Do you read classic literature?

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm just asking because I get the feeling all people read (as far as online discussion goes anyway) are fantasy series(es) or franchise stuff that goes on forever with arcs and universes, much like comics? Or stuff that gets turned into a movie, or is about to, or is a novelization of a movie. Generally speaking teenage/"young adult" stuff.

It seems that if a book isn't immediately somehow tied to pop culture, if there's no promise of "more" and its a literary dead end, if you have to look up a word in like page 1, then it just gets ignored altogether.

Does anybody still read, I dunno, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Jules Verne? Do you read Shakespeare if your teacher doesn't tell you to? Any of the Russian writers, Dostoevsky, Tolstoi, Nabokov, Checkhov? The actual unabridged stuff?

Because frankly I'm a little sick of reading self-descriptions where "reading" is a hobby and your favorite books are Song of Whatever and Magic the Magicking. Not that there's anything wrong with it but is that *it*?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Some Shakespeare, Verne, Wells, R.L. Stevenson, Melville.

Not for a while though.

...

Of course, the classics weren't classic at the time of writing, there's nothing inherently good about being old.

 

[TheSYLOH]

Yes I read classic literature.
Though I agree, classic literature is just a good book + 50 years + 2 professors.

Personally what i find more interesting is the works written by famous authors that nobodies heard of.

For example I rather enjoyed H.G. Wells' "The War in the Air" and "The World Set Free"

As for Shakespeare I personally think it's a mistake to read a Shakespeare play.
It's a PLAY, it should be WATCHED.

That being said I've had the David Tennant/Patrick Stewart Hamlet production on my to watch list for a long time, and haven't gotten around to it.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Of course, the classics weren't classic at the time of writing, there's nothing inherently good about being old.

True true but then I'm not asking have you read anything old have I? There's such a thing as contemporary classics. McCarthy, DeLillo, Pynchon, Burroughs, Roth, Kennedy Toole, etc. Maybe I should've phrased the question a little better, since it can be taken as a high-brow "do you even lift". But I'm really just curious if anybody gives classier literature much attention any more. I know I try to, try being the key word.

 

[kurokotetsu]

Yep, when I feel like it. I think I've read more classic literature by myself than because of shcool. I've read Dumas, Dostoievsky, Dickens, Calderón, Melville, Borges, Calvino, Conrad, Eliot, etcetera. I have a complete edition of Voltaire laying around, as wel as all of Shakespeare's tragedies, but I haven't found them in a while. I even have Journey to the West but the virtue of being a book with over a thousand pages in small print, I haven't been ready to undertake reading it until I have more time.

Of course I do and I love it. The last one I got into I think was Great Expectations and I liked it better thatn Olvier Twist, so it is my favorite Dickens at the moment (also have Tale of Two Cities but too mucho XIXth century literature bores me). Not a fan of Verne ,though, nor Wells, and only liked Farenheit 451 of Bradbury.

Also like Bourough's Naked Lunch (Junnkie seems more of the same though, and one really bad heroin trip is enough for me) and been trying to get inot Pynchon, but good, the first hundred pages of Gravity's Rainbow aren't easy.

I'm also re-reading a "classic" of historic novles, I, Claudius, so not much of a franchise of pop-culture.

Oh, and I just finished Austen's Pride and Prejudice. which as my Literature teacher used to say has a good deal of social commentary and isn't just a sily romance novel, and I can see it being a seminal work fo future feminism,

 

[JoJo]

I've read a fair few, mainly because I own a kindle and so I can legally download most books written before around 1923 for free due to copyright expiration. My favourite so far has been Les Miserables, ridiculously long but surprisingly interesting (except for the 17 chapters dedicated to the Battle of Waterloo, fuck that part).

 

[GundamSentinel]

I've read some Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens and Albert Camus not too long ago (past months), finished I, Claudius and Claudius the God some weeks ago for the second time. Just finished Master And Commander for the second time and I've started reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea today. So yeah, I enjoy some classics once in a while. My parents have a huge supply of books I make grateful use of. I plan to start on some Russian literature some time next year.

I never read classics in my native language (Dutch), though. Most Dutch writers bore me to tears. W.F. Hermans is an exception.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I've read some Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens and Albert Camus not too long ago (past months), finished I, Claudius and Claudius the God some weeks ago for the second time. Just finished Master And Commander for the second time and I've started reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea today. So yeah, I enjoy some classics once in a while. My parents have a huge supply of books I make grateful use of. I plan to start on some Russian literature some time next year.

