# Should modern writers bother reading “classic” books?



## luckyscars (Aug 26, 2020)

Question is the title, pretty much. How important is it for a modern writer (of any genre) to have spent time reading at least a few classic novels? 

Do you think a modern fantasy, science fiction or romance author stands to significantly benefit from reading something like Moby Dick or Huckleberry Finn in terms of their development? If so, why? If not, why not?

One listing of what constitutes a classic novel is here for reference: https://thegreatestbooks.org/


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## Bloggsworth (Aug 26, 2020)

If it's a "bother," then, no. I don't subscribe to the assertion that if a writer is not widely read they won't be able to write well; he/she/it may not be well informed, but sometimes "information" guides, which may not be a good thing. A work of pure imagination may be inhibited by to much knowledge, the little voice telling the writer "_You can't do that, it's not the way it's done..._"


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## epimetheus (Aug 26, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Do you think a modern fantasy, science fiction or romance author stands to significantly benefit from reading something like Moby Dick or Huckleberry Finn in terms of their development? If so, why? If not, why not?



Quite a few of the books on that classics list are sci-fi (Frankenstein, Neuromancer, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Cloud Atlas...). Do you mean specifically reading classics outside of your genre or just reading classics in general?


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## Matchu (Aug 26, 2020)

Meh, one of my favourite perennial threads...I think that is the right word...and then I am avidly reading your manuscript, on to chapter two where you ask me imagine green is not green, to me it is green, you urge how can I be certain and I realise I am reading the words of the most original thinker to have been free born from an egg.  He never read a book.  Incredible nuclear fission sparks on page like a scientist you say who creates a fantastical creature in his laboratory.  Is that Heidi? I reply.  I don't think so you say.  Why don't we just go read a couple of books each, four books down, we can write together.


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## Cephus (Aug 26, 2020)

Anyone who says "should I bother" isn't looking at it right. It's not a chore. It's something you should want to do. Now that  doesn't mean you should read every book ever written, but if it's something that appeals to you, do it. Any writer who isn't also a voracious reader is going to suffer in the long run. That doesn't mean you have to read everything, but you should read something.


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## Kyle R (Aug 26, 2020)

I'd give them a shot, if you're interested. But if you give them a glance, and find them uninteresting, then I wouldn't worry about it.

There are a lot of books (both classic and modern) that receive acclaim, but fail to hold my attention. I don't force myself to read them, though, because life is short, and time is limited.

I was just reading a multi-award-winning novel recently, actually, and I just . . . really wasn't enjoying it. So I put it down and walked away. No regrets.

One person's treasure is another's trash (and vice versa). Imagine forcing yourself to eat something, just because you think you're _supposed _to like it?

"Eat this food!"

"But . . . I don't like the taste of it . . ."

"Too bad! Others used to like the taste of it! Why, it was all the rage, a century ago!"

". . ."

Find what resonates with you instead, I say. And dive in. :encouragement:


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## CyberWar (Aug 26, 2020)

I think any fiction writer worth his salt ought to have read some of the classics, whether they be from internationally-famous authors or just ones of his own country, and generally be well-read. Any book you read is a treasure that nobody can steal from you, as it gives you ideas on what to write, but more importantly, how to write (or in the worst case, how _not_ to write, which is also important).


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## Pallandozi (Aug 26, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Question is the title, pretty much. How important is it for a modern writer (of any genre) to have spent time reading at least a few classic novels?
> 
> Do you think a modern fantasy, science fiction or romance author stands to significantly benefit from reading something like Moby Dick or Huckleberry Finn in terms of their development? If so, why? If not, why not?
> 
> One listing of what constitutes a classic novel is here for reference: https://thegreatestbooks.org/



I think someone writing magical fantasy would benefit more from reading translations of the original fairy tales, eddas and national epics, than they would from reading "The Lord of the Rings", "The King of Elfland's Daughter", "The Magician's Nephew" and "The Princess and the Goblin".    Too many authors get tied into a single view of 'how magic works'.


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## EternalGreen (Aug 26, 2020)

_The Count of Monte Cristo_ has instructively written scenes which are helping me to improve, at least so far.


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## EternalGreen (Aug 26, 2020)

Pallandozi said:


> I think someone writing magical fantasy would benefit more from reading translations of the original fairy tales, eddas and national epics, than they would from reading "The Lord of the Rings", "The King of Elfland's Daughter", "The Magician's Nephew" and "The Princess and the Goblin".    Too many authors get tied into a single view of 'how magic works'.



Exactly! This applies to any non-strictly-real elements to our stories.

I prefer authors who don't implicitly reference other people's interpretations of mythical things.

If I was going to write a story about elves, I would check up on Norse mythology and realize that according to legend they are spiritual beings who inhabit meadows in another dimension and that humans can become elves when they die.


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## Squalid Glass (Aug 26, 2020)

A lot of classics can be incredibly helpful for current writers to understand the genesis of archetypes and other tropes. I think it’s worthwhile.


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## luckyscars (Aug 26, 2020)

epimetheus said:


> Quite a few of the books on that classics list are sci-fi (Frankenstein, Neuromancer, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Cloud Atlas...). Do you mean specifically reading classics outside of your genre or just reading classics in general?



Probably either/all. A classic is a classic and I'm framing the question as being unrelated to genre.



Cephus said:


> Anyone who says "should I bother" isn't looking at it right. It's not a chore. It's something you should want to do. Now that  doesn't mean you should read every book ever written, but if it's something that appeals to you, do it. Any writer who isn't also a voracious reader is going to suffer in the long run. That doesn't mean you have to read everything, but you should read something.



I agree that writers should be voracious readers. I have never encountered a good writer who didn't read. Regardless, I must disagree that you should 'want' to real everything you read, or find them 'appealing'. I think it's natural and normal to sometimes need a bit of a push, especially if the book in question isn't one that appeals on the surface, right? 

I remember as a teenager being super unenthusiastic about reading the Brontes because I thought it would just be a bunch of Victorian toffs drinking tea and boning each other. Totally wrong, and while I can't say I enjoyed those books like I enjoy others, I remain influenced by them to this day. I'm glad I bit the bullet.

I guess what I'm suggesting is not everything that's worthwhile is something that necessarily comes easily. I feel like a lot of pro athletes don't necessarily find workouts and diets appealing and a lot of monks probably don't enjoy choir practice, but you can condition yourself to embracing, if not enthusiastically enjoying these things, especially when you can sense a deeper benefit to them. Writing is a vocation, after all.



Kyle R said:


> I'd give them a shot, if you're interested. But if you give them a glance, and find them uninteresting, then I wouldn't worry about it.
> 
> There are a lot of books (both classic and modern) that receive acclaim, but fail to hold my attention. I don't force myself to read them, though, because life is short, and time is limited.
> 
> ...



I'm not sure I agree with the 'like/dislike' thing here. I think it could be relevant, but as stated above, I feel like reading for a writer isn't necessarily always going to be a matter of recreation. I think once we get into the habit of only reading books we like at a glance that can lead to us cutting ourselves off from new and challenging things that while not necessarily being our cup of tea, such as Bronte, can still enrich us. 

It's a fine line because I would agree don't think there's any point in reading something you hate and insisting people continue to read things they are adamant they don't like seems like it would be demoralizing and counterproductive. But, reading something that isn't really 'your thing', that you don't really 'like' or find 'interesting', that doesn't immediately 'resonate' but is otherwise not totally off-putting and that _can _be read...seems like it would actually be optimal from a developmental perspective? 

So the food analogy...I would compare it more to studying the periodic table or learning algebra. These aren't essential things for laypeople but they are certainly essential for scientists and mathematicians regardless of whether they enjoy them. We would not take a chemist seriously if he said he found the Noble Gases dull so never bothered learning them. We would not take a math guy seriously if he said he didn't need to learn calculus because it doesn't resonate with him. And so on.

We can still take a scientist seriously if they don't specialize in things they don't find interesting. A pediatric doctor can still be a good doctor while having a very limited grasp of neurology. So, again, it's a fine line, I think between having a preference and closed-mindedness. Some things just need to be learned to some extent. I don't know where you draw the line as a writer in relation to classic literature. 

I anticipate the counter to this argument being 'but those aren't ART!' and, sure, they are not...but I'm not sure there's a difference that matters when it comes to foundational knowledge? Writing, chemistry and math may be different in almost every way...but they still are _skills. _They still require a mastery of technique. Ultimately I suspect if you only read the same kinds of books (books you enjoy) you stand a good chance of only ever being exposed to a narrow array of such techniques and that is negative.


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## SueC (Aug 26, 2020)

The "Classics" are classics for a reason, and despite genres that weren't even in existence when some classics were written, there can be tremendous value to an author. Not to copy, certainly, but to learn how to draw a picture.

Let's take your example, _Moby Dick. _Ishamel creating that tension, that first person narrative, telling us when he met the Indian, Queequeg. 


[FONT=&Verdana]Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it for an instant, and then holding it to the light, with his mouth at the handle, he puffed out great clouds of tobacco smoke. The next moment the light was extinguished, and this wild cannibal, tomahawk between his teeth, sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it now; and giving a sudden grunt of astonishment he began feeling me.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&Verdana]Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from him against the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever he might be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp again. But his guttural responses satisfied me at once that he but ill comprehended my meaning.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&Verdana]“Who-e debel you?”- he at last said- “you no speak-e, dam-me, I kill-e.” And so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about me in the dark.
[/FONT]
“Landlord, for God’s sake, Peter Coffin!” shouted I. “Landlord! Watch! Coffin! Angels! save me!”
[FONT=&Verdana]“Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!” again growled the cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk scattered the hot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen would get on fire. But thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into the room light in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&Verdana]“Don’t be afraid now,” said he, grinning again, “Queequeg here wouldn’t harm a hair of your head.”
[/FONT]
“Stop your grinning,” shouted I, “and why didn’t you tell me that that infernal harpooner was a cannibal?”


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## Olly Buckle (Aug 26, 2020)

I went through a period of commuting and bought books to read on the train from the charity shop. For a bit I bought anything I recognized the title of as 'Classic' . I figured that there must have been something made it stand out and be worth reading, and on the whole it was true. Whether reading them would help one write in a specific genre is debatable, but there is certainly good class entertainment to be had from them


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## Kyle R (Aug 26, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> I anticipate the counter to this argument being 'but those aren't ART!' and, sure, they are not...but I'm not sure there's a difference that matters when it comes to foundational knowledge? Writing, chemistry and math may be different in almost every way...but they still are _skills. _They still require a mastery of technique. Ultimately I suspect if you only read the same kinds of books (books you enjoy) you stand a good chance of only ever being exposed to a narrow array of such techniques and that is negative.



You make some great points, as always. Though your last point makes a question naturally arise: is exposure to classic literature a requirement for a writer who hopes to attain a "mastery of technique"? (And sure, there are varying levels of mastery in any craft, but that's probably splitting hairs a bit too much ...)

Must one study Shakespeare, Proust, and Joyce if they hope to write compelling modern fiction, for example? Or would that be time better spent studying more modern authors, who may (arguably) possess more transferable skills than the authors who came before them?

I think it's an interesting discussion to have, either way. Though, I do feel that there's a rose-colored brush that writers often use to paint the greats of the past, while simultaneously dismissing the talents of current authors. It's the old, "They don't make 'em like they used to!" mindset, that we see in nearly every walk of life.


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## luckyscars (Aug 26, 2020)

Kyle R said:


> You make some great points, as always. Though your last point makes a question naturally arise: is exposure to classic literature a requirement for a writer who hopes to attain a "mastery of technique"? (And sure, there are varying levels of mastery in any craft, but that's probably splitting hairs a bit too much ...)
> 
> Must one study Shakespeare, Proust, and Joyce if they hope to write compelling modern fiction, for example? Or would that be time better spent studying more modern authors, who may (arguably) possess more transferable skills than the authors who came before them?
> 
> I think it's an interesting discussion to have, either way. Though, I do feel that there's a rose-colored brush that writers often use to paint the greats of the past, while simultaneously dismissing the talents of current authors. It's the old, "They don't make 'em like they used to!" mindset, that we see in nearly every walk of life.



It's difficult I think because these kinds of things get clouded with snobbery which make people resent them.

When I was in high school our teacher gave us a list of classic novels we should borrow from the library read if we wanted to be 'smart' and then went on to lecture us about 'real literature'. 

As far as I know nobody did read the ones on his list, because it was voluntary (this guy clearly didn't understand teenage minds) and for years afterwards I actively avoided that kind of reading because it smelled of the classroom. It was fusty old literature that was grotesque. At the same time, I still read tons of stuff, it was just stuff that wasn't 'classic'.

The word 'classic' is a problem because it implies intellectual superiority, which is ironic because a lot of these so-called classic novels weren't written for intellectuals but average idiots in their time. Kerouac's "On The Road" or Salinger's "Catcher In The Rye' being considered a classic novel now would probably surprise their authors a lot, back then it was considered trash.

But I think Sue is kind of right. These are, generally, good books. More importantly, they are books that are cornerstones of our literary fabric. I think there is a lot to be learned from them purely on that basis. I recently read some George Eliot and once I got past the antiquated aspects of the prose, which was tough at first, I was actually blown away at just how _good _it was. Like, really fucking good. Better than Stephen King? I don't know. But certainly good in its own right and, most importantly, entirely different to the kind of stuff that gets published now. In a funny way, it made it feel newer than a book written now.

So, yeah, tough call. But I do think we can learn a lot from the classics. 

I also would be really interested to know how many people on this forum have actually read this stuff, especially the old stuff, especially the stuff that is more obscure now (so not Catcher In The Rye)? Like, has anybody here actually read Madame Bovary or Ana Karenina or The Brothers Karamazov or War & Peace or Great Expectations recently? 

If so, did you think it helped you write better? Did you learn anything from it that perhaps might not have come from a modern book?


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## EternalGreen (Aug 26, 2020)

I think _Ana Karenina_ can help teach us how to structure a novel.


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## thethreetearedeye (Aug 26, 2020)

Honestly I kind of the "classics" a little boring and hard to get through because of how narrative writing as a whole has changed. There are a few oldies that are still pretty good. Like Frankenstein, Lovecraft's works (if only for the mythos and origin of cosmic horror), and some Mark Twain. Beyond that everything has been excrutiating to read. Charles Dickens is the bane of my old high school existence.


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## epimetheus (Aug 27, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Probably either/all. A classic is a classic and I'm framing the question as being unrelated to genre.



Depends how seriously you take the profession then. 

I once came across a Philip. K. Dick quote talking about learning all the Greek classics because it was part of his job. There's certain things you expect accountants, carpenters and doctors to know about their respective professions. I don't think it unreasonable to expect an author to know a good selection of the classics. And within your genre i'd say it's a must. 

