Re-reading the "classics"

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Re-reading the "classics"

#1 Moshi

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 11:29 AM

I was browsing through someone's bookshelf yesterday, and there were many books they obviously had around since their high school days -- assigned classics such as Tom Sawyer, and One Flew Over the Coockoo's Nest, and Crime and Punishment, and Catchers in the Rye, The Great Gatsby and other such books.

These are books that pretty much everyone is familiar with because they're in the curriculum. At the very least, you've heard of them through other people referencing them at random times. Having gone to school back in the USSR, I had a slightly different curriculum, but there's a lot of overlap.

Anyhow, I was thinking that maybe these books are wasted on 13-year-olds? Have you tried reading some of these classics in your adult years? Do you appreciate them more? Or do they seem a little tired/hackneyed because you've been overexposed to them already / because lots of people have copied them?

I don't think Dostoyevsky or Fitzgerald intended 13-year-olds to make up 90% of their readership...

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#2 RebPropagandist

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 11:35 AM

Moshi, on May 11 2009, 04:29 AM, said:

Can we start a bookclub (thread), to reread the classics, on h?
I say we start with 1984

"Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1787

"How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."
- From 1984
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#3 jewess

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 11:38 AM

RebPropagandist, on May 11 2009, 12:35 PM, said:

Can we start a bookclub (thread), to reread the classics, on h?
I say we start with 1984

i recently reread east of eden and anna karenina. There are nothing like the classics.
1984 is not the first book that comes to mind when i hear classics, although it is on most high school reading lists.

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#4 Moshi

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 11:41 AM

jewess, on May 11 2009, 11:38 AM, said:

i recently reread east of eden and anna karenina. There are nothing like the classics.

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#5 Amber

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 11:46 AM

Moshi, on May 11 2009, 12:29 PM, said:

Anyhow, I was thinking that maybe these books are wasted on 13-year-olds? Have you tried reading some of these classics in your adult years? Do you appreciate them more? Or do they seem a little tired/hackneyed because you've been overexposed to them already / because lots of people have copied them?

I'm glad I slept through HS and decided to catch up on what I missed in my later years.

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#6 FYI

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 11:54 AM

Moshi, on May 11 2009, 11:29 AM, said:

I've re-read some (charles dickens comes to mind). Anything I've re-read I think I appreciated 10 times more as an adult.

Many people wish they could change their life, when all they really need to do is change their attitude towards life. - Sharon

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#7 Kalashnikover_Rebbe

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 11:57 AM

I hope one day to really go through More Nevuchim, Chovos HaLevavos ,and the Kuzari.....
Oh yeah, and the Bible too....

[/flirting]

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#8 Short

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 12:32 PM

I've read nearly all the classics as an adult. We didn't really read non-Jewish books in school and I haven't gone to college (yet). About two years ago I decided I would read all the classics, and yes, I certainly think most classics are wasted on teenagers.

Ask a seismologist why there was a tsunami, don't ask a rabbi. - Moshi

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#9 Gabbe

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 01:03 PM

Kalashnikover_Rebbe, on May 11 2009, 12:57 PM, said:

I hope one day to really go through More Nevuchim, Chovos HaLevavos ,and the Kuzari.....
Oh yeah, and the Bible too....

There's a man my speed.

I did read Robinson Crusoe a few times. I like it a lot because I'm antisocial, but there the problem is that I'm also lazy.

I'm also like FYI. --VLG

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#10 Gabbe

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 01:13 PM

jewess, on May 11 2009, 12:38 PM, said:

i recently reread east of eden and anna karenina. There are nothing like the classics.

Really? Why not?

Quote

1984 is not the first book that comes to mind when i hear classics, although it is on most high school reading lists.

Whoosh, went the point.

I'm also like FYI. --VLG

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#11 Moshi

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 01:19 PM

RebPropagandist, on May 11 2009, 11:35 AM, said:

I say we start with 1984

There are some almost-"romance-novel"-like scenes in that book.

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#12 Amber

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 01:21 PM

Moshi, on May 11 2009, 02:19 PM, said:

There are some almost-"romance-novel"-like scenes in that book.

Those scenes are so stiff, they can hardly be called "romantic"./Just saying.

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#13 Moshi

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 01:32 PM

Amber, on May 11 2009, 01:21 PM, said:

Those scenes are so stiff, they can hardly be called "romantic"./Just saying.

Really? The ones where the main character meets the woman he likes in some building (hotel?) in secrecy, away from the prying eyes of the state? It's been 14 years since I read the book, but I remember it as VERY "romantic", at least to 15-year-old me.

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#14 Jeanette

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 01:36 PM

Moshi, on May 11 2009, 02:32 PM, said:

I read it for the first time like two years ago, but I kind of skimmed over the torture scenes. I already got the point by then.

Oh, and I enjoyed Brave New World much more than 1984.

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#15 Moshi

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 01:37 PM

Jeanette, on May 11 2009, 01:36 PM, said:

Oh, and I enjoyed Brave New World much more than 1984.

That one I never read...

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#16 Jeanette

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 01:39 PM

Short, on May 11 2009, 01:32 PM, said:

We read goyishe books in HS but we only read like one "classic" each year. The only ones I remember from HS (besides Shakespeare plays) are The Pearl, Great Expectations and A Separate Peace.

I read a lot of "classics" on my own during HS. There are so many I haven't read yet that I don't bother going back to reread those.

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#17 Amber

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 01:42 PM

Moshi, on May 11 2009, 02:32 PM, said:

The whole nature of their "romance" just seemed very unnatural. I wonder if you'd still find it to be very romantic.

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#18 shaya_getzl

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 01:48 PM

If "1984" and "Brave New World" belong on the classics list, then "Fear and Loathing in LV" and entire trilogy of Bayan Shiryanov do much more so ...

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#19 Belle

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 02:09 PM

My mom only bought classics for me when I was young, but I appreciate them much more now as an adult (and I stole them all back from her and now have them at home).

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#20 Xi

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 02:10 PM

Jeanette, on May 11 2009, 02:39 PM, said:

We read goyishe books in HS but we only read like one "classic" each year. The only ones I remember from HS (besides Shakespeare plays) are The Pearl, Great Expectations and A Separate Peace.

OMG I think we went to the same school.

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Hashkafah.com: Re-reading the "classics" - Hashkafah.com

Re-reading the "classics"

#1 Moshi

#2 RebPropagandist

#3 jewess

#4 Moshi

#5 Amber

#6 FYI

#7 Kalashnikover_Rebbe

#8 Short

#9 Gabbe

#10 Gabbe

#11 Moshi

#12 Amber

#13 Moshi

#14 Jeanette

#15 Moshi

#16 Jeanette

#17 Amber

#18 shaya_getzl

#19 Belle

#20 Xi

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Re-reading the "classics"

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