on philosophical dilema. It is also incredible to read the original stories of Lancelot, Gawain, Arthur, Guinevere et al. You can't but be sucked into the richness of the texture and the poetry of the lines. Lots are available with translations of the Old/Middle English and a modern rendition of it on the page facing it, so they're quite accessible. 'Gawain and the Green Knight' is a favourite of mine.

'Gatsby' is phenomenal. My favourite book of all time. The unreliability of the narrator is one of the little dimensions of the book that the film elides, but the Robert Redford film is worth a watch.

Great to read johnnyskeleton's comments and suggestions, but must take issue with his denigration of the other US heavy hitters. Scotty himself was a big fan of Hemmingway! Gatsby might best be regarded as a possible starting point for some of the other writers mentioned