Teh best classics

Postby **Aletheia Dolorosa** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:03 am

I really want to read The Age of Innocence. I, shamefully, have only seen the film.

HopeToBeWill1 · Postby **HopeToBeWill1** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 1:06 pm

Loads. I'm only 13! But most of the first books I read were classics. Things like Huck Finn! (Is he the writer?) Famous 5, Secret 7, Chocolat, Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Bronte, and many, MANY, more.

Mockingbird · Postby **Mockingbird** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 4:08 pm

Things like Huck Finn! (Is he the writer?)

No.

I really want to read The Age of Innocence. I, shamefully, have only seen the film.

You have to, Ronni, it's sooo awesome, better than the movie. It's all about Old New York. It's fun to read about all these streets that I know so well, which were so different back then when they were filled with all these ridiculous rich people.

Postby **Aletheia Dolorosa** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:34 am

I know. What made me want to read it, actually, was a long review of a biography of Edith Wharton, written in the New Yorker. It just set out the links between Wharton's writing and her life really nicely, and wrote that when Wharton was writing, she was already writing about a time that had passed. She was a relic of a bygone era, and that fascinated me. Unfortunately, though, I must focus on my review books at the moment because I'm really behind.

When I get a few seconds to myself, though, I'll definitely read The Age of Innocence , and probably the Wharton biography too.

AUST · Postby **AUST** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:54 pm

Loads. I'm only 13! But most of the first books I read were classics. Things like Huck Finn! (Is he the writer?) Famous 5, Secret 7, Chocolat, Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Bronte, and many, MANY, more.

Pritty impressive list really for 13-I was still reading modern books at that point (Though you could class them as classics)

Huck Finn is the character not the book.

HopeToBeWill1 · Postby **HopeToBeWill1** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 7:36 pm

Heh, thanks! i was out of Oxford Reading Tree by Year 1!
I haven't read Huck Finn in a while though. I also like the adventures of Tom Sawnyer!

Darragh · Postby **Darragh** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 3:27 am

Huck Finn

Golden spoonism material!

AUST · Postby **AUST** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 9:01 pm

Heh, thanks! i was out of Oxford Reading Tree by Year 1!
I haven't read Huck Finn in a while though. I also like the adventures of Tom Sawnyer!

Not my sort of thing to be honest-very mineal. I always prefered Historical Fiction or Sci-Fi/Fantasy by that age.

cassingtonscholar · Postby **cassingtonscholar** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 2:39 am

I've recently bought a copy of Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. Is it any good? Is is worth reading? Did I totally waste my money?

And I don't know if this counts as a classic, but Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is really good. I just finished reading it and I loved it.

Thing_of_Things · Postby **Thing_of_Things** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 2:49 am

A forum of Pullman fans has yet to mention Milton??? Paradise Lost is awesome! Beyond that... Tao Te Ching, The Iliad, the Odyssey, Euripides' Bacchae, the Oedipus Cycle (ALL OF IT!), the Orestia, Plato's Apology, Ovid's Metamorphoses... I'm sure I'm still missing stuff...

As for more recent books that may be called classics, both Verne and Welles are fantastic.

If Tolkien doesn't count I suppose Herbert doesn't either...

Postby **Aletheia Dolorosa** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 6:03 am

A forum of Pullman fans has yet to mention Milton??? Paradise Lost is awesome! Beyond that... Tao Te Ching, The Iliad, the Odyssey, Euripides' Bacchae, the Oedipus Cycle (ALL OF IT!), the Orestia, Plato's Apology, Ovid's Metamorphoses...

Of course Paradise Lost. That goes without saying. I like some of his other stuff as well - L'Allegro and Il Penserosso (sp?), which are companion poems about the relative values of active or contemplative life. Comus is also very good. I did a class in English last year that was just on Milton, and it was fantastic. The lecturer hadn't heard of His Dark Materials - he has now!

I haven't read much Greek stuff, but I did read Oedipus (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Columnus and Antigone) and The Odyssey in high school and I liked them.

In general, though, I prefer medieval stuff, especially early medieval Irish literature.

Postby **Jaya** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 4:25 pm

I haven't read much Greek stuff either. The Odyssey and The Iliad were...okay. Aeschylus' Agamemnon was pretty awesome. Haven't read anything else as far as I can remember. And I've not reread any of them, either. Hmm.

Mockingbird · Postby **Mockingbird** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 7:43 pm

The Iliad, the Odyssey, Euripides' Bacchae, the Oedipus Cycle (ALL OF IT!), the Orestia, Plato's Apology, Ovid's Metamorphoses... I'm sure I'm still missing stuff...

If Tolkien doesn't count I suppose Herbert doesn't either... Confused

I was kidding about that. Tolkien counts if he counts for you.

I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to define classics. I figured everyone could pick their own criteria. I wasn't including anything before the 15th century or too far into the 20th century in my list.

I liked all of those, minus Apology, which I haven't read. I liked The Odyssey and Agamemnon out of The Orestia the best. Nice pun on your name by the way.

But I was never really in love with classical literature or medieval literature.

Postby **Aletheia Dolorosa** » Tue Jul 10, 2007 3:40 am

I wasn't including anything before the 15th century or too far into the 20th century in my list.

But then all my list goes down the drain! Almost all the classics I read were written some time between the 7th and 14th centuries.

*feels medieval*

Postby **Jaya** » Tue Jul 10, 2007 2:36 pm

CHAUCER!

We can just stick to our own interpretations of the term 'classics'.

Harry Potter.

Mockingbird · Postby **Mockingbird** » Tue Jul 10, 2007 7:24 pm

But then all my list goes down the drain! Almost all the classics I read were written some time between the 7th and 14th centuries.

I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to define classics. I figured everyone could pick their own criteria.

I've read enough classical works to know I don't care for it overmuch but I haven't really read enough medieval stuff to form an opinion. Can someone give me suggestions? Chaucer is a given, I suppose...

Laura · Postby **Laura** » Tue Jul 10, 2007 11:38 pm

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a good starting point, and while I like the Morte D'Arthur, I'd rather be reading TH White's adaptation, or Mary Stewart's. Spencer's The Faerie Queene is good (and long), especially if you like a good adventure that thinly veils religious allegory.

Chaucer is wonderful stuff--so funny and even now still poignant.

And you must read The Tain! You must! (of course I might just be biased because my copy was sold to me by a very cute guy with a table full of discount books in Dublin

)

Mockingbird · Postby **Mockingbird** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:13 am

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a good starting point, and while I like the Morte D'Arthur

I've read them both, I wasn't impressed.

I loved T.H.White's version.

Postby **Aletheia Dolorosa** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:57 am

The Tain!

Someone else who's read the TÃ¡in!
Another good mediÃ¦val book is Buile Suibhne - The Frenzy of Sweeny. It's about this guy who gets cursed and runs off to live in the forest and eats a whole lot of watercress.

I would add my support to the chorus of voices praising Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Morte D'Arthur. (and yes, the T.H. White version is better).Beowulf is cool, as is some of the Anglo-Saxon poetry (The Wanderer, The Seafarer, the Dream of the Rood). I quite like mediÃ¦val literature.

Laura · Postby **Laura** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 5:38 pm

I am such a Beowulf fangirl. I had an absolutely brilliant professor for Medieval Lit, who taught me to well, love Medieval lit! She passed away late january (

), so I feel extremely happy to have been taught by her.

And The Tain is just so awesome. I mean, warp spasms, invincible spears...it doesn't get much better.

Teh best classics

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