# Classic Books Which Live Up To Their Reputation **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [December 19, 2022, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763 "2022-12-19T02:44:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2022, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/141 "2022-12-22T14:16:45Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > In fight scenes in most plays, the stage directions tell you who dies. In the climax of this one, the stage directions tell you who survives. The absolute best stage direction ever, however, is still that one from The Winter’s Tale. You all know which one. (the one time I’ve seen it live, it was accomplished very well, with nothing but sound effects and the actor’s reactions) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2022, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/142 "2022-12-22T17:29:43Z")
> [@lum\_s\_husband](#): > > I can tell you that it didn’t go over well for a group of 16 and 17 year olds. Odd. At my all-boys school, Catcher in the Rye was probably one of the few books we all read and didn’t just Cliffs Note it. I liked it then. I liked it a few years later when I re-read it; I’d be curious how I’d find it now, 25 years later. I suspect I’d still like it. But, yeah, like Seinfeld is to TV shows, Catcher is to literature in terms of its polarization. I like reading and watching misanthropic characters. They’re more interesting to me. And I like naive youthful cynicism and idealism. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2022, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/143 "2022-12-22T19:14:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The absolute best stage direction ever, however, is still that one from The Winter’s Tale. You all know which one. I agree! ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2022, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/144 "2022-12-22T19:35:53Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > actually, my English teachers were smart after freshman year (the two years I had a normal English class) they gave us the book but played a tape we followed along to In the two Shakespeare classes took in college, I went to the a-v library and listened to the Royal Shakespeare Company tapes as I read each play for the first time. Hearing the dialog spoken helped to make sense of the more archaic parts of the prose … without having to resort to footnotes constantly as I did when just straight reading. Then, I could go back and read for more detail. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2022, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/145 "2022-12-22T19:57:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The absolute best stage direction ever, however, is still that one from The Winter’s Tale. You all know which one. My brother-in-law and his wife are massive theater nerds. They got married in a rooftop ceremony. At the end of the ceremony, one of their friends donned a bear mask, roared, and chased the screaming couple to the elevator. It was glorious. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2023, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/147 "2023-01-04T20:16:57Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > _War and Peace_ has one flaw. Every now and then, Tolstoy will interrupt the narrative, and spend a couple of chapters pontificating on history, or politics, or economics, or religion, or the Meaning of Life. Then he will resume the narrative of Pierre and Andrei and Natasha, which is a fun soap opera. Actually, I liked Tolstoy’s lectures. They made the book bearable, between bouts of soap opera. His “people as differentials in the world of human calculus” viewpoint is interesting (and ties in nicely with Asimov’s suggestion of “human history as human statistical mechanics” in the _Foundation_ series), but I don’t buy his implication that no human can influence history. His choice of Napoleon as the example to prove his point falls pretty flat – Napoleon was one of the individuals who had a disproportionately high influence on history, and no amount of hand-waving will get rid of that. On the other hand, I love the way he’ll take some well-attested moment of history and reinterpret everyone’s motives, so that what was really happening, according to his fiction, was completely different from what everyone _thought_ was happening. I just finished watching the epic BBC 20-episode adaptation of **War and Peace** , so it’s on my mind. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2023, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/148 "2023-01-04T20:56:24Z")
I decided to read “To Kill a Mocking” for the first time. I realized it was a great book about four chapters in. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2023, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/149 "2023-01-04T23:10:27Z")
I’m going to suggest some novels by Anthony Trollope, not as great everlasting literature, but as excellent windows on their time (mid-Victorian England and Ireland). The Palliser novels had a basis in Parliamentary politics but touched on every aspect of Victorian life, especially including the place of women in society and politics. And his standalone book _The Way We Live Now_ is a delicious satire, more serious but no less cutting than Oscar Wilde’s play _An Ideal Husband_. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/150 "2023-01-05T00:22:32Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I just finished watching the epic BBC 20-episode adaptation of **War and Peace** , so it’s on my mind. Which one is this? I saw their six episode adaptation and it was only OK. