On hating the classics.

I wrote a few posts ago that my copy of Robinson Crusoe was awarded to my Grandfather in 1931 for "Good Progress". That was eighty one years ago, and I can tell you now, as of last night, I am the first person to complete it. How do I know? I've found that with old books, sometimes the pages haven't been cut properly, and sometimes, I think, the reason for their raggy edges is occasionally due to the reader having to tear along the top, bottom, or side of the pages that have been left joined in order to turn to the next page. In the second part of Robinson Crusoe, these pages had been left - I was the one to cut them. Assuming this was a new edition back in December 1931, this book has not been read in eighty one years, or even longer if it was second hand.

This morning, I began reading The Confessions by Jean-Jacues Rousseu, which I said in the last post is a book I wish I hadn't challenged myself to read. Fifty pages in, and I think I made a very big mistake avoiding it all this time. I don't want to say any more - fifty out of over six hundred pages is hardly great progress, but so far I love it. I've put some quotes on my Tumblr, but this is the one I particularly want everyone to see -

My mother had possessed some novels, and my father and I began to read them after supper. At first it was only to give me some practise in reading. But soon my interest in this entertaining literature became so strong that we read by turns continuously, and spent whole nights so engaged. For we could never leave off till the end of the book. Sometimes my father would say with shame as we heard the morning larks: “Come, let us go to bed. I am more of a child than you are.

I don't remember what the first classic book I read was, one I read by choice I mean, not for school. Do any of you? I wonder perhaps if it was Jane Eyre, but I have no solid reason for thinking that. It may also have been a Turgenev (my mum recommended it, I know that wouldn't be a very obvious choice for a first), though I don't know if it was On the Eve or Home of the Gentry. A very strong possibility is Pride and Prejudice: I was thirteen when the BBC mini series was first shown in 1995 and I enjoyed it so much I went on to reading the book (I never realised until this point - this is quite a revelation - Jane Austen introduced me to the classics! I take it all back!). Yes, I do believe it was Pride and Prejudice, because I can't see my even younger self deliberately seeking out the classics, and I was only thirteen at the time. Peter Pan, The Secret Garden, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz were books I read as an adult, although I do remember reading my collection of Beatrix Potter books as a small child. The difference is, however, I didn't know they were classics. They were books so I read them.

I know why I read the classics now, but I don't know why more people don't. I was looking at some posts, some articles, and a few discussion threads on Goodreads to find out, and the general consensus is that they are boring and hard.

George has no respect for the classics.

What is hard about a classic? Well, pre-20th Century classics are difficult. I daresay for most of you reading this, we can agree that it at least isn't that hard, but that is because we're used to it now, we're familiar with the language, the style, and some of the terms (an example I can think of is "warm tempered" - initially, I thought "warm" would mean pleasant, however know I know it means there is an argument brewing!). When I began reading Clarissa, sitting outside the Royal Bank of Scotland at the end of September last year, I remember sadly thinking, "Oh Lord". I think it was the first 18th Century novel I had read, and for days I struggled, but somewhere along the line I got used to it. One simply just adapts. There are still a few pre-20th Century novels that take me a little getting into, the sentences are longer, more broken by commas, and the flow is so much different (I saw someone write that Dickens got paid by the word and it showed: Dickens was not paid by the word, that is myth). But that is all it is: different. Another way, the old way, of writing and soon enough one gets the hang of it, and later wonders exactly what was so tricky. 

Classics may often seem hard too because of their depth: so many of them capture the complexity of the every day life; relationships, money, family, everything you can think of (though, perhaps not the heart breaking moments when Tumblr is down for maintenance). They remain relevant because some of these themes are universal, however their context may not (which, at times, adds further light somehow). Others are very specific to the time, however they tell us about that bygone time and may be used as a historical document. They are still worthwhile, and they are far from boring on the whole. But some are, and I don't believe for a second that those who dismiss the classics as boring read and enjoy every single contemporary book that they come across. Classics have stood the test of time for generations, and spoken to millions of people for decades, even centuries, even a millennium or two, but that is not a guarantee for enjoyment. Robinson Crusoe, arguably one of the first novels in the English language, has entertained so many, however I was itching to finish it. I didn't hate it, but it became a chore. For that reason, it is difficult to talk of "the classics" as they are often radically different, and because there are so many, one can't say "I hate classics", if the reasons given for that is that they are boring. There are far too many of them to make that judgement.

Because of this, I am still at a loss as to why people who enjoy reading would dismiss the whole of the western canon as boring and hard. Everyone has heard someone say, "I don't read, I have better things to do", and indeed they may have, but if you have time for reading, exactly why not read some of the classics? As I say, I have written before about how much I love reading the classics, but I was rather preaching to the choir. I think one of these days I'll do an objective post, find out why so many hate the classics and refute each and every point! It's sad to me that people would be so dismissive.

Updated to add: Having finished this post, I went to join the budgies and read Confessions by St. Augustine. This quote, I think, offers a very important reason why some dislike the classics:

Why then did I hate the Greek classics, which have the like tales? For Homer also curiously wove the like fictions, and is most sweetly-vain, yet was he bitter to my boyish taste. And si i suppose would Virgil be to Grecian children, when forced to learn him as I was Homer. Difficulty, in truth, the difficulty of a foreign tongue, dashed, as it were, with gall all the sweetness of Grecian fable. For not one word of it did I understand, and to make me understand I was urged vehemently with cruel threats and punishments. Time was also, (as an infant,) I knew no Latin; but this I learned without fear of suffereing, by mere observation, amid the caresses of my nursery and jests of my friends, smiling and supportively encouraging me. This I learned without any pressure of punishment to urge me on, for my heart urged me to give birth to its conceptions, which I could only do by learning words not those who taught, but of those who talked with me; in whose ears also I gave birth to the thoughts, whatever I conceived. No doubt, then, that a free curiosity has more force in our learning these things, than a frightful enforcement.
Confessions of St. Augustine, Book I: XIV.