/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10379740]

Why are penguin classics editions of literary works looked down upon?

[Anonymous No.10379742]

>>10379740
something something jews

[Anonymous No.10379745]

>>10379740
They're not looked down upon generally.
/lit/ just hates them because they make literature more accessible to the public.

[Anonymous No.10379753]

>>10379740
Very pleasant little collection exposed there m8. Save Beagle for the beginning of Spring.

[Anonymous No.10379758]

>>10379740
Also, in despite of its title, La Bas has a holiday feel.

[Anonymous No.10379762]

>>10379740
Penguin does a huge service to the world by making so many great classics available to the public. If I were to criticize penguin at all, I'd say the quality of their standard paperbacks is average. Their deluxe paperbacks are pretty great though.

[Anonymous No.10379772]

The uniformity offends me.

[Anonymous No.10379779]

>>10379740
It's not so much literary classics as it is translated literary classics. You can almost always do better with Oxford or Norton or even Cambridge.

If you want just the text, and that text is already an English language classic - Penguin is fine. However, if you also want good footnotes, introductions, and anything that would help to round out your understanding of a text, again there's Oxford, Norton, Cambridge, etc.

[Anonymous No.10379787]

>>10379772
this
on their own they look decent enough but as soon you have like 5-10 in your shelf it strts looking kinda awkward
also their general quality isnt that good

[Anonymous No.10379788]

Really fucking low quality binding and paper.

[Anonymous No.10379793]

>>10379779
Penguin Classic's intros and footnotes are much better than Oxford's

[Anonymous No.10379805]

>>10379740
The binding gets creased to hell the second you open them. Other than that, they're fine editions

[Anonymous No.10379821]

>>10379740
My PCE stack. There are more somewhere around here. Nothing at all wrong with them, black spines are kino.

[Anonymous No.10379824]

>>10379740
because they're popular

[Anonymous No.10379835]

I have tragedians and Aristophane in penguin editions. I realize I must learn greek to comprehend fully though, I believe language is an organic matter rather than abstract (hence why those who became "greeks" switched from lithuanian to greek as they transformed)

[Anonymous No.10379838]

>>10379805
This is a problem. Penguin Classics seem to have a particularly tender type of card used in the making of their cover sleeves. This isn't a problem with smaller books - you won't be bending the spine long enough to wear it because they take less time to read - but if you buy a long Penguin (Dostoevsky) or mid-length (Brontë) then you'll have to settle for a worn-out looking book when you're finished reading. However, if you care seriously about spines looking worn you're either an OCD autist or a Booktube readergirl.

Anon is right about Penguin Classics having better introductions and endnotes that Oxford World Classics, on the whole, but to OP, I'd suggest buying the new translation of Young Werther. It's called "The Sufferings of Young Werther", it's a better rendering of German than the standard penguin one.

[Anonymous No.10379848]

>>10379838
>>10379805
I strongly disagree. I've been reading this for a month.

[Anonymous No.10379862]

the edges of spines wear pretty badly, but the main criticism most of the time is the translations
norton critical editions are superior in almost every conceivable way (much better critical apparatus, better quality paper, annotations, etc), and most of the classics in question have definitive editions that are not penguin at all, but penguin brings out the cheapest and most available alternative
also they're the venn overlap of normies and the canon, so you'll frequently see complete plebs with mountains of penguin classics and an ego the size of mons olympus over their purchases.
every normie I've ever met who has picked up a translated penguin classic has no idea about some translations being better than others or how helpful some glossarys or essays could be.
the turquoise twentieth century classics are pretty nice imo
deluxe editions are the worst conceivable versions of most books (ugliest covers, those rough-cut pages that make it impossible to thumb easily through the book or turn pages from the side and not the top or bottom, badly glued spines, often printing errors from them having tried to just squeeze the same text into a different edition entirely)
For works in english they're quite nice (despite the page quality, they also yellow really fast), and I think the best job they've done is with the original spelling editions of beowulf, canterbury tales (not the garbage translation they have), and the works of the pearl poet. they're glossed very well.

[Anonymous No.10379870]

>>10379848
if you open the book more than 90 degrees (most /lit/izens don't) you'll straight up crack the spine and see a white line down the side

[Anonymous No.10379893]

>>10379870
I dont know, maybe it does happens on larger tomes, but on y copy this doesn't happen unless I open it up more than 180º.

[Anonymous No.10379898]

>>10379740
I like them

[Anonymous No.10379902]

>>10379893
DELETE THIS
THIS QUALIFIES AS GORE ON THIS BOARD
IM GONNA THROW UP

[Anonymous No.10379904]

>only mentioning the surname for some authors

Strikes me as odd

[Anonymous No.10379908]

>>10379870
Why does that matter?