It's interesting that most professional mathematicians learn about the historical context of mathematical discoveries even though it doesn't help them with the maths itself. But it does help them understand the progression of human thought throughout the ages, which can yield useful insights. Similarly there is a progression in how we think about, and engage with, literature. There's a reason Frankenstein couldn't have been written before Paradise Lost, which couldn't be written before Prometheus Bound and Genesis. All quite different genres.

Maybe some classics are boring, but in any training you will have to do things you find boring, study subjects outside your main interest, learn skills you're not sure will be relevant, even though the professionals say it will be. I'd say if you want to be a professional (i.e. get paid full time for writing literature), consider it a part of your training.


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## luckyscars (Aug 27, 2020)

epimetheus said:


> Maybe some classics are boring, but in any training you will have to do things you find boring, study subjects outside your main interest, learn skills you're not sure will be relevant, even though the professionals say it will be. I'd say if you want to be a professional (i.e. get paid full time for writing literature), consider it a part of your training.



I think that's a really good point and I massively applaud you for saying it in such a forthright fashion.

It seems that it isn't very fashionable to say people 'must' do things when it comes to writing (and there's lots of good reasons for that!) but I tend to agree quite strongly that there are actually certain things that separate the D.I.Y Dads from master electricians, just as there are in anything else, and one of those is becoming immersed in _all _literature.

So yeah, I agree that maintaining a truly diverse interest in literature and avoiding the "I am a cyberpunk writer in 2020 so therefore my reading is going to be almost solely 2010's/2020's cyberpunk by the same five or so authors" type of approach sure seems like it should be one of those rules...as much of a grind as it might sometimes be.


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## Olly Buckle (Aug 27, 2020)

thethreetearedeye said:


> Honestly I kind of the "classics" a little boring and hard to get through because of how narrative writing as a whole has changed. There are a few oldies that are still pretty good. Like Frankenstein, Lovecraft's works (if only for the mythos and origin of cosmic horror), and some Mark Twain. Beyond that everything has been excrutiating to read. Charles Dickens is the bane of my old high school existence.



Dickens was written to be read aloud, read it aloud, or at least aloud in your head, and it becomes a quite different thing. Dickens made a lot of his living from public readings, and the literate would read his latest episodes aloud in coffee shops and such, he published mostly in monthly magazines.


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## luckyscars (Aug 27, 2020)

thethreetearedeye said:


> Charles Dickens is the bane of my old high school existence.



Out of interest, what didn't you like about Dickens? I always found him to be one of the most accessible and relevant 19th century authors.


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## Lee Messer (Aug 27, 2020)

I don't see how it could hurt unless you think it may adversely influence your style. I know that when I'm writing, I have to stop reading or I will mimic. It's just something with my personality I think. When we sing, we usually mimic the voice of the artist right? Same thing.


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## Taylor (Aug 27, 2020)

I just started reading the "modern classsics", The Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged.  Mostly because they had a significant impact on me as a young adult and I recognized them to be somewhat ground-breaking. 

 I am struggling to find an obvious genre for my novel, so I thought this might help me to understand how to be non-mainstream and still be popular.  

Wish me luck! 8-[


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## luckyscars (Aug 27, 2020)

Taylor said:


> I just started reading the "modern classsics", The Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged.  Mostly because they had a significant impact on me as a young adult and I recognized them to be somewhat ground-breaking.
> 
> I am struggling to find an obvious genre for my novel, so I thought this might help me to understand how to be non-mainstream and still be popular.
> 
> Wish me luck! 8-[



Out of interest, how are you finding revisiting Ayn Rand later in life? I read her as a teenager and don't remember having a huge opinion either way but they were sort of interesting and compelling. Reading her books as very much an adult, I found them to be very unsatisfactory for lots of reasons.


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## TheManx (Aug 27, 2020)

Olly Buckle said:


> Dickens was written to be read aloud, read it aloud, or at least aloud in your head, and it becomes a quite different thing. Dickens made a lot of his living from public readings, and the literate would read his latest episodes aloud in coffee shops and such, he published mostly in monthly magazines.



Olly, my dad read Dickens to us aloud -- he almost acted it out. Really fired up my imagination. A key factor in my love for reading and an influence on how I read and how I read to my kids...


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## Cephus (Aug 27, 2020)

Taylor said:


> I just started reading the "modern classsics", The Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged.  Mostly because they had a significant impact on me as a young adult and I recognized them to be somewhat ground-breaking.
> 
> I am struggling to find an obvious genre for my novel, so I thought this might help me to understand how to be non-mainstream and still be popular.
> 
> Wish me luck! 8-[



[h=1]“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: _ The Lord of the Rings _ and _Atlas Shrugged._  One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession  with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted,  socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The  other, of course, involves orcs."[/h]- John Rogers


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## Squalid Glass (Aug 27, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Out of interest, how are you finding revisiting Ayn Rand later in life? I read her as a teenager and don't remember having a huge opinion either way but they were sort of interesting and compelling. Reading her books as very much an adult, I found them to be very unsatisfactory for lots of reasons.



_Anthem _​is her only book worth reading, imo.


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## Tiamat (Aug 27, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> I also would be really interested to know how many people on this forum have actually read this stuff, especially the old stuff, especially the stuff that is more obscure now (so not Catcher In The Rye)? Like, has anybody here actually read Madame Bovary or Ana Karenina or The Brothers Karamazov or War & Peace or Great Expectations recently?
> 
> If so, did you think it helped you write better? Did you learn anything from it that perhaps might not have come from a modern book?


You put "The Brothers Karamazov" on that list and while I've not read that, I did read Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground" recently. It was a struggle, to say the least. I'm not a fan, but I can't deny that the man does "morose" better than any other writer I've ever read. Whether or not I think it helped me write better is complicated. I don't imagine I learned any better uses of prose or simile from it, but I believe that book is considered one of the first works of existentialism--to the point that it even influenced classic philosophers like Kierkegaard. Maybe rather than a direct effect on my writing, it merely helped me broaden a my worldview a bit, which in turn can affect what I write or how I write it. It's practically impossible to quantify the benefits of reading some books versus others. Either way, I say yes, you should bother reading the classics. You might gain things from them you're not even aware of.


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## BornForBurning (Aug 27, 2020)

War and Peace always terrified me as a kid. So thick. Who knows how long I might be stuck inside that thing?


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## thethreetearedeye (Aug 27, 2020)

Olly Buckle said:


> Dickens was written to be read aloud, read it aloud, or at least aloud in your head, and it becomes a quite different thing. Dickens made a lot of his living from public readings, and the literate would read his latest episodes aloud in coffee shops and such, he published mostly in monthly magazines.




I remember learning that when I was 13, when I had to read Great Expectations. If I remember correctly I think that was a monthly story as well. Being read aloud makes sense, but it was a drag of a school assignment.


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## thethreetearedeye (Aug 27, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Out of interest, what didn't you like about Dickens? I always found him to be one of the most accessible and relevant 19th century authors.



I just found his work a bit dull. The only thing of his I found remotely bearable was A Christmas Carol, but that was probably because of the ghost aspect. Really it can be boiled down to the fact I just don't have a taste for books that are just day to day life of a normal character. Which can be attributed to a few assigned reading books. When I read, its like a mental movie. Most of the classic novels produced boring imagery and I just found most of the settings to be very unexciting. Its not that there is anything inherently wrong with the books, I just don't click with them.


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## luckyscars (Aug 28, 2020)

Cephus said:


> *“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life:  The Lord of the Rings  and Atlas Shrugged.  One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession  with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted,  socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The  other, of course, involves orcs."*
> 
> - John Rogers





Squalid Glass said:


> _Anthem _​is her only book worth reading, imo.



I kind of put Rand in the same category as Sartre and Proust and probably Camus and Dostoyevsky as well in the sense that their novels are so closely entwined with their philosophical ideas if you find the ideas ridiculous or unpleasant, it's really hard to appreciate their fiction. Rand is particularly guilty of that. 

The books are so ass-numbing long, too. The Fountainhead was 750 pages and it probably should have been more like 300. Atlas Shrugged is, like, 1000 pages long and 100 of that is a single fucking speech, one character ranting about himself. A book which insists on 100 pages, 10% of its total length, for a character's political speech simply isn't really one that is prioritizing a story: It's a thin veil for philosophy. 

If you love the philosophy, that could be a good thing. If you think objectivism is nonsense, it isn't. Either way, it's probably reasonable to say it's not a good example of classic _fiction_?



thethreetearedeye said:


> When I read, its like a mental movie. Most of the classic novels produced boring imagery and I just found most of the settings to be very unexciting. Its not that there is anything inherently wrong with the books, I just don't click with them.



Yeah, I think you probably illustrate the most common issue modern audiences have with the classics. We are increasingly conditioned toward prioritizing the 'mental movie' and it's true that many (most?) books written pre-1900 just aren't good for that.


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Aug 28, 2020)

BornForBurning said:


> War and Peace always terrified me as a kid. So thick. Who knows how long I might be stuck inside that thing?



Weirdly enough this is part of why I haven't read a lot of classics. It's not because I think they'd be boring; it's because I know they'll be likely gripping. I end up reading things you can pick up and drop like essays and books of information or collections of very short stories, because I know a good novel is just going to grab me and not let me go. Even with bad books, it takes a lot of willpower for me to stop reading them. I can be sitting there knowing I have class in five minutes unable to stop reading. So with a really long, good book, I'm often 'out' for a day or so. Bad thing in the middle of the semester.


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## Turnbull (Aug 28, 2020)

i think it depends on what you mean by "classic."  There are lots of books called that that are not necessarily worth reading.  Dickens is good because it's deep, but things like The Crucible exist as propaganda to make people agree with the author.  Their Eyes were Watching God was an alright romance tragedy, if you're into that kind of thing, but it's hardly something that's going to make you improve as a writer.  One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, on the other hand, is not only good fiction, nonfiction (in that it is based in reality), and an excellent way to see how characters are portrayed in a short story -- it's like a character study of several characters at once without being overwhelming.


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## luckyscars (Aug 28, 2020)

Turnbull said:


> Dickens is good because it's deep, but things like The Crucible exist as propaganda to make people agree with the author.



The Crucible is a play, not really a book, but that aside...I'm confused as to why you are calling it propaganda? 

It's mostly pretty historically accurate (which propaganda by definition is not) and as far as I can tell it doesn't exist to make a particular point other than 'mass hysteria based on false accusations is destructive'. Who is disagreeing with that?


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## TheManx (Aug 28, 2020)

Turnbull said:


> Dickens is good because it's deep, but things like The Crucible exist as propaganda to make people agree with the author.



Propaganda has negative connotations. By definition, it's B.S. The Crucible was written as a reaction to McCarthyism. If you think  that's propaganda, then what? Are you pining for those good old days?


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## TheManx (Aug 28, 2020)

And a lot of Dickens was about social issues — poverty, classism etc. Would you say that's propaganda?


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## Olly Buckle (Aug 28, 2020)

A classic that is still well accessible and well worth reading is 'Alice in Wonderland' . It is an amazingly empowering book for boys and girls, and I have known it change a kid's entire attitude to books and reading, they have become so enthralled by it became worth making the effort to understand. It is a while since I read it, but still worth re-reading as an adult. The second, follow on, is pretty good too


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Aug 28, 2020)

Turnbull said:


> Dickens is good because it's deep, but things like The Crucible exist as propaganda to make people agree with the author.





TheManx said:


> Propaganda has negative connotations. By definition, it's B.S. The Crucible was written as a reaction to McCarthyism. If you think that's propaganda, then what? Are you pining for those good old days?





TheManx said:


> And a lot of Dickens was about social issues — poverty, classism etc. Would you say that's propaganda?



The line between propaganda and art is so blurry it might as well be invisible. I notice people only call a work propaganda when they disagree with it. Is 1984 'propaganda' because it pushes an anti-totalitarian message? Or what about politically-conscience art that you might see in any modern gallery? What distinguishes that from, say, a WWI recruitment poster?

Wouldn't it be more productive to say 'this promotes truth' or 'this promotes falsehood' rather than 'this is propaganda' and 'this is art'?


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## TheManx (Aug 28, 2020)

ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> The line between propaganda and art is so blurry it might as well be invisible. I notice people only call a work propaganda when they disagree with it. Is 1984 'propaganda' because it pushes an anti-totalitarian message? Or what about politically-conscience art that you might see in any modern gallery? What distinguishes that from, say, a WWI recruitment poster?
> 
> Wouldn't it be more productive to say 'this promotes truth' or 'this promotes falsehood' rather than 'this is propaganda' and 'this is art'?



Maybe -- but the line between truth and falsehood is preeety blury these days...


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Aug 28, 2020)

TheManx said:


> Maybe -- but the line between truth and falsehood is preeety blury these days...



Just because people disagree about truth doesn't mean the line is blurry in actuality. But this is derailing the thread...


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## luckyscars (Aug 28, 2020)

ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> The line between propaganda and art is so blurry it might as well be invisible. I notice people only call a work propaganda when they disagree with it. Is 1984 'propaganda' because it pushes an anti-totalitarian message? Or what about politically-conscience art that you might see in any modern gallery? What distinguishes that from, say, a WWI recruitment poster?
> 
> Wouldn't it be more productive to say 'this promotes truth' or 'this promotes falsehood' rather than 'this is propaganda' and 'this is art'?





TheManx said:


> Maybe -- but the line between truth and falsehood is preeety blury these days...





ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord said:


> Just because people disagree about truth doesn't mean the line is blurry in actuality. But this is derailing the thread...



I consider something to be propaganda when its sole purpose is to mislead and manipulate through distortion of reality. I don't think 'truth' is particularly relevant here, as it would be in a newspaper, we are talking fiction...of course there are liberties taken.

But, I don't think even the harshest critic of The Crucible nor of 1984 would say it is propaganda on the above terms. I just...have not heard that.

 I've heard people who really don't like those texts argue over the _motivations _and _validity_ of the underlying views -- which is exactly my problem with Ayn Rand -- but I don't consider Ayn Rand propaganda either. I consider her simply the purveyor of a philosophy I disagree with.

Propaganda, to me, is pretty shallow stuff. It is seldom heavyweight literature, because propaganda relies on extreme distortion of fact and it's very difficult to make that effective.

 Most propaganda isn't very effective on its own, as a single text. When people talk about the power of propaganda they are usually talking about a sustained effort over a period of time comprising lots and lots of individual pieces that work through bombardment, not through their own singular merits.


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## Taylor (Aug 28, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Out of interest, how are you finding revisiting Ayn Rand later in life? I read her as a teenager and don't remember having a huge opinion either way but they were sort of interesting and compelling. Reading her books as very much an adult, I found them to be very unsatisfactory for lots of reasons.



Well I started Fountainhead, and then switched over to Atlas Shrugged.  Over 1000 pages so it might be a while before I can have a solid opinion, but so far I have noticed a plethora of metaphors, which is not typically my taste today.  I'm more of a just tell me exactly what it is and I'll create my own picture.  Honestly, I find metaphors just too much work.  Perhaps my brain has shruken with age...lol!!

