Thank you, thank you, thank you! I feel seen. I co-host a literary fiction group and I feel a bit of a fraud, I feel uncomfortable when they all start chatting about classics, because I haven’t read them and honestly have no great desire to. Contemporary literary fiction is what I love, and life’s too short to read anything I don’t enjoy. Thank you for this. Hope you’re enjoying James - I loved it, but by far my favourite Everett’s are Erasure and The Trees. I am definitely going to get All the Colors of the Dark.
It’s part on the London Writers’ Salon - my friend (& editor!) and I co-host it together. We have a book club zoom meet up every second month and have a group page on the LWS circle platform. Some of the group are litfic writers, some readers. We just love a good chat about the genre. Everett is my favourite author at the moment. Erasure is soooooo brilliant. I would say James isn’t the best of his, as good as it is, so do try Erasure or The Trees. He’s a prolific writer and really interesting guy (lecturer, owns a ranch…) I am a massive fangirl! I will let you know about All the Colors of the Dark - I was trying to hold out for paperback!
That sounds so cool! How wonderful. I love readers championing literary fiction (though I read a Substack piece yesterday saying literary fiction isn't real lol).
I just requested Erasure and The Trees from the library! I watched American Fiction on an airplane last spring and was obsessed with it, so I know I'll love Erasure. He owns a ranch?? I can understand your fangirldom and I might be right there with you soon! 🫶🏽
If you loved American Fiction, you will adore it - we did a book club on it and they couldn’t shut me up! As writers too, the extra layers to it - I find it the kind of literature that’s aspirational. He was a horse trainer and that would be my dream life! 🥰 His interviews are really interesting - he is so self-deprecating. Excited for you to read more! I’ll be waiting to hear.
I AM SO EXCITED. There’s no wait at the library. If there was, I’d just go buy it! Thanks Kay, it’s been lovely chatting with you this morning! Great way to start the day.
Thank you for writing this, Kolina! I happen to enjoy some classics, but for a long time I avoided most of them, and I still need to push myself to read some of the books (I am, like you, also not reading War and Peace this year, though I might read Middlemarch). I fully agree that contemporary literature is extremely valuable and we need to give them just as much respect. Today's classics were also once contemporary!
What a brilliant reminder!! If you read Middlemarch, I trust you’ll share your thoughts! Thank you for reading and for sharing. I’m glad to find so many friends who can relate!
Great post! I think it's important to understand that read a classic doesn't just stop with reading. It's understanding the historical context that brings it to life. I love Austen, but my understanding of her novels has been enhanced by learning more and more about the Regency era.
The Regency era is something I know very little about! I do have a bff who can hardly go through a happy hour without talking about Henry IIIX though (and I love her for it) so it's something I could manage learning. I think I could have a much greater appreciation if I did a little studying and learned the context. Kind of related, I have an affinity for Italy, so Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels are absolutely everything to me. And they take place in Naples in the 50s, a time period in Italy I have studied. I get what you're saying! I think I'm overwhelmed by learning that historical context. The same for Shakespeare!
Love this! I am learning to appreciate the classics, but I'm still more in your camp of reading. I think, too, there's an element that surrounds classics that's sort of like "These are Good Books™️, and if you don't like them, you obviously didn't get it." They feel very set in stone as far as their interpretation goes. I know that I personally feel intimidated discussing classics I've read, since I feel I need to know all the deep symbolism and themes, otherwise if I say I didn't like it very much, someone will come back at me with everything I missed. But what I'm trying to get at is— we can still criticize classics! We can still read them and not like them and that doesn't make us dumb! This is really just me defending my dislike of Crime and Punishment, but I think that's a big part of my avoiding classics at times. That said, there's others I have absolutely loved and kicked myself for waiting so long to read. Great piece, Kolina!
That's exactly how I feel: If you don't like them, you obviously don't get it. I guess I don't get it??? So you dislike Crime and Punishment, what are some of the classics you've absolutely loved? I think for me I literally just don't understand some of the context, and if I read more from those settings I would understand it better. But there are SO many books I want to read and think deeply about, so I'm not sure it makes sense for me to spend it on a classic I'm not enjoying. I will say, reading Pride and Prejudice is a good exercise for me. Who knows, maybe I'll be a changed woman when I finish 🥹
I recently read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and enjoyed it so much. It didn’t feel like a burden to read and I was surprised at how exciting and fun it was. Among my favorites are Lolita, The Sun Also Rises, and Lord of the Flies.
