/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21843444]

Do people actually enjoy reading classic books? Or do they like them simply because they are "classics"?

[Anonymous No.21843449]

We pretend, of course. I'm reading exclusively novels and poetry by young females of color.

[Anonymous No.21843467]

>>21843444
They're considered classics for a reason moroni

[Anonymous No.21843473]

>>21843444
>Do people actually enjoy reading classic books?
Yeah, i wonder too, why would someone enjoy reading the best books humanity ever produced?

[Anonymous No.21843488]

>>21843449
I read transparent women, on the other hand.

[Anonymous No.21843516]

>>21843488
I use my other hand for masturbating.

[Anonymous No.21843518]

>>21843444
It's the other way around. Classics are classics because people actually enjoy reading them.

[Anonymous No.21843521]

bro

[Anonymous No.21843527]

>>21843444
Depends on the book right?

[Anonymous No.21843534]

Do you actually enjoy creating shitty threads? Or do you just like it because you're a faggot retard

[Anonymous No.21843537]

Some classics like Jame Austen or Sherlock Holmes are still legit and enjoyable in their own right.
Stuff like Dostoevsky or Spenser can still be interesting because you can see how it links up and leads to later books, even if it's no longer too much fun to actually read

[Anonymous No.21843550]

>>21843444
>Do people actually enjoy reading classic books?

Yes.

>Or do they like them simply because they are "classics"?

I'm not that superficial, but there are certaintly people who are smug in such a manner.

[Anonymous No.21843561]

>>21843537
Pride and Prejudice is overrated as fuck.

[Anonymous No.21843567]

>>21843537
>Jane Austen
>Sherlock Holmes
>Classics
>Books released less than 200 years ago
Lol lol lol lol

[Anonymous No.21843586]

>>21843567
>Books released less than 200 years ago
Jane Austen died in 1817...

[Anonymous No.21843619]

>>21843444
It depends who is telling me it's a classic. If mr. noesberg tells me something is a classic: it's most likely shit... especially (((modern classics))).
>>21843518
...They're also old.
Inherent in a classic is that it's been judged a classic over time by a wide audience... also, just because it's a classic doesn't mean it's good.

[Anonymous No.21843647]

>>21843444
Adults do

[Anonymous No.21843679]

It depends.

Some classics I haven't enjoyed that much. Some I enjoy at an intellectual level, because I enjoy seeing how they present certain ideas, how they use language, the prose, etc. but it is not the same sort of "fun" that reading some fast paced genre fiction might be.

Some have both, a sort of intellectual enjoyment and enjoyment of the classic as entertainment. War and Peace is one such book. Despite being long as fuck, I've gone back multiple times because it is, aside from it's more literary merits, a very solid historical fiction novels, while also being a good romance, and at times a philosophical work.

For comparison, I enjoyed the Brothers Karamazov more on one level, but enjoyed reading it less. I enjoyed the ideas Dostoevsky explores more, how he does so, the overall brooding tone, etc. and even the prose, with massive monologues and melodrama. But I also got tired of the prose at times (I've read it twice and twice by the time I got to the gold mine section I thought it could just be edited out to get to the delusion scenes).

I even find this in genre fiction. I like epic fantasy, so Bakker was fun enough, but the second series could have been edited down an entire book and been better for it. Meanwhile, so airport thriller like "Never Saw Me Coming," while being fluff, kept me entertained and turning pages the whole time.

I like epic poetry, but I can admit that I didn't in HS or undergrad. It grew on me over time.

[Anonymous No.21843766]

>>21843679
BTW, what made epics grow on me was:
>Reading lots of history, particularly Will Durant's "Story of Civilization," which puts a special emphasis on the history of ideas (philosophy, literature, theology, etc.)
>Listening to the Homer and the Greek dramas (the way these were often experienced back then)
>Getting into art. Then getting a bunch of jumbo Renaissance and Green art books. You get to know the stories by the masterpieces.

Also reading Jungian analysis of some of them. He: Understanding Masculine Psychology, has a great analysis of the Grail myth for example.

[Anonymous No.21843769]

>>21843766
>>Listening to the Homer and the Greek dramas (the way these were often experienced back then)
is there an english version of this?

[Anonymous No.21843985]

>>21843561
It's a comfy book

[Anonymous No.21843995]

>>21843444
yes but that doesn't mean I enjoy them all. sometimes I wonder why the book is considered a classic at all.

