"Great Books" that no one seems to like...what are we missing?

Cafe Society
81

In my younger and more vulnerable years I read a book that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since - The Great Gatsby. I read it every four or five years, and like Ulysses, each time I find myself struck by something different.

First, let’s just marvel at the shortness of it (my copy has a scant 180 pages), and yet how much theme it contains. In it he mocks the American dream, 1920’s society, class envy, class constrictions, new wealth, and the first golden age of advertising. On top of that he throws plenty of metaphor and symbolism, and then he wraps it all up in beautiful writing.

His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.

I mean, he’s kidding himself, right? He’s kidding himself that it’s painful to read, but still you can imagine what he’s feeling.

There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams — not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.

I mean, there you have it. And let’s be clear, that section isn’t just about Jay Gatsby, it’s about that whole world, the New World shore, the green light.

It’s a great book for just pausing after you read a passage and thinking about it, and not forging ahead. Really one of my favorites.

82

I like Moby Dick, but I found the best way to enjoy it is to skim through the middle part. ( The part with all the soliloquies.)

83

Alternatively:

https://clickhole.com/the-time-i-spent-on-a-commercial-whaling-ship-totally-c-1825124286/

84

I was never able to understand being assigned The Crucible in school. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great play. I just feel that most people would get more out of it watching it on stage.

85

I’ve not actually read Moby Dick, but I thought I’d share something I’ve been told about it. It apparently alternates every chapter, with one chapter being action, and then another being about whale facts. So, if the chapters about whale facts seem like a slog, I wonder if you could just skim them a bit and jump back to the other stuff.

@furryman posted while I was typing, so I’ll go ahead and add this: I agree with all these plays which are done by reading. One teacher I liked at did something to make it better: she had us read the play out loud, as a play in class. That was at least a bit better. But, still, actually seeing the actors play it out was even better.

Though, with Shakespeare at least, It think having a side by side “translation” is also helpful.

86

The parts where he was actually ‘before the mast’ were good. The parts where he was collecting seal skins, not so much.

87

There are a series of videos on YouTube from TED-ED with titles like “Why should I read …” various classic books, I remember that Ulysses is one of them. They might give you a clue as to why in general educated folks seem to think these books are good to read.

It seems to me that it is not the entertainment value of these books that is the draw, but the artistic merit. Is the use of language creative and interesting? Are the characters particularly well-drawn? Is the plot original (and has it been copied so many times that it now seems trite and predictable)? Is it an archetypal example of a particular genre (e.g. gothic, or heroic)? Is it particularly reflective of a certain time and place? Does it bear repeated reading, such that you discover more and more each time? And then academically, there are probably a lot of different criteria that I don’t know (or care much) about. Those are the sorts of reasons that make a great book great.

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Thread :trophy:

89

I was forced to read Jane Austin and one or more of the Brontes (I have no idea which is which) in high school and every single one just a dull boring slog. Every time I tried to read “Wuthering Heights” it would put me to sleep. Or maybe it was “Washington Square”? I can’t even remember. It started with a W and was so damn dull.

90

I read Moby Dick in HS and don’t remember much in the way of entire chapters about sails and stuff. Well, there was a chapter on harpooning whales and I think another on rendering the blubber. But generally it wasn’t that boring. I think we got the Good Parts edition.

91

That is very true. I never hated Shakespeare in school, but it was always so difficult to actually get into. If I have to look up what is meant by every other word or phrase, then I’m sorry but I will not be able to actually follow along with the plot and get into the story.
But now having seen maybe 15+ plays performed live on stage, it is so much easier to actually get the gist of what is meant, you don’t need to know the definition of a word because it’s clear what is meant by the performance. (Of course you also realize that all the comedies are basically the same plot over and over.)

92

My high school provided choices, so you could pick a self-paced unit with a book that interested you. They were also interesting units. Say, King Lear + “Bohemian Rhapsody” + excerpt from Center of the Cyclone. Or Beowulf, Grendel, and an article about Old English words found in contemporary English.

93

I absolutely think this is a huge factor. I remember well being forced to read a couple of Australian classics - My Brother Jack which I pretty much processed as “middle aged man’s mid-life angst” and Tirra Lirra By The River (middle aged woman’s mid-life angst). I’m sure the 40 year old English teachers who chose these books got heaps out of them but I have no idea what in God’s name made them think a bunch of 17-year-olds would connect with the characters or their life experience.

On the other hand, my gran hated being forced to read Alice in Wonderland so clearly there’s a lot of individual variation here. Some books just aren’t for some people.

Visual imagination is a factor here too. We’ve had discussions about that on this board before, but understanding that there are people who can look at a page of description and it actually makes something visual happen in their mind’s eye was a revelation to me in terms of understanding why some writers write the way they do. Tolkein probably writes twenty pages of forest descriptions because when he reads it back to himself he really sees the trees in front of his eyes - since I know that this process doesn’t happen to me, I now feel free to read many books in the format “skim…skim…skim - ooh! Dialogue! Now I read!”. Which, to be fair, I think I did anyway (and it was probably LOTR that taught me to do it) but now I don’t feel guilty about it

94

When I read FWtBT In high school, I liked the sex.

95

I hope you went to school in Melbourne? I wouldn’t recommend that otherwise.

The book is fictional and semi-autobiographical. My brother went to a couple of good high schools. At one of them, the brother of the author came in and talked about the characters in the book, and how they related to reality.

96

The thing with Ulysses is that it should be read out loud. A friend and I read it to each other over the course of a summer, while we were renting a house on the beach. And we loved it.

I’m with you on Thomas Pynchon, though. Haven’t read Rushdie.

Here’s my contribution – Henry James. Holy shit, I can’t get through anything he ever wrote, and he’s supposed to be one of the greatest novelists in the English language? Really? I think he’s unreadable.

I saw Joseph Conrad mentioned above. I love every word Conrad ever wrote – he’s one of the greats for sure.

97

Well, I didn’t recommend it to myself at the time!! I expect I’d like it a lot better now (and, yeah, I did - mostly - do HS in Melbourne)

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I was familiar with the Melbourne locations of the book - which gave it an interest it otherwise would not have had. But we were familiar with the city. It wasn’t set as a text in my outer-suburban school, where many of the kids had never actually even been in to the city.

99

As a high school teacher with an English credential who has taught freshman and junior English, let me just say to everyone who hated what you were forced to read in high school…I totally agree with you. Most of the stuff in the curriculum should be read in college at the earliest. Forced reading, that is. I’m all for advanced 5th graders reading King Lear, if it is their choice. I remember the stuff I was forced to read and hated, only to reread decades later and enjoy. What schools should be focused on is inculcating a love of reading. Then the “problem” of shared social references and such will solve itself.

BTW, the books I always had on my Extra Credit list were Pterry, Bob, Isaac, Ray and the like. Worked every time!

100

I always considered Ulysses, Thomas Pynchon, etc exciting, (superlatively) well-written page-turners— hardly a “chore” to read [though a bit beyond thriller-length if that is what you are looking for], and at the same time extremely information-dense. Absolutely no contradiction there: evidently a really great novel can be both.