# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/41 "2012-03-12T02:01:57Z")
I’ve read a moderate sprinkling of classics. I find myself placing many of them into a category that I really need a name for; I put quite a few movies into it also. It’s a category of art in which I put works that: 1/ show tremendous originality and craft, which I admire, in some cases tremendously, but, 2/ I don’t actually _enjoy_ very much. ---
**Author:** ![Carmady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f04885/32.png) [@Carmady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carmady)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/42 "2012-03-12T02:06:50Z")
I think it is about the word “classic” itself. For some reason famous literary works that I don’t want to read, or which I have tried to read and didn’t like, feel like they should be called “classics.” Books I like feel like they are alive. It feels wrong to call them “classic”, even though it is accurate. ---
**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, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/43 "2012-03-12T02:07:41Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > But they are good. Both of them. _In your opinion_ they are good. If you meant your previous post simply as opinion, I have no problem with it. But you said > [@](#): > > And those who have read them say they’re really good As I (and you admit yourself) have read some of the classics and thought they stunk, this statement is obviously false. ---
**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, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/44 "2012-03-12T02:08:30Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > I’ve read a moderate sprinkling of classics. I find myself placing many of them into a category that I really need a name for; I put quite a few movies into it also. > > It’s a category of art in which I put works that: > > 1/ show tremendous originality and craft, which I admire, in some cases tremendously, but, > > 2/ I don’t actually _enjoy_ very much. I agree to an extent. There’s a context; an artistic appreciation; and a recognition of their contribution. I certainly wouldn’t argue that they meet the entertainment requirements of modern culture. But that doesn’t make them shit, any more than the stuff people think is really great now is shit because people in 300 years won’t enjoy it as much. ---
**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, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/45 "2012-03-12T02:12:11Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > But that doesn’t make them shit, any more than the stuff people think is really great now is shit because people in 300 years won’t enjoy it as much. IMO a true classic must be timeless. Being too much of it’s time is one of the many criticisms I have of Frankenstein. ---
**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, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/46 "2012-03-12T02:12:47Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > As I (and you admit yourself) have read some of the classics and thought they stunk, this statement is obviously false. Sorry. Didn’t realise I was talking to Sheldon Cooper! To clarify: hyperbole is a common conversational device, interpreted by most as such. I feel my point was easy to understand, and that it would be clear to the casual observer that I wasn’t claiming a unifying opinion of every person on our little planet. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. I’m a fan of literary devices in favour of dry recitation. My mistake is that others recognise this. Sorry, that comes across as snarky. I don’t mean to be. Just trying to say my use if the words “those who” should not be construed as applying to 100%, but to many. I felt that obvious, but apparently it needs explicitly saying. But I can see why you wouldn’t be a fan of classic literature. 🙂 ---
**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, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/47 "2012-03-12T02:14:21Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > IMO a true classic must be timeless. Being too much of it’s time is one of the many criticisms I have of Frankenstein. Then there is no such thing, surely? I think Frankenstein is great. It’s the Buffy of its time. ---
**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, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/48 "2012-03-12T02:16:52Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > Then there is no such thing, surely? IMO there certainly are. I hold the Bard to be timeless. It’s one of the many aspects of his greatness. I think Moby Dick is timeless as well. ---
**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, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/49 "2012-03-12T02:25:19Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > 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. I don’t need to produce anything as I said I have no idea. I’m not supporting anyone’s numbers, I’m questioning the validity of a five year old survey regarding current reading habits. ---
**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, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/50 "2012-03-12T02:29:43Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > IMO there certainly are. I hold the Bard to be timeless. It’s one of the many aspects of his greatness. I think Moby Dick is timeless as well. I don’t see how those are not of their time but Frankenstein is. I prefer Frankenstein to Moby Dick, for example. I suspect this is - just like with modern books - just a taste thing. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/51 "2012-03-12T02:42:50Z")
Please note that I _specifically_ said “median,” not “mean.” They are two different things. The median means that you arrange everybody in the group from lowest to highest and look at what the middle person in that range does. The mean means that you add up the number for each person and divide that by the number of people. In any case, I was wrong about the median number of books read, as people have pointed out. Since 27% of adult Americans read 0 books per year, 5% read 1 book per year, 8% read 2 books per year, and 12% read 3 books per year, that means that 52% read between 0 and 3 books per year. This mean that 3 is the median number of books read. I’m sorry, I heard the number 1 for the median at some point a few years ago and didn’t bother to look up the number, which I should have done. Note that 6.5 is the median for people who read any books at all, not for everybody. Yes, the mean number of books read is 20.4, but that is quite a different thing. What it means is that there are a minority of people who read a disproportionate number of books. Indeed, 8% of people read more than 50 books per year. ---
