I recently read East Of Eden by John Steinbeck. Steinbeck had always been a favorite of mine, and I had read most of his novels. But I had never read *EOE * before. Now I know why it won the Nobel Prize for literature. I’m going to have to get around to *War And Peace * one of these days.
What great classic did it take you forever to get around to? Did you love it, or were you disappointed?
Alright, I read it about a year ago. I was moved by it to start writing a WWII novel that had been on the back of my mind for about 15 years. Of course, the first draft was in the same voice as AQWF, but I put it down for a few months and started it back up again later.
The Scarlet Letter.
Yeah I should have read it in high school, but I didn’t go to the kind of high school where they required reading books like this. And no one asked me to read it in college…I was busy with Huysmans and Pound and Rodenbach and Calvino. And for years I had heard that it was the Most Boring Novel in All of American Literature.
But I really loved it. Hester and Chillingworth are great characters, and their dilemmas are quite moving. And that lil’ hellspawn, Pearl, I just wanted to eat her up.
I read Catcher in the Rye. It sucked and I didn’t finish it.
I’m currently reading Crime and Punishment for the first time, despite feeling I know the whole story already.
Damn, that rascal Raskolnikov sure is a worry-wart, isn’t he?
Is Watership Down a classic? I just read it last January. I liked it, a lot. I’ve read some other stuff where the characters were animals, and have come to the conclusion that it’s hard to pull off, but Adams did it.
In August, I read The Woman in White. Loved that one too. It wasn’t nearly as dated as I feared it would be.
War and Peace has been sitting near the bedstand for about five years now. I keep picking it up, putting it down, picking it up. I’m afraid.
I’m about 30 pages shy of finishing On the Road. What a great ride indeed!
The Scarlet Letter or How Hester Won Her A 
Reading Anna Karenina and am enjoying it, but perhaps not as much as War and Peace
Also just finished Barry Lyndon and was somewhat disappointed as it dragged on way too long IMHO. This may be one of the few times when the movie was better than the book.
A few months ago I read Brideshead Revisited, which I’d always meant to do because it’s always up there on those “Greatest Modern Novels” lists. It’s amazingly good, of course. I intend to read the rest of Waugh’s books, but the unread pile is sooo big and getting nothing but bigger. I have to finish Mary Kingsley’s Travels in West Africa first, at least, which is another one I’ve been meaning to read and just got around to (Nancy Pearl loves it, and now I can see why - I’d totally go gay for Mary Kingsley.)
I’m working my way through A Prayer for Owen Meany, and just finished Gulliver’s Travels. 1984’s next on the list.
I’m trying to get through Ulysses right now, since my favouritest author ever (Vlad Nabokov) loves Joyce so much, but boy is it taxing.
I finished War and Peace recently - it was very worthwhile. Treat it like a four-book series, if you want to. I heartily recommend it.
I’m working on Jane Eyre now.
I read Vanity Fair after seeing the Reese Witherspoon film. I liked the novel a great deal, and recommend it highly.
Crime and punishment for me too.
The movie is one of only two films I have cried at as an adult. The abrupt change from… the dying boy, asking his parents to stop fighting with each other, to his funeral procession, with the coffin in his little cart drawn by his goats made me start bawling like a baby.
Yep, and he’s one of the few authors that succeeds, in my opinion. Plague Dogs by him works pretty well, too, although I think the movie version has the better ending.
I recently read Treasure Island for the first time. It’s not a book I’d give to a young child to read: some of the language in it was unfamiliar to me as a fairly well-read adult. But I think that it’d be a great read-aloud for a kid who’s eight or nine, and by the time a kid is twelve or thirteen, I’d give it to them if they’re a good reader. The language may be unfamiliar, but it is so resonant, so beautiful.
Daniel
Just finished reading Roots for the first time. I can’t believe I hadn’t read it before. I found it fascinating and quite sobering; it really brought home the terrible impact of slavery.
Let us know if you make it! I tried twice and gave up after my brain began to hurt. Does it ever get to the point where you can understand what’s going on?
Does Thomas Beer’s 1926 The Mauve Decade count as a classic, or is it too obscure? I’m thoroughly enjoying it, but it requires concentration.
I loved Vanity Fair, The Scarlet Letter, Anna Karenina and Brideshead Revisited when I first read them, by the by.
I’m almost finished with Anna Karenina, which I started reading after my mother raved about what an incredible book it is. It’s not bad, but I’ve enjoyed other books more.