I have Rebecca on hold from the library! Should get it soon. See, these classics are much more approachable to me. I've read Lolita and The Sun Also Rises and enjoyed both. A classic I LOVED was The Remains of the Day. So it's not that I don't like classics at all, I just have a hard time with the ancient ones! 🤣
I’m with you. In my early 20s, I was on a real Henry James kick. Like, total fan girl. A few years ago, I picked up What Maisy Knew and couldn’t get past the first pages. I did read Jane Eyre and enjoyed it. Just finished two Danzy Senna books - Colored Television and Caucasia. She’s wonderful. Themes are both current and timeless. A novelist’s novelist.
OH MY GOODNESS. I know nothing about her but I would love to have coffee with them too! I just requested both her books you mentioned from the library 🫶🏽
Last month, my book club read The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, about the unlikely friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune. The book highlights their role in fighting military discrimination, a timely topic with the 2025 executive orders targeting BIPOC history. While it was a relief to see the U.S. Air Force reinstate footage of the Tuskegee Airmen and WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots) in training, it was disappointing to see DEI initiatives removed. I still remember that photo taken in 1941 of Mrs. Roosevelt with a Tuskegee pilot after a flight—an image of solidarity.
Oh wow! That sounds so interesting! Back in 2020 I had the opportunity to spend some time with a Tuskegee airman. He was wonderful and had a beautiful (and heartbreaking) story. I’m going to look into that book, thank you!
I feel the same way about some contemporary literature. I am, admittedly, a committed fan of Austen, and I listen to other classics on Audible to be part of the conversation, but I find myself DNFing a lot of particular literary fiction; Cleo and Frank, for example, made me very uncomfortable and I DNF’d about half way through. I often feel a little embarrassed admitting that but I think a lot of people aren’t into the classics and that’s 100% ok. Life is too short to read books we don’t enjoy :)
I love how different our preferences are! I loved Cleo + Frank and, as you read, am not dying over Pride & Prejudice (though I admit, I am enjoying it a bit). It’s totally okay that you don’t love some literary fiction! There’s some I don’t love either, even though it’s my favorite genre to read.
Totally agree: life’s too short to read books we don’t enjoy!
I’m a voracious reader, yet I’ve never read the classics. In high school (a long time ago!) I had poor reading comprehension skills and gravitates towards writing & composition to fulfill my English requirements. I think I missed reading many books by this academic path, and now I often contemplate whether I should read Austen, or Tolstoy, or even Shakespeare? I enjoy reading what I want to read, participating (and leading) bookclubs, but I don’t know if I need to backtrack into unfamiliar literary territory to make myself “better read”. Thoughts?
I don't think I've ever read Shakespeare! I think maybe in high school English I did, but I have no memory of it. And to pick it up right now would feel like homework, and not in a good way! (I love school, give me all the homework. I think that's why I like doing the read-along with Haley, because it feels like school!)
I think you're doing exactly what you should be doing. You read what you want and you engage in discourse about the books. There is absolutely no need for you to read the classics unless it's to understand something. And maybe that day will come when you want to, but for now I think you're doing it perfectly!
"Reading is deeply personal; it’s just that it is so often made public. So while the reading trends can be seductive, they may not always be in your best interest." I loved that sentiment, Kolina. As "Bookstackers," we make reading public, but reading is one of the most intensely personal acts I can think of. Maybe some people believe the classics are more high-brow reading. They aren't. In fact, at one time, the classics were just contemporary literature. A lot of the classics don't appeal to me either. No way would I join along in reading War and Peace, and I'm still trying to discern what this fascination specifically with Dostoevsky is. There are some classics that I love but most are a slog for me (I just made myself read The Winter of Our Discontent by Steinbeck and it was a slog until about the last fourth of the book. I will say in the end, it was worth it, so if you can slog through Jane Austen, you'll hopefully feel it was worth it in some respect even if it's just to tell everyone who loves it that you didn't love it.;))
Reading Jane Austen doesn't feel like a slog so much as an interruption from my regular reading, which is currently James and I am loving it. I love the notion that the classics were once contemporary! Doesn't it make you wonder what people felt about the books back when they came out? I do feel like it was worth it to read Anna Karenina, even though it was a slog and it took me all year. I'm glad I have at least SOME comprehension of the discourse right now, even if it's just to say I didn't love it (as you said) 🤣
I put off reading Jane Eyre forever, but I finally felt like I needed to know what the fuss was about, so I actually ordered an illustrated edition, and that was fun. And in the end, I wound up liking it. But like you said about Jane Austen - it was like an interruption to what I really wanted to read.