[Anonymous No.21844060]

I can't speak for others but, I have begun to read more and more classics. I view it as a sign of growth, as when I first started getting back into reading I had no interest in them and thought many were just overhyped pseud works read solely for looking smart, not for enjoyment.

Now, not only am I wanting to read them, but I often see why a given work is a classic and highly enjoy it. Big change considering I started out just reading scifi books I wanted to read but hadn't.
Starting with the Greeks is unironically when it began, it got me into ancient historians, works from other civilizations. Now I'm actually enjoying shakespeare. If you don't like any of the classics it's probably just a sign you need to read a little wider variety of authors and continue to grow

[Anonymous No.21844093]

>>21844060
There is often a contextualizing event or work that bridges the gap. For some, it's revisiting Tolkien as an adult. For me it was looping through eastern philosophy and mythology back around into the West. For big c Classics, at least.

[Anonymous No.21844104]

The best definition of a "classic" I've ever come across is, "a book you return to over and over again." So, if you have a book YOU like and you return to over and over again, it is a classic, for you, in your own personal reader's cannon. But there are some books we, as a group or society, return to over and over again, and these are classics. Usually there is some reason. That a book is a classic is not enough, in my opinion. If I say "this book is a classic" and all you retards read it and says its shit and no one comes back to it, well, it's not a classic, and so it dies and is forgotten. There really does have to be something there for people to take away from.

[Anonymous No.21844118]

>>21844104
The old Mark Twain definition of a classic is "a book that everyone wants to have read, but no one wants to read." I'm sure he'd get a kick out of Huck Finn becoming a classic.

[Anonymous No.21844242]

>>21844104
are copypastas classics?

[Anonymous No.21844445]

>>21844093
Iliad I guess is my bridge. Carried me through to reading tons of other things (Odyssey, aeneid, argonautica, beowulf, Le morte de Arthur, etc) I'm thinking of reading it again at some point.
I'm tempted to read some of the books I loved when I first started reading again (Caves of Steel, starship troopers) but I worry I wouldn't enjoy them like I did. Of the iliad though, I have no doubt I would enjoy it again if I picked it back up.

[Sage No.21845260]

>>21843679
Addderrrrrollllllll

[Anonymous No.21845299]

>>21843444
Nice trips. I have degrees in English lit that I no longer use professionally. Returning to the material I read, I find the “classics” to be far more enjoyable than I did in an academic environment, especially my undergrad lit. Rereading Moby-Dick after about ten years makes me feel like a child getting on a boat for the first time.

[Anonymous No.21845408]

>>21843444
I personally enjoy quite a few, though there are many which I don't like too.
I also find that I like old pulp stories and lesser known folklore.
Lots of old gold. And it's all free for the enjoying.

[Anonymous No.21845512]

the classic label is quite dangerous
most classics aren't very good
like balzac and zola are considered classic and influential but most of their books are trash and dry as hell to read and we only remember their one or two masterpieces (which aren't very good either in the grand scheme of the canon)
that's the problem with classics is that their status is often disputed amongst people

[Anonymous No.21845591]

>>21845512
>the classic label is quite dangerous
Only because people wrongly assume that novels are classics based solely off of quality. Many classic novels are considered classics because of their historical significance. Oroonoko, for instance, is relatively not very good, but its historical significance in the development of the western novel format is fairly evident. I'd say that most well known classics are high quality and fairly safe reads. It only gets a little dubious when you're getting into books that an average person has never even remotely heard of

[Anonymous No.21846459]

>>21843444
I enjoy them.

[Anonymous No.21846467]

>>21843444
Some classics are better than others. Don Quixote is kino and will never not be funny.

[Anonymous No.21846487]

>>21843444
I rarely read anything that isn't a classic. Most current books are just plot driven genre fiction

>>And then she went to new school and then she felt lonely and then she met people and then there was an Asian guy who was funny and disarming and then she met a nigger rocket scientist

it is so tiresome. That being said, some classics are kind of mid. I have never read a classic that was complete drivel, like most other books are.

[Anonymous No.21846488]

A lot of them I like. Some of them have a niche appeal and are magnets for the middle brow.

[Anonymous No.21846497]

>>21843619
>just because it's a classic doesn't mean it's good.
All classics are good.

