I don't quite understand that phrase, "some classics should be read just because they're classics". Do you mean that they should be read because of their historical importance? Possibly we have a different defintion of "classic" - to me, a classic is something that communicates excitement, power and beauty even after 2500 years and in a different language.
On another subject, do you do requests? I would love to have your opinion on the CS Lewis sci-fi trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.
I think some books should be read for their historical and literary importance, yes (hence my books1001 challenge), although I'm not generally in favor of forcing yourself to read something you don't enjoy just because it's venerated as a Great Work. (There are definitely a few books on that list I'd rather not take on...)
Of course, in the science fiction genre, "historical" has a rather narrower range, unless you expand the definition of "sci-fi" considerably. Rendezvous with Rama is just one of those books that most older sci-fi fans have read, so I thought I should too one of these days.
My TBR pile is big enough without taking requests. (I do occasionally read something because it was recommended.) I have been kinda sorta intending to read C.S. Lewis's sci-fi trilogy one of these days, but considering my views on religion, I doubt I would appreciate a Christian allegory overmuch. (I enjoyed The Chronicles of Narnia as a child, but I wasn't an occasionally perverse atheist then.)
Ah, but it's NOT a Christian allegory. That is The Pilgrim's Regress, which is a masterpiece, but which I would not recommend to anyone who did not have a good knowledge of British culture and society in the twenties and early thirties. The sci-fi trilogy is sci-fi, world creation, the real deal. When someone like Brian Alldiss is impressed by it, you can at least take it seriously as sci-fi. True, Lewis, as a literature expert, had little or no understanding of hard science, and in fact he kept deliberately away from actual technological or scientific theories; but his world-building, in terms of species and setting, should interest you. And if you are put off a book (by a very great writer, in my view) merely because it's rumoured to be Christian, aren't you violating your own principles?
I realized a long time ago that just because something is a "classic" doesn't make it good. I realized it around the time I tried to read, "The Last of the Mohicans." (How thrilled was I to discover Mark Twain agreed with me!)
There, you see. That is what I call historically important. It is important because it was the first commercially successful piece of American-authored prose fiction; Schubert asked for something by Fenimore Cooper as he lay dying in distant Vienna. But it is not something I would recommend to anyone who did not have to study American literary history as a subject. To me, a classic would be Mark Twain, not because he is historically important, but because millions of people who know as much history as I do Chinese still read him with immense pleasure, and will go on doing so as long as there is a human race. And I say that as someone who does not approve of Twain's basic viewpoint.
My viewpoint is that you are absolutely right about its historical significance, but from my perspective, it just isn't written very well--which I think is Twain's point as well. The fact that he was able to get his point across in a humorous way made me like Twain even more.
And I would also agree as to Mark Twain, although I do think there is a certain degree of historical importance in his work (from an American, anthropological stance)--but I think his work also stands up to the years better than Cooper's work, in that the writing is better.
(Maybe that's the difference between someone who actually loved the art of writing versus someone who wanted to be famous for it--but I may be judging them both incorrectly.)
Of course I agree that Cooper did not write well - that is exactly my point (although some passages have real tension and colour). And of course something can be both historically important and classically great - from Homer to Dickens and Tolstoy, the number is large. I think we really agree on most everything. This thread only started because I wanted to be clear on what inverarity meant, and I think we all are now.
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On another subject, do you do requests? I would love to have your opinion on the CS Lewis sci-fi trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.
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Of course, in the science fiction genre, "historical" has a rather narrower range, unless you expand the definition of "sci-fi" considerably. Rendezvous with Rama is just one of those books that most older sci-fi fans have read, so I thought I should too one of these days.
My TBR pile is big enough without taking requests. (I do occasionally read something because it was recommended.) I have been kinda sorta intending to read C.S. Lewis's sci-fi trilogy one of these days, but considering my views on religion, I doubt I would appreciate a Christian allegory overmuch. (I enjoyed The Chronicles of Narnia as a child, but I wasn't an occasionally perverse atheist then.)
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I'll probably read at least the first book in Lewis's series one of these days, but I can't promise it will make it onto this year's reading list.
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And I would also agree as to Mark Twain, although I do think there is a certain degree of historical importance in his work (from an American, anthropological stance)--but I think his work also stands up to the years better than Cooper's work, in that the writing is better.
(Maybe that's the difference between someone who actually loved the art of writing versus someone who wanted to be famous for it--but I may be judging them both incorrectly.)
Of course, that's just my opinion.
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