# A classic read only by you **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 19, 2005, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292 "2005-09-19T00:37:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/81 "2005-09-20T23:58:30Z")
I read _Fanny Hill_. I don’t meet many other people who have done so (and talk much about it). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Punkyova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@The\_Punkyova](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Punkyova)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2005, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/82 "2005-09-20T23:59:53Z")
> [@JerH](#): > > I’m the only person I know who’s read Jerome’s _Three Men In A Boat_. This is one of my all time favorite books. I convinced my book club to read it, and they were, polite, I suspect is the term. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Punkyova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@The\_Punkyova](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Punkyova)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/83 "2005-09-21T00:04:27Z")
> [@CBCD](#): > > All of you out there who have read Giants in the Earth, raise your hand! > . _waves at **CBCD** _ ---
**Author:** ![CBCD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@CBCD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBCD)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/84 "2005-09-21T00:19:25Z")
> [@The Punkyova](#): > > _waves at **CBCD** _ Wasn’t that a fun book to read? Such a happy ending! ---
**Author:** ![gaucho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c67d28/32.png) [@gaucho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaucho)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/85 "2005-09-21T00:35:38Z")
> [@Gangster Octopus](#): > > Has anyone else read Graham Greene’s _The Power and the Glory_? (I assume so, but have never met anyone else who has.) Yeah, I like Graham Greene. I think **Marque Elf** is gonna take it with the _Chanson de Roland_. I was going to post that one as a joke- I thought it was one of those things everyone’s heard of but no living person has actually read. How was it, btw? How about The Man Without Qualities? Where my Musil heads at? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/86 "2005-09-21T00:50:50Z")
> [@CBCD](#): > > How about **The Pilgrim’s Progress**? Read it! Has anyone else here ever read Yevgeny Zamyatin’s **We**? It’s constantly mentioned in essays about dysutopian fiction. Thanks to the Internet it’s back in print; when I first read it I had to go to the non-circulating rare books section of the library and read it there. How common or not is _Allan Quartermain_, the sequel to _King Solomon’s Mines_? ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/87 "2005-09-21T00:51:38Z")
All right, besides _Roman Lives_ which I mentioned earlier, the ones I’ve read so far that have been listed: [ul] [li]_Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.[/li][li]Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein[/li][li]The Odyssey (I think I’ve read it about 5 times)[/li][li]Dracula and Jekyll and Hyde.[/li][li]Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina[/li][li]Thoreau’s Walden[/li][li]Antigone, Sophocles[/li][li]Cyrano de Bergerac[/li][li]Sir Gawain and the Green Knight[/li][li]John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”[/li][li]War and Peace[/li][li]Anna Karenina[/li][li]Middlemarch_[/li][/ul] **sinjin** , I’ve read _War and Peace_ and have two different translations of it. Can I ask you what translation you started with and then which one you liked more? If we’re going to get into Russian lit, how about: _Crime and Punishment_ - Dostoevsky\* _The Idiot_ - Dostoevsky _The Master and Margarita_ - Bulgakov I read _Beowulf_ and studied the crap out of the original Old English (didn’t make it too far, but I made it a lot farther than the rest of my classmates because I’ve had 4 classes of German and I saw vague connections). Wordsworth’s _The Prelude_, even though I detested it. Hey, I’ve got a challenge. It’s not necessarily a classic I suppose, but still! _Confessions of an English Opium Eater_ by De Quincey. - [sub]I adore Dostoevsky but not his writing style (at least how the translators I bought translated it). I feel like I’m slogging through the text, but I love _what_ he has to say so damn much that I put up with _how_ he’s said it.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/88 "2005-09-21T02:20:53Z")
> [@CBCD](#): > > Anyone for **Middlemarch** by George Eliot? **waves hand again** (What can I say? I’ve read woman author or two. I assume you’re another Edith Wharton fan, as well?) I’m not hearing any seconds on Proust – how about **Morte D’Artur**? ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/89 "2005-09-21T03:13:01Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Can I ask you if it’s worth it? I am having a really hard time with the Purgatory - it’s so boooooring. Well, they don’t call it Purgatory for nothing. _Pilgrim’s Progress_? Yeah, I’ve read it, but I’ve never quite been able to justify why. Partially because I had a goal of reading a bunch of works that had been written while in prison (so I also read Romans, and well, that was about it, as I lost interest in the idea) and partially because when I was very young my mother got a much-abridged (but in a good way) heavily-illustrated version retitled as [Dangerous Journey](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0802836194/102-0015604-1364947?v=glance). Also partially that I was trying to read various famous allegories. Now, the real question is, why did my parents have a copy of it in paperback? I’m the only person (well, other than my father, which is the reason it was even in the house and I believe he has the version edited by Tolkien) that I know of to even attempt reading _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ **untranslated**. I gave up fairly early (read before I got past the introduction), but I did manage to figure out that Þ represents th. I might try it again some time now that I have more German under my belt. I still made it farther than when I tried _Beowulf_ untranslated. How about the second part of Goethe’s _Faust_? That’s something that doesn’t get read very often. Or Marlowe’s version, for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![N.Sane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f19dbf/32.png) [@N.Sane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N.Sane)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/90 "2005-09-21T03:16:47Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > I’m not hearing any seconds on Proust – how about **Morte D’Artur**? **Waves hand** I’ve read a little Proust, and I’ve read _Le Morte d’Artur_, along with _Tristan and Iseult_. