# Why are classics (books) praised by everyone but read by no one? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 11, 2012, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454 "2012-03-11T10:43:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/21 "2012-03-11T18:20:51Z")
> [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](#): > > I remember Mark Twain’s quote of that. But is this true? Why do people not read the classics? If they aren’t read much, why are they ‘classics’? > > Please explain. It means that most folk assume the book must’ve meant something to historical folks, but not them. They would be wrong in this thinking. Same as it ever was. Fortunately, this is an inappropriately over-broad generalization that is proven wrong enough that the books endure. Good books find a way. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/22 "2012-03-11T18:35:19Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > One thing I see over and over again in threads that discuss classics here (not to mention elsewhere) is that one person’s “damn near unreadable” is almost invariably other peoples’ “I love this book.” Just from that effect alone, for most classics you’re going to hear lots of praise (from some) and lots of disdain (from others). Yep. I can’t stand Jane Austen, for instance. Couldn’t stand her in high school, and I can’t stand her to this day. My nook came with four books in it already, and one of them was by Austen. So I thought that I’d give it another try, maybe my tastes have changed and I will be able to enjoy it. Nope. Still can’t stand her. I can’t stand Dickens, either, not when I read him in high school, and not today. There are lots of people who enjoy both Austen and Dickens, but I doubt that I ever will. Now, my tastes HAVE changed over the years, and I will occasionally re-read books that I hated when I was younger, but today I am able to enjoy them. Partly it’s just life experience that enables me to find deeper meanings in the books. And it goes the other way, too. Books that enthralled me as a teen/young adult now seem to be painfully shallow. But at least I do make the effort to try books that I have previously disliked, if I hear others praise them. ---
**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:** [March 11, 2012, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/23 "2012-03-11T19:16:34Z")
> [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](#): > > I remember Mark Twain’s quote of that. But is this true? Why do people not read the classics? If they aren’t read much, why are they ‘classics’? > > Please explain. You are aware that Twain was a humorist? He was being funny. The kernel of truth in the joke is that there are classic novels that are not popular. Often that’s because the language puts people off or that the writing is not the current style. They remain classic because the people who are willing to read them can still see the things that made the great. Twain, of course, knew his joke wasn’t true. At the time he said it, Shakespeare was the most popular playwright in America, and Dickens was still a massively popular author (though it may not have been considered among the classics). I’m pretty sure James Fenimore Cooper was also popular at the time, though Twain was – to say the least – not a fan of Cooper. ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/24 "2012-03-11T19:25:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One thing I’ve found is that many classics are rip-roaring page-turners once you get into them, but start off slow. So if you don’t have the incentive to get past that early slow part, you might give up on the book, and miss out on all the good parts. Absolutely, War and Peace was the classic (heh heh) example of that for me. Once I got past the first 60 pages or so I raced through it, at one time reading 200 pages in one go. And that was in spite of the long passages of polemic – at least until the last hundred pages when I confess I did skip a particularly long bit of polemic to get to the end of the story. I do find film and TV adaptions a great way to get into classics. With Dickens I used to have a problem seeing the wood for the trees: his writing is so dense with character and description and I couldn’t tell foreground from background. Reading Bleak House shortly after seeing the BBC adaptation gave me the map and I’ve gone on to read and enjoy most of the novels since. On the other hand no amount of George Eliot adaptions can get me over my antipathy. Of course no one is going to enjoy every classic . ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/25 "2012-03-11T19:29:44Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > There are indeed books that I’d like to have read but don’t particularly look forward to reading—including but not limited to classics. You can judge how much a book is worth reading by two sorts of criteria: (1) how much you enjoy or are entertained by it _while_ you’re reading it; and (2) how much of value you have gained from having read it. Some books score high on one of these categories but not on the other. > > In particular, some books are easy and enjoyable to read; they kind of carry you along. Others are more difficult: you have to force yourself to keep turning the pages. This difficulty isn’t necessarily due to any fault or flaw in the book itself. It may be the book’s age: it’s written in an archaic style, or includes out-of-date vocabulary, or has lots of references to things that modern people no longer are familiar with or care about. It might be the book’s density: it needs to be read slowly and carefully to really understand it. It may be that your (the reader’s) mind works in a different way from the author’s. > > But, for some works, it’s worth the difficulty, because of what you learn from the book, or because of the way its characters or settings or scenes or events or ideas become a part of you. Many (though not all) classics fall into this category, at least for me. > > Yeah, part of the problem with classics is when people try to—or are required to—read them at the wrong point in their lives. Yep, there are books I didn’t think I liked much when reading them but which I still think about years after more fun books have been forgotten. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/26 "2012-03-11T19:37:50Z")
I think a large part of the problem is that many people just see this large monolithic thing called The Classics. They assume that if they didn’t like one author they won’t like the rest of them. For the record, I despise Dickens but love Shakespeare and Poe. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/27 "2012-03-11T19:47:08Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Most people don’t read books as an adult except on rare occasions. The median number of books read by an adult American per year is one. So if you talk to the average person who doesn’t consider themselves much of a reader, of course they are going to say that they don’t read classics. They don’t read current books that much either. Cute statistic, but not even close to being real. Among adults, 73% of the population reads at least one book a year. Most read between 5-7 books, but the average number of books read per year by adults who read is 20. Even when you include the people who don’t read, the average American reads 14 books a year. [http://surveys.ap.org/data/Ipsos/national/2007-08-09%20AP%20Book%20Topline.pdf](http://surveys.ap.org/data/Ipsos/national/2007-08-09%20AP%20Book%20Topline.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/28 "2012-03-11T19:48:24Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I’m pretty sure James Fenimore Cooper was also popular at the time, though Twain was – to say the least – not a fan of Cooper. I read that Cooper became a novelist because he’d read a book by Jane Austen and said that he could write a better one. (It was in _Ripley’s Believe It Or Not_, so it might not be accurate.) I told an English professor that, and I’ll never forget the look on his face when he said, “Oh no, he couldn’t.” As an English major, I read many of these books. Many were definitely slow going in places. OTOH, here and there were brilliant scenes or lines or characters that I thought were wonderful: Lady Catherine confronting Elizabeth in _Pride and Prejudice_, “Angels are but sharks well govern’d”–a line from _Moby Dick_, Miss Havisham from _Great Expectations_. I also enjoyed seeing how the structure of the classics fit together. That said, I didn’t like Faulkner’s stuff either. He started writing after he was fired from his job at the post office because he “refused to be at the beck and call of anybody with three cents for a stamp.” :smack: John Sutherland has written several fascinating books about the classics with titles like _Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?_ and _Was Heathcliff a Murderer?_ in which he discusses possible errors various authors may have made. Sharks Well Govern’d–a great name for a band, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/29 "2012-03-11T19:51:55Z")
Just thought of another reason. It’s hard to find a good translation of those classics that aren’t in English. IME Translations mostly come in two varieties- Light and easy to read, but censored so as not to offend and leaving out many details. or Fully faithful to the original and leaving out no detail, but incredibly dry and boring. I want to read Dante’s Inferno, but have trouble finding a decent translation. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/30 "2012-03-11T19:53:47Z")
> [@VOW](#): > > After I retired, I thought, “Yanno, I REALLY should read the classics!” > > First one I picked up was “Pride and Prejudice.” > > It was the LAST one I picked up. It was AWFUL. > > But the absolute honors for literary classics in the “Just Kill Me Now” category is ANYTHING by Faulkner. > ~VOW Sense and Sensibility was much better. -Mika, a reader of the classics. Some of the classics. The ones that appeal to me at any rate. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/31 "2012-03-11T20:14:58Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > I want to read Dante’s Inferno, but have trouble finding a decent translation. I enjoyed the Ciardi translation. I think Dorothy Sayers also translated it, but I never read her version. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/32 "2012-03-11T20:17:16Z")