I love what you said about giving contemporary literature the same respect as the classics. While I do like Jane Austen and have devoured a lot of her books, I can’t say the same for other classics. Books like Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, etc. don’t light me up in the same way and seem daunting. (Although I did like Anna Katerina.) I haven’t tried Middlemarch and I’m not sure if I will. It doesn’t scream “hell yeah let’s read that next” right now. There are way too many books on my TBR that I need to get too!
That's my problem too: too many good books to read! I'm enjoying Pride and Prejudice and I'm glad I'm reading it (I'm learning and expanding, which is always good) but I can't say it's easy breezy and fun for me. That said, I don't think all reading should be easy breezy and fun either. Anyway - it's good to know I am not alone when I say I don't really feel like reading Crime and Punishment or Middlemarch right now!
As someone who reads a lot of classics, I adore this essay. There are definitely classics I love, but the reason I read classics is not to FIND books I love. I read them because I'm fascinated by exploring the books that have shaped the literary conversation. I enjoy thinking about how authors today are reacting to/inspired by/pushing back against the canon. While I love seeing the classics take over Substack, I do think there can be a tendency to fetishize them--or worse, to see a sense of almost moral and aesthetic superiority develop around reading classics instead of contemporary books. My best pieces of advice for anyone who wants to read the classics, but don't feel particularly drawn to them are to have a clear sense of why you want to read a particular book and to start in a genre you tend to enjoy. It sounds like you're doing just that and more with Haley's read along!
I think it's great that you read the classics to see how they've shaped today's literary conversation. And bonus for the rest of us: you write about it and share all of your learnings with us! I, too, think it's so cool that people are reading the classics. Those who say reading is dead are obviously extremely ignorant and likely arrogant. I do see the fetishization and I'm not in love with it. What I think the "issue" is, if there is one, is people reading the books they think they need to read so they can be a part of that aesthetic. Life is too short for that! That's great advice, thank you so much for all of this!
Thank you for this post! I put off a lot of reading because I need a ton of a context and annotation to get anything out of the received classics. For example, the Folger Shakespeare editions with all the annotation on the opposite page, reveal how much I’m missing.
When I was in college, context and annotation were the opposite approach to reading the received classics - they wanted you to just read / “plow through the text." So, I tried quite unsuccessfully to read P&P.
I remember when the P&V translation of Anna Karenina came out in the mid-00’s and AK was like Middlemarch - super trendy in a difficult time. However, I didn’t get/finish AK because that culture is so cut off from anything I’ve experienced.
In January I read Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, Seasonal Associate by Heike Gessler,
How I Became One of the Invisible by David Rattray, and Best American Short Stories 2022.
Currently I’m reading I’m Torpor by Chris Kraus and Best American Short Stories 2024. Torpor is
about an US odd couple who travel to Eastern Europe after the fall of communism in 1991.
So, I'm keeping one foot in Europe and one foot in the States. Only in my reading can I have such optionality!
Dave, this is amazing! You're reading so many different things, and what a privilege it is to have one foot in Europe and one in the US! That's what's so wonderful about reading. Plowing through the text is, for me, impossible with some of those classics! Half the time while reading Anna Karenina I either didn't know what I was reading, or I spaced out because my brain was numb -- and therefore still didn't know what I was reading.
Now I think context and annotation are so helpful, but only if you genuinely want to do it. Which I do! Just not with War & Peace (not today anyway).