Stay tuned!


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## Theglasshouse (Aug 28, 2020)

Ray bradbury was a charles dickens fan:



> Ray Bradbury’s passing brings to my mind numerous scenes in his novels and short stories where a character comes to the realization that life is a precious gift, and that gift is to be enjoyed. On numerous occasions, Ray noted his favorite novelist Charles Dickens in _A Christmas Carol makes this profound point when Ebenezer Scrooge is transformed by the ghosts that had visited him. That moment of “I’m alive, I’m alive,” is what it is all about in literature and life. For Bradbury’s own unique twist on this, read the short story “Jack-in-the Box.”_


A source:
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2012/11/ray-bradbury-bright-life-that-burned.html

This isn't the only story he's done this with. I remember vaguely forgetting but remembering he quoted Dickens's using another short story of dickens (Charles Dickens's beginnings are well known as famous). He refers to a city living within a city. I don't know if that was the tales of two cities he quoted from (since I haven't read it as of yet). Imagine if you will he did that. We could also try something similar. It's a good idea to study what other writers did. In this case he would write a plot twist in the story. I haven't read jack-in-the-box but now I am eager to.


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## EternalGreen (Aug 28, 2020)

“Propaganda” is a neutral word. It doesn’t have to be false. I’ve created propaganda myself—but I don’t consider it art.


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## BornForBurning (Aug 28, 2020)

> I consider something to be propaganda when its sole purpose is to mislead and manipulate through distortion of reality.


Whose purpose? The author's? Not trying to be cute, it's a genuine question. 


> But, I don't think even the harshest critic of The Crucible nor of 1984 would say it is propaganda on the above terms. I just...have not heard that.


The colloquial definition of propaganda that most folks seem to go by is 'this is pushing a viewpoint.' Which, ironically enough, seems to be fairly close to the original definition of the word. But I agree with Arrow in that I think propaganda in its negative connotations is a largely fictitious category, invented by people who wish to delegitimize art they disagree with without relying on any real, concrete definition of good or evil. Of course, this is largely speculation on motive, which tends to be pointless. 

I think your definition is interesting (even though I don't fully understand it yet). Tons of things not typically viewed as propaganda might be categorized as such. Of course, your definition inherently hinges on the meaning the word 'reality,' which may in fact be where so many disagreements regarding what is/is not propaganda stem from in the first place.


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## luckyscars (Aug 28, 2020)

BornForBurning said:


> Whose purpose? The author's? Not trying to be cute, it's a genuine question.



Whoever's, I guess. Purpose wasn't really the operative phrase of the sentence, I guess. Intent, if you like. 

The important thing is that propaganda is intended to be deceptive and manipulative for reasons beyond just espousing a view effectively. Propaganda is designed mostly or completely to change the views of other people AND to do so through dishonest means. Both of those things must be true for it to meet the definition.

I don't think Ayn Rand is propaganda because, although she is likely trying to change views, she isn't doing so dishonestly -- she doesn't present her views as being anything other than views. Orwell, likewise. 

Propaganda would be something like The Turner Diaries where the text is written in a way that presents itself as belonging to the realm of fact and where the presentation is set up to mislead. I don't know how anybody could argue they are 'misled' by The Crucible and that's the difference?



> The colloquial definition of propaganda that most folks seem to go by is 'this is pushing a viewpoint.' Which, ironically enough, seems to be fairly close to the original definition of the word.



No offense, but while I understand that may be the colloquial term, it's a severely poor definition. This post I am writing is pushing a viewpoint -- mine -- but its not propaganda. Every book pushes a viewpoint.

 I mean, what exactly is a viewpoint, anyway? A point of view, right? I don't know what it means and I don't think anybody does. A definition that requires debate on further definition causes problems. 



> But I agree with Arrow in that I think propaganda in its negative connotations is a largely fictitious category, invented by people who wish to delegitimize art they disagree with without relying on any real, concrete definition of good or evil. Of course, this is largely speculation on motive, which tends to be pointless.
> 
> I think your definition is interesting (even though I don't fully understand it yet). Tons of things not typically viewed as propaganda might be categorized as such. Of course, your definition inherently hinges on the meaning the word 'reality,' which may in fact be where so many disagreements regarding what is/is not propaganda stem from in the first place.



I don't think it's that ambiguous. I think the fact we _think _it's ambiguous is more reflective of our reluctance to engage with the question, because it gets ugly fast. People get tribal. That doesn't mean propaganda isn't a perfectly fine word that we should be willing to identify.

We do know (or should) how to identify a bad faith argument. I can say that certain things on Fox News and MSNBC are propaganda because, regardless of my political persuasion, I can see that such things are being presented purely into manipulating me -- I avoid those. 

On the other hand, I can say that certain other things on both those media networks (and a lot of other ones) are not propaganda because they are either born of fact or born of a good faith interpretation of fact.

How to tell the difference?

"Joe Biden plans to destroy America" < - This is 100% propaganda. Whether you agree with it as a conclusion doesn't matter. It's propaganda because it's an emotionally driven appeal devoid of rational process or coherent explanation. It is not allowing room for critical thought.

"Joe Biden's plans to do [X] may lead to [Y] but will ultimately destroy America." < - This is borderline, could go either way. The use of the term 'destroyed' certainly teeters on propaganda (because 'destroyed' in this context is not a rational statement and it is being presented as a _will_) but it's still not necessarily propaganda as a full statement, in the appropriate context. It isn't propaganda because, so long as [X] is born of some measure of sound logic that connects to [Y] and Joe Biden _does _plan to do it, or there's a reason to believe he would, it's perfectly fine as an _opinion_. Possibly an important opinion. This is Ayn Rand/Orwell territory: A strident view, a belief, but not propaganda. So long as its presented as an opinion and not 'the facts', it's totally okay.

"Joe Biden plans to do [X]." <- Assuming the statement is accurate, this is a pure fact, and is not propaganda. This would constitute 'real news'.


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## BornForBurning (Aug 28, 2020)

> Whoever's, I guess. Purpose wasn't really the operative phrase of the sentence, I guess. Intent, if you like.


Yes I know. The question essentially was, whose intent? I ask because I believe it is reasonable to see a work as having an intent independent of its author. 


> No offense, but while I understand that may be the colloquial term, it's a severely poor definition. This post I am writing is pushing a viewpoint -- mine -- but its not propaganda. Every book pushes a viewpoint.


The difficulty regarding the issue of definition is that propaganda actually has a real, established definition--one much closer to the colloquial understanding of the word than your own personal one. This is irrelevant to your core argument regarding what this thing _you_ call propaganda is, but relevant to the general conversation, as we are writers, and we deal with words. The fact that the established definition of the word propaganda can be applied to any work of literature is actually a good point, although I do think that having a specific word to refer to a universal attribute of a thing (in this case, the thing being literature) is valuable, as long as the attribute is meaningfully distinct from the object. For example, having a word for 'brain' is valuable, even though 'brain' is a universal attribute of the object known as 'homo sapiens.' 


> We do know (or should) how to identify a bad faith argument. I can say that certain things on Fox News and MSNBC are propaganda because, regardless of my political persuasion, I can see that such things are being presented purely into manipulating me -- I avoid those.





> I don't think it's that ambiguous. I think the fact we _think it's ambiguous is more reflective of our reluctance to engage with the question, because it gets ugly fast. People get tribal. That doesn't mean propaganda isn't a perfectly fine word that we should be willing to identify._


For the record, I also don't think it's ambiguous (at least not in the sense you mean ambiguous). I was merely identifying the fact that your definition inherently relies on ones beliefs about what constitutes reality--a flaw (maybe?) worth considering, when presenting your definition to people who may have differing beliefs regarding reality. Excluding arguments regarding how one can meaningfully discern intent (I don't see any fruitful discussion there) I generally agree. But as I extrapolate below, that 'generally' is dependent on my perception of the statement's truth value. 'The Communists are taking over our universities' sounds like an extreme, emotionally manipulative headline. But what if it is true? This is why we must analyze every statement on its merits, not on its presentation. 


> "Joe Biden plans to destroy America" < - This is 100% propaganda. Whether you agree with it as a conclusion doesn't matter. It's propaganda because it's an emotionally driven appeal devoid of rational process or coherent explanation. It is not allowing room for critical thought.


I do not understand what you mean by 'excludes critical thought.' It is a statement of possible fact, among many other statements of possible fact. I do not think it is true. But I see no reason why a statement employing such phrasing must be false. You defined propaganda as having the intent to 'mislead and manipulate.' I fail to see how such a statement must, by definition, mislead its audience. And I am edgy about the manipulation aspect as well, given the possibility that the statement is true.


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## luckyscars (Aug 28, 2020)

BornForBurning said:


> Yes I know. The question essentially was, whose intent? I ask because I believe it is reasonable to see a work as having an intent independent of its author.



I don't think I see books as having intent independent of their author, really. Although, if they did, that would seem to indicate it is likely propaganda, so I guess either way. Sorry, I'm still struggling with understanding the relevance, I think.



> The difficulty regarding the issue of definition is that propaganda actually has a real, established definition--one much closer to the colloquial understanding of the word than your own personal one. This is irrelevant to your core argument regarding what this thing _you_ call propaganda is, but relevant to the general conversation, as we are writers, and we deal with words. The fact that the established definition of the word propaganda can be applied to any work of literature is actually a good point, although I do think that having a specific word to refer to a universal attribute of a thing (in this case, the thing being literature) is valuable, as long as the attribute is meaningfully distinct from the object. For example, having a word for 'brain' is valuable, even though 'brain' is a universal attribute of the object known as 'homo sapiens.'
> 
> For the record, I also don't think it's ambiguous (at least not in the sense you mean ambiguous). I was merely identifying the fact that your definition inherently relies on ones beliefs about what constitutes reality--a flaw (maybe?) worth considering, when presenting your definition to people who may have differing beliefs regarding reality. Excluding arguments regarding how one can meaningfully discern intent (I don't see any fruitful discussion there) I generally agree. But as I extrapolate below, that 'generally' is dependent on my perception of the statement's truth value. 'The Communists are taking over our universities' sounds like an extreme, emotionally manipulative headline. But what if it is true? This is why we must analyze every statement on its merits, not on its presentation.



I don't know what definition you are sourcing from, but this is the definition I see:

"information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view."

I agree with that definition and I would argue the use of the terms 'biased or misleading' are what is missing from the notion that 'any work or literature can be propaganda'. Not any book can be propaganda if not any book is biased or misleading.

The addition of the 'political' makes it even easier -- non-political books cannot be propaganda. 

Unless we want to factor in the'there is no such thing as objective reality' -- which we can and which I sense you possibly do, but I simply don't agree with that premise -- it seems like it should be pretty easy to determine what propaganda is/is not based on the good/bad faith interpretation of an argument. Since I don't accept vast chasms between realities between people, I don't have a view on the nature of truth. My only concern is in presentation of truths I think exist.



> I do not understand what you mean by 'excludes critical thought.' It is a statement of possible fact, among many other statements of possible fact. I do not think it is true. But I see no reason why a statement employing such phrasing must be false. You defined propaganda as having the intent to 'mislead and manipulate.' I fail to see how such a statement must, by definition, mislead its audience. And I am edgy about the manipulation aspect as well, given the possibility that the statement is true.



For one thing, "Joe Biden plans to destroy America" is not falsifiable. It is not a statement of possible fact because there is no universal definition of what 'destroys' means. That's not the problem here, though. The problem is there is no logic behind it, no X + Y = Z type process that is needed to wage an argument. It's a conclusion without credibility. If there were reasons offered, and if that reasoning was either true or was at least not provably false, it would not be propaganda but an legitimate opinion, as in example #2.


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## Turnbull (Aug 28, 2020)

TheManx said:


> Propaganda has negative connotations. By definition, it's B.S. The Crucible was written as a reaction to McCarthyism. If you think  that's propaganda, then what? Are you pining for those good old days?



I meant those negative connotations.  Hollywood for many years tried to deny their communist affiliations, but works like The Crucible were meant to smear the truth.  Besides hiding the fact that Hollywood was in fact the target of USSR support, it blames McCarthyism for Hollywood blacklisting.  Fun fact: McCarthyism post-dates the Hollywood red scare times, and only in fact went after the government.  Never Hollywood itself.

"Of all the arts, for us the Cinema is the most important." Vladimir Lenin.

Oh, and apparently a lot of the blacklisting that went on was of communists restraining those who weren't as red as they were.  See: The god that failed, edited by Richard Crossman.


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## Theglasshouse (Aug 29, 2020)

Good point because they called the Hollywood movies propaganda when I once saw a documentary. 

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24003022

https://www.britannica.com/art/motion-picture/Propaganda

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf...hUKEwjg1oWf3MDrAhXu01kKHegiC7AQ4dUDCAc&uact=5


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## TheManx (Aug 29, 2020)

Turnbull said:


> I meant those negative connotations.  Hollywood for many years tried to deny their communist affiliations, but works like The Crucible were meant to smear the truth.  Besides hiding the fact that Hollywood was in fact the target of USSR support, it blames McCarthyism for Hollywood blacklisting.  Fun fact: McCarthyism post-dates the Hollywood red scare times, and only in fact went after the government.  Never Hollywood itself.
> 
> "Of all the arts, for us the Cinema is the most important." Vladimir Lenin.
> 
> Oh, and apparently a lot of the blacklisting that went on was of communists restraining those who weren't as red as they were.  See: The god that failed, edited by Richard Crossman.



  Yeah, Arthur Miller said the Crucible was a reaction to _both_ HUAC/The Hollywood Blacklist _and_ McCarthyism, which was about communists in the state department etc. I’m not conflating the two and neither did he — so I'm not seeing how the play somehow "blames McCarthyism for Hollywood blacklisting." It’s not Miller's fault if people are or were confused. And Miller acknowledged there was a Soviet plot, communists in Hollywood — and in the government. (McCarthy just didn't know who they were.)

The play was about the bizarre methods employed by both HUAC and McCarthy to root out communism — denying 1[SUP]st[/SUP] and 5[SUP]th[/SUP] amendment rights — basically guilty until proven innocent — with zero representation or due process. In other words, a witch hunt. Doesn't meet my definition of propaganda or the dictionary's. Oh well. We could probably go on about that all day, but that’s as far off topic as I’m going to go…


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## Tettsuo (Aug 29, 2020)

Reading the classics, even if they're out of style, is still important. In fact, after reading one of Nikola Gogol's short pieces, it helped me tremendously when I write dialogue. There are tons of little things the classics provide that are tremendously beneficial, even for us modern day writers.

Example - Gogol has the person speaking reference the actions and/or expressions of the person he was speaking to. Such a nice trick, imo.


