John’s Comments (group member since Aug 23, 2012)

John’s comments from the Read a Classic Challenge group.

I agree that it is difficult and arguable as to what constitutes a classic. I just mentioned at least 20 years, because it had been mentioned that in an earlier response on Facebook.

In my own opinion, I think that the older books may perhaps have more leeway in being called a classic, than the more recent ones. I would totally support anyone exploring the back catalog of novels and short stories by authors who wrote early fiction or classics such as the Joseph Conrad example that you mentioned.

The more modern stories, on the other hand, would likely need to have more impact or resonance on society or literature to be considered a classic. For instance Neuromancer by William Gibson is considered one of the first cyberpunk novels. Although it was published in 1984, it has arguably carved out a position of prominence among the science fiction literature. I logged that book last year.

Hope that helps.

Scott has limited access to the web this week so I will take a stab at answering this.

I think that the group is open to a broad definition of classics. Scott has mentioned that the works should be at least 20 years old and offered a selection of books from his AP literature class as an example (Below). I have found it very interesting myself to explore the back catalog of books by classic authors, or classics in certain genres such as Science Fiction which are more recent than those most often listed as classics.

I find that in many ways classics are often viewed primarily through the lens of western culture or English language. So if we only considered the more prominent books, we may miss out on some of the classics that may only be available in translation or those that explore other cultures (domestically or internationally).

I might recommend checking out the 2012 archive to see what people read last year, the current 2013 list, and the facebook page. There is a great diversity in what people have read as part of this challenge. I believe that is one of the strengths of the idea behind this group.


Here are some options from Scott's English list:

Anonymous – Gilgamesh
Anonymous – The Song of Roland
Anonymous – The Arabian Nights
Aravind Adiga – The White Tiger
Aeschylus – Prometheus Bound
Asimov, Isaac – Foundation
Dante Alighieri – Inferno
Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale
W. H. Auden – Collected Poems
Jane Austin – Pride and Prejudice
James Baldwin – The Fire Next Time, Giovanni’s Room
Samuel Beckett – Waiting for Godot
William Blake – Songs of Innocence and of
Experience
Emily Brontë – Wuthering Heights
Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre
Robert Burns – Poems and Songs
Julius Caesar – The Gallic Wars
Willa Cather – My Antonia
J.M. Coetzee -- Disgrace
Willkie Collins – The Woman in White, The Moonstone
Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim
Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe
Junot Diaz – The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Phillip K Dick – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Charles Dickens – Bleak House, Great Expectations, Hard Times
Emily Dickenson – Collected Poems
Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Crime and Punishment
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Alexander Dumas – The Count of Monte Cristo
George Eliot – Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss
T.S. Eliot – Waste Land and Other Poems
Ralph Ellison – The Invisible Man
Ralph Waldo Emerson – Self Reliance and Other Essays
William Faulkner – Collected Stories
Ford Maddox Ford – The Good Soldier
Graham Greene – The Quiet American
Thomas Hardy – Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, Collected Poems
Nathaniel Hawthorn – The Blithesdale Romance
Ernest Hemmingway – A Farewell to Arms
Homer – The Iliad
Victor Hugo – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Robert Heinlein – Starship Troopers
Ken Kesey – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – The Song of Hiawatha
James Joyce – Ulysses, Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Franz Kafka – Collected Stories
Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince
Sir Thomas Malory – Le Morte d’Arthur
Christopher Marlowe – Doctor Faustus
Hermann Melville – Moby Dick
Toni Morrison – Beloved
John Milton – Paradise Lost
Friedrich Nietzsche – Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Flannery O’Connor –Everything that Rises Must Converge (complete short story collection)
George Orwell – 1984
Ovid – Metamorphoses
Edgar Allen Poe – Essential Tales and Poems
Abbé Prévost – Manon Lescaut
Jean Jacques Rousseau – The Social Contract, Justine
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra – Don Quixote
Sir Walter Scott – Ivanhoe
William Shakespeare – Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, King Lear, Measure for Measure
George Bernard Shaw – Pygmalion
Upton Sinclair – The Jungle
Betty Smith – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Sophocles – The Three Theban Plays
Sir Edmund Spenser – The Faerie Queene
Tom Stoppard – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Snorri Sturluson – The Prose Edda
Jonathan Swift – Gulliver’s Travels
Alfred Lord Tennyson – Collected Poems
Henry David Thoreau – Walden
JRR Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion
Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace
Mark Twain – Tom Sawyer
Sun Tzu – The Art of War
Virgil – The Aeneid
Alice Walker – The Color Purple
Rebecca West – Return of the Soldier
Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass
Tennessee Williams – A Streetcar Named Desire
Virginia Woolf – A Room of One’s Own, Mrs. Dalloway
Mary Wollstonecraft – A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

My daughter and I read this together, so I believe that it technically counts twice.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, 1908, 264 pages, Audio book.

My daughter and I enjoyed this book which was read especially well in the Amazon wispersync audiobook version. The development of the characters is what makes this such a classic. I found it interesting that there was a juxtaposition of positive and a few not so positive messages regarding gender etc... but then again that is often the case in life, and perhaps more so at the time when it was written.

