Personally I’m just making my way through Modern Library’s 100 Greatest English-Language Novels of the 20th Century. I’m not doing it to be well-read, it’s just because I wanted to read a lot and read some quality material. But if other people here can suggest reading nothing written after 1800, I can suggest that. I’ll be done with <I>Sons and Lovers</i> in a few days. That will round out the top 10 for me and I’ll have read 24 of the 100 books.
On Harold Bloom: I agree that he’s hard to put up with. He came out with what is actually a very nice collection of poetry and tales for kids–not the same old selections usually found in those types of books. Unfortunately, the title is one of the most embarrassing titles ever: Stories and poems for extremely intelligent children of all ages. It is to barf.
dangermom - you already are well read…you are becoming better read.
Cadabra, assuming you aren’t already well read because great literature never “grabbed” you, most of these lists are starting out rather arcane and difficult. I’d start becoming well read by reading. Find a topic you enjoy. Few people can read “all the classics of literature” - frankly there are too many of them. Pick what you enjoy and start with the classics from that genre or style. If you work from a list, you’ll get to something you don’t like (Tess – spit!) and get discouraged. If you make your own list, hopping from book you enjoyed to book like the one you just enjoyed, you’ll make more progress and have more fun.
Its also worthwhile to note that what makes a person well read changes depending on who the person is and their circumstances. Certainly, someone teaching Modern English Literature should have read every book on the 20th Century List. If you hang drywall for a living, the bar for being well read is much lower. I’m considered amazingly well read for an IT person, and haven’t read half the stuff here.
(Don’t start at the beginning, Le Mort de Arthur is in Old English. Shakespere is difficult for people not used to it. Start modern and work back.)
As long as Bloom doesn’t accept Their Eyes Were Watching God as literature solely because it was written by a non-dead, non-white, non-male - and then make up other reasons - I think I’ll be cool with him. Include Toni Morrison and other excellent writers – but tell Zora Neale Hurston to keep it to herself.
Sorry, I just had this English teacher once… and, ah… nevermind. Carry on.
What’s the Sound and the Fury like Marley? I’ve read all of Cormac McCarthey but never read Faulkner, probably putting the cart before the horse 
.
Has that list ever been discussed on the SD? There are some provocative choices. My hat is off to anyone who reads James’ “The ambassadors” and gets anything out of it in this day and age.
Cliffs Notes. Seriously. The things these people put online is a very good starting point. Persueing that list will certainly give you a good introduction of literature through the ages. And it’s a good and quick reference point when you get stuck on something you don’t grasp.
There are some stuff that everything revolves around in one way or another:
The Illiad, Odyssey. It’s where it all started, basically. You’ll find echoes of these two reverberating even now. I think they are essential for understanding what happened later.
Aeneid. You’ll find out why Dante uses Virgil as his guide in -
The Devine Comedy. Stick to infeno and skip purgatory and heaven.
Shakespeare. The great dramas and comedies.
Cervantes.
Paradise Lost…
With these you’ll have all the foundation you need for modern literature and the going will get easier. A personal observation, though: Read for the fun of it. When I was younger, I had this great plan of reading all the Nobel Prize winners. Terribly boring, most of it. Life’s too short to be wasted on reading stuff that grinds you down and puts you to sleep. There are always alteratives when it comes to great literature.
In a word, difficult. If I hadn’t found a good web page that analyzed and broke down the book used it extensively, I would have missed an awful lot of it. But it was good.
/quote Read only great books - the rest are tasteless fluff once you hit the real lit. /quote
Ahh but who are you to tell me what great books are? I can’t think of anything that would suck the joy out of reading faster than to be handed a list of authors and told to read everything on it.
I’ll also point out that a good many of the “great books” were considered tasteless fluff when they were written. A number of them were even published in serial form in newspapers and magazines.
Read what you like - read lots of it. Browse. Be always on the lookout for things you haven’t sampled before. Be prepared to shrug and say “Well that looks interesting, I think I’ll give it a whirl”.
The only thing that will make you well read is lots of reading. The only thing that makes you want to read a lot is to ENJOY reading. I had my fill of other people inflicting their own personal view of the Greatest Literature Of All Time on me with the clear implication that everything else had lesser value.
/soapbox
Every book has value, dagnabit! Even cheesy romance novels and dime-a-dozen spy novels. I’d dearly love to know where the notion that all reading must be sober, socially responsible, and improving to the mind and soul came from, so I can track down the originator of that notion and give them a good thumping. You never know what random line, or phrase, or concept you run across will make you stop and think - or re-evaluate something you thought you knew.
And for Pete’s sake, reading isn’t a chore or a duty - it should be a joy, even an escape - certainly an entertainment.
Yes, of course, great literature should inspire, should make you reexamine, should touch you and change you - but not every meal has to be a gormet feast. The world has room for the occasional hot dog and a beer, and the world would be a dry and colorless place without it.
I, personally, am an avid and expansive reader by nature, but I very nearly had my literary inclinations stamped out of me as a student because every teacher and professor I had absolutely insisted a) that all reading should be self-improving and b) that their personal favorite was the pinnacle of literary achievement and then proceeded to force me to read and analyze the lot. Faugh! No wonder so many people don’t read!
/soapbox off
So I digress, but the point of my digression is that the way to be well-read is to read a lot. And to try and make sure you’re reading a little of everything - while also being sure that a lot of what you’re reading you’re ENJOYING.
Hear, hear, Aangelica!
I expect one of three things out of a book: I should learn something from it, it should entertain me, or I should be able to appreciate it as a work of art.
There are books I consider great books that have lousy writing, but the content is useful or they’re hilariously funny. There are books I consider great books that cover pointless or silly subject matter, but they’re very well written.
You have to learn to just ignore people who feel “modern literature” and genre works are just beneath them.
Put down the Great Books lists and pick up a copy of Book Lust, which is by the librarian they made the action figure out of, Nancy Pearl. It’s organized by oddball topics, like “Elvis”, “Fathers and Daughters”, “Intrguing Novels” (spy lit), etc. I’ve been taking it to the bookstore with me for a few months now and I’ve never yet hit a dud - some classic literature, some not so classic literature, but if I hadn’t read it I would never have read Gaudy Night.
Amen to that!
I’ve read a good number of classical works, but I don’t devour them. Why? Because I would rather spend my time reading informational books (science texts, articles on critical thinking, computer and engineering books, encyclopedia entries, the Straight Dope books, etc.). In addition, I like to read the works of certain modern writers (James Herriot, Isaac Asimov and Peter David, to name just a few). If anyone says that I’m not well read, nuts to them!
You do realize, do you not, that Le Mort d’Arthur was written in 1470, and is therefore modern English? Old English is what Beowulf was written in, and isn’t even comprehensible to a speaker of Modern English (but might be, just barely, to a speaker of German).
On the subject of “the classics”, most of them are classics for a reason. Unfortunately, sometimes the reason is that many generations of professors couldn’t understand it, and therefore felt obliged to inflict it on future generations. Most often, however, classics are classics because they’re good. So you’re not wasting your time if you go to the library and check out “classic” books. But they’re not the be-all, end-all of literature, either. There are plenty of very good books which are not considered classics, whether it’s because they appeal to a limited segment of the population, or they’re too new to be regarded as “classics” yet, or just because they were never noticed. Learn what books you like and read them, and you’ll find many of these less-recognized great books, and you won’t be any worse off for reading them.
I meant to answer this, too. I think the list is from '99 and I’ve never seen it discussed here. That’d be a fun thread.
Is there any way I could get a link to that web page? I love Faulkner, but I tend to just sit back and let it wash over me, I need some help to really get a grasp of his stuff…