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## clark (Aug 29, 2020)

I'm old school. Well. I'm old too--so y'all should _really _pay attention. Ain't nuthin' much new under the sun. Just about every linguistic device, turn of plot, unique style, method of narrative, metaphorical twist, and on and on was introduced, experimented with, and developed or discarded by the so-called "classic" writers--and I'd suggest we pause to reflect on that category, 'classic.' I think some current young writers think of Hemingway, Faulkner, Conrad, and Joyce as 'classic' fiction writers. Yes? . . . even though their works are more like End-Products, if you will, of the development of writing practices hundreds of years, in some cases thousands of years old. The Epic of Gilgamesh, about 3500 BCE--generally regarded as the oldest surviving piece of writing--features the hero's journey to the underworld in search of wisdom and prophesy, a theme used and refined down through the centuries to the prsent day. It did not leap from the ground, It is part of our cultural land literary history. Is not there much to be gained by incorporating the foundations of our current practices. I am told that aeronautical engineering student study the dynamics of hummingbird wing construction and flight, exactly as Sikorsky did in his early experiments and designs for the helicopter. The breathing techniques in yoga were developed and refined thousands of years ago, and are used with little change in classes today.

I understand and respect Kyle's point that life is short and you want to _write_, not launch into a five-year catch-up personal reading program in World Classics . . .whether you like them or not. What I throw on the table is a modified approach. Just one example: let's say you find that dialogue​  is becoming your primary tool for character development and advancement of plot. You turn to it constantly.  It is clearly going to be an integral part of your style as a novelist. How about finding out novelists of the past who have used a lot of dialogue? Read their stuff. USE them as a proving ground for your work, They've probably gone through close to the same problems you're going through. Just a thought.


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## Plaidman (Aug 29, 2020)

This is just my humble opinion.

I don’t know how _important_ reading the classics is.  But what I do know is that you could be missing some very good books if you don’t.

I have read several of the books that are on that list.  Yes, being older books they read differently than modern authors.  Just remember that going in.  A significant amount of time has passed since many of these were written.  Some things have changed in that time, most notably would be social norms.  They may also be challenging to read due to dated vocabulary or phrasing.  Or, the subject of the book may seem of little consequence in todays life.  I’m sure I could go on with comparisons but I think you get the point.

Now, all of what I just listed may seem like negative aspects of reading the classics.  But, _Nay! I say!_  These are actually reasons why you _should_ read these books.  Understanding social norms of the past can help you understand social norms of the present.  The dated vocabulary will challenge you to expand your vocabulary.  The dated phrasing will be good exercise for your brain and could help you to learn different ways of phrasing what you wan to say.  As far as the subject goes, just look at it as a learning experience.

With all of that said, there is one other thing to remember.  These books and authors are regarded as classics for a reason.  Look at it this way.  While they may seem dated, the basics of writing are really the same, plot development, character development, etc.  The building blocks of any good story are still in there, even if they were written 150 years ago.

But like I said at the beginning, how important is reading the classics?  I don’t know.  But, I do know your going to miss some really good books.


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## luckyscars (Aug 29, 2020)

Tettsuo said:


> Reading the classics, even if they're out of style, is still important. In fact, after reading one of Nikola Gogol's short pieces, it helped me tremendously when I write dialogue. There are tons of little things the classics provide that are tremendously beneficial, even for us modern day writers.
> 
> Example - Gogol has the person speaking reference the actions and/or expressions of the person he was speaking to. Such a nice trick, imo.



Totally agree. I love reading old novels because there's always something in them to learn. It's so much easier to find little tricks or approaches that seem original because they aren't widely used anymore.

This is what gets my goat when people say stuff like "classic novels are different to modern ones", like that's a bad thing, or when people say old books make them bored.

In my opinion, a writer should never be truly bored while reading anything. It flies so completely in the face of the claim that writing is our passion, that we take it seriously. I don't hear many successful painters avoid certain parts of the gallery due to being dull. I blame genres for facilitating this sort of silly tribalism. 

You can find the story itself less compelling than others, that's fine, but there is always something to learn from writing. That alone should be enough to prevent abject boredom.


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## TheManx (Aug 30, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> In my opinion, a writer should never be truly bored while reading anything. It flies so completely in the face of the claim that writing is our passion, that we take it seriously.



  If you mean certain classic books that don’t hold my interest, yes, I am bored with some of them. It’s possible that if I plowed through I could learn something, but why? I can learn from books ("classics" or otherwise) that I enjoy. Life is too short.


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## Taylor (Aug 30, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> In my opinion, a writer should never be truly bored while reading anything. It flies so completely in the face of the claim that writing is our passion, that we take it seriously.



It's a good point!  It makes me think of a fashion designer, who may look at vintage clothing for inspiration, or an architect who may study architectural styles of the past.   But you look at it differently than just reading it for the enjoyment of the story.  Perhaps it's more research, then just reading?



TheManx said:


> If you mean certain classics books that don’t hold my interest, yes, I am bored with some of them. It’s possible that if I plowed through I could learn something, but why? I can learn from books that I enjoy. Life is too short.



True...there is so much to read.  If you're bored, you're bored....move on!


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## TheManx (Aug 30, 2020)

Taylor said:


> True...there is so much to read.  If you're bored, you're bored....move on!



Yep. But then there's some guy questioning my "passion..."


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## Squalid Glass (Aug 30, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> In my opinion, a writer should never be truly bored while reading anything. It flies so completely in the face of the claim that writing is our passion, that we take it seriously. I don't hear many successful painters avoid certain parts of the gallery due to being dull. I blame genres for facilitating this sort of silly tribalism.
> 
> You can find the story itself less compelling than others, that's fine, but there is always something to learn from writing. That alone should be enough to prevent abject boredom.



Maybe, but that seems more romantic than realistic. Some books are just so out of the reader's wheelhouse that they don't offer anything but a natural form of sleep aid. For example, I had to read _Daniel Deronda _and _The Blithedale Romance _in college. Those books almost made me quit the discipline.


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## TheManx (Aug 30, 2020)

I see writing success on the horizon. I just need to finish Silas Marner!


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## luckyscars (Aug 30, 2020)

TheManx said:


> If you mean certain classic books that don’t hold my interest, yes, I am bored with some of them. It’s possible that if I plowed through I could learn something, but why? I can learn from books ("classics" or otherwise) that I enjoy. Life is too short.





Squalid Glass said:


> Maybe, but that seems more romantic than realistic. Some books are just so out of the reader's wheelhouse that they don't offer anything but a natural form of sleep aid. For example, I had to read _Daniel Deronda _and _The Blithedale Romance _in college. Those books almost made me quit the discipline.



I agree it's a bit idealistic, that's why I was careful to say 'should' rather than 'is'. I'm sure everybody finds certain things boring, at least sometimes. 

The point is really more about mentality, of _seriousness, _as one poster said. The point is that we need to recognize that our being bored is a problem we ought to work to overcome; not an incurable affliction we are bound to...and certainly not a reflection on the worth of the books that make us bored.

 As a goal, studying as many classics as possible is clearly a good one. I don't have any data on this, but I would strongly believe a competent writer who committed to reading all or almost all of the greatest books from across history would, all else being equal, be much better than one who only read a few of them, or none... 

...importantly, that would be regardless of how much he/she enjoyed them. Enjoyment is _not _required for learning, I would just refute the whole thing as meaningful here. Don't get me wrong , it's _nice_ to enjoy something you learn. But perseverance, discipline, and lots of effort is usually sufficient for serious and highly-motivated people who want to learn a discipline (as distinct from, say, a class of high school kids who don't have a choice) to cope fine. Lots of people are able to major in tax law every year, and I imagine at least some of them don't really enjoy a lot of it. They can still learn it successfully, presumably because they recognize the bigger picture and are highly motivated. Why should a writer not be subject to the same obligation? 

So, what's the priority with reading, I guess? Is it learning or enjoyment? You can't really say 'both', because they aren't always going to be mutually compatible. You can't always get what you need solely from stuff you find interesting. As horrendously humdrum as Daniel Deronda is (and it is!) it's still a technically great book with some very good aspects and a fantastic example of writing about identity. Crucially, there are no other books like it, certainly not ones that are more 'interesting'. So, if you want to learn what it contains, you have to read it, and to do that...you have to choose your attitude as it relates to the text. Otherwise, expecting to learn things within the parameters of what you enjoy is, at best, naive and, at worst, childish and arrogant.

The question comes down to whether some short-term boredom is a tolerable price to pay for lifetime enrichment. That is a choice.

Of course nobody should routinely subject themselves to something so torturous they end up hating the craft, I am honestly not saying that, but I also doubt that's legitimately the case for a lot of people with a lot of books. There is a massive gray area between "this isn't really my thing, a bit dull" and "reading any of this makes me genuinely miserable". I'm not questioning anybody here, but I strongly feel like an awful lot of writers conflate and tend toward the latter when it comes to reading, especially with older books, because it's just easier that way. 

Which, you know, fine, but then we must recognize this as a failure of the person reading the books and not the books themselves. The books aren't boring: We are lazy. There is, more often than not, a cost to laziness.


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## TheManx (Aug 31, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> I agree it's a bit idealistic, that's why I was careful to say 'should' rather than 'is'. I'm sure everybody finds certain things boring, at least sometimes.
> 
> The point is really more about mentality, of _seriousness, _as one poster said. The point is that we need to recognize that our being bored is a problem we ought to work to overcome; not an incurable affliction we are bound to...and certainly not a reflection on the worth of the books that make us bored.
> 
> ...



 You might be conflating “enjoy” with “easy.” I read a lot of books, including classics, that I’m sure some people would find tedious or difficult. Maybe _satisfying _is a better word than enjoy.

  There are books that hit me on a gut level, beautifully written books that stay with me. Books I’m compelled to reread. I’ll go out on a limb and say those are the kinds of books that inform my writing, that inspire me, that made me want to write in the first place. I’m quite confident I can learn what I need to know from those books—to write the kind of stories that I want to write. And yes, many of those books are considered “classics.” 

Otherwise, the sheer volume of wonderful writing available to me practically guarantees that I can read for both satisfaction _and_ learning. Come on.

   I didn’t “major in tax law” because I have zero interest in it and little aptitude for something like that. I do something in the creative field that is enormously satisfying to me. I recognized the bigger picture and I was highly motivated—and I’ve been pretty successful at doing something I want to do. Imagine that. That’s a much better analogy _for me_.

So if I put down Silas Marner (or whatever), I certainly don’t consider it a failure or lazy—and it would never occur to me to judge anyone else who did the same. To me it’s a _smart_ choice based on how I want to use my time, on how I learn_ and on what I want to know. _No one else can decide that for me, and it’s rather presumptuous for anyone to assume they can. Talk about arrogant...


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## TheManx (Aug 31, 2020)

Did you ever consider that maybe you need to plow through certain tedious books based on your abilities and how you learn—and that just MAYBE, other people don’t need to do that? Something to think about...


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## Kyle R (Aug 31, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> The point is that we need to recognize that our being bored is a problem we ought to work to overcome; not an incurable affliction we are bound to...and certainly not a reflection on the worth of the books that make us bored.



I think the logic there is a bit tenuous.

For example, that's quite similar to the oft-seen refrain from rejected writers, in response to publishers/agents/editors. "My writing isn't bad—you just don't realize how good it is!"

Compare to: "This classic novel isn't boring—you just don't realize its worth!"

And while I agree with your overall point (there's value to be found in classic novels, otherwise they wouldn't have stood the test of time; perhaps, even, value that may be hard to find elsewhere), I also think it's worth acknowledging that there have been a lot of improvements made in the craft of fiction since those days.

So, I'm down with saying, "We must sift through the chaff in order to find the wheat" with these books, as long as we can also acknowledge that there is, in all likelihood, chaff in these classic books, and we should view such chaff with a modern, critical eye. No free passes, just because it's from another era.

A dubious chess move, by today's standards, is still a dubious chess move, even if the game was played a hundred plus years ago.


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## luckyscars (Aug 31, 2020)

TheManx said:


> You might be conflating “enjoy” with “easy.” I read a lot of books, including classics, that I’m sure some people would find tedious or difficult. Maybe _satisfying _is a better word than enjoy.



Enjoy was your choice of word. I feel I used it in line with its etymology. The argument is unchanged. Satisfaction is a synonym of enjoyment. 



> There are books that hit me on a gut level, beautifully written books that stay with me. Books I’m compelled to reread. I’ll go out on a limb and say those are the kinds of books that inform my writing, that inspire me, that made me want to write in the first place. I’m quite confident I can learn what I need to know from those books—to write the kind of stories that I want to write. And yes, many of those books are considered “classics.”
> 
> Otherwise, the sheer volume of wonderful writing available to me practically guarantees that I can read for both satisfaction _and_ learning. Come on.
> 
> I didn’t “major in tax law” because I have zero interest in it and little aptitude for something like that. I do something in the creative field that is enormously satisfying to me. I recognized the bigger picture and I was highly motivated—and I’ve been pretty successful at doing something I want to do. Imagine that. That’s a much better analogy _for me_.



Nobody is telling you what to do. All I am saying is that in no other field, discipline or skill, including creative ones, does learning solely according to the whims of ones pleasure lend itself to a complete understanding of everything within that discipline. Even Monet had to go to the academy.

That’s not to say academia must be the root of everything, you don’t have to go to “the academy” to be a writer, but you do — in my opinion — have to approach the craft with a similarly robust and masochistic willingness to absorb as much as possible from as many places as available, including things that aren’t immediately gratifying or interesting. That is my opinion. 

If you have some way to prove why that’s not so, I would be interested (masochistically willing) 
to listen and change my mind. Otherwise, it just doesn’t pass the smell test. To me. To me it sounds a bit too much like an argument somebody who just doesn’t want to do the hard work of study _might _use, which is partly why I’m a bit wary about it. 



> So if I put down Silas Marner (or whatever), I certainly don’t consider it a failure or lazy—and it would never occur to me to judge anyone else who did the same. To me it’s a _smart_ choice based on how I want to use my time, on how I learn_ and on what I want to know. _No one else can decide that for me, and it’s rather presumptuous for anyone to assume they can. Talk about arrogant...



I repeat: I am not personally questioning, judging or otherwise assuming any authority over what you choose to do.



TheManx said:


> Did you ever consider that maybe you need to plow through certain tedious books based on your abilities and how you learn—and that just MAYBE, other people don’t need to do that? Something to think about...



It’s not really something to think about because I don’t really care at all about whether or how other people learn. People can do what they want. You’re the only one making flippant comments regarding the worth of what other people read. 

The proof is in the pudding. If you think your approach, which you say definitely gets you the same outcome as if you studied the greatest writers, is optimal, if you think that’s a good attitude to have, then nobody can tell you you’re wrong. Certainly, I don’t want to. I look forward to seeing the results.


