Why is it that so many people are turned off by the classics? Is it because would-be readers are afraid they won’t “get it?” Or does reading a well-known tome on the subway or in a cafe exude an air of pretentiousness, when it’s more likely that the reader just never followed through on that English lit assignment?In talking about his latest book, Classics for Pleasure, the Pulitzer Prize winning critic, Michael Dirda, said he not only hopes to make the classics appear less daunting and more accessible to the general public, but he also wants to “encourage people to read more widely.”Dirda, a columnist for The Washington Post’s Book World, said his goal is to get people to “read beyond the recognized classics and read beyond the contemporary.” He made his remarks Tuesday during a lecture, co-sponsored by the English-Speaking Union, at the Women’s National Democratic Club in Washington, D.C.Classics for Pleasure consists of about 90 essays, written by Dirda, that describe the importance of lesser-known authors such as Sheridan Le Fanu and Abolqasem Ferdowsi as well as literary giants like Henry James and Christopher Marlowe.Each essay, ranging from two to five pages, serves as a primer on the era and author, with excerpts from famous works. They also offer some much-needed perspective, even for the seasoned reader, and are grouped together with topical headings such as Realms of Adventure, The Dark Side and Love’s Mysteries.But why should these classics, or any others for that matter, deserve a kind of sacred reverence?”Truly distinctive voices, once heard, ought never to be forgotten,” Dirda writes. “More than anything else, great books speak to us of our own very real feelings and failings, of our all-too-human daydreams and confusions.”From Dirda’s point of view, some of those failings and confusions are commonplace on the Web, perpetrated by those who dabble in his trade. He said that while “blogs and the online bookish universe are a wonderful thing… there are no oversights for the most part,” meaning no editorial review like the kind he gets from The Washington Post.He went on to say that some online book critics have a tendency to make a name for themselves by writing “vulgar, rude, outrageous” reviews, and such pieces should not be the standard for literary criticism.While that eventuality seems unlikely, Dirda’s nonetheless uses the book to re-establish his high bar for criticism while drawing in readers to “discover” the classics of yesteryear. One is certainly easier to achieve than the other.See Also: Classifying Classics; Nothing is Dead Yet: The Era of the Trusted Fellow Reader; Literature and History
My Birthday: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon
When I graduated the first time: Margaret A. Salinger's Dream Catcher
Second Graduation: Difficult to tell because he quit recording the month.
I found it interesting to see what he read while I was fighting in Iraq. I read what ever I could get my hands on, which was usually a book a person found on their bookshelf– dusty, dogeared, and unwanted– and placed into an office or church care package. Most FOBs had a stack of these books for trade. I traveled around so I would take a book from one location and trade it at the next FOB. This helped a twenty to thirty book library rotate its inventory. Art and I both ended up reading the Da Vinci Code around the same time. (A soldier I knew received it for Christmas.) None of the other books were the same. (Note: Shackleton's Valiant Voyage a book I picked up at FOB Tiger and left at FOB Byers, is great. I didn't see it on Art's list, but I didn't look though all 40 years.)
Oh man, I suddenly feel really old, apparently he didn't know how to read when I was born! I also feel lazy and unorganized, not only have I not read that many books, I forgot to write them all down! He was reading "Childhood's End" when I graduated from HS, which would make me…:-)