Reading The Classics

[breadstick]

How many of you have actually read the classic books?

for example Jane Austin novels or Moby Dick, of mice and men, catcher in the rye, to kill a mockingbird etc

do people say they have in order to appear smart?

[joggerjayne]

Yes yes, Lara Croft is in the movie bit, not the book bit.

The only Discworld character I related to was called Esk, I think. I can't remember which book.

I'm not saying it applies to everyone. My favourite writer is Umberto Eco, and my fave of his books is The Name Of The Rose, involving medieval monks. But I think the principle does apply to a lot of readers.

Why was that complete pile of crap drivel, 50 Shades Of Grey, so popular?

[pastafreak]

Yes,no,no,yes,yes.
I had to read Sense and Sensibility in HS...really did not 'get' it, or Dickens. I also read both Catcher and Mockingbird at that time or a bit later, and found them both far easier to grasp. Later I was reading Jane Eyre,some Dostoevsky, Hesse,Hardy,...even Dantes Inferno.
I got back into the classics after a 20 year lapse when I got an ereader last year. After doing some OU courses that focused on the Georgian/Victorian periods,all the classics of that period made so much more sense. I like being able to compare the life of a young woman as depicted by Austen with our modern world.