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## luckyscars (Aug 31, 2020)

Kyle R said:


> I think the logic there is a bit tenuous.
> 
> For example, that's quite similar to the oft-seen refrain from rejected writers, in response to publishers/agents/editors. "My writing isn't bad—you just don't realize how good it is!"
> 
> Compare to: "This classic novel isn't boring—you just don't realize its worth!"



I respectfully disagree with the comparison. Classic novels have a wide and proven readership, a track record that has stood the test of time. Rejected writers usually don’t. If a rejected writer does have such a track record, they can make that argument.



> And while I agree with your overall point (there's value to be found in classic novels, otherwise they wouldn't have stood the test of time; perhaps, even, value that may be hard to find elsewhere), I also think it's worth acknowledging that there have been a lot of improvements made in the craft of fiction since those days.
> 
> So, I'm down with saying, "We must sift through the chaff in order to find the wheat" with these books, as long as we can also acknowledge that there is, in all likelihood, chaff in these classic books, and we should view such chaff with a modern, critical eye. No free passes, just because it's from another era.
> 
> A dubious chess move, by today's standards, is still a dubious chess move, even if the game was played a hundred plus years ago.



I completely agree. Reading only classics is as bad a move as to not read any of them. This isn’t about placing a particular emphasis on any era or genre of literature. This is about placing emphasis on all of it. 

People are free to judge any book on its merits. The point is, you have to read it in order to do so.


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## Kyle R (Aug 31, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Reading only classics is as bad a move as to not read any of them. This isn’t about placing a particular emphasis on any era or genre of literature. This is about placing emphasis on all of it.



I can certainly agree with that. :encouragement:

And though it may sound like I'm merely prodding at your logic, I do agree with you overall. My main dispute isn't with your point, particularly, but with others who've made similar arguments in the past—while simultaneously refuting any suggestion of flaws in classic works.

The "it's a classic, therefore it's beyond reproach" argument is the one that I take issue with. I think that viewpoint is just as unhelpful as the opposite one ("it's a classic, therefore it's antiquated and inferior").


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## TheManx (Aug 31, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> The proof is in the pudding. If you think your approach, which you say definitely gets you the same outcome as if you studied the greatest writers, is optimal, if you think that’s a good attitude to have, then nobody can tell you you’re wrong. Certainly, I don’t want to. I look forward to seeing the results.



 Well, it really would have to come down listing the books I’ve read from the “greatest writers,” and I’m not going to do that. The point is, _some_ of the books by the “greatest writers” are boring to me and don’t inform writing—and there are plenty of books that do. It has nothing to do with my work ethic or how serious I am.

   Anyway, I’m good. I didn’t come here to argue or defend my reading habits.

  Cheers.


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## luckyscars (Aug 31, 2020)

Kyle R said:


> The "it's a classic, therefore it's beyond reproach" argument is the one that I take issue with. I think that viewpoint is just as unhelpful as the opposite one ("it's a classic, therefore it's antiquated and inferior").



Agree again. For the record, there are plenty of classic novels I dislike! 

I'm not a fan of Great Expectations, I think the pacing is pretty poor by Dickens's standards and while it contains some of his usual excellent characters, I found myself struggling to give a shit about Pip and found it generally chaotic. I'm _very _ambivalent about Pride & Prejudice, which I feel is a fairly average drawing-room sort of novel and kind of 'meh' as a romance, that has been massively over-hyped for rather superficial reasons -- Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are both far better, albeit very different. What else? War & Peace can be tough going at times, besides being just ridiculously long it is pretty inconsistent, thin on the ground in some places, and prone to a lot of extended wallowing in misery and navel-gazing in others, like a lot of Russian books. This side of the pond: I'm a huge fan of Mark Twain, but his European-set books (The Prince & The Pauper and Joan Of Arc, particularly) don't work at all for me, as historical fiction, they come across as Disneyish. Like Squalid, I dislike Daniel Deronda. I dislike Ayn Rand. Proust is irritating.

So yeah, I definitely agree there are no sacred cows with this stuff, honestly I do. The problem is I sense a terrible imbalance: People often seem far too willing to jump on a reason _not _to read old novels because they hear the sort of criticisms I just outlined above, take such criticisms as somehow being an argument against the importance of the books overall, when they are not. 

A common reason, I believe, this happens is because its convenient. These books _are _harder work than modern ones. They are less appealing, on the surface. They are usually longer, usually purpler, usually more challenging and less relatable. Which is...a lazy approach. Sorry, but I think it just is. All of the books I just mentioned are -- good or bad -- still highly instructive. Whether they are as _good_ as people say, or whether they have flaws and things to dislike, really doesn't have much to do with whether they should be read, in my opinion. Those are questions that should only come after reading something, in any case.


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## bdcharles (Aug 31, 2020)

After a day out in Brontë-land today I picked up a copy of #36 on that list, _Jane Eyre_. It's great - superlative command of metaphors and language, pithy and pertinent quotes, massive houses, sentences with both colons and semi-colons in them, a plucky heroine. What's not to like? Particularly the language, which to me is very rich and controlled. Other favourites that come to mind are T_he Picture of Dorian Grey_ and _Great Expectations_ so yes, I would definitely recommend at least trying some, even if just to see what muscular, focused prose looks like.

But I struggled with Moby Dick and Bleak House just lost my interest for some reason.


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## bdcharles (Aug 31, 2020)

Taylor said:


> I just started reading the "modern classsics", The Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged.  Mostly because they had a significant impact on me as a young adult and I recognized them to be somewhat ground-breaking.
> 
> I am struggling to find an obvious genre for my novel, so I thought this might help me to understand how to be non-mainstream and still be popular.
> 
> Wish me luck! 8-[



I know Ayn Rand is the devil and all that, but I really enjoyed _The Fountainhead_. Much like _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, it had the bizarre side effect of making me want to work harder.


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## TheManx (Aug 31, 2020)

Ah, luckyscars -- you know what? I changed my mind -- and I'm going to comment further—and  give you special  props for how you argue. Good job! You are good at what you do!

   But let’s look at what you said about Monet. Sounds good on the surface, but what about Van Gogh or Frida Kahlo or Grandma Moses or any number of amazing artists that didn't have any formal training? Yeah—you're the kind of person who makes these comments and assumes that that people don't know any better—and it's hilarious.

  Or how about this? Someone says they are discerning about what they read—but for you it's about reading "solely according to the whims of ones pleasure." Ha ha ha.

  I could go on, and address everything you said point by point—but why bother? You asked the question in the OP, but you’d already made up your mind. So it's really just an exercise in ego gratification on your part—with everything building up to your banal lectures.

  Barf.


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## Newman (Aug 31, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Question is the title, pretty much. How important is it for a modern writer (of any genre) to have spent time reading at least a few classic novels?
> 
> Do you think a modern fantasy, science fiction or romance author stands to significantly benefit from reading something like Moby Dick or Huckleberry Finn in terms of their development? If so, why? If not, why not?
> 
> One listing of what constitutes a classic novel is here for reference: https://thegreatestbooks.org/




The classics are excellent learning tools in terms of structure, craft etc.


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## EternalGreen (Aug 31, 2020)

Ayn Rand is popular because businessmen find her books flattering. It’s pure politics; I’m not exaggerating. That’s literally the only reason. 

Read Altas Shrugged, and you will painful screeds masquerading as dialogue, ridiculous tonal preaching, and more.

Nobody who knows anything about philosophy or has any credibility in a relevant disciple thinks she’s a “classic” writer.

I’m vehement but this is a hill I am willing to die on.


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## Phil Istine (Aug 31, 2020)

*MOD note:  Let's avoid getting personal, please, and stick to the subject at hand.  *


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## Taylor (Aug 31, 2020)

bdcharles said:


> I know Ayn Rand is the devil and all that, but I really enjoyed _The Fountainhead_. Much like _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, it had the bizarre side effect of making me want to work harder.



I know...me too right?


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## Taylor (Aug 31, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Enjoyment is _not _required for learning, I would just refute the whole thing as meaningful here. Don't get me wrong , it's _nice_ to enjoy something you learn. But perseverance, discipline, and lots of effort is usually sufficient for serious and highly-motivated people who want to learn a discipline (as distinct from, say, a class of high school kids who don't have a choice) to cope fine. Lots of people are able to major in tax law every year, and I imagine at least some of them don't really enjoy a lot of it. They can still learn it successfully, presumably because they recognize the bigger picture and are highly motivated. Why should a writer not be subject to the same obligation?
> 
> Which, you know, fine, but then we must recognize this as a failure of the person reading the books and not the books themselves. The books aren't boring: We are lazy. There is, more often than not, a cost to laziness.



I don't know Lucky, I think you have wandered down a slippery slope with this argument.  I did major in tax law, and I totally enjoyed it!  I think a certain amount of "enjoyment" or interest, is required for learning.  I don't know many successful professionals who are not passionate about what they do.  

But as a writer, you are an artist.  There has a to be a passion...you have said that many times yourself.  You have to be looking for the next movement.  So forcing yourself to read something old just as a discipline, seems at odds with the art of being a writer.  

Do you think that Monet spent much time studying the High Renaissance? I doubt it, because he was more focused on creating something completely new.


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## Taylor (Aug 31, 2020)

EternalGreen said:


> Ayn Rand is popular because businessmen find her books flattering. It’s pure politics; I’m not exaggerating. That’s literally the only reason.
> 
> Read Altas Shrugged, and you will painful screeds masquerading as dialogue, ridiculous tonal preaching, and more.
> 
> ...



With all do respect, define a "relevent discipline."  I am a CPA and and hold an MBA and I think her books are classics.   

I also don't think many businessmen read Ayn Rand.  

I'm just re-reading Atlas Shrugged, and finding it so refreshing.  It's about real life events, that I can relate to.  No murders; no detectives; no werewolves or extraterestials... stay tuned...


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## Lee Messer (Aug 31, 2020)

Probably one of my favorites is the presentation that exists within Samuel Taylor Coleridge's- "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

It suggests that the belief and superstition portion of the "Magical" part of reality should present such dread, that even questioning it would bring a bad fate.

I personally classify it as classic horror, yet all scholars misclassify it as poetry. While technically it is... I know something about Anthropology as it relates to Ancient mythology and folklore.

There was a time when all stories were told in rhyme to ensure that the passing of the tale was remembered. Even the Jewish back then did not have writing. Their solution was to attribute a number to a phrase, and even a word.

Anthropology books speak of a time when man did not have writing, and this was the reason that many tales for millennia were only taught by word of mouth... millennia. Think of that.

Movies today were the books of yesterday, and even those were the songs of folklore. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote horror.


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## BornForBurning (Sep 1, 2020)

> Ayn Rand is popular because businessmen find her books flattering.


Completely untrue. The vast majority of Ayn Rand fans are philosophy nerds. I don't know what you mean by 'businessman.' Probably not the guy that runs the local liquor store, lol. But don't play the game of 'Objectivism is bad philosophy.' Objectivism, like nearly every other ideology or philosophy, hangs on presupposed tenets and builds from there. You don't see many Liberal philosophers questioning the primacy of Self, for example. Or Marxist scholars questioning the proletariat-bourgeoisie dichotomy. Perhaps you could say it is poorly argued. But that is not a strike against Objectivism itself, only its author. 

For the record, I tried reading Atlas Shrugged when I was seventeen (which is apparently the optimum age for enjoying Rand's literature) and thought it was boring. Eh.


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## luckyscars (Sep 1, 2020)

bdcharles said:


> After a day out in Brontë-land today I picked up a copy of #36 on that list, _Jane Eyre_. It's great - superlative command of metaphors and language, pithy and pertinent quotes, massive houses, sentences with both colons and semi-colons in them, a plucky heroine. What's not to like? Particularly the language, which to me is very rich and controlled. Other favourites that come to mind are T_he Picture of Dorian Grey_ and _Great Expectations_ so yes, I would definitely recommend at least trying some, even if just to see what muscular, focused prose looks like.
> 
> But I struggled with Moby Dick and Bleak House just lost my interest for some reason.



Jane Eyre is so underrated. Could never figure out why it gets so much play as a love story when it's so much more than that. Picture Of Dorian Grey is another good one and, like most of Wilde's books, it's a surprisingly easy read.

Moby Dick...I agree. I think it's one of those books that's really more of an English language tour-de-force than something to use as a lodestar for storytelling now. That said, I still think it's an important book and worth reading. But yeah, I think it's fair for most to mark that in the 'struggle through' category.



TheManx said:


> But let’s look at what you said about Monet. Sounds good on the surface, but what about Van Gogh or Frida Kahlo or Grandma Moses or any number of amazing artists that didn't have any formal training?
> 
> Or how about this? Someone says they are discerning about what they read—but for you it's about reading "solely according to the whims of ones pleasure." Ha ha ha.



Cutting out the personal-attack stuff here.

Van Gogh actually did quite a bit of formal training. He studied at the Academy Beaux Arts in Brussels and then spent further time training under realist painter Mauve. Kahlo was an engraving apprentice, which is about as traditional as it gets, and while she did not attend a formal academy, she certainly studied and was highly knowledgeable about classic art, particularly Renaissance. You can actually see it in some of her work.

Painting is a funny one, because there exists these smaller movements called 'Naive" or "Brut" Art which emphasize lack of formal training, which would include things like Grandmother Moses and folk artists. But these are largely exceptions and don't have (as far as I know) an equivalence in literature. However, they do facilitate the ability for folks to shoehorn them into an argument for why traditional study is _passe_. 

Regardless, my point was never that formal training was needed. I said the opposite. My point was that _awareness_, taking some deep interest in what has come before and in certain techniques taught through those things, is important. I would stand by that as being true.

Discernment about reading is fine. But my question would be: What are you basing your 'discernment' on? How do you know a book is worth reading unless you read it? 

This is the thing I am confused by. You say if something doesn't hold your interest you don't read it. Okay, but _when_ do you make that judgment? After the first few sentences? Paragraphs? Pages? A quarter way through? Halfway through? Do you even pick it up, or do you go by the gist of what you understand the book to be about and make the decision? 

It matters, because a lot of books (especially older ones) start off slowly and in ways that aren't familiar to modern eyes. I can probably understand and appreciate 'discernment' that happens a hundred pages in, I've put down some books myself at that point, but 'discernment' that happens within the first chapter, or before the book even starts? That isn't discernment. It's snap judgment. Bias.



EternalGreen said:


> Nobody who knows anything about philosophy or has any credibility in a relevant disciple thinks she’s a “classic” writer.



People who know philosophy aren't necessarily best placed to judge literature, though. That's the problem with philosophical novels like Rand, their 'classic-ness' becomes kind of murky. You can get really great writing with not-so-great actual philosophy -- Kafka, would be a pretty good example, nobody takes his brand of nihilism seriously as philosophy, but he's a terrific writer. Then you can get some really quite sound philosophy among mediocre, or even quite poor writers. Nietzsche, for instance. 