Hundred percent agree with all of this! Also makes me think about what we collectively decided is "high brow" versus "low brow", which to me means we're categorizing art by what it might say about the reader/viewer's intellectual tastes or aspirations which to me as a reader or viewer or art doesn't matter at all. I love Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 and Justin Bieber's song Sorry and neither of those preferences can or should tell me or anyone else anything about my identity or what I aspire to, I just like how each of them make me feel, I like how the artists chose to use the tools of their craft to create something meaningful (yes even the line "I'm not tryna just get you back on me / 'cause I'm missing more than just your body" 😆). Some ppl use their reading of the canon (as well as their taste in all sorts of things) as a way to construct their ego and imo they're welcome to but whenever I spot what I suspect is that kind of behavior I can't help but think, dude we're not in high school anymore
Okay yes!! I should have had you collab on that post with me because this is such a good extension of what I was trying to get at! Particularly the Bieber lyrics 🤣
It's almost like posturing and I see it everywhere. That said, I also see many people here on Substack writing about these classics and I genuinely trust and believe them when they say they love them. It's easy to tell the difference I think.
Yes!! Totally! That's so true, you can just tell when someone is reading / writing / talking about a piece of art from a place of curiosity or love versus posturing. What a delighted amd clever young woman you've turned out to be, me and your uncle are very proud
My Substack comments to you are getting more deranged by the say, veering towards Weird Auntie on Facebook territory 😆 You know the one that comments on your professional posts with something off topic and low key deranged and then signs of witj "Lots of love to you from me and Uncle Jim and the rest of us here in Akron, see you at Thanksgiving xxxxx"
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I feel seen. I co-host a literary fiction group and I feel a bit of a fraud, I feel uncomfortable when they all start chatting about classics, because I haven’t read them and honestly have no great desire to. Contemporary literary fiction is what I love, and life’s too short to read anything I don’t enjoy. Thank you for this. Hope you’re enjoying James - I loved it, but by far my favourite Everett’s are Erasure and The Trees. I am definitely going to get All the Colors of the Dark.
Hi Kay! Tell me more about your literary fiction group -- sounds amazing! Contemporary literary fiction is my favorite too 🥹
I am LOVING James! Brilliant. I haven't read anything by Everett so this is my first foray! Let me know what you think of All the Colors of the Dark!
It’s part on the London Writers’ Salon - my friend (& editor!) and I co-host it together. We have a book club zoom meet up every second month and have a group page on the LWS circle platform. Some of the group are litfic writers, some readers. We just love a good chat about the genre. Everett is my favourite author at the moment. Erasure is soooooo brilliant. I would say James isn’t the best of his, as good as it is, so do try Erasure or The Trees. He’s a prolific writer and really interesting guy (lecturer, owns a ranch…) I am a massive fangirl! I will let you know about All the Colors of the Dark - I was trying to hold out for paperback!
That sounds so cool! How wonderful. I love readers championing literary fiction (though I read a Substack piece yesterday saying literary fiction isn't real lol).
I just requested Erasure and The Trees from the library! I watched American Fiction on an airplane last spring and was obsessed with it, so I know I'll love Erasure. He owns a ranch?? I can understand your fangirldom and I might be right there with you soon! 🫶🏽
If you loved American Fiction, you will adore it - we did a book club on it and they couldn’t shut me up! As writers too, the extra layers to it - I find it the kind of literature that’s aspirational. He was a horse trainer and that would be my dream life! 🥰 His interviews are really interesting - he is so self-deprecating. Excited for you to read more! I’ll be waiting to hear.
I AM SO EXCITED. There’s no wait at the library. If there was, I’d just go buy it! Thanks Kay, it’s been lovely chatting with you this morning! Great way to start the day.
Exciting!! Lovely to chat with you too!!
Thank you for writing this, Kolina! I happen to enjoy some classics, but for a long time I avoided most of them, and I still need to push myself to read some of the books (I am, like you, also not reading War and Peace this year, though I might read Middlemarch). I fully agree that contemporary literature is extremely valuable and we need to give them just as much respect. Today's classics were also once contemporary!
Today’s classics were once contemporary.
What a brilliant reminder!! If you read Middlemarch, I trust you’ll share your thoughts! Thank you for reading and for sharing. I’m glad to find so many friends who can relate!
