Dan on...

[puddingdan]

Books

People think that they have to read classic books, that's the problem with some literature. You wouldn't eat something you didn't like or watch a film you hated just because you had to, regardless of whether it was deemed intelligent or a key part of our collective history.

The answer is simple: If you like reading old classical literature,

Comments

Re: User pic

[puddingdan]

I likes! Woohoo :D Thank you....*adds*

[gingerspark]

Good! Thank you!
Cuz most classics are shite... anything recommended by an English Junior or High School program is shite... honestly if they wanted people to like reading why do they chose crap to force people to read...

*takes another swig from the cold med bottle*
G'night

[joysilence]

I have mixed feelings about the whole 'classic literature' tag. When I was a teenager and young adult, I made a point of reading all the 18th and 19th century 'classics' I could get my hands on, because I thought that anything that had stood the test of time enough to feature in modern libraries and the school syllabus had a good chance of being a decent read. I found about 75% of the stuff I read easily repaid the effort involved (and in the case of most Victorian stuff, it really wasn't much of an 'effort' anyway) though I never made much headway with the Russian authors and have yet to finish War and Peace! I also HATE Dickens and Henry James. Obviously I was reading this stuff for fun, and not forcing myself to read books that were too hard to get to grips with, but I do also think a case can be made for teaching more abstruse material in the national curriculum, and of course at University level. For instance, when I did my English Lit. GCSE and A-level I had to study some plays by Shakespeare. Before starting the GCSE I'd dipped

[lucyrachel]

Hear, hear!

[drillingcat]

yep! i can't get through classical books, they make my head spin with their syntax and grammar. i'm even having difficulty reading 'atonement'!!