Classics for Beginners discussion

janine aka J9 aka midnightfaerie wrote: "yeah, she has a lot..i'm making my way thru her too...but i'm surprised more ppl don't talk about her smaller works...they're just as good, if not better...persuasion, lady susan...the watsons...et..."
I just purchased a beautiful edition of Jane Austen´s novels today :)

cool...do they have some of the more obscure stuff? letters of JA and such?

janine aka J9 aka midnightfaerie wrote: "cool...do they have some of the more obscure stuff? letters of JA and such?"

No, it only includes her novels! But I guess that is a good start :) I hope you´ll find what you are looking for soon! :)

I might have missed them, but I'd recommend The Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London.

Also Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson off the top of my head. I'll think of others when I get a chance.

What about
dream about the red chamber by Cao Xueqin?

What category?

Much as I absolutely love it, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy... REALLY??? Doesn't seem to quite fit with the rest of the list.

My nominations would be:

Brideshead Revisited (though I'm struggling with the category for that one, some of Waugh's other works could go in humour, but for this one, not sure)
any/all of The Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos (Sci-Fi)
I, Claudius (Historical)
A Town Like Alice (Romance?)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Children's)
Bleak House (Contemporary to the time of writing, so not historical, so again I'm unsure how to categorise it)
The Wind in the Willows (Children's)
Animal Farm (Fantasy?/Humour?/Political Satire?)

(What a very British selection! Just realised that I must try to read more classic authors from other countries! Ooh Hang on...)

Catch-22 (Humour? OK, Black and twisted, but still satirically funny)
The Color Purple (Historical)
Charlotte's Web (Children's)
War and Peace (Historical)

I think Hitchikers is a classic sci-fi. There are some genres where the books haven't been around as long so I give them more leeway with time if they are good.

I think it's classic (though whether just classic or A Classic is perhaps a moot point, it's already on the list), I just didn't think it had really been around for long enough to have met the "stood the test of time" idea of a classic - even Sci-Fi as a genre has been around for well over a century.

Given that it was there, though, let me add books to my suggestion list that I otherwise wouldn't have, due to lack of longevity, so I'm not complaining, just a little surprised.

I nominated it because it was published in 1979 which provides over 30 years for it to have stood the test of time in my opinion. I think a book 20 to 40 years old in science fiction is certainly a classic if it possesses the other qualities.

I agree with Jonathan but if more people disagree I will remove the book. This is all about questionaing whether we think these books are classics or not.

Will add yours soon Elise. I'm off for now...

I think Hitchhiker's Guide belongs on the list because it is a seminal work in science fiction.

I think my only real problem is it's making me feel old that something published within my lifetime (albeit I was only a year old) makes it onto the Classics list!

Please don't think of removing it! I love all of the H2G2 series, if people want to call them classics I'm all for it.

Don't Panic! Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - I agree it should be on the list, but I see it as a comedy rather than a serious work of science fiction; it is cross-genre but was originally written as a comedy script. How about including Three Men in a Boat on the comedy list, unless anyone feels that this should be a adventure/travelogue.

Jimmy wrote: "Don't Panic! Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - I agree it should be on the list, but I see it as a comedy rather than a serious work of science fiction; it is cross-genre but was originally writte..."

I totally agree; Hitchhiker's is FAR more about the comedy than the sci-fi and it is because it made people laugh that it has stood the test of time.

That's fair enough to assess it as a comedy instead.

either way, hitchiker's should definitely be on the list. i've never read anything like it.

For children's what about Black Beauty, Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, A Little Princess, The Prince and the Pauper?

Also what about The Scarlet Letter? Would that be historical?

The Iliad and The Odyssey? Poetry?

Ivanhoe? Historical?

Oh and how about The Portrait of Dorian Grey?

Gullivers travels, Swiss Family Robinson, Last of the Mohicans, Moby Dick and King Solomon's Mines?! Oh my gosh there's so many!

The Iliad and The Odyssey I'd add to fantasy which many people suggest they are - because of the mythological elements.

The Portrait of Dorian Grey certainly - in the psychological?

The last few I'd put as adventure?