I think Mark Twain was making a witticism. I’ve read classics in school and enjoyed some (The Odyssey) and loathed others (Heart of Darkness). A few times Mr. Sali and I get a yearning for self-improvement and try reading something good for us. He has enjoyed some of Ernest Hemmingway, which leaves me ice-cold with boredom. I enjoyed much of Thomas Hardy, which he can’t get into at all. I’m hoping to get into Madame Bovary someday. I do think something like Cliff Notes, even if you aren’t reading a book for school, is helpful to the casual reader. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/33 "2012-03-11T20:22:44Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Most people don’t read books as an adult except on rare occasions. The median number of books read by an adult American per year is one. That’s not true. While 27% of Americans admit to not having read a book last year, the median for the other 73% is 6.5 (mean of 20.4) books a year. 73% is “most people”. Even if you adjust that median down to account for the minority that didn’t read any, the median for all Americans is 4.5. [source](http://surveys.ap.org/data/Ipsos/national/2007-08-09%20AP%20Book%20Topline.pdf). Ninja’d! ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/34 "2012-03-11T21:24:09Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > You are aware that Twain was a humorist? He was being funny. > > I’m pretty sure James Fenimore Cooper was also popular at the time, though Twain was – to say the least – not a fan of Cooper. Or of Jane Austen for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/35 "2012-03-11T23:24:19Z")
Of all the classics I have read, only Ulysses dragged, but it did have some amazing sentences and passages. Also, of the Divine Comedy, I only liked the part in hell. All the other classics I have read have been wonderful. Including Faulkner. But I can see why many people would not like it. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/36 "2012-03-12T01:26:06Z")
I don’t know if I’d trust a five year old survey. I know my book reading took a dive when I started spending my time on the internet. The number of people spending their time online (esp. Facebook, etc) now is greater than in 2007 and I’m sure that time came from somewhere. This isn’t to say no one reads books. I have no idea. I just wouldn’t trust numbers from 2007 about it. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/37 "2012-03-12T01:29:59Z")
> [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](#): > > I remember Mark Twain’s quote of that. But is this true? Why do people not read the classics? If they aren’t read much, why are they ‘classics’? > > Please explain. Because people refuse to read them due to those proud of their ignorance decry them as boring despite never having read them. And those who have read them say they’re really good. Plus “nobody has read them” is untrue. Countless millions have. Just nobody you know. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/38 "2012-03-12T01:34:12Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > Because people refuse to read them due to those proud of their ignorance decry them as boring despite never having read them. > > And those who have read them say they’re really good. I disagree with this. I was forced to read A Christmas Carol and Frankenstein in school. I went in expecting to really like Frankenstein. IMO It sucks. It is some of the suckiest suck to ever be called a classic. Carol was unbelievable, contrived, full of cardboard characters and shmaltz. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/39 "2012-03-12T01:52:51Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > This isn’t to say no one reads books. I have no idea. I just wouldn’t trust numbers from 2007 about it. Really, if you are going to doubt that cite and by doing so support **Wendell Wagner’s** unsupported and incredible assertion that the majority of Americans read less than one book a year, one of you two is going to have to produce some numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/40 "2012-03-12T01:54:45Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > I disagree with this. I was forced to read A Christmas Carol and Frankenstein in school. I went in expecting to really like Frankenstein. IMO It sucks. It is some of the suckiest suck to ever be called a classic. Carol was unbelievable, contrived, full of cardboard characters and shmaltz. But they are good. Both of them. You not liking them doesn’t explain why so many people, as the OP says, laud them. The answer to the question is: there are a lot of people who have read them who like them. There are a lot more people alive today who haven’t, but that’s not relevant. And sure, some people won’t. That’s cool. Doesn’t change the fact that many do. Honestly, if everyone who ever read them thought they were shit, why would the OP’s question exist? Obviously I don’t like every classic book, any more than I like every modern book. But the ones I like, I like; and plenty of others like the others. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454.md?page=3)