**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, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/52 "2012-03-12T02:55:03Z")
What I mean by timeless isn’t ‘I like this book’. What I mean is that the book isn’t filled with things that are currently in fashion. Frankenstein’s purple prose and fainting hero were in style at the time. Shakespeare is of his time only in some language and political references. Macbeth works in feudal Scotland or feudal Japan. Romeo And Juliet works just fine on the west side of New York, or in Bosnia. ---
**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, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/53 "2012-03-12T03:04:26Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > What I mean by timeless isn’t ‘I like this book’. What I mean is that the book isn’t filled with things that are currently in fashion. Frankenstein’s purple prose and fainting hero were in style at the time. > > Shakespeare is of his time only in some language and political references. Macbeth works in feudal Scotland or feudal Japan. Romeo And Juliet works just fine on the west side of New York, or in Bosnia. I don’t really get your distinction. None of them are not culturally and temporally placed in their place and time. I wonder if you just personally identify with some themes in some, whereas I identify with other themes in others? I still strongly suspect it’s a personal thing. ---
**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, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/54 "2012-03-12T03:23:02Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Since 27% of adult Americans read 0 books per year, 5% read 1 book per year, 8% read 2 books per year, and 12% read 3 books per year, that means that 52% read between 0 and 3 books per year. This mean that 3 is the median number of books read. That’s still incorrect. 5%, 8%, and 12% are percentages of the 73% of people who read books, not of the total population. Adjusted for the total, you get: 0 books: 27% 1 book : 3.65% 2 books: 5.84% 3 books: 8.76% That’s only 45%, which means that 55% of the population has read _at least_ four books in the selected year and the median for the entire population is somewhere between four and five, which is what I said. This is the SDMB; facts and numbers matter. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/55 "2012-03-12T03:41:26Z")
O.K., that’s a pretty bad way to arrange the chart, but I guess there’s nothing to do about that. So 27% have read 0 books and 25% of the remaining 73% have read 1 to 3 books. 27% plus (25% of 73%) equals 27% plus 18.25%, which equals 45.25%. 16% of the 73%, which equals 11.68%, have read 4 or 5 books. The median is not _between_ 4 and 5. The median, by definition in this case, must be a whole number, since the number of books reported by each person is a whole number. The median is either 4 or 5. If we were to guess, for instance, that 8% of the 73% have read 4 books and 8% of the 73% have read 5 books, then 5.84% have read 4 books. If that were true, then 51.09% have read from 0 to 4 books, so 4 would be the median. ---
**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, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/56 "2012-03-12T03:48:25Z")
The point is that you were wrong by at least 400%. That’s not an acceptable margin of error and it does not speak well of your larger point. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/57 "2012-03-12T03:57:59Z")
What larger point? ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/58 "2012-03-12T04:00:51Z")
I think a big problem is that reading a classic often feels like reading a cliche-ridden mess with impenetrable vocabulary. Of course, a lot of these “cliches” originated with the work in question, and a lot of times they actually deconstruct the cliche and the books who played follow the leader lacked the nuance. Hell, even other times the cliche you think is so obvious in this old book is a cliche that never really existed in the first place ("The Butler Did It"™). A lot of people think they know everything about, say, Dracula through pop-cultural osmosis too, when they really don’t (Dracula walks out in broad daylight, for one) so the plots they think won’t grab or surprise them because they’ve “heard this story before” may be a hundred times more surprising than they think. I know when I read Pride and Prejudice in high school it felt formulaic and cliched. Rationally I knew it wasn’t, but it just FELT so worn out and like beating a dead horse. I think the perception of what classics are, and the idea that they think they know how the story will play out based on a few now-cliches that are bound to pop up is a big part of it. ---
**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, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/59 "2012-03-12T04:20:37Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > What larger point? This one: > [@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. We’ve established that people read a good deal more than you asserted. But, it should also be noted that the numbers don’t really _say_ anything regarding the question in the OP. The poll doesn’t have a listing for “classics”. Let’s say our average Joe reads one book in a three month time frame. Did he read one of the _Twilight_ novels and spend the rest of his free time shooting bottle rockets at stray cats, or did he spend those three months slogging through _War and Peace_ while taking notes throughout to keep the vast cast of characters straight? We don’t know and the numbers don’t give an indication either way. The question is why people do one instead of the other. ---
**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, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454/60 "2012-03-12T05:12:46Z")
I suppose I should give a stab at answering the question. One of the reasons people skip over the classics is that there is a tendency to think of them as a “genre”. We’re doing that here by putting them all in the same category. If you ever walked into a brick and mortar book store, back when those used to be a thing, you probably saw books divided into sections. There would be separate aisles and shelves for NEW!, thrillers, romance, sci-fi, etc. There would also be a section for “classics”. It’s a disservice to some great books. _To Kill a Mockingbird_ doesn’t have a damn thing in common with _Crime and Punishment_, but you might find them on the same shelf. Somebody might not read _Huckleberry Finn_ because they hated _Moby Dick_ and subconsciously view them both in the same genre of “classics by American authors”. Hell, they are labelled as such. By lumping “the classics” together into one genre we take away what made them individually classics to begin with. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-classics-books-praised-by-everyone-but-read-by-no-one/615454.md?page=4)