I don't personally _agree_ with literally any of Rand's philosophy, but I think the arguments against it tend to be driven by political disagreement and, to a degree, sexism and bigotry rather than her intellectual chops. A lot of this 'she isn't a real philosopher' stuff comes down to personal dislike and emotional reactions towards her quite dark view of human nature. Right after World War Two and Hitler, academics simply didn't want to hear stuff about how good it was to be selfish, _especially_ not from a European Jewish woman, of the type whom thousands of Americans had just died 'unselfishly saving'. These are reasons, but they are matters of appetite and emotion, not intellect. 



Taylor said:


> I don't know Lucky, I think you have wandered down a slippery slope with this argument.  I did major in tax law, and I totally enjoyed it!  I think a certain amount of "enjoyment" or interest, is required for learning.  I don't know many successful professionals who are not passionate about what they do.
> 
> But as a writer, you are an artist.  There has a to be a passion...you have said that many times yourself.  You have to be looking for the next movement.  So forcing yourself to read something old just as a discipline, seems at odds with the art of being a writer.
> 
> Do you think that Monet spent much time studying the High Renaissance? I doubt it, because he was more focused on creating something completely new.



I think Monet was highly versed in the artists who came before him, yes. In fact, we know this, because his early work was extremely traditional. He didn't start out as an impressionist. To create something new, I think you _usually _have to have some understanding of the old. Not always, there are always exceptions, but broadly speaking.

Regarding passion, it's not an either/or. To sustain a career, you have to be passionate, yes, otherwise you would probably lose your mind. But I mentioned the importance of understanding the 'big picture'. You can be passionate about literature (and you should be) and yet not expect or need to be passionate about every single thing that forms part of it, because some of it won't be your cup of tea. 

Good writing is about good reading and good reading is a skill. The skill may be driven by passion without being constantly passionate. A good writer should be able to read anything closely and deeply and with intellectual interest, whether it be War & Peace, Fifty Shades Of Grey, or the back of a cereal box, _because this is how we train. It is our job to know this stuff.

_To me, hearing writers complain about having to read boring books is like hearing apprentice morticians complain about having to embalm disfigured corpses. Like, okay, you didn't enjoy it. SO WHAT?

So what because our job is to engage with the material and learn from the experience. We can have whatever views we want about the experience after the fact, and we should, but not interacting with things due to finding them dull isn't a demonstration of passion but an act of puerility...

...in my opinion.


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## Olly Buckle (Sep 1, 2020)

Lee Messer said:


> There was a time when all stories were told in rhyme to ensure that the passing of the tale was remembered.



Not quite true. Rhyme was a continental habit that came to England with French and the Norman conquest. Anglo Saxon epic poetry like that used alliteration at set points in the line to the same purpose. We knew a good thing when we heard it though, and rhyme was quickly adopted into the common speech in folk songs and stories.


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## Chris Stevenson (Sep 1, 2020)

Meh, I used to. Mostly assigned reading. But I don't anymore to speak of. I have enough trouble trying to keep up with my competitors and those are the ones I have to learn from the most. Things, nomenclature and styles have changed. I prefer to adapt and discover the new.


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## bdcharles (Sep 1, 2020)

I think the enjoyment of classics, or lack thereof, is tied in somewhat to the degree of geekery of the reader. As a reader as well as a writer, I get excited about language and books, so it's kind of an all-encompassing thing. For my own level, I don't feel quite ready, willing or able to take on the likes of _War and Peace_, even though the idea that they exist still, rather pathetically, thrills me (and the TV adaptation was pretty decent). Equally I don't feel the urge to read much Roddy Doyle or somebody, which is just no up my street. It's like my other pastimes - tech, music - in which I can't, and don't really want to, do everything, or very much at all outside my little niches in those fields, but the fact that they are still "a thing" brings a smile to my face nonetheless.


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## bdcharles (Sep 1, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Painting is a funny one, because there exists these smaller movements called 'Naive" or "Brut" Art which emphasize lack of formal training, which would include things like Grandmother Moses and folk artists. But these are largely exceptions and don't have (as far as I know) an equivalence in literature. However, they do facilitate the ability for folks to shoehorn them into an argument for why traditional study is _passe_.
> ...
> Regardless, my point was never that formal training was needed. I said the opposite. My point was that _awareness_, taking some deep interest in what has come before and in certain techniques taught through those things, is important. I would stand by that as being true.
> ...
> ...




I would say a similar split exists in music, in tech, and that writing might actually be the exception here. In tech, the amount of mutual distrust flowing between those that have fancy degrees and certifications in the subject, versus those that seem to have been working in the field since the days of FORTRAN is fairly high. Dare mention anything as gauche and modern as as Linux or Java, and half the time it's bye-bye informal techie mentor. In music, jeez, scathing snobbery is the norm and people haven't the social nous to know they should probably hold back. You'll hear all about how your ignorance of the English Madrigal School or whatnot is a personality defect and that you should be excised from the group like a tumour. Then you take up with some pub rock four piece where just speaking the word "madrigal" will get you punched in the metaphoric face. Point being? By whichever means, one finds one's niche and weathers the slings and arrows of everyone else who's doing their stuff, safe in the knowledge that in some minor way you're contributing to a canon that you like whilst doing something you don't utterly hate.


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## luckyscars (Sep 1, 2020)

BornForBurning said:


> Completely untrue. The vast majority of Ayn Rand fans are philosophy nerds. I don't know what you mean by 'businessman.' Probably not the guy that runs the local liquor store, lol. But don't play the game of 'Objectivism is bad philosophy.' Objectivism, like nearly every other ideology or philosophy, hangs on presupposed tenets and builds from there. You don't see many Liberal philosophers questioning the primacy of Self, for example. Or Marxist scholars questioning the proletariat-bourgeoisie dichotomy. Perhaps you could say it is poorly argued. But that is not a strike against Objectivism itself, only its author.
> 
> For the record, I tried reading Atlas Shrugged when I was seventeen (which is apparently the optimum age for enjoying Rand's literature) and thought it was boring. Eh.



Here in the US, Rand has a passionate following among a certain strain of venture capitalists like Mark Cuban. She is also highly influential among the right-wing intelligentsia, as well as individualist types like the Church Of Satan. It's a weird fan club.

Rand suffers from a similar problem to Nietzsche, Marx and Machiavelli in the sense that the ideas, while not necessarily immoral themselves, can be used without _too _much of a leap, to excuse some fairly immoral behavior. The problem with forceful ideas is they can lead to forceful outcomes. Objectivism can be used to justify harmful levels of capitalism, materialism and sociopathic levels of self-interest (which explains some of those fans). Machiavelli can be used to justify tyrannical dictatorship. Marx can be used to justify violence under class warfare. You don't get fans of Aristotle building gulags or telling poor people to fuck off.

Anyway, bit off topic, but I think that's part of why Ayn gets dumped on a lot.



bdcharles said:


> Point being? By whichever means, one finds one's niche and weathers the slings and arrows of everyone else who's doing their stuff, safe in the knowledge that in some minor way you're contributing to a canon that you like whilst doing something you don't utterly hate.



Interesting observations. I'm not totally sure what you mean by 'find ones niche' in the context of writing? Can you expand on that a bit?


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## bdcharles (Sep 1, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Interesting observations. I'm not totally sure what you mean by 'find ones niche' in the context of writing? Can you expand on that a bit?



I suppose one's genre, one's style, one's influences and general way about of going about writing, whether that involves reading the classics, actively avoiding them, sticking with one's genre, etc.


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## luckyscars (Sep 1, 2020)

bdcharles said:


> I suppose one's genre, one's style, one's influences and general way about of going about writing, whether that involves reading the classics, actively avoiding them, sticking with one's genre, etc.



Okay, good. So I guess my follow up question is how do you know what you like if you don't read outside of a niche? It's kind of a circular chicken-egg thing. I get the whole argument that there's no point in a romance author reading Moby Dick instead of Jackie Collins, I totally get that.

The problem is I just feel that people are way too quick to categorize themselves, or at the very least to align themselves with a certain 'type' of writing. I've definitely been guilty of that. And, I just don't know, really. Like, part of me is really glad that I read the entire Stephen King oeuvre through my twenties...but, like, it's fucking Stephen King, right? It's a lot of books written in a broadly similar fashion about broadly similar settings, classes of people, blah blah blah. But that was the natural result of 'sticking with what I found interesting'. I found Stephen King interesting, so I read Stephen King. I don't think it improved my writing as much as if I had engaged with a wider, more diverse field. And yeah, I think I would have probably benefit from some sort of direction so that it wasn't just an accident leading to a habit.

So, I guess my 'question' with this whole topic is there seems like there should be a kind of common canon. Not 'the canon', at least not necessarily, but 'a canon' which should not be genre-based regardless of how sure you are that you want to write within a genre. It can be weighted maybe a little toward a genre, that's fine, but I still think there probably are a selection of books that every writer should read for a decent, if rudimentary, understanding of 'literature overall', in the same sense that every aspiring chef should know how to make an omelet or every piano player should know their scales? I just can't decide on what those are.

But, for fun, here are some ideas. Flame away.

- To Kill A Mockingbird
- At least one pre-1900's Russian novel (translated) 
- At least one pre-1900's French novel (translated)
- At least one Charles Dickens.
- At least one Steinbeck
- At least one from the Beat Generation
- Gatsby, or something from the Lost Generation that is not Hemingway
- Something by Hemingway
- At least one novel by Jules Verne (does not count as a French novel) or HG Wells
- At least one novel by Agatha Christie
- Huckleberry Finn
- Something by Kurt Vonnegut
- The Lord Of The Rings
- Something by Toni Morrison
- One book by any of the Brontes, preferably Emily or Charlotte
- Moby Goddamn Dick
- At least one Stephen King novel
- At least one Sherlock Holmes novel
- At least one novel by one of the 'big three' science fiction authors
- Pride And Prejudice
- Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
- A short story collection, ideally Raymond Carver
- Some nineteen forties detective thing. Chandler or Hammett, something like that.
- A book of Grimms Fairy Tales


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## bdcharles (Sep 1, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Okay, good. So I guess my follow up question is how do you know what you like if you don't read outside of a niche? It's kind of a circular chicken-egg thing. I get the whole argument that there's no point in a romance author reading Moby Dick instead of Jackie Collins, I totally get that.
> 
> The problem is I just feel that people are way too quick to categorize themselves, or at the very least to align themselves with a certain 'type' of writing. I've definitely been guilty of that. And, I just don't know, really. Like, part of me is really glad that I read the entire Stephen King oeuvre through my twenties...but, like, it's fucking Stephen King, right? It's a lot of books written in a broadly similar fashion about broadly similar settings, classes of people, blah blah blah. But that was the natural result of 'sticking with what I found interesting'. I found Stephen King interesting, so I read Stephen King. I don't think it improved my writing as much as if I had engaged with a wider, more diverse field. And yeah, I think I would have probably benefit from some sort of direction so that it wasn't just an accident leading to a habit.
> 
> ...



I guess you can't easily find your niche if you don't experiment in your reading; ahem, expose yourself, as it were, to other things, even if it's via film adaptations. Just be open to opportunities. I agree that there should be a common canon, namely that of "literature" or "reading" or "books in general". For me that's certainly the case. But when one does find one's preferred area, or if one simply has a clear vision of what they want to do - they know their niche already - and if doesn't involve reading the classics, then doing so could be arguably nonproductive. Basically it's the technique versus emotion debate, head versus heart, and which you lead with. Both can work. Both do work. I would say it depends greatly on the writer and what their MO is, what works for them.

For me, the scales, the omelettes, are smaller nuggets - phrases here and there; SPaG - I am quite pernickety on grammar; appreciation of voice cobbled from a passage or quote. But I know - usually because I reread something and think "Ah, that's where that beloved expression I use every three pages comes from!" - that a lot of that will have come from teenage reading. 

Lol, here's me, a SFF reader, struggling to figure out who the big three sci-fi authors are? Asimov, Clarke and ... umm, Dick? Heinlein? Eek.


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## TheManx (Sep 1, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> Discernment about reading is fine. But my question would be: What are you basing your 'discernment' on? How do you know a book is worth reading unless you read it?
> 
> This is the thing I am confused by. You say if something doesn't hold your interest you don't read it. Okay, but _when_ do you make that judgment? After the first few sentences? Paragraphs? Pages? A quarter way through? Halfway through? Do you even pick it up, or do you go by the gist of what you understand the book to be about and make the decision?
> 
> It matters, because a lot of books (especially older ones) start off slowly and in ways that aren't familiar to modern eyes. I can probably understand and appreciate 'discernment' that happens a hundred pages in, I've put down some books myself at that point, but 'discernment' that happens within the first chapter, or before the book even starts? That isn't discernment. It's snap judgment. Bias.



 As for the older classics—I’ve read Dickens, Twain, Conrad. Could not get into Moby Dick and I didn’t finish it—maybe a third in. I thought Tess was just OK, but did not finish Jude the Obscure. Anna Karenina—barely made it through. I did not finish War and Peace, felt like slog. Did not finish Wuthering Heights. Read one Jane Austin novel—and it’s very unlikely I’ll ever read another. I tried to get into James Joyce—just couldn’t do it. Frankenstein—nope. I could on, but maybe you get the idea. And I rarely give up on a book up after a few pages—but I’ve done it, just based on the writing style. Generally, I do like to give things a chance. I've tried, but I don’t read any fantasy or science fiction, regardless of when it was written. Tried very hard to read Tolkien—I thought, there’s got to be something to this, but it bored me to tears.

   I have a strong affinity for American modernist literature (and somewhat beyond) — Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Eudora Welty etc. Faulkner to a lesser extent. I’ve pretty much picked that era clean and reread most of the novels and short stories—for example, I’ve read Cannery Row several times. I love O’Conner, Cheever and Raymond Carver. I’ve read Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter at least 3 times—and it literally makes me cry. If I had to pick, I’d say Carver is my favorite author. If I’m struggling with my writing, I can pull any one of these books off the shelves—not because I’m trying to directly emulate any of these authors, but they inspire me and lubricate my brain, so to speak. I honestly believe if I never read another book again, these novels and shorts would provide the necessary “learning” and inspiration for what I want to do. Of course, that won’t happen, because I love to read.

   I like a lot of other authors too—Phillip Roth, John Irving, Graham Greene, Gunter Grasse (The Tin Drum is one of my favorite books) and many, many more. But the further back I go, the less likely it is that I’m going to feel any connection to the stories—and therefore, the less I feel it will have any bearing on my writing. So given the restrictions of time, I’m going to read something more modern. Is that some kind of failure on my part? Does that make me less serious? I very much doubt it.

Maybe if I put down some dusty tome and then decided to give up "serious" reading altogether and just watch TV or read Dick Francis books—that would be lazy, although I do get a lot of inspiration from certain movies and from some of the more recent TV dramas. I also read and write a lot of poetry and in some ways that influences my writing as much as anything else.