[Anonymous No.10379913]

>>10379908
>why does damage the book matter
because each time you do it you effectively half the book's lifespan, once you've broken the spine the book is much much more likely to have pages falling out

[Anonymous No.10379916]

>>10379913
And?

[Anonymous No.10379931]

>>10379848
There should be a meme about how these are held. The virgin spine-cradle and the chad book-buster.

[Anonymous No.10379935]

It’s purely an aesthetic issue for me, in all honesty.

[Anonymous No.10379963]

>>10379931

[Anonymous No.10379970]

>>10379963
chadette*

[Anonymous No.10379978]

4chan is just full of contrarians, lit included and most don't even read. Especially classics just look at the only consistently populated thread, SFFG.

[Anonymous No.10379979]

>>10379893
That's cheating, you haven't actually opened the pages to more than 90 degree angle :D That said, please don't. This is just silly pedantry.

[Anonymous No.10379988]

>>10379740
lately their texts have been are extensively annotated for the price. i dont have an issue with them.

[Anonymous No.10379991]

Norton>Penguin>>>>>Woodsworth

[Anonymous No.10379996]

>>10379978
>broad and unsubstantiated claim about the whole of /lit/
>negligible syntax
>countermands the vague consensus of the thread that penguin are ok, but cheap and low quality
you seem to be the only contrarian here who doesn't read

[Anonymous No.10380005]

Is Penguin's complete Whitman good or is there a better collection?

[Anonymous No.10380019]

>>10380005
pic related (the Library of America edition) is vastly superior
much better quality paper, much slimmer (probably half as thick as the penguin despite having 1380 pages), and throws in all of his published prose too

[Anonymous No.10380020]

>>10380005
I bought the anniversary edition and it's really good

[Anonymous No.10380025]

>>10379991
shitty font, too much text squeezed into a page, autistic footnotes that hamper reading

also
>hurr durr criticism me a academic
fuck off

[Anonymous No.10380061]

If it’s for something originally in English they are perfectly fine, the problem is with translated works, they use old, often public domain translations because to do otherwise would be too expensive.

The one expection to this is Marx’s Capital, where New Left Review basically put up a bunch of funding to sponsor a new translation, if Penguin would print and distribute it, and consequently the Penguin version IS the most contemporary translation.

[Anonymous No.10380068]

>>10380061
Their collection of Lu Xun's prose is also a new translation.

[Anonymous No.10380091]

>>10380061
new translation =/= good translation

[Anonymous No.10380158]

>>10379916
why try to understand an opinion you dont care about

[Anonymous No.10380159]

>>10380091
Of course, I hope that isn’t want it sounded like I was saying that. But I would suggest that newer translations tend towards being better, sheerly because newer translators have access to old translations and can make judgments based on the choices made in them. This of course isn’t strictly true, there are plenty of counter examples of excellent old translations and garbage contemporary ones.

With the Penguin Marx, the translation IS regarded universally as being superior to the other English translation, and it the academic standard.

[Anonymous No.10380162]

>>10380068
The one exception (that I know about)

[Anonymous No.10380191]

>>10379848
There are two different types of penguin classics cover materials. My Moby Dick spine is perfectly intact after 2 readings, while the spine for my copy of Wuthering Heights is completely destroyed. It depends on the book.

[Anonymous No.10380192]

>>10379740
Some of what they put out is absolute SHIT. I can't remember which volumes in particular right now because I thoroughly review any Penguin I purchase and never buy the bad ones. Examples of why the rare Penguin volume is shit: abridged, definitive works missing from the 'selected works' of a master, typos, ancient bad translations. Penguins are generally good, Oxfords a bit better but it's mostly a matter of preference.

t. own ~20 Penguins

[Anonymous No.10380197]

>>10379963
who the FUCK reads like this? I'm a big proponent of the virgin spine cradle. My spines see more damage from overstuffed shelves than my reading them.

[Anonymous No.10380211]

Common mass market paperbacks, penguin especially, are scholarly standards because theyre so accessible. Page references need to be common between reaser and writer. Anyone who shits on penguin are just being annoying.

That being said penguins translations are usually weird and shitty

[Anonymous No.10380247]

[Anonymous No.10380283]

>>10380162
Their Tale of Genji and collection of japanese plays also use new translations.