Great post! I think it's important to understand that read a classic doesn't just stop with reading. It's understanding the historical context that brings it to life. I love Austen, but my understanding of her novels has been enhanced by learning more and more about the Regency era.
The Regency era is something I know very little about! I do have a bff who can hardly go through a happy hour without talking about Henry IIIX though (and I love her for it) so it's something I could manage learning. I think I could have a much greater appreciation if I did a little studying and learned the context. Kind of related, I have an affinity for Italy, so Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels are absolutely everything to me. And they take place in Naples in the 50s, a time period in Italy I have studied. I get what you're saying! I think I'm overwhelmed by learning that historical context. The same for Shakespeare!
Love this! I am learning to appreciate the classics, but I'm still more in your camp of reading. I think, too, there's an element that surrounds classics that's sort of like "These are Good Books™️, and if you don't like them, you obviously didn't get it." They feel very set in stone as far as their interpretation goes. I know that I personally feel intimidated discussing classics I've read, since I feel I need to know all the deep symbolism and themes, otherwise if I say I didn't like it very much, someone will come back at me with everything I missed. But what I'm trying to get at is— we can still criticize classics! We can still read them and not like them and that doesn't make us dumb! This is really just me defending my dislike of Crime and Punishment, but I think that's a big part of my avoiding classics at times. That said, there's others I have absolutely loved and kicked myself for waiting so long to read. Great piece, Kolina!
That's exactly how I feel: If you don't like them, you obviously don't get it. I guess I don't get it??? So you dislike Crime and Punishment, what are some of the classics you've absolutely loved? I think for me I literally just don't understand some of the context, and if I read more from those settings I would understand it better. But there are SO many books I want to read and think deeply about, so I'm not sure it makes sense for me to spend it on a classic I'm not enjoying. I will say, reading Pride and Prejudice is a good exercise for me. Who knows, maybe I'll be a changed woman when I finish 🥹
Thanks for the note EJ!
I recently read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and enjoyed it so much. It didn’t feel like a burden to read and I was surprised at how exciting and fun it was. Among my favorites are Lolita, The Sun Also Rises, and Lord of the Flies.
I have Rebecca on hold from the library! Should get it soon. See, these classics are much more approachable to me. I've read Lolita and The Sun Also Rises and enjoyed both. A classic I LOVED was The Remains of the Day. So it's not that I don't like classics at all, I just have a hard time with the ancient ones! 🤣
hahahah i totally get u!
I’m with you. In my early 20s, I was on a real Henry James kick. Like, total fan girl. A few years ago, I picked up What Maisy Knew and couldn’t get past the first pages. I did read Jane Eyre and enjoyed it. Just finished two Danzy Senna books - Colored Television and Caucasia. She’s wonderful. Themes are both current and timeless. A novelist’s novelist.
A novelist's novelist -- I love that! I haven't read either Colored Television or Caucasia. Looking them up now!
I am so glad I'm not alone here 🥹
She's Percival Everett's wife and every bit his equal. I'd love to have coffee with them. . . .
OH MY GOODNESS. I know nothing about her but I would love to have coffee with them too! I just requested both her books you mentioned from the library 🫶🏽
Enjoy!!
Really love this essay, I feel the same about so much.
Aww I am so glad! Kindred spirits!
Fabulous writing! Congratulations 🙌🏼
Thank you!!
thank you for reading Madwoman!! This means so much to me.
I loved it so much! Beautifully written! I couldn’t put it down. 🥰
Last month, my book club read The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, about the unlikely friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune. The book highlights their role in fighting military discrimination, a timely topic with the 2025 executive orders targeting BIPOC history. While it was a relief to see the U.S. Air Force reinstate footage of the Tuskegee Airmen and WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots) in training, it was disappointing to see DEI initiatives removed. I still remember that photo taken in 1941 of Mrs. Roosevelt with a Tuskegee pilot after a flight—an image of solidarity.
Oh wow! That sounds so interesting! Back in 2020 I had the opportunity to spend some time with a Tuskegee airman. He was wonderful and had a beautiful (and heartbreaking) story. I’m going to look into that book, thank you!