Updated :) I have made a new section for books we haven't decided the category on yet so feel free to speculate. A couple of the books there were a few authors such as 'The Last of the Mohicans' so please check I have the right authors and if anyone notices a mistake such as spelling or duplicates just post. :D

Animal Farm could perhaps go in the philosophical? It was written as a political book aimed at pointing out the danger of Communism as Orwell saw it.

I really do think we just need a general "fiction" section - some of that historical fiction section isn't (historical - i.e. it is in the past now, but wasn't really to the author) and generally what now gets called classic was written as straightforward contemporary fiction in its day (a lot of Victorians set their books about 20 years in the past but that isn't usually counted as historical).

I would sort Bleak House into Mystery, or Drama.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - Poetry
Anthology of Robert Frosts's Poems
Walden by Henry David Thoreau - Philosophical
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez -Historical
The Art of War by Sun-Tzu - Philosophical
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen - Historical
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan - Historical
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen - Gothic
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen - Romance
The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey by Ernesto "Che" Guevara - Historical

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson - either Horror or Psychological
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous - Psychological
The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe - Horror/Gothic
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin - Children's
The Rubayyat by Omar Khayyam - Poetry
Selected Poems & Letters of Emily Dickinson - Poetry
Laura Ingalls Wilder Series of Little House on the Prairie - Children's

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse - Philosophical
The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson - Horror
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty - Horror
Any of the James Bond Novels by Ian Fleming - Action/Adventure
The Grimm Fairy Tales - Fantasy
Washington Square by Henry James - Historical
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Mystery
East of Eden by John Steinbeck - Historical
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - Dystopian
My Antonia by Willa Cather - Historical
The Awakening by Kate Chopin - Historical

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger - To be sorted
A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami - To be sorted
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami - To be sorted

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein - Children's
Animal Farm by George Orwell - Historical
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - Historical
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - To be sorted
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut - Historical
Lord of the Flies by William Golding - To be sorted
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain - Action/Adventure
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain - Action/Adventure
The Odyssey by Homer - Action/Adventure
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo - Historical
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - either Romance or Psychological

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank - Historical
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - Mystery
The Princess Bride by William Goldman - Romance
Dune by Frank Herbert - Science Fiction
Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri - Poetry
The Giver by Lois Lowry - Children's
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee - Plays
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf - To be sorted
Love Story by Erich Segal - Romance
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - To be sorted

Night by Elie Wiesel - Historical
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton - Action/Adventure
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux - Mystery
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein - Children's
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou - Poetry
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller - Plays
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams - Plays
Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry - To be sorted
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - Romance
Persuasion by Jane Austen - Romance
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck - Historical

Brenda's on a mission. ;)

Edit: Did you disagree with adding these, Nicolle, or just miss them (if you don't want to add them, that's fine--I'm still not entirely certain what the list is supposed to accomplish, especially as it becomes more and more a list of all classics):

Absalom, Absalom! -- Southern
The Sound and the Fury -- Southern
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter --Southern
Flannery O'Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters -- Southern
Blood Meridian -- Western
Suttree -- Southern
Labyrinths -- Short Stories or Magical Realism
Letters to a Young Poet -- Philosophy or Epistolary

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss - Children's
The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley - Historical
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien - Fantasy
Mapp and Lucia by E.F. Benson - Historical
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. - Historical
Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O'Connor - To be sorted
Sanshiro by Natsume Soseki - Historical
Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa - Historical
The War Poems by Siegfried Sassoon - Poetry
The Complete Adventures of Curious George by Margret Rey - Children's
Matilda by Roald Dahl - Children's
Stuart Little by E.B. White - Children's
Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers - Children's
The Lover by Marguerite Duras - Romance
Anthem by Ayn Rand - Dystopian
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand - To be sorted
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand - To be sorted
The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson - To be sorted
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - Historical
Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant - Historical
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak - Children's
Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss - Children's

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams - Plays
The Complete Poems by John Keats - Poetry

Err, got to say I'm agreeing with Michael here on not getting what this list is accomplishing. I had thought that this was a perhaps a list of books that group members thought were particularly important (or, rather, particularly important to them). If it's just a list of every "classic" I can name, then give me a day or two and I'll come up with a list of two or three hundred. (Edit: Well, I could but won't, I don't see the point)

Sorry Brenda, please don't take that personally, but wow, that is a lot of books. If they are all particularly important to you, then I apologise doubly.