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THOSE WHO ARE ABOUT TO READ SALUTE YOU!

July is “Classical Classics” month. This means that any work written during or set in ancient Greece or Rome is game.

Here’s how it works. Scott will suggest about a dozen books in the genre. Feel free to read one, or branch out and find your own classic oceanic adventure—just be sure to report back with the Author, Title, year of initial publication, page number, TRANSLATOR, and format (e-reader, audio-book, print, etc.) when you’re finished.

Here are some great Classical Classics:
Primary:
Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica
Apuleius: Golden Ass
Juilus Caesar: Ceasar’s Gallic Wars
Herodotus: The Histories
Hesiod: Theogony (for those needing a quick win)
Homer: Iliad or Odyssey
Petronius: Satyricon
Plato: Last Days of Socrates (Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo)
Ovid: Metamorphoses
Sophocles: Oedipus Trilogy (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone)
Thucydides: The History of the Peloponnesian War
Virgil: Aeneid
(Anything by Livy, Plutarch, Aristotle, Aristophanes, etc.)

Secondary:
Fast, Howard, Spartacus
Graves, Robert, I, Claudius
McCullough, Colleen, First Man in Rome or Caesar
Pressfield, Steven, Gates of Fire or The Virtues of War
Shakespeare, William, Julius Caesar or Titus Andronicus
Vidal, Gore, Julian
Wallace, Lew, Ben-Hur
Yourcenar, Marguerite, Memoirs of Hadrian

Thanks to member David Kreigh for his help with the list.

Here is another list as well: http://stevensaylor.com/StevensBooksh...

Roberta: To be honest, The Old Man and the Sea was the first time I read Hemingway. I could definitely relate to Santiago, and I have found myself thinking back to what I read. I might consider more at some point, but I already have a long list of things I want to read in the short run. Good luck in your search. Let me know what you would recommend the most.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, 1952, 93 pages, Ereader/text-to-speech.

I enjoyed this tale. In some ways, it reminded me of working alongside my Grandfather for several summers.

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June is “Out to Sea” month in Read a Classic in 2013. This means that any classic primarily set on a boat or involving aquatic travel is on the menu. There was a slight mix up with the original plan to have this be classical Greek & Roman month.

I’ll suggest about a dozen books in the genre. Feel free to read one, or branch out and find your own classic oceanic adventure—just be sure to report back with the Author, Title, year of initial publication, page number, and format (e-reader, audio-book, print, etc.) when you’re finished.

Here are some great aquatic classics:

20,000 Leagues under the Sea: Jules Verne
The Aenied: Virgil
The African Queen: C.S. Forester
Beat to Quarters (Hornblower Series #6): C.S. Forester
The Bounty Mutiny: William Bligh
The Caine Mutiny: Herman Wouk
Cup of Gold: John Steinbeck
Jason and the Golden Fleece: Apollonius of Rhodes
Life of Pi: Yann Martel
Moby Dick: Herman Mellvile
The Odyssey: Homer
The Old Man and the Sea: Ernest Hemmingway
Robinson Crusoe: Daniel Defoe
The Sea Wolf: Jack London
The Tempest: William Shakespeare
Treasure Island: Robert Louis Stevenson

Our group has now hit 100 members. I am amazed at how much we have grown since the group started last year.

Peter and Wendy by James Matthew Barrie, 1911, 162 pages, Ereader/Text-to-Speech.

I have seen or read the Disney version many times over the years, but had never actually read this book. I am slightly conflicted about how to judge the book. It has some original ideas, but is fraught with sexism and racism. I understand some of that is partially a reflection on the society in which it was written, but Peter Pan as a character is far less redeemable than I had ever expected. His memory issues were quite an interesting plot device though.

Roberta: Thanks for the reminder. I work in higher education, so between graduating my own students and finishing my own degree, the May update just escaped me. Although I haven't had much time, I am slowly working my way through Peter Pan as my selection for the Victorian theme.

I have posted the detailed monthly themes so far in the Monthly Themes (Expanded) thread located here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... I just added May and will post the expanded June info as soon as Scott publishes his monthly list.

However, if you want to plan ahead, here are the scheduled themes for the remaining months of 2013.

MAY: Victorian (written during or set in)
JUNE: Classical Greek and Roman (written during or set in)
JULY: Out to Sea (classics on a ship)
AUG: Mystery
SEPT: Medieval (written during or set in)
OCT: Renaissance (written during or set in)
NOV: Drama
DEC: Short Story Collections or Holiday Fiction

May is Victorian literature month in Read a Classic in 2013. This means that any classic during the Victorian Period (roughly 1830-1900) is on the menu.

There are so many books, that Scott has provided a list of great Victorian authors here so you can go find your own, and then listed some of his personal favorites at the bottom:

Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robetr Browning, Lewis Carroll, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, A.E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Oscar Wilde… and the list goes on.