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/151 "2023-01-05T01:18:34Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Which one is this? I saw their six episode adaptation and it was only OK. It’s from 192 and starred Anthony Hopkins as Pierre. As I say, twenty episodes. Evidently they’re somewhat less than an hour each, because the whole is less than 20 hours, but it’s still more than twice as long as the 1966-7 Russian version (which is plenty long enough itself). > **[War and Peace (1972 TV series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace_(1972_TV_series))** > > Yugoslavia: > War and Peace is a British television dramatisation of the 1869 Leo Tolstoy novel War and Peace. This 20-episode series began on 28 September 1972. The BBC dramatisation of Tolstoy's epic story of love and loss set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars. Anthony Hopkins heads the cast as Pierre Bezukhov, Morag Hood is Natasha Rostova, Alan Dobie is Andrei Bolkonsky and David Swift is Napoleon, whose decision to invade Russia in 1812 has far-reaching consequences for each of th... The six-episode BBC version is from 2016. I wasn’t aware of it until I started watching the older one. It runs 6 hours and 22 minutes (all 60 minute episodes except the last), making it only slightly shorter than the Russian version (about 7 hours and ten minutes) > **[War & Peace (2016 TV series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_%26_Peace_(2016_TV_series))** > > War & Peace is a British historical drama television serial first broadcast on BBC One on 3 January 2016, produced by BBC Cymru Wales, in association with The Weinstein Company, Lookout Point and BBC Worldwide. It is a six-part adaptation of the 1869 novel War and Peace by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, written by Andrew Davies and directed by Tom Harper. War & Peace aired on A&E, Lifetime and History Channel in the United States as four two-hour episodes, beginning on 18 January 2016. The Th... ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/152 "2023-01-07T18:51:38Z")
Split this topic on January 7, 2023, 6:51pm UTC 6 posts were split to a new topic: [Sex Roles in other Animals](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-roles-in-other-animals/977848) ---
**Author:** ![Made\_in\_Macau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@Made\_in\_Macau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Made_in_Macau)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2023, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/153 "2023-01-06T13:10:57Z")
The digression I enjoyed most listening to in the unabridged version last summer was (paraphrasing) “there is no need for me to detail the great battle at Waterloo, for are not ‘Waterloo’ by M Benoit or ‘The Great Battle’ by M Bertillon far greater tellings of that momentous event than I could manage?” - followed by a 4 hour detailing of the battle of Waterloo. I really loved the book though - was surprised by how satirical it was. MiM ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2023, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/154 "2023-01-06T16:37:50Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I’m going to suggest some novels by Anthony Trollope, not as great everlasting literature, but as excellent windows on their time (mid-Victorian England and Ireland). The Palliser novels had a basis in Parliamentary politics but touched on every aspect of Victorian life, especially including the place of women in society and politics. I loved the Palliser series done on the books. I always meant to read them. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2023, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/155 "2023-01-06T18:14:48Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > And his standalone book _The Way We Live Now_ is a delicious satire, more serious but no less cutting than Oscar Wilde’s play _An Ideal Husband_. _The Way We Live Now_ is a good book, but I personally prefer Thackeray’s _The Newcomes_ which has a similar scope (but is funnier, IMO). ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/161 "2023-01-07T18:44:38Z")
I’m sorry, remind me again what the hunting habits of lions have to do with “Classic Books Which Live Up To Their Reputation”? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/162 "2023-01-07T18:47:46Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Dante’s _Inferno_ is good, provided you get an edition with lots of footnotes, to explain who are all these popes and politicians he keeps ranting about. I like John Ciardi’s translation. I would recommend reading the entire _Divine Comedy_, but most people only want _Inferno._ This is the one I read, and I agree. I did read the other two volumes, but I think anyone who doesn’t love Inferno won’t like them very much. > [@DPRK](#): > > I like Boccaccio’s _Decameron_ (also not a novel). It was extremely influential on Italian literature and beyond that. I read this while socially isolated during our late plague. It’s a fascinating view of how they thought. And oh so dirty. My new (I think) contribution is _Tristram Shandy_ by Sterne. As the movie (nice try) said “the post-modern novel before there was a modern to be post from.” The origin of “this page left intentionally blank.” And the section on Sterne’s travel writing is good also. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/163 "2023-01-07T18:54:12Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > I’m sorry, remind me again what the hunting habits of lions have to do with “Classic Books Which Live Up To Their Reputation”? Not much. I have just moved a bunch of posts to a new thread. > [@Sex Roles in other Animals](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sex-roles-in-other-animals/977848): > > I’ve always been bugged by lionesses in prides doing all the hunting, and the males muscling in on dinner without having done a lick of work. Lioness Lib!!! ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763/165 "2024-02-07T13:38:57Z")
Reported. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classic-books-which-live-up-to-their-reputation/976763.md?page=7)