   Maybe a better analogy for me is music. I play guitar and piano, I’ve played in bands, but currently, I’m writing and recording my own music. I went through a period where I was mostly inspired by the British blues players and blues based rock and roll. I thought I’d better go back and listen to the original blues players. Aside for Robert Johnson—just the sheer raw power and simplicity of it—I couldn’t really get into it. A lot of it seemed repetitive and boring. But fine—because Clapton, Jack Bruce, Jimmy Page and Peter Green etc. had done it for me…


  Hope that clears up any confusion.


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## Lee Messer (Sep 1, 2020)

Olly Buckle said:


> Not quite true. Rhyme was a continental habit that came to England with French and the Norman conquest. Anglo Saxon epic poetry like that used alliteration at set points in the line to the same purpose. We knew a good thing when we heard it though, and rhyme was quickly adopted into the common speech in folk songs and stories.



What he said... Folk Songs. Where did it come from? There were songs written by Sumerians about making beer I remember. That's around the beginning of written language. Even the Babylonians had songs about demons that rhymed.


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## Kyle R (Sep 1, 2020)

I think there's an issue of practicality, whenever any sort of recommended study is involved. Keep in mind that reading a book, and studying a book, are two different things, with different demands.

I'm all for increasing one's exposure to the craft, but time isn't infinite. If you’re a traditionally published author, once you begin working with a publisher, you're going to be asked to blurb upcoming novels from other authors in your publishing house. That means reading them. If you're writing short fiction, too, you're also going to be reading short fiction in your target markets, to see what your fellow slush-pile attendees are doing with the written word.

You're, of course, reading modern breakout novels in your genre, (not just out of interest, but also kind of a requirement), and you're also writing your novel(s), your short(s), hopefully for a few hours a day. Throw that all into a blender, combine it with your main source of income, your spouse/kids (which, arguably, should take first priority, unless you’re okay with relationship strife), some remaining time for your non-writing pursuits (all work and no play makes Jack a something-something), plus the time spent discussing/arguing on Writing Forums (because that’s, of course, a must ), and honestly, the time left for reading classic literature is very sparse, indeed. :grief:

It's still doable, sure, but a modern writer is going to naturally bristle whenever someone throws up a prescriptive list of what they should be reading, especially when it’s from the last century or earlier—the kind of writing that, while undeniably brilliant in its own regards, likely wouldn’t survive a modern slush pile.

In an ideal world, yes, I think knowledge of the classics is a no-brainer. You can’t build a strong house without a strong foundation. No arguments there. But in the real world, I’d probably encourage an auto mechanic to focus most of his time on modern engines, and to save his study of steam engines and the Model T for the hour or so that he usually spends watching Netflix.[FONT=&Verdana]
[/FONT]


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## Taylor (Sep 1, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> I think Monet was highly versed in the artists who came before him, yes. In fact, we know this, because his early work was extremely traditional. He didn't start out as an impressionist. To create something new, I think you _usually _have to have some understanding of the old. Not always, there are always exceptions, but broadly speaking.



Ok, "highly versed", but most of that study would have been in his early years.  He's not forcing himself to travel around the world for the rest of his career looking at the "classics." While I appreciate the comparison to visual arts, painting, I don't really think it's a fair comparison.  Looking at a painting, doesn't require the same level of cognition.   And at any rate, I'm sure Monet wouldn't have forced himself to look at what he thought was an ugly painting for a long period of time, just to learn something, or to prove he was a good painter.



luckyscars said:


> Regarding passion, it's not an either/or. To sustain a career, you have to be passionate, yes, otherwise you would probably lose your mind. But I mentioned the importance of understanding the 'big picture'. You can be passionate about literature (and you should be) and yet not expect or need to be passionate about every single thing that forms part of it, because some of it won't be your cup of tea.



Again, not sure you can compare fiction to nonfiction.  As a tax specialist, yes, I read a lot of boring stuff, had to. But that is more about content.  And technical literature is written in a certain style, that is designed to convey information.  You are reading for a different purpose.  So as you are reading you have a specific file in mind that needs to be solved, so yes, your interest level is high, it is your livelihood.  You certainly wouldn't spend your spare time reading about other areas outside your specialty, just to prove you were a good professional. 



luckyscars said:


> Good writing is about good reading and good reading is a skill. The skill may be driven by passion without being constantly passionate. A good writer should be able to read anything closely and deeply and with intellectual interest, whether it be War & Peace, Fifty Shades Of Grey, or the back of a cereal box, _because this is how we train. It is our job to know this stuff. _



I guess you would have to define what "good" is.  When it comes to the arts, that is still subjective.  Do you think everyone thought Picasso was a "good" painter at the time, or even now.   Ok, so I'm contradicting myself using painting as an example.  I can't think of a literary example for someone who is so purely a naturalist.  

But I think there is something to be said for a little thing called talent.  I wish I could bring Stephen King into this discussion, like Woody Allen did in the theatre lineup with Marshall McLuhan...ha ha!  But I wonder if once King got onto his winning formula, he forced himself to read things he didn't enjoy, just for the practice of reading.  



luckyscars said:


> To me, hearing writers complain about having to read boring books is like hearing apprentice morticians complain about having to embalm disfigured corpses. Like, okay, you didn't enjoy it. SO WHAT?
> 
> So what because our job is to engage with the material and learn from the experience. We can have whatever views we want about the experience after the fact, and we should, but not interacting with things due to finding them dull isn't a demonstration of passion but an act of puerility...
> 
> ...in my opinion.



I sort of see your point, but I think the piece that you are missing is the purpose.  What is the purpose for reading something?  It's not your job as a writer to read.  But if you need to read something for a specific purpose, then yes, you may have to force yourself a bit. 

I consider myself a writer, but I see no purpose to read Moby Dick.  So call me childish...lol!


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## TheManx (Sep 1, 2020)

I’d tried to use an analogy and I apologize. When it comes to writing, most of them are terrible.


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## TheManx (Sep 1, 2020)

And I’ve been in these conversations before. Very often, but not always, there is a kind of phony elitism involved. It’s revealed in the language, even if the people flogging these prescriptive reading lists don’t realize it...


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## Davi Mai (Sep 1, 2020)

I always feel guilty when I read threads like these and see the amount of reading that writers do. I wish I could read more, read faster, and have a longer concentration span :-(  As to classics - I've tried, but a lot of them are just soooo boring. I can't make it more than a few pages into them. I wonder if too many accolades have been piled on over the years? I mean in some cases the writing may be brilliantly constructed, but the story and characters can be frustrating to read. For example - I write (or try to write) "transgressive" stories. An oft-mentioned example of that very wide genre is "Lolita" by Nabokov. The subject matter doesn't bother me, and I suppose it's well written... but the main character is a complete bore!  He doesn't make a particularly good villain, nor hero. He whinges and whines and pontificates ad-nauseam.  The guy isn't even an interesting enough pedophile for us to hate. If I was up on charges I'd hire Nabokov as my lawyer, the jury would fall asleep and then acquit me so they could go home.

In saying that. I read a lot more when I was younger and had a sharper brain. Stephen King is solely responsible for getting me into reading. His stories give a lot of the classics a good old-fashioned slapping


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## Theglasshouse (Sep 1, 2020)

What about researching classics or obscure works that inspired some of the greatest writers in your genre? I don't know if its considered a classic but I do want to read the invasion of the body snatchers. I already read the island of doctor Monreau. But I never read childhood's end. I neither read the most influential alien works. I've yet to try it because of investing in improving my clarity when writing stories. I read one of the cyberpunk classics, I am still waiting for the opportunity to read Neuromancer. Some call this research. Due to how I invest money to improve how I write I haven't been able to yet. In addition to this next month I do want to sign up for new scientist which costs a lot for someone of my budget. So it's a wait and see approach I need before I can invest in these. But that's my tentative list. I will make the valiant attempt though to read some in my area of interest that belong to the genre I write in.


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## TheManx (Sep 1, 2020)

Davi Mai said:


> I always feel guilty when I read threads like these and see the amount of reading that writers do. I wish I could read more, read faster, and have a longer concentration span :-(  As to classics - I've tried, but a lot of them are just soooo boring. I can't make it more than a few pages into them. I wonder if too many accolades have been piled on over the years? I mean in some cases the writing may be brilliantly constructed, but the story and characters can be frustrating to read. For example - I write (or try to write) "transgressive" stories. An oft-mentioned example of that very wide genre is "Lolita" by Nabokov. The subject matter doesn't bother me, and I suppose it's well written... but the main character is a complete bore!  He doesn't make a particularly good villain, nor hero. He whinges and whines and pontificates ad-nauseam.  The guy isn't even an interesting enough pedophile for us to hate. If I was up on charges I'd hire Nabokov as my lawyer, the jury would fall asleep and then acquit me so they could go home.
> 
> In saying that. I read a lot more when I was younger and had a sharper brain. Stephen King is solely responsible for getting me into reading. His stories give a lot of the classics a good old-fashioned slapping



Don't feel guilty. To me, writing is mostly about a deep understanding of human nature. It’s about being astute. If you think on a certain level and have the capacity to tell a story — that’s enough — depending on your ability to put it down on the page in a good way. There are no requirements about how you should get there. If I tell you or imply you should read a certain thing, without any kind of context or real knowledge of what you’re trying to do — feel free to tell me I’m full of it.


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## Squalid Glass (Sep 1, 2020)

Lucky, I would add Hurston to your list. And probably some older work before the 19th century.


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## Olly Buckle (Sep 1, 2020)

Hey, Lucky! Put Rudyard Kipling's Kim in that list, and the afore mentioned Alice in Wonderland.


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## luckyscars (Sep 1, 2020)

Taylor said:


> I sort of see your point, but I think the piece that you are missing is the purpose.  What is the purpose for reading something?  It's not your job as a writer to read.  But if you need to read something for a specific purpose, then yes, you may have to force yourself a bit.
> 
> I consider myself a writer, but I see no purpose to read Moby Dick.  So call me childish...lol!



It is your job as a writer to read. It's the one thing that I believe almost everybody agrees about. All good writers are good readers. If you can find an example of a successful author who claims they don't read much, I would be super interested in hearing about them. 

How much one should read is possibly debatable, and I'm sure the degree of time one has for reading probably does fluctuate somewhat throughout a writer's life and career. But the overriding principle is the same. My point throughout this discussion has been simply that I think writers who read _more _and read _more diversely _tend to, all else being equal, do better than ones who do not. I'm not sure why that would be contentious.

The classics come into the discussion when we talk about diversity in reading material. The reason I suggest that even somebody who thinks they are a science fiction author should still read Alice In Wonderland isn't because Alice In Wonderland has a specific purpose itself, but because the idea is to read widely for the sake of reading widely, because it's simply better to load up your toolbox with a larger and more varied tools _just in case. 

_For example, Ray Bradbury is primarily known for his science fiction, but his work is littered with inspiration from classic novels and fairy tales, and that includes his science fiction work. So, even if Bradbury only ever wrote science fiction his whole life (he did not, but let's pretend he did) we can still see the 'purpose' in him being well-read outside of science fiction. His science fiction was helped by him being knowledgeable of books like Moby Dick and fairy tales as much as other science fiction. This isn't just a detail, either. It's part of what makes him brilliant. It's part of what makes him a serious force in literature and not just another genre hack recycling the same old tropes.

So, I think I reject the idea of purpose. At the very least, I reject the idea that a writer can be the best judge of purpose in a practical sense. I don't think we know what books will benefit us _before_ we read them. I think trying to crystal ball 'this is what I should be reading' is a mistake. I don't think we can possibly predict whether or not reading Moby Dick will significantly benefit us unless and until we read it.


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## Taylor (Sep 1, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> My point throughout this discussion has been simply that I think writers who read _more _and read _more diversely _tend to, all else being equal, do better than ones who do not. I'm not sure why that would be contentious.



I don't think that part was contentious. I think it was the point about forcing yourself to read something that was boring or of no interest to you, just because you are a writer, or it would be an "act of puerility".  

I will admit, I am way out of my depth here in this discussion, as I do not yet have any published fiction under my belt.  But I have been responsible for managing teams that generated revenue in various industries.  One thing that always intrigued me, was every once in a while, we would hire someone right out of university, and they would blow us away with their original ideas.  It was just pure talent.  It had nothing to do with what others did before them.  Maybe that is not the case with writing fiction...

Anyway, I can see that you are rock solid in your position, so I won't argue with you on this subject anymore.  Maybe...just maybe...you have opened the door to me even considering reading Moby Dick.  :friendly_wink:


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## TheManx (Sep 1, 2020)

This might be a time-saver:

[video=youtube;YU_J_lgmVsk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU_J_lgmVsk&amp;app=desktop[/video]


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## luckyscars (Sep 1, 2020)

Taylor said:


> I don't think that part was contentious. I think it was the point about forcing yourself to read something that was boring or of no interest to you, just because you are a writer, or it would be an "act of puerility".
> 
> I will admit, I am way out of my depth here in this discussion, as I do not yet have any published fiction under my belt.  But I have been responsible for managing teams that generated revenue in various industries.  One thing that always intrigued me, was every once in a while, we would hire someone right out of university, and they would blow us away with their original ideas.  It was just pure talent.  It had nothing to do with what others did before them.  Maybe that is not the case with writing fiction...
> 
> Anyway, I can see that you are rock solid in your position, so I won't argue with you on this subject anymore.  Maybe...just maybe...you have opened the door to me even considering reading Moby Dick.  :friendly_wink:



I think puerility is down to attitude, not actions. It's okay not to read something if the judgment comes from a place of honestly, sincerely believing it wont benefit you. Sometimes, occasionally, we can make that call. I have been reliably assured that Fifty Shades Of Grey isn't a very good novel. Since I'm also not trying to write those types of books, I feel okay with taking a pass on it. 

Classic novels are a bit different, in my opinion, because they are widely considered as being good and also good in a very unique way. That's why I kind of want to separate those from Random Book X. But even then, I can entertain that there will be the odd one that maybe just repulses us. And that's probably okay if it's the exception not the rule.

You are very correct that fresh ideas are important and I want to say I don't think any of what I am saying is contradicting of that, but if it sounds like it is...I just think that there's a happy medium between 'fresh perspective' and 'knowledgeable'. The guy you mentioned was at university, after all. And I am never as rock solid as I may sound, promise!


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## Twisted Head (Sep 1, 2020)

I wouldn't force anyone to read what they don't want to just because someone says, "It's what writers are supposed to do." Isn't it about time to write stories that you enjoy writing and what others could enjoy reading just by virtue of the story itself?


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## Theglasshouse (Sep 1, 2020)

I currently have Moby Dick downloaded. Hopefully it will be fun. Sometimes I have nothing worth doing apart from writing and browsing the forums. All my extended family lives in another town which is 2 hours away or outside the country. 

Does anyone here take notes as they read?