[Anonymous No.10380288]

>mfw people bitching out penguin and not realising they own vintage, everyman etc etc

[Anonymous No.10380289]

>>10379740
The black cover penguin classics are made of shit tier toilet paper
The discontinued orange ones used to be much better

[Anonymous No.10380290]

Plebs

[Anonymous No.10380301]

>>10380290
>Reclam
They stress me out. These book can fall apart anytime, anywhere if you are not careful. Hasn't happened to me, but it could happen.

[Anonymous No.10380369]

>>10379740
Because /lit/ is full of pseuds. However, they are physically of poor quality, the covers are very thin and scuff easily. The printing and paper quality are quite variable.

In terms of content they're mostly good, all have useful introductions and notes. But foreign language books are often older translations.

[Anonymous No.10380413]

>>10379963
I have a friend who practically reads like this. He had a look at one of my books for a few seconds and literally bent it all the way round. It's got a huge crease right in the middle of the spine now ;_;

[Anonymous No.10380429]

>>10380413
I was asked to drop a college class for punching someone in the face for doing this

[Anonymous No.10380438]

>>10380413
>>10380429
But it is the best way to read a book

[Anonymous No.10380445]

>>10380438
This. I read all my books like that. It gives the most visibility to the page and I can pretend I am breaking the bones of my enemies

[Anonymous No.10380448]

>>10379740
I usually don't get anything that's been translated, but for stuff written in English, they're fine. Although sometimes this happens.

[Anonymous No.10380451]

>>10379991
Eh, Norton is good for books with a lot of historical significance like Beowulf or the Bible, but you don't need that shit for a novel.

>>10380061
That's not totally correct. Penguin are very inconsistent when it comes to translations, you have to check them on a case-by-case basis. For example, their Dead Sea Scrolls and one of their Quran editions use up to date translations by qualified scholars. Their Book of the Dead translation however, is literally Victorian.

[Anonymous No.10380459]

>>10380448
what are you showing us fella

[Anonymous No.10380474]

>>10380459
I bought Penguin's Leviathan. The introduction pictured there must have had some kind of error, as the first half of it is from the Jeeves and Wooster Omnibus. On the right side of the image is where said introduction becomes Leviathan, hence the jump in pages.

[Anonymous No.10380480]

>>10380191
THIS is true. I have an EV Rieu Iliad that didnt crease at all but has now turned soft and 'floppy'...it actually feels like a super high end goatskin Bible in the hand and looks like it can stand up to multiple readings. Perfect paperback. They you get others that are stiff as a board, crack when you open them and yellow after a week.

BTW I just received three Ocford World Classics Shakespeares' and two of them are actually have sewn binding and really nice paper, as good as you're going to get in paperback, and costs about £5. The other one is glued and complete shit.

[Anonymous No.10380481]

>>10380474
the penguin deluxe edition of gravity's rainbow has dozens of minor spelling and grammatical mistakes, and infamously a whole sentence missing.
the turquoise paperback edition is still pretty good (though all the pages start falling out if you read it more than once, even with the virgin spine cradle)
I almost always look through the editions of every work I buy now, and avoid penguin if I can

[Anonymous No.10380487]

>>10380480
senpai what are you doing
get the Norton Shakespeare or the harpercollins alexander text

[Anonymous No.10380490]

>>10380474
they'll send you another one

[Anonymous No.10380498]

>>10380481
Penguin's 'Vintage' books are some of the worst paperbacks in print - I mean it feels like newspaper quality, just a disgusting experience reading them. Unfortunately they have a few books that are hard to get in any other edition

[Anonymous No.10380501]

>>10380448
That's hilarious.

Amazon once sent me a Penguin J.M. Coetzee memoir which just repeated the first 40 pages again, again, and again. Also, half of the pages had a 45 degree cut to them by a circular saw.

[Anonymous No.10380509]

>>10380490
Oh, I'm not complaining, just pointing out that sometimes Penguin's editions aren't perfect. I actually like the accidentally bifurcated introduction - gives it character in a way.

[Anonymous No.10380516]

>>10380501
I ordered Infinite Jest from ebay once and they just sent me a vial of AIDS.

[Anonymous No.10380527]

>>10380509
It's one of a kind, might be worth something in 100 years

[Anonymous No.10380533]

>>10380509
You should complain. And mention in the email Oxford are selling sewn binded paperbacks with better paper than they are using for less money. As book consumers we shouldn't be happy with some of the shit they produce. I worked in a bookshop that commissioned limited runs and the difference in price between a shit, glued paper and sewn binded edition with acid free paper is pennies per book. Even the high end 'hardbacks' cost virtually the same to produce, theyre pretty much just cardboard.