I feel the same way about some contemporary literature. I am, admittedly, a committed fan of Austen, and I listen to other classics on Audible to be part of the conversation, but I find myself DNFing a lot of particular literary fiction; Cleo and Frank, for example, made me very uncomfortable and I DNF’d about half way through. I often feel a little embarrassed admitting that but I think a lot of people aren’t into the classics and that’s 100% ok. Life is too short to read books we don’t enjoy :)
I love how different our preferences are! I loved Cleo + Frank and, as you read, am not dying over Pride & Prejudice (though I admit, I am enjoying it a bit). It’s totally okay that you don’t love some literary fiction! There’s some I don’t love either, even though it’s my favorite genre to read.
Totally agree: life’s too short to read books we don’t enjoy!
I’m a voracious reader, yet I’ve never read the classics. In high school (a long time ago!) I had poor reading comprehension skills and gravitates towards writing & composition to fulfill my English requirements. I think I missed reading many books by this academic path, and now I often contemplate whether I should read Austen, or Tolstoy, or even Shakespeare? I enjoy reading what I want to read, participating (and leading) bookclubs, but I don’t know if I need to backtrack into unfamiliar literary territory to make myself “better read”. Thoughts?
I don't think I've ever read Shakespeare! I think maybe in high school English I did, but I have no memory of it. And to pick it up right now would feel like homework, and not in a good way! (I love school, give me all the homework. I think that's why I like doing the read-along with Haley, because it feels like school!)
I think you're doing exactly what you should be doing. You read what you want and you engage in discourse about the books. There is absolutely no need for you to read the classics unless it's to understand something. And maybe that day will come when you want to, but for now I think you're doing it perfectly!
"Reading is deeply personal; it’s just that it is so often made public. So while the reading trends can be seductive, they may not always be in your best interest." I loved that sentiment, Kolina. As "Bookstackers," we make reading public, but reading is one of the most intensely personal acts I can think of. Maybe some people believe the classics are more high-brow reading. They aren't. In fact, at one time, the classics were just contemporary literature. A lot of the classics don't appeal to me either. No way would I join along in reading War and Peace, and I'm still trying to discern what this fascination specifically with Dostoevsky is. There are some classics that I love but most are a slog for me (I just made myself read The Winter of Our Discontent by Steinbeck and it was a slog until about the last fourth of the book. I will say in the end, it was worth it, so if you can slog through Jane Austen, you'll hopefully feel it was worth it in some respect even if it's just to tell everyone who loves it that you didn't love it.;))
Reading Jane Austen doesn't feel like a slog so much as an interruption from my regular reading, which is currently James and I am loving it. I love the notion that the classics were once contemporary! Doesn't it make you wonder what people felt about the books back when they came out? I do feel like it was worth it to read Anna Karenina, even though it was a slog and it took me all year. I'm glad I have at least SOME comprehension of the discourse right now, even if it's just to say I didn't love it (as you said) 🤣
I put off reading Jane Eyre forever, but I finally felt like I needed to know what the fuss was about, so I actually ordered an illustrated edition, and that was fun. And in the end, I wound up liking it. But like you said about Jane Austen - it was like an interruption to what I really wanted to read.
Ooh I love that idea! It hadn't occurred to me to find an illustrated version. My kids would eventually like that too (maybe).
I love what you said about giving contemporary literature the same respect as the classics. While I do like Jane Austen and have devoured a lot of her books, I can’t say the same for other classics. Books like Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, etc. don’t light me up in the same way and seem daunting. (Although I did like Anna Katerina.) I haven’t tried Middlemarch and I’m not sure if I will. It doesn’t scream “hell yeah let’s read that next” right now. There are way too many books on my TBR that I need to get too!
That's my problem too: too many good books to read! I'm enjoying Pride and Prejudice and I'm glad I'm reading it (I'm learning and expanding, which is always good) but I can't say it's easy breezy and fun for me. That said, I don't think all reading should be easy breezy and fun either. Anyway - it's good to know I am not alone when I say I don't really feel like reading Crime and Punishment or Middlemarch right now!