I never read classics in my native language (Dutch), though. Most Dutch writers bore me to tears. W.F. Hermans is an exception.

Who would be the "classic" Dutch writers?

 

[GundamSentinel]

I've read some Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens and Albert Camus not too long ago (past months), finished I, Claudius and Claudius the God some weeks ago for the second time. Just finished Master And Commander for the second time and I've started reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea today. So yeah, I enjoy some classics once in a while. My parents have a huge supply of books I make grateful use of. I plan to start on some Russian literature some time next year.

I never read classics in my native language (Dutch), though. Most Dutch writers bore me to tears. W.F. Hermans is an exception.

Who would be the "classic" Dutch writers?

Couperus, Multatuli (had to read Max Havelaar in school *shudder*), Bilderdijk, Gorter, Frederik van Eeden.

Or maybe modern 'classics' like Reve, Mulisch, Haasse, etc.

 

[Weaver]

I've read a lot of philosophy, having minored in philosophy.
However, I haven't read all that much classic literature. I've read a few staples, To Kill A Mockingbird, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and a few others.

But I've read more Aristotle, Plato, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Aquinas, Locke, Descartes... lots of others really.

 

[MammothBlade]

I've read some, I consider them to be something everyone has to read at least once. War and Peace and Catch-22 are on my to-do list.

 

[Albino Boo]

I've read Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Chekhov, Solzhenitsyn,Goncharov, Gogol and Grossman from the Russian writers. Dickens, Thackeray, Austen, Trollope, Waugh, Powell and Forster in the English line. Bit and pieces from France, Stendhal and Hugo mainly.

 

[FalloutJack]

Avid reader of Catch-22 and Closing Time.
Have read numerous short stories, including The Most Dangerous Game.
Big fan of Edgar Allen Poe and HP Lovecraft.
Have read Shakespeare and - out of them all - prefer Much Ado About Nothing.
Also read a number of Wells, The Time Machine being not only a favorite but the actual invention of the IDEA of time travel.
And let's not forget all the mythology tales (especially Greek, Russian, and Japanese) I have under the belt.

 

[legend of duty]

Due to cost restraints I have not read a book post 1923 in quite a while. I read a lot through free classic audiobooks since my commute has turned into an hour plus round trip. I generally can't stand series novels since I read the back of a book and it literally had the exact same intro template as another work by the same author, maybe it's just mystery in general but they all seem the same to me.

 

[Flames66]

I have in the past, but am not likely to in the near future. While I have an interest in literature and poetry, I generally like to read things I can relate to in some way.

 

[Queen Michael]

I love that kind of literature. I recently finished In Search of Lost Time, and it was great.

 

[silver wolf009]

I try, but it's hard for me. I recently finished Dante's Inferno, but didn't make it through Purgatorio. And Inferno itself was really tough to get through at times.

Next up, if I can ever get to it, will be 1001 Nights. Either that, or breaking open some more Poe.

 

[irok]

Nope, wasn't a fan of Shakespeare, I think what ruined it was having to explain it to people in English class :/ but your missing a entire category , I'm into science fiction the science fictioning ,I've read things from as early as the twenties and remember an eerily accurate description of a tv from that time as far as it being an idiot box people wasted their lives away into but basically science fiction hasn't been around that long, I've read the "classics" I guess and it gets really easy to date things from Asimov's time as Sci-Fi as a genre has taken quantum leaps in writing since then, its not always better its just always noticeable. Wait does Jules Verne count as sci-fi? Ive read like two of those.

 

[captainballsack]

I try to. I've read some essentials - Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, 1984, Animal Farm, The Odyssey, The Illiad.

I haven't read enough Shakespeare or Dickens though.

I do like classic literature, but my reading time is usually dominated by Sartre, Camus, Kafka, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard at the moment. I guess you could kind of say that is classic literature.

 

[Blow_Pop]

I read a bit of everything. Did a book report on crime and punishment in 9th grade mostly because everyone said I couldn't. I have the collected works of Dickinson, Hughes, Poe, Shakespeare, and most of Marquis deSade. Amongst other random books. Slowly working on les miserables but heavy reading so requires me to go slowly.

That said, what does it matter if someone reads classic literature or not? It doesn't make them a better person or anything.