[Anonymous No.10380534]

>>10380516
you lucked out there

[Anonymous No.10380535]

What's /lit/'s opinion on NYRB paperbacks? Out of all the ones I've bought I've not had a single one with a crease or even scratch on the spine, unlike the white edges with Penguin and the cracked spines with Oxford

[Anonymous No.10380548]

>>10380535
/lit/ likes them so much that some anons decided there was coordinated shilling at work and there was a small backlash against them.

[Anonymous No.10380582]

>>10380247
There is something appealing about that though.

well if it weren't for the actual titles

[Anonymous No.10380602]

>>10380535
NYRB is very well loved here
I'm personally extremely excited for the forthcoming translation of Berlin Alexanderplatz

[Anonymous No.10380641]

I like them. I am usually pretty hard on books, especially ones that I read a lot. I treat rare/expensive/difficult-to-replace books with a lot of respect, but as a whole I like to dog ear pages and enjoy the look of a well-used book.

These are good for that reason. My Penguin Classics edition of Sometimes a Great Notion looks like it has been through a lot, it's nice.

[Anonymous No.10380676]

Am I a pseud for only buying Easton, Heritage press and vintage hardcovers? Why buy shitty uniform paperbacks when you can get a quality, aesthetically pleasing hardcover for about ten dollars on ebay? The Greek and Latin old translations are usually better as well

[Anonymous No.10380685]

>>10379902
>08
>>>10379848
why dont most /lit/izens open the book fully? like, how do you read if the text is skewed ??

[Anonymous No.10380726]

I like them. As some people have said, the print quality isn't great but they're quite cheap and a crinkled spine doesn't bother me at all. Pic is my copy of Keats' selected poems, regularly used over about 5 years.

[Anonymous No.10380762]

>>10379745

I don't get that kind of sentiment.

[Anonymous No.10380764]

I have a bunch but that's because I buy most of my books from Goodwill.

[Anonymous No.10380793]

>>10379821
oy you fucking faggot its not a stack if it is on shelf sideways.HOLY FUCK GET IT RIGHT. " a large usually conical pile (as of hay, straw, or grain in the sheaf) left standing in the field for storage"(MerriamWebster) KYS

[Anonymous No.10380817]

>>10380413
i do this, you’re all oathetic materialists why wouldn’t i treat my property how it pleases me? its just a fucking book, no one reads but us and normie nerds (who read swill). who cares?

[Anonymous No.10380905]

>>10380676
If you dont read them, youre a pseud
If you do, you...bought some books

[Anonymous No.10381138]

>>10379821
B
U
K
O
W
S
K
I

[Anonymous No.10381153]

>>10379963
I assume a friend of mine does something like this. Every book she's read ends up with a wave effect where the edges of the pages curls up to over twice the height of the spine. It's actually quite aesthetic tbphwy

[Anonymous No.10381169]

>>10379893

[Anonymous No.10381192]

>>10379931
Kek

[Anonymous No.10381195]

>>10381153
pics please, this shit is porn to me

[Anonymous No.10381599]

>>10379740
Quality if bad, but everything else is fine and some of their forwards and translator notes are 10/10.

[Anonymous No.10381602]

>>10379740
Surely someone has mentioned Morrissey's autobiography "Autobiography" by now?

[Anonymous No.10381610]

Because they only hold up for one reading before they start to fall apart, so they tend to be favored by people who never re-read, or never even read in the first place.

[Anonymous No.10381675]

>>10380762
>tfw no gf
>tfw the only thing you have and can be proud of is books
>tfw when everyone else gets books too
>tfw you are the worse snowflake
>cry

[Anonymous No.10381909]

>>10379848
Nice looking books are just better

[Anonymous No.10381934]

>>10380290

[Anonymous No.10382004]

THey use acidic paper that yellows fast .

[Anonymous No.10382091]

Honestly I used to open the books 360 when I was putting them down (so they would stay open) or reading them, and then I started opening them 180 only so they wouldn't be creased, but they still got creased.
It doesn't even depend on the book size honestly, I have 70 page book that was creased after the first read.
Seriously, fuck you, there's no other choice on the market even if you pay more, and there are (native language) local publishers in my country which have thousand times lower budget and the books don't get creased even after few reads.

[Anonymous No.10382270]

>>10379740
>Muh aesthetics
Literally the only reason why OP. Ignore everything else.

[Anonymous No.10382618]

>>10379793
I'm tempted to say "it depends on the editor", but Penguin's Classics' introductions and footnotes are rarely better than Oxford's.
>>10379779 This guy is right.

[Anonymous No.10382625]

I will say that Penguin published Stanley Mitchell's translation of Eugene Onegin, and it's one of my favorites. So they really can't be all bad desu

[Anonymous No.10382630]

>>10379848
Los Penguin en español están impresos de manera decente. Pero en inglés es cuando cagan inmediatamente.