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/91 "2005-09-21T03:20:21Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > How about the second part of Goethe’s _Faust_? That’s something that doesn’t get read very often. Or Marlowe’s version, for that matter. Ahh, add me to the list of people who’ve read Marlowe’s _Doctor Faustus_. I got odd looks at the gym when I had that on my cardio machine, I tell ya.\* \*[sub]Standard Gym disclaimer: Yes, I am able to bust ass on a cardio machine while reading something. I am not one of those people who sit on a bike with a magazine/mobile phone and pedal at about 2 rpm while people who actually want to work out have to stand in line.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Gulo\_gulo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bcef8e/32.png) [@Gulo\_gulo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gulo_gulo)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/92 "2005-09-21T05:50:52Z")
Ones here I’ve read: _Bleak House_ _Frankenstein_ _Dracula_ _Herodotus_ Anyone here voluntarily read Henry Fielding’s _“Tom Jones”_? Please don’t let me be the only one who tortured myself with that tome. Does [Wager the Wehr-Wolf](http://www.blenders.se/ebay/me/ocult/wagner.html) count as a classic? ---
**Author:** ![Hung\_Mung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/93 "2005-09-21T06:07:28Z")
While buying books for high school I picked up an anthology of Greek plays. I don’t really know anyone who’s read Antigone, Medea, etc., but I’m sure someone I know has. Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe. Mists of Avalon, Marion Bradley Basically anything by Asimov Galapagos, Cat’s Cradle & Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut Catch-22, Heller Starship Troopers & Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein Principia Discordia (obviously) & Illuminatus! East of Eden, Steinbeck American Gods, Neverwhere & Stardust, Neil Gaiman ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/94 "2005-09-21T08:10:20Z")
Dude, round here _everyone_’s read _Stranger in a Strange Land_. Anyone else know the story of Sohrab and Rustum? I first encountered it at a very young age, as in under 7 (yes, I was a precocious little sod) and I particularly like the Matthew Arnold poem. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/95 "2005-09-21T11:22:04Z")
Dude, around here, most of us have read most of that list. ---
**Author:** ![CBCD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@CBCD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBCD)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/96 "2005-09-21T11:40:22Z")
OK, I’ll admit to having read The Song of Roland, and Proust (the whole thing), and The Man Without Qualities, and Ethan Frome and The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, and The Idiot, and War and Peace, and Bleak House, and My Antonia, and Jude the Obscure, and The Woman in White, and Livy’s History of Rome and Yeat’s Mythologies, and a few other books I could mention, but I horrify myself with even this list! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/97 "2005-09-21T11:41:19Z")
Last night I started reading a dialogue by the ancient Roman satirist Lucian (125-200 A.D.), in a compendium of works from the era of Marcus Aurelius (whose _Meditations_ is included). I’d never heard of Lucian before, but apparently some 60-odd of his works survived to be discovered by us moderns. 🙂 FYI, Lucian was a witty agnostic who as a free-ranging lecturer and writer took on any and all shiboleths of his time, sparing none of the contending philosophical schools and religions (both the Greek/Roman pantheon and the imported Eastern and Levantine cults). He also poked fun at the vagaries and foibles of human nature – vanity, intellectual pretension, vapidity, money-grubbing, religious and philosophical hypocrisy, etc. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/98 "2005-09-21T12:02:28Z")
> [@Gulo gulo](#): > > Anyone here voluntarily read Henry Fielding’s _“Tom Jones”_? Please don’t let me be the only one who tortured myself with that tome. I not only read it, I _loved_ it. ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/99 "2005-09-21T12:34:25Z")
No one I know has read John Dos Passos’ \*\*USA Trilogy \*\* (_The 42nd Parallel_; _1919_; and _The Big Money_). This came recommended by some list of 50 Great American novels of the 20th Century. Others on that list I’ve gotten around to are Miss Lonelyhearts, The Day of the Locust, and The Bell Jar. I know a lot of people have read the latter. The first two maybe not so much. Anyway, the Dos Passos trilogy got to be a bit of a slog. I liked the experimental nature of the writing and structure and there was enough interesting scenarios (as opposed to a conventional linear plot) to keep me reading through 1300 pages or so, but the scope was so broad it was hard to keep focused. Also, the characters are written more as archetypes “representing” different levels of society and class in the U.S. Now, I’m a rabid right-wing capitalist and at the time Dos Passos was very sympathetic to the communist/socialist/union movements of the day. That is reflected in the USA Trilogy (although Dos Passos became disillusioned with the left later in life). But I learned a lot about U.S. history reading this. School classes focus on the big events (and by and large skip much of what occurred between the two world wars) and not too much on the day-to-day life of the people. Dos Passos was able to fill in some of that. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2005, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292/100 "2005-09-21T13:01:57Z")
_Originally Posted by ryobserver: The Debacle, Emile Zola_ I thought it was great! _Originally posted by Lumpy: Has anyone else here ever read Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We?_ Not for a very long time… still on the shelves at home, though! Or how about these? **Eugene Sue** _The Wandering Jew_ or _The Mysteries of Paris_ **Blaise Cendrars** _Moravagine_ **Ilya Ehrenburg** - _The Life of the Automobile_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-classic-read-only-by-you/322292.md?page=6)