I think I will try before the day's end to compile notes on what impresses me. It's more than 800 pages which surprises me. Because I have never read something so long. I use something to read it as a pdf. Attention span isn't much of a problem since it is read out loud to me. 

Any special notes besides how a character behaves? I noticed the story opens up with all sort of quotes about whales. There is a grammar book this old man possesses, and he doesn't want to supposedly be reminded of his age. He seems obsessed with whales alright. The narrative hasn't begun and there is a quote with hamlet saying something about a whale in quotation marks. Also, he translated the word whale and compiled a list of translations across languages. Seems interesting so far.

This is before chapter 1 Before Ishamel's entrance (kind of a prologue what I mentioned before). He, Melville, hints at how dangerous sperm whales are of all the whales and sea creatures when enraged.


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## Turnbull (Sep 2, 2020)

Twisted Head said:


> I wouldn't force anyone to read what they don't want to just because someone says, "It's what writers are supposed to do." Isn't it about time to write stories that you enjoy writing and what others could enjoy reading just by virtue of the story itself?



Mainly, but then there's having to read something specifically for research purposes, like nonfiction works to enrich your stuff, or fiction works to help you get a sense of where a genre is nowadays.  Sometimes there is a legitimate obligation to read something you're not inclined to otherwise.

But yeah, I wouldn't say classics are part of that obligation automatically.


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## ppsage (Sep 2, 2020)

I personally don't really consider Moby Dick a novel but more a philosophical treatise slash travelogue in the manner of Thoreau (Merrimack or Cape Cod.) One which happens to include a rather elaborate morality play. There's a very good reading of it on YouTube.


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## TheManx (Sep 3, 2020)

But let's really examine this folks. Of course, we all know we can benefit from reading the classics. Duh!!! 

The only question is, which "classics" exactly and why? 

Inevitably, these conversations devolve into suggestions based on criteria that is entirely subjective. And there is the the ego factor involved too—as in, I made it through this, and you couldn't (or you rejected it for some reason I don't understand) —therefore you aren't serious! 

And the reality is, some people who don't give a darn about the classics are going to be successful and that might be hard to take. Oh well.

If these classics inform you, and your writing is better for it—fantastic! But don't pretend you have some sort of edge just because you've read certain books. And if you really believe that, well okay. But sometimes it's better just to think things instead of saying them out loud.


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## luckyscars (Sep 3, 2020)

TheManx said:


> But let's really examine this folks. Of course, we all know we can benefit from reading the classics. Duh!!!
> 
> The only question is, which "classics" exactly and why?
> 
> ...



I don't think there is much of a need to be extremely selective about one's reading. 

Based on an low-average reading speed of 200 words a minute, the average 80,000 word novel should take about 6 hours to read. Let's say we read slowly and not constantly, that would bring an 80,000 word novel to about 10-12 hours of total read time. Now, most people aren't going to spend that kind of time in one chunk -- most of us have jobs right? -- so let's call it 2 hours a day. 

2 hours of reading a day easily allow for a novel to be read weekly, or 52 different novels a year. If we agree to allocate it 50/50 between 'classics' and 'books we really like' that is about 25-26 classic novels a year. And, bear in mind, this is on the short end of what is possible. It is possible to read a novel in a day, and many people do.

There is of course some subjectivity on what a 'classic' book is, but Goodreads lists 234 books under it's 'classics must read' category. That means it is absolutely possible to read *all 234 within a decade based on a 2 hour daily commitment *and while simultaneously reading other books, too. 

But also, nobody is saying you need to read all 234. For example, those Goodreads 234 include a lot of Shakespeare plays, short story collections and epic poetry and while that might be a nice addition, I would personally find it more than understandable for a novelist to skip those in preference of their medium.

So, we're probably talking about, like, 150-180 actual classic novels here. That's 3-4 years of reading at 2 hours per day, every day. Something like that. 150-180 is probably sufficient for a broad understanding of the heritage of literature. I see no reason for speaking of this task like it needs to be a particularly daunting or troublesome feat.

 But, I also suspect most people who want to be writers don't bother reading for 2 hours a day. So maybe -- again -- the issue is with _writers _and not with _books. _I also think reading should be a daily thing for any writer and that 1-2 hours should be the bare minimum there. So, we may just disagree on the job description.


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## TheManx (Sep 3, 2020)

*OP: *

[FONT=&quot]Should modern writers bother reading “classic” books?

*Answer:*

Yes.[/FONT]


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## BornForBurning (Sep 3, 2020)

> Inevitably, these conversations devolve into suggestions based on criteria that is entirely subjective.


One wonders, if taste is so 'entirely subjective' that we can arrive at no meaningful consensus regarding its definition, why one would attempt reading, writing, and in general communicating with anyone besides ourselves. 



> But don't pretend you have some sort of edge just because you've read certain books. And if you really believe that, well okay. But sometimes it's better just to think things instead of saying them out loud.


The point, man, is that people probably _do _have an edge when they've read a wide variety of high-quality literature. I say this as someone who DOES NOT READ HIGH-QUALITY LITERATURE. But when I do, it opens my brain. Because it forces me to encounter language in ways I've never encountered it before. The fact that you are reading this thread as an exercise in ego is bewildering. It's literally just a suggestion on how to improve your craft.


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## TheManx (Sep 3, 2020)

BornForBurning said:


> One wonders, if taste is so 'entirely subjective' that we can arrive at no meaningful consensus regarding its definition, why one would attempt reading, writing, and in general communicating with anyone besides ourselves.
> 
> 
> The point, man, is that people probably _do _have an edge when they've read a wide variety of high-quality literature. I say this as someone who DOES NOT READ HIGH-QUALITY LITERATURE. But when I do, it opens my brain. Because it forces me to encounter language in ways I've never encountered it before. The fact that you are reading this thread as an exercise in ego is bewildering. It's literally just a suggestion on how to improve your craft.



See above.


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## Kyle R (Sep 4, 2020)

Thought experiment:

If we, as writers, could assign a point value to the benefits of reading classic literature, versus the benefits of reading modern literature, would we conclude that classic literature yields a higher point value than modern works? Equal, perhaps? Or lower? :-k

(Or is such a question not really answerable?)


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## TheManx (Sep 4, 2020)

Kyle R said:


> Thought experiment:
> 
> If we, as writers, could assign a point value to the benefits of reading classic literature, versus the benefits of reading modern literature, would we conclude that classic literature yields a higher point value than modern works? Equal, perhaps? Or lower? :-k
> 
> (Or is such a question not really answerable?)



Who knows? 

But think about how many James Patterson books you could read in the time it would take you to plow through all those "classics." 

And this is a guy who can do his own TV commercials. How great is THAT?


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## bazz cargo (Sep 4, 2020)

Youse killin me guys.
Read for pleasure. Read for mind expansion. See how the strings are pulled. Read a golden line and wish...I'd thought of that. Don't live in a box. What box? is your philosophy. You are a writer. Pick up the pen and cudgel the next story into line. Go on. Make something special. 





luckyscars said:


> Question is the title, pretty much. How important is it for a modern writer (of any genre) to have spent time reading at least a few classic novels?
> 
> Do you think a modern fantasy, science fiction or romance author stands to significantly benefit from reading something like Moby Dick or Huckleberry Finn in terms of their development? If so, why? If not, why not?
> 
> One listing of what constitutes a classic novel is here for reference: https://thegreatestbooks.org/


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## luckyscars (Sep 4, 2020)

Kyle R said:


> Thought experiment:
> 
> If we, as writers, could assign a point value to the benefits of reading classic literature, versus the benefits of reading modern literature, would we conclude that classic literature yields a higher point value than modern works? Equal, perhaps? Or lower? :-k
> 
> (Or is such a question not really answerable?)





TheManx said:


> Who knows?
> 
> But think about how many James Patterson books you could read in the time it would take you to plow through all those "classics."
> 
> And this is a guy who can do his own TV commercials. How great is THAT?



Leaving aside silly quibbles about the merits of Patterson, I would propose that reading a lot of books by a single author eventually leads to less and less benefit.

Look, any reading is better than no reading, so we can start from that premise. It's better to read twenty Patterson books than one Patterson book, which is better than zero books at all. So, I am not going to say that there's no merit to reading a lot of the same sort of book. There is. But I would posit that once you have read 19 Patterson books you probably aren't going to learn much by reading the 20th compared to if you read a different author. This same logic would apply with Dickens, to be clear. Reading 20 Dickens books and nothing else isn't necessarily a good idea anymore than reading 20 Patterson books is. 

So to answer the question, I think the types of books we reads matters as much as how many. As far as classic v. modern, I think optimally we would read a rich balance of both. But if you're going to make me choose as to whether a random classic novel is better than a random modern novel, I am going to weight a _slight advantage _to the classic. Very slight. Call it a .1% advantage.

Why?

Because the classics are all 'good books'. They may not all be equally good, some of them may be tedious or plain awful to us, but they are nevertheless classics for a reason. They have intrinsic worth by virtue of their worth to our society and culture. 

Modern books do not necessarily have that. There are plenty of really brilliant modern books, some as good or better than Dickens, that isn't the point. If we are assessing the cumulative quality of all classics v. all 2020's books, the classics win simply by virtue of time. 

Time eats that which can be easily forgotten. Bad literature is _usually_ forgettable literature. Ergo, _most_ surviving literature from the 1800's or whatever (not all, _most_) is good literature.


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## TheManx (Sep 4, 2020)

I wasn't being serious about the James Patterson books...


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## TheManx (Sep 4, 2020)

But check these out! They will impress your friends. Leather bound! A whole set of Classic books with that new car smell!

Plus, if you order right away, you'll get a second set absolutely free! (Just pay shipping and handling.)


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## TheManx (Sep 4, 2020)

Seriously, my point is, you don't really have to read the classics. You just have to own some of the books and place them strategically around your house. 

And of course, it doesn't _have_ to be just classics. I've had a copy of _Infinite Jest_ on my coffee table for about three years now.


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## Olly Buckle (Sep 5, 2020)

The things people do when a book goes out of copyright


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## Kyle R (Sep 5, 2020)

luckyscars said:


> There are plenty of really brilliant modern books, some as good or better than Dickens, that isn't the point. If we are assessing the cumulative quality of all classics v. all 2020's books, the classics win simply by virtue of time.
> 
> Time eats that which can be easily forgotten. Bad literature is _usually_ forgettable literature. Ergo, _most_ surviving literature from the 1800's or whatever (not all, _most_) is good literature.



I agree, though I'd go a step further and propose that the value of a classic is a mixture of merit and reverence. Merit, in the way you've described ("this book has stood the test of time"), absolutely . . . though also a matter of reverence ("this book was groundbreaking, for the time in which it was written, and let us not forget").

And I think the reverence factor should always be considered, and not overlooked.

The inevitable problem with any classic work is that it's going to show its age, not just in subject matter and style, but also in the matters of technique.

If we could cast aside modern works that, arguably, don't contain sufficient literary merit, and focus instead on modern authors who generally receive literary acclaim, I'd argue that the modern authors simply . . . write better, in most (if not all) measurable facets.

This, though, is one of those contentious claims that almost always leads to arguments, not just in the field of writing, but pretty much in any craft or pursuit. Though I believe that it's, for the most part, true.

Writing has advanced since the days of the classics (in my opinion, anyway). A book submitted for traditional publication encounters greater scrutiny, nowadays, and more ferocious editing, than our great books of yore. Given the same treatment that your average accepted manuscript receives today, most (if not all) of our classics would be slashed to ribbons by a modern editor's red pen (not just because of language style, but in the matters of pacing, conflict, characterization, etc ...)

I mean, yes, there's the whole commercial aspect of modern fiction that can't be ignored. And in that regard, I think the classics have the upper hand.

But if you could strip all identifying information from an acclaimed classic work, and an acclaimed modern work in the same vein, I'd bet money on the modern work doing it better, at the level of the craft.

I don't think this means that classic works should be dismissed, of course. I still think they have value and merit. There are a few that will always stick with me, even though they might not, on a technical level, impress a modern agent. (Perhaps that's saying something.)

And there are readers for whom some classic works will outshine _any_ modern work they'll ever encounter—so that, too, certainly can't be ignored.

But if we're talking purely about the level of the craft, well . . .


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## luckyscars (Sep 5, 2020)

Kyle R said:


> I agree, though I'd go a step further and propose that the value of a classic is a mixture of merit and reverence. Merit, in the way you've described ("this book has stood the test of time"), absolutely . . . though also a matter of reverence ("this book was groundbreaking, for the time in which it was written, and let us not forget").
> 
> And I think the reverence factor should always be considered, and not overlooked.
> 
> ...



I agree that modern writing is probably better to take stylistic cues from. I recently re-read Rebecca by Du Maurnier and while it is still a great book I was a little knocked by the pacing which is definitely a product of its time (and still nowhere near as bad as other classics) and there are lots of things I think would likely present a problem if emulated in a modern book. 

Another thing that's an enduring problem with classics is treatment of gender and sex. The racially problematic stuff has generally been filtered out of the current list of classic novels and for the most part rightly so, but the gender/sex stuff has generally survived. It's not that these books are necessarily misogynistic or anything (some of them are) but the way they portray female characters and things like marriage is another thing that would absolutely not fly nowadays. So there are some content issues, too.

The trouble with basing reading choice on relevance is it assumes the writer who is reading the books has an understanding of what is and is not relevant. When we start out, we don't tend to really know these things. The argument you are making is correct, but it's not an argument that a newer writer goes in with. It's one that has to kind of be figured out on one's own over time, right? "This works...this doesn't...this _could _work...etc"

The only solution to that seems to be to read both modern and classic. By diversifying the field we have the best, most unbiased tools with which to make these calls.

For me, there are three ways of doing this:

- Start out reading classics and progress to modern.
- Read both roughly 50/50, perhaps alternating between one 'classic' book then one current bestseller, throw in a genre piece here-or-there.
- Take casual glances at classics but otherwise ignore them while reading otherwise modern.

To me, option one is the best for those who start off younger. To consume classics at a younger age can condition the brain to a high level of literature early on _before _one picks up Stephen King or James Patterson or whatever. Having a mind trained in the classics could make reading modern books easier, trains patience, etc. Once one has read through most of the classics, you probably don't need to continue to return to them. Those books tend to stay with you.

Option two is a good option for those who already have 'books they like' and need/want to simply expand their chops. 

Option three I think is the worst option. I mean, it's better than nothing, but without concerted effort, some kind of structure, finding a classic novel that holds interest later in life is probably not going to work out.


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## TheManx (Sep 5, 2020)

“Begging the question.”

It’s not what most people think.


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## MikeDwight (Sep 7, 2020)

You can read Shakespeare from 1600 sure and that dazzling Moore in Romeo and Juliet, the question is who is your target audience, a troubled italian merchant family in the Republic of Venice in the 1400's, or a troubled italian merchant family in the trading port Republic of Venice in the 1400's that doesn't want to lose its daughter? You decide.


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