[another Rebecca hijack] Zoe it doesn’t reference “Mrs. DeWinter” at all, but is told from the perspective of a few characters in the book (like Colonel Julian, a historical researcher, and Rebecca herself in a diary). A few of the more notorious characters make an entrance either in real life of in the diary.
It’s very well written and never dull. (You’ll get to hear Rebecca’s side of the story. How can you beat that?)
Now I wish I could read “Rebecca’s Tale” again for the first time. [/Rebecca hijack]
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. I just finished re-reading it. It’s one of my all time favorites, Colonel Branden is just one of the most romantic characters in lit!
The Once and Future King by T. H. White-a really funny and thought provoking version of the Arthurian legend. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll want to read it again!
Two of my immediate choices (Lolita and Winesburg, Ohio) were already named. I was skimming, but I think the following haven’t been mentioned yet:
Dickens, Great Expectations
Thoreau, Walden
Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Another good way to get started is with an anthology of short stories. There are many good ones, but you might be better off with older ones in the library than newer ones in the bookstore. I’d want mine to include Joyce, Updike, Flannery O’Connor, and Borges.
I don’t know if it’s considered “classic literature”, but Elie Weisel’s “Night” is excellent and short, albeit very depressing - imagine “Life is Beautiful” with all the comedy removed.
Poe is good, too, and mostly short stories, so you could pound away a bunch of classic lit really quickly.
If you don’t mind long, long, books, Les Miserables is great.
Macbeth is great and short, though Shakespearean dialogue is an acquired taste.
If you want to be bored into a stupor, I heartily recommend Canterbury Tales.
Jeff
Just ones that I didn’t see mentioned earlier. “Meeting with a Great Beast” in particular is a real gem. Althoug it will piss off the PETA crowd, because it’s about elephant hunting, I have not read such beautiful prose before or since.
My recommendations:
“The World According to Garp” by John Irving - fascinatingly strange.
“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll.
The Narnia Series - C.S. Lewis.
“Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein - if you read no other science fiction, read this one. It’s not a cult classic for nothing.
Let me suggest the works of Saki aka H.H. Munro. Saki is a somewhat lesser-known author because he wrote very little before being killed in WWI. His short stories, however, are in a class by themselves and run the gamut from chilling to hilarious. They are also all in the public domain now so you can find them on line. Here’s a partial collection.
Country Squire, don’t try to read books just because they’re “supposed” to be good – that’s way too much like work. You should be enjoying what you read. I advise you to try lots of books by lots of different authors and read, say, the first fifty pages. If you aren’t into the book by then, put it aside and try something else. Neither the Illiad or Dante’s Inferno[sup]1[/sup] is everyone’s cup of tea. There’s no book you “have” to read but there are many books you will enjoy. You’ve just got to find them.
You’ve been given some excellent advice for modern classics – don’t miss Catch 22. Though I don’t think you could really call it a classic, you might also try Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. Scoop is immensly popular with journalists who often insert wry references to it only discernable to the cognoscenti. Amaze your friends!
If you’re looking for something a bit more “classic” I suggest Seamus Heaney’s recent translation of Beowulf.
[sup]1[/sup] In fact, reading Dante’s Inferno is roughly equivalent to reading the Andromeda galaxy edition of People magazine. While all the personalities discussed would be instantly recognizable to fellow Andromedans, you haven’t clue one as to who any of these people are or why they’re supposed to be famous. As a result, every third line there’s a two-paragraph footnote that explains the hilarious bon mot or trenchant observation that Dante just made. Illuminating but extremely slow going.
I have read a lot of it and here is a hint. Considering getting the cliff notes with the book - especially if you pick up something like Les Miserables. The cliff notes (or whatever “study guide” you choose) can help you work your way through anything difficult or exceptionally long and help you understand why people think its a classic.
What I wouldn’t read as a starter: Scarlett Letter. Anything by Thomas Hardy. Anything by Joseph Conrad. James Joyce novels (although the short stories are very good to start with). But someone is certain to come in and claim these were wonderful easy reads.
Good intros to classic lit: To Kill a Mockingbird (easy, fast read, and very well written). Huck Finn, Three Musketeers (or other Dumas) Jane Austen (if you can do the romantic comedy thing - she practically invented the genre). Mice and Men (though I hate Steinbeck) or Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway isn’t my favorite, either, but both these are easy, short and classic American novels they assign in high school - i.e. the average eleventh grader can get through them). Dashiell Hammett (classic for his genre, if not taught in a classics class). I used to be a sucker for Chekov short stories.
But, what do you like? War? Comedy? Romance? Adventure? Tragedy? Want 20th century lit or ready to tackle 18th century lit - or even something like the Illiad? Care to take on 1000+ pages, or want to start with a hundred or two? Novels, or would you go for poetry, short stories, plays. American - English - French - European - Something culturally familiar, or The Tale of Genji? Are you a plot guy, a character guy, a place guy, or a words guy? Why do you want to read classics and what is your definition of classic?
(Something that I don’t think has been mentioned - Tolstoy. In particular Anna Karinina. War and Peace, too long. Oh, and Edith Wharton - i.e. Age of Innocence. I’ll second E.M. Forester as well. More recent, A.S. Byatt’s Possession. But I like Romance - Comedy and Tragedy, which is what all these are.)
Excellent points, Truth Seeker. When I waded my way through “Inferno” I glossed over much of the dialogue-with-dead-Italians bits and focussed more on the descriptions of what was happening in each circle of Hell and why. From a modern reader’s perspective, that’s the important stuff anyway. But a very good caution on your part.
Huck Finn would be a great starting point. It’s a fast, entertaining read, but yet there’s loads going on, and it’s poignant as well as comedic.
My first thought when I read the thread title was Crime and Punishment by Dostoyovsky, but that’s probably thicker than you’d like to start out with.
Another, though it may be too contemporary to be considered “classic literature” is Confederacy of Dunces By Toole. I believe he wone a Pulitzer for this work. It’s on the thick side, but once you get into it, you’ll never notice. Hilarious, book with great character development. Everyone in my lab read it, and we’d be in hysterics just discussing scenes from the book. My valve!
Jane Eyre really is a great read. I enjoyed it in HS, though my classmates bemoaned the assignment.
For Poe, Telltale Heart and Cask of Amontillado are great short stories.
The author escapes me, but The Yellow Wallpaper is another great short story.
Going for plays, and again in the comedic vein, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde is a fun read.
You’ve got lots of great suggestions in this thread; let us know what you decide on!
[/Rebecca hijack]