It is a list of classics which you would recommend to others so you have to have read it to put if forward for the list. Sorry if I didn't make this clear to everyone.

What do other people think about Elise's comment (no 73)?

I agree completely with Elise's comment about the books listed as historical fiction. In fact, I would suggest not attempting to break the list into any but the broadest of categories; the small categories are easily misleading--Gulliver's Travels, for instance, is a satire more than an adventure; anyone opening up Moby Dick expecting a rollicking adventure is in for disappointment. Fiction, Plays, Poetry, Nonfiction. You might also want to limit the number of books people can suggest because there are many I've read but haven't mentioned, and I'm sure that's the case with others. Another option, rather than a list, might be allowing members to upload books to a group bookshelf (if that's even possible) so long as they've read what they want to add. Or just create a list of links to any member's "favorite classics" bookshelf if they want to take part.

I also agree with Elise. In fact I've almost asked several times before what the 'historical' category means because I simply can't make it out. A Tale of Two Cities for example was written as historical fiction, same with Ivanhoe but they've been grouped with stuff like North and South which, as fas as I can tell is set in the same general time period it was written in (it being normal for the Victorians to set their stuff in the very recent past) and To Kill a Mockingbird which is based off events in the author's childhood.

I also agree with Michael that broad categories are the best, though I wouldn't necessarily trim it down to just fiction/plays/poetry/nonfiction.

Too many categories and you end up with lots of books in categories that too specific to really really fit, or with multiple categories that a book could fit into trying to work out which is the best one to list it in (Dorian Gray could easily go in Gothic/Horror instead of where it is for example, Hitchikers Guide as comedy/science-fiction has already been debated, and My Family and Other Animals is an autobiography/non-fiction as well as being incredibly funny).

Okay then. I shall have a little shake up with the list and let me know what you think. I don't think I will limit books people can recommend as it would be quite restricting especially if you have used up your alloted amount and then read the best classic ever and want to put it on the list.

Will post when I've finished making a few changes to our list.

How is that? I've taken to adding a little note to some which overlap in categories. I haven't read most of these myself so I need help in categorising. I think I have moved the right ones from historical from my research. I have classed historical as set at least 45 years before it is written. Does everyone agree?

Nicolle/Michael,
I would actually like to see a satire section. I think it would make for an interesting selection and also might persuade non-classic readers to read classics.
Here are some obvious ones to start off that can be filed under satire:
Gulliver's Travels, Animal Farm, Catch 22, Slaughterhouse Five.

Fahrenheit 451 is listed twice - Dystopian and Science Fiction. It probably falls into both of those categories, but was it put in both lists intentionally?

I would definitely have to add Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Cat’s Cradle and The Fall.

Sunny in Wonderland wrote: "Fahrenheit 451 is listed twice - Dystopian and Science Fiction. It probably falls into both of those categories, but was it put in both lists intentionally?"

No accidentally. What do people think is most predominant? Dystopia or Sci-fi?

Samuel wrote: "I would definitely have to add Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Cat’s Cradle and The Fall."

What categories?

Most dystopian novels are sci-fi so I'd put it as dystopian mainly along with others like: Atlas Shrugged, 1984, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies etc.

I think "Fahrenheit 451" is equally dystopian and sci-fi. As Jonathan says, there is much overlap in the categories. Several of Margaret Atwood's books span both categories ("The Handmaid's Tale", "Oryx and Crake", "The Year of the Flood" etc), which I think is one reason she dislikes the sci-fi label and prefers "future fiction".

She explains her position in this article:
"The author of The Handmaid's Tale has been criticised for not wanting to call her books science fiction. But what is SF anyway, and how does it connect with her lifelong fascination with creating other worlds?"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/...

Darkness at Noon bhy Koestler should be in psychological/phylosohical.

The Mill on the Floss and Adam Bede by George Eliot in category General.

Anna Karenina isn't on the list yet is it? Nor the 3 Musketeers.

The Three Musketeers is there, in Action/Adventure. Have added Anna Karenina, but what category?

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