Here are some of Scott's favorite Victorian classics:

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Lewis Carroll
Collected Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy: Thomas Hardy
The Complete Sherlock Holmes: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Dracula: Bram Stoker
Great Expectations: Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte
Middlemarch: George Eliot
The Picture of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde
A Shropshire Lad: A.E. Housman
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Robert Louis Stevenson
Tess of the d’Urbervilles: Thomas Hardy
The Woman in White: Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights: Emily Bronte

April is “Lost in Translation” month in Read a Classic in 2013. This means that any classic not originally written in English is on the menu. Please don’t forget to log your translator as well, and give him or her credit.

Here are some of Scott's favorite translated classics (These generally favor his interests in mythology and medieval history, but there are so many, many more):

Anonymous: The Mabinogion (Welsh) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mabi...
Anonymous: One Thousand and One Nights (The Arabian Nights) (Arabic) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arab...
Anonymous: Popol Vuh (Mesoamerican) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popol_Vuh
Anonymous: The Volsunga Saga (Middle High German) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vols...
Dante Aligihieri: Inferno (Italian) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_...
Miguel De Cervantes: Don Quixote (Spanish) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote
Fyodor Dostoyevski: Crime and Punishment (Russian) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_an...
Homer: The Odyssey (Ancient Greek) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Odyssey
Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis (German) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meta...
Elias Lonrot: The Kalevala (Finnish) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala
Ovid: The Metamorphoses (Latin) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamorp...
Abbe Prevost: Manon Lescaut (French) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manon_Le...
Snorri Sturluson: The Prose Edda (Old Norse) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prose_Edda
Sun Tzu: The Art of War (Ancient Chinese) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_...

Forgot to post the more detailed March list. Even in the other months, I tend to find something that fits into this Genre.

March is Science Fiction/Fantasy month in Read a Classic in 2013. Not quite winter? Not quite spring? Spring break coming too slowly or not at all? Then this is is a great time to escape to another world.

Here are some suggestions of classic Sci-Fi and fantasy books (there are plenty more):

Isaac Asimov: FOUNDATION SERIES http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundati...
Orson Scott Card: ENDER’S GAME http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27...
Phillip K. Dick: DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Andro...
Robert Heinlein: STARSHIP TROOPERS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship...
Frank Herbert: DUNE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(no...
William Goldman: THE PRINCESS BRIDE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prin...
C.S. Lewis: Anything from the NARNIA series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narnia
Mary Shelley: FRANKENSTEIN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankens...
Robert Louis Stevenson: THE STRANGE CASE OF Dr. JEKYLL and Mr. HYDE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stra...
J.R.R. Tolkien: THE LORD OF THE RINGS, THE HOBBIT, or THE SILMARILLION http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silm...

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, 1969, 195 pages, Ereader.

I enjoyed this tale. Although the plot was relatively straight forward, the well written characters really drew me into the story.

R.U.R. by Karel Čapek, Translated by Paul Selver and Nigel Playfair, 1920, 79 pages, Ereader.

I enjoyed this short play, which is credited as the origin of the word "Robot". It was a much less confusing work of science fiction than Metropolis, but still contained insightful dialog and humor.

If you are interested, you can get the ebook for free at http://manybooks.net/titles/capekkoth...

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I am excited to see so many new members joining the group. Welcome!

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, 1974, 288 pages, Ereader.

This book was full of very interesting ideas. I think the personal and societal story lines were better written than the military battle scenes. But otherwise I enjoyed this book

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To Your Scattered Bodies Go (Riverworld 1) by Philip José Farmer, 1971, 220 pages, Ereader

I can't say that I enjoyed this book. The main premise is a very interesting concept, but it suffers from two main issues. Firstly, it is full of sexism and racism, which the author weakly attributes to the main character's colonialism. Secondly, it lacks a coherent plot.

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The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum, 1904, 192 pages, Ereader/text-to-speech.

Interesting follow-up to the Wizard of Oz. Couldn't tell if it was progressive or not for its time.

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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, 1990, 117 pages, Ereader/text-to-speech/audiobook.

I was curious to read this after seeing the recent Oz movie. As I was doing so, my daughter started listening to it with me as well. It was quite entertaining for a children's book.

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Dune by Frank Herbert, 1965, 608 pages. Ereader/text-to-speech.

I have often passed over reading Dune because of the investment of time necessary to read it and the fact that I have seen both movies. However, Roberta inspired me to give it a try. While it did drag on a bit at times, I enjoyed it overall. There were many imaginative and thoughtful ideas in Dune that made it an outstanding science fiction novel. With the exception of most of them being concubines, I was also impressed with the strong female characters which are lacking in some other early examples of science fiction.

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White Fang by Jack London, 1905, 241 pages, Ereader/Text-to-Speech

I meant to pick up Call of the Wild, but this was a decent story from the animal's perspective. It follows the redemption of White Fang from a wild wolf to a tamer animal. Because of the subject, I used to think of this as a YA book, but due to racist language and animal cruelty, I probably wouldn't keep it in that category.

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