[Anonymous No.10382739]

>>10379740
they're not, a few oxford shills aside
it's just laughable when people treat them like collectibles

[Anonymous No.10383185]

>>10380019
>all of his published prose too
not the novels

[Anonymous No.10383469]

>>10382630

[Anonymous No.10383472]

>>10380793
You’re an autistic idiot FYI.

[Anonymous No.10383597]

S I G N E T
I
G
N
E
T

[Anonymous No.10383734]

I'm a Phd Canditate in Classics (hoping to get a tenured position at Wendys) and messed around with Penguins alongside other publishers

Some penguins are really good, but that doesn't mean that penguins are hit and miss. They are designed for the masses, this can be a positive or negative. Negative in the sense that some parts of the original text can be cut, some translations might be simplified. So you would read a less complete version of the original text itself.

If you want just a taste of the subject matter there is nothing wrong with it but please use different publishers If you want a more "complete" version. Loeb for example is a good gateway for that

[Anonymous No.10383959]

>>10380451
>novels have no historical significance

Feels good to know I will never be this ignorant.

[Anonymous No.10384194]

>>10381675

So the same people that post an obese rabbit whenever someone snaps a shot of a someone reading on public transport.

[Anonymous No.10384231]

>>10379740
>Blatantly obvious spine wear due to black theme
>Low quality paperbacks, spine, binding, paper, etc.
>Ugly theme
>Bad Covers
>Poor translations
also this >>10380192
This covers up most of the complaints

I like penguins they are cheap and accessible, desu I don't think anyone hates them simply due to being popular or muh reading club.
That is just a meme so people can be divisive for some reason.

I prefer Oxford anyhow, both for content and aesthetics.

[Anonymous No.10384288]

>>10381909
Bought that same edition at a thrift market

[Anonymous No.10384366]

I find Penguin Classics hard to read because of the color of the paper and how many words there are on each page. I guess that's what makes them cheap, but it's unpleasant on the eyes and there's no room for notes.

[Anonymous No.10384398]

thoughts on folio society prints?

[Anonymous No.10384707]

>>10380474
My undergrad glass did some Bernard Shaw a few weeks back and the prescribed penguin edition was missing a whole fucking page from Shaw's introduction. Thanks Penguin

[Anonymous No.10384841]

Shit binding, shit paper.

[Anonymous No.10384857]

>>10380158
Not that anon but you've just managed to express something that I've half known but never realized people do before.Thank you.

[Anonymous No.10384860]

>>10379740
Because they're cheap and most people who purchase them won't even know what they're getting.

[Anonymous No.10384920]

>>10379931
this

[Anonymous No.10384953]

>>10379745
>>10380762
>>10381675
>>10384194
realize you're just jerking each-other off

[sin No.10384959]

>>10379740
Penguin is up there, but always a little behind Oxfords. The latter has better notes and translations.

[Anonymous No.10384994]

>>10380817
1. You should treat your property as it pleases you, as should I if my prerogative maintains to be the virgin spine cradle
2. It wasn't his property to be treating as it pleased him
With this newfound insight into why you are a belligerent subsimian unsophisticated for the civilized education befitted you, I hope you will regard yourself in the future with an ashamed self-consciousness.

[Anonymous No.10385405]

>>10379848
for a second there my brain froze and I wondered why I haven't heard of a dostoyevski book called 'el idiota'...then It dawned on me that I probably get more stupid by the day

[Anonymous No.10386047]

>>10384857
it's part of the armchair derision i see all over this website, and have a hard time imagining anyone being rude enough to do in real life.
thank you for a fine gondola image

[Anonymous No.10386060]

>>10379753
>Save Beagle for the beginning of Spring
Don't fucking bother. I read this and expected a solid story about a dog on a boat. I cannot recommend this faux-documentarian twaddle.

[Anonymous No.10386155]

>>10379963
>not doing this
You are all missing out

[Anonymous No.10386544]

>>10379848
>>10379931

[Anonymous No.10387878]

>>10379740
They are? I don't see why, I think they look very neat and attractive.

[Anonymous No.10388702]

>>10387878
Until you start reading them. Penguin classics are akin to Jordans. They're disposable shoes (books) made for 4-5 uses.

[Anonymous No.10388889]

>>10380481
>gravity's rainbow is a circus.

not surprised at all someone fucked up the spelling or grammar.

rainbow color version FTW

[Anonymous No.10390576]

>>10379740

[Anonymous No.10390864]

older edition penguins look decent. The orange was nice and it had some variety