The Classics

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I’m also reading the Odyssey to my eldest (11), the Emily Watson translation. I tried reading the Fagles version a few years ago and it might have been that I was out of practice at reading but I couldn’t get into that. This one actually holds the interest, though I have to go running to the internet to look up some of the nuances of the Greek pantheon.

I listened to a podcast once where Emily Wilson was discussing her translation of The Odyssey. Most of the 30-min podcast focused on one word, and why she chose it--from the first line of the poem: "Tell me of a complicated man, Muse." The word in question was "complicated." Other translators chose words or phrases such as "many-turning," "versatile," "crafty," "a man of twists and turns," among others. She talked about why she chose "complicated" to describe Odysseus and how the word carries different meaning. It was a really interesting discussion of translation in general, and how it really is an art. Cool stuff.

I haven't read Wilson's translation... the one I remember is Fagles, from high school AP English. But it's on my to-read list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really enjoyed Middlemarch recently. I read Silas Marner years ago and always wanted to read more George Eliot but like others kept turning to shorter options. Once I started I was smitten and happy to go along for the journey. The dialogue was amusing and clever. I found the characters very relatable and the relationships felt authentic.

Middlemarch is so good!

Every time I re-read it, I find something incredible. Her writing is just so full of empathy, without being sentimental.

[Anonymous]

I'm re-reading some classic children's fantasy with my daughter and loving it! The Hobbit, The Prydain Chronicles, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Dark is Rising series -- she's really into it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really enjoyed Middlemarch recently. I read Silas Marner years ago and always wanted to read more George Eliot but like others kept turning to shorter options. Once I started I was smitten and happy to go along for the journey. The dialogue was amusing and clever. I found the characters very relatable and the relationships felt authentic.

Middlemarch is so good!

Every time I re-read it, I find something incredible. Her writing is just so full of empathy, without being sentimental.

Yeah. It's easy to forget it was written episodically, like Dickens was, for weekly publication. I read Middlemarch when I was about 17 and I don't think I did anything else that week. I was obsessed with it.

[Anonymous]

If you have some time; The Golden Bowl by Henry James

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm re-reading some classic children's fantasy with my daughter and loving it! The Hobbit, The Prydain Chronicles, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Dark is Rising series -- she's really into it.

Those were some of my favorites. I think you might also like:
Green Knowe series
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
The Secret Garden
Wrinkle in Time
Tuck Everlasting
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
The Westing Game
The Keeper of the Isis Light (probably more YA, but written before that was a designation)

[Anonymous]

I read a lesser-known classic this month by Constance Fenimore Woolson called Anne. It is available for kindle, but out of print. Woolson was an American author who was friends with Henry James. There is a memorial to her on Mackinac Island, which is where I discovered her. Her book, Anne, was fantastic. Beautiful writing and a dramatic story - think Bronte sisters for a comparison. I highly recommend!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really enjoyed Middlemarch recently. I read Silas Marner years ago and always wanted to read more George Eliot but like others kept turning to shorter options. Once I started I was smitten and happy to go along for the journey. The dialogue was amusing and clever. I found the characters very relatable and the relationships felt authentic.

how can you enjoy middle arch.. it makes me have to stop and sob and grab a glass of water. its excruciating but yes a very very good book. I just dont think I can do that to myself again.

[Anonymous]

I loved Thackeray's Vanity Fair. I find Dickens to be unnecessarily wordy, but Vanity Fair, which is a longer book than anything by Dickens, went by so quickly for me. The verbal digs, especially by Becky, are awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really enjoyed Middlemarch recently. I read Silas Marner years ago and always wanted to read more George Eliot but like others kept turning to shorter options. Once I started I was smitten and happy to go along for the journey. The dialogue was amusing and clever. I found the characters very relatable and the relationships felt authentic.

how can you enjoy middle arch.. it makes me have to stop and sob and grab a glass of water. its excruciating but yes a very very good book. I just dont think I can do that to myself again.

What a description! I now want to read Middlemarch.

[Anonymous]

I'm reading Pot Luck by Emile Zola right now. I love his novels. I've read L'Assommoir, Germinal, Nana, Therese Raquin, and The Beast Within.

Highly recommend starting with Germinal if you're interested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love Trollope, too.

Not too long ago I finally read War and Peace, and it is stunning. Just so good. I don’t always love the Russians (I recently tired to read The Brothers Karamazov and couldn’t get into it) but War and Peace is outstanding.

That’s on my reading “bucket list.” I read Anna Karenina this past year, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It took a few months for me to read, but I did it. I now have Crime and Punishment on my bedside table, but I keep putting it aside for quicker reads. I do love immersing myself in richly detailed long-ago worlds.

My favorite Russian classics are:
Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
War and Peace by Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov
Dead Souls by Gogol
Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman

I had a hard time with Doctor Zhivago, though I think it's because it was a Pevear and Volokhonsky translation. I read their Anna Karenina as a reread and absolutely hated how they did it.

I also had a hard time with Brothers Karamazov, but I may have been too young - in my 20s.

What other Russians should I try?

Well, you’ve hit some great ones, but I’d add Fathers and Sons by Turgenev, maybe the idiot by Dostoevsky, and maybe uncle vanya by Chekhov. And I liked the first circle by sohlzenitsyn and Eugene Onegin by Pushkin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really enjoyed Middlemarch recently. I read Silas Marner years ago and always wanted to read more George Eliot but like others kept turning to shorter options. Once I started I was smitten and happy to go along for the journey. The dialogue was amusing and clever. I found the characters very relatable and the relationships felt authentic.

how can you enjoy middle arch.. it makes me have to stop and sob and grab a glass of water. its excruciating but yes a very very good book. I just dont think I can do that to myself again.

What a description! I now want to read Middlemarch.

I read it when I was 18 and was totally gripped by it, couldn't put it down. Unforgettable. Having said that, it was really only the Dorothea storyline that I cared about, the other strands were sort of window dressing by comparison.

[Anonymous]

I recently read two classics that are probably lesser known.

The Life and Death of Harriet Frean by May Sinclair
This is a feminist novella that comments on the Victorian expectations of womanhood.

Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki
This is a Greek classic from the 1940s that follows the growth from childhood to womanhood of three sisters over three summers. Beautiful writing that evokes the Greek lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am having another go at Ulysses by James Joyce. I studied it at college a very long time ago and it mostly went over my head. I don't think I was ready for that. But now I am.

Do yourself a favor and have a copy of the annotated text next to you while you read! For PP who hasn’t attempted it yet, maybe just tell yourself you’ll tackle a chapter at a time and start with Chapter One?

Any Dickens fans out there? The power of his characters is so strong, there are some from years ago that still make me laugh when I just think of them. “Barkis is willing.”

Second the recommendation to get an annotated Ulysses. Another thing that helped me a lot was a Great Courses class on the book, but there are probably other online classes too. I’d listen to a lecture, then read the chapter. I think I got a lot more out of it that way, plus the class format kept me going.