[Anonymous No.21846509]

>>21845408
>also find that I like old pulp stories and lesser known folklore.
Pulp can be pretty good, partly because those writers were influenced by folklore and myths and also because they were able to write in a variety of genres
Robert E. Howard is my favorite modern author. Man knew how to write a story and it's a shame he died so young

[Anonymous No.21846513]

>>21846497
No

[Anonymous No.21846517]

>>21843444
The classics can take some effort sometimes, due to the immense temporal separation between author and reader. It's not "enjoyable" in the way you can pull up images of big tits, jerk your hard cock almost until the point of completion, only to back off and allow your blood to settle (in the business, we call this "edging"). Reading the classics isn't like that feeling of finally being unable to control the overwhelming urge to cum and finally giving in, even though your VHS player has segued to hard static and the only tits you can see are overlaid by your brain upon the infinite canvas of your television screen. No classic can compare to that moment, when, closing your eyes, you gout torrential bursts of cum from your hard cock... maybe your legs go spasmodic, you start spinning in your chair (uncontrollably), the cum spraying everywhere as you spin... a full-court press of cum drenching your clothes, floor... creeping up the window shades, dripping from the ceiling in great globs of cum slurry... reading the classics isn't all that great, honestly.

[Anonymous No.21846523]

>>21846513
>Indiana is a novel about love and marriage written by Amantine Aurore Dupin; it was the first work she published under her pseudonym George Sand. Published in April 1832, the novel blends the conventions of romanticism, realism and idealism. As the novel is set partly in France and partly in the French colony of Réunion, Sand had to base her descriptions of the colony, where she had never been, on the travel writing of her friend Jules Néraud.
How do you make a book called indiana, and not set it in Indiana

[Anonymous No.21846582]

>>21843444
Yes

[Anonymous No.21846697]

>>21844118
I agree he'd probably think it's fucking crazy, and I've met people who say they ought to read Huck Finn but admit they don't want to kek

>>21844242
Are copypastas books? If short stories, there is something to be said for stories that run into legends and myths. There is no way to know for sure, but in the future, there may well be people who study copypastas as internet literary works by anons. It would be an obscure study. But a professor I know studies poetry from the 1600s and that's pretty obscure imo compared to what most people read and study today, so who knows.

[Anonymous No.21846747]

>>21843444
Trying to read some classics this year. So far I'm 3 in.

Master and Margarita - Genuinely enjoyed, absolutely did not expect to. Solid 10/10 book.

Dead Souls by Gogol - Fucking boring

Wuthering Heights - This book should be called "Go to your neighbours house and scream at them about nothing", did not enjoy. 2/10 Just rather than 1/10 just because of that one cool scene with the ghost in.

[Anonymous No.21846771]

https://archived.moe/lit/thread/21716374/

>>21713538
>>21836188
>>21716289
>>21713083
>>21714497
>>21845372

>>21835461
>>21843699
>>21846600
>>21838801

>>21844766
>>21846365
>>21846478

[Anonymous No.21846789]

When i read Two Years Before The Mast i enjoyed the story Dana told but the way in which it was written made it hard to enjoy the actual reading itself if that makes sense. Also so much fucking technical jargon interwoven in the weird way in which he writes.
I did enjoy Frankenstein now that i think about it.

[Anonymous No.21846804]

>>21846582
The wojaks should be reversed.

[Anonymous No.21847079]

>>21846804
t. someone who hasn't read the book

[Anonymous No.21847231]

>>21847079
Why would you want the ending of the book as the cover? It makes more sense in the beginning where they are all baseding over the portrait.

[Anonymous No.21848215]

>>21846747
>he didn't enjoy Wuthering Heights or Dead Souls
I hate to say it anon, but you failed the test...

[Anonymous No.21848743]

>>21843444
You can't go wrong with classics, they are acclaimed for a reason. Or at least that's mostly the case, you have a higher chance of getting something good compared to picking up some modernslop.

[Anonymous No.21848747]

>>21843567
>He hasn't heard about instant classics
I feel sorry for you.

[Anonymous No.21848751]

>>21846523
The state of Indiana got its name from this book, retard.

[Anonymous No.21848786]

>>21846582
Dumbass. You should change the picture to this.

[Anonymous No.21848793]

>>21846747
Not every old book is a classic.

[Anonymous No.21849074]

>>21848786
Kek. This cover was a threadpic and anon commented that it looked like the basedface, but agree

[Anonymous No.21849140]

>>21843444
Nobody really enjoys reading. Hardly anyone actually reads. People have books in the house for decoration.

[Anonymous No.21849146]

>>21849074

[Anonymous No.21849235]

>>21843444
I like some classics and classic authors. Others I cannot stand, so I believe that I focus on content rather than the fact that they are so-called classics. I know a couple of others who do the same.