As someone who reads a lot of classics, I adore this essay. There are definitely classics I love, but the reason I read classics is not to FIND books I love. I read them because I'm fascinated by exploring the books that have shaped the literary conversation. I enjoy thinking about how authors today are reacting to/inspired by/pushing back against the canon. While I love seeing the classics take over Substack, I do think there can be a tendency to fetishize them--or worse, to see a sense of almost moral and aesthetic superiority develop around reading classics instead of contemporary books. My best pieces of advice for anyone who wants to read the classics, but don't feel particularly drawn to them are to have a clear sense of why you want to read a particular book and to start in a genre you tend to enjoy. It sounds like you're doing just that and more with Haley's read along!
I think it's great that you read the classics to see how they've shaped today's literary conversation. And bonus for the rest of us: you write about it and share all of your learnings with us! I, too, think it's so cool that people are reading the classics. Those who say reading is dead are obviously extremely ignorant and likely arrogant. I do see the fetishization and I'm not in love with it. What I think the "issue" is, if there is one, is people reading the books they think they need to read so they can be a part of that aesthetic. Life is too short for that! That's great advice, thank you so much for all of this!
Thank you for this post! I put off a lot of reading because I need a ton of a context and annotation to get anything out of the received classics. For example, the Folger Shakespeare editions with all the annotation on the opposite page, reveal how much I’m missing.
When I was in college, context and annotation were the opposite approach to reading the received classics - they wanted you to just read / “plow through the text." So, I tried quite unsuccessfully to read P&P.
I remember when the P&V translation of Anna Karenina came out in the mid-00’s and AK was like Middlemarch - super trendy in a difficult time. However, I didn’t get/finish AK because that culture is so cut off from anything I’ve experienced.
In January I read Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, Seasonal Associate by Heike Gessler,
How I Became One of the Invisible by David Rattray, and Best American Short Stories 2022.
Currently I’m reading I’m Torpor by Chris Kraus and Best American Short Stories 2024. Torpor is
about an US odd couple who travel to Eastern Europe after the fall of communism in 1991.
So, I'm keeping one foot in Europe and one foot in the States. Only in my reading can I have such optionality!
Dave, this is amazing! You're reading so many different things, and what a privilege it is to have one foot in Europe and one in the US! That's what's so wonderful about reading. Plowing through the text is, for me, impossible with some of those classics! Half the time while reading Anna Karenina I either didn't know what I was reading, or I spaced out because my brain was numb -- and therefore still didn't know what I was reading.
Now I think context and annotation are so helpful, but only if you genuinely want to do it. Which I do! Just not with War & Peace (not today anyway).
Thanks for reading!
Hundred percent agree with all of this! Also makes me think about what we collectively decided is "high brow" versus "low brow", which to me means we're categorizing art by what it might say about the reader/viewer's intellectual tastes or aspirations which to me as a reader or viewer or art doesn't matter at all. I love Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 and Justin Bieber's song Sorry and neither of those preferences can or should tell me or anyone else anything about my identity or what I aspire to, I just like how each of them make me feel, I like how the artists chose to use the tools of their craft to create something meaningful (yes even the line "I'm not tryna just get you back on me / 'cause I'm missing more than just your body" 😆). Some ppl use their reading of the canon (as well as their taste in all sorts of things) as a way to construct their ego and imo they're welcome to but whenever I spot what I suspect is that kind of behavior I can't help but think, dude we're not in high school anymore
Okay yes!! I should have had you collab on that post with me because this is such a good extension of what I was trying to get at! Particularly the Bieber lyrics 🤣
It's almost like posturing and I see it everywhere. That said, I also see many people here on Substack writing about these classics and I genuinely trust and believe them when they say they love them. It's easy to tell the difference I think.
See you at Easter Auntie Marge! 💝💝💝
Yes!! Totally! That's so true, you can just tell when someone is reading / writing / talking about a piece of art from a place of curiosity or love versus posturing. What a delighted amd clever young woman you've turned out to be, me and your uncle are very proud
🤣🤣🤣
My Substack comments to you are getting more deranged by the say, veering towards Weird Auntie on Facebook territory 😆 You know the one that comments on your professional posts with something off topic and low key deranged and then signs of witj "Lots of love to you from me and Uncle Jim and the rest of us here in Akron, see you at Thanksgiving xxxxx"
☠️☠️☠️ I am laughing out loud