Why are the Classics... Kind of Boring?

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I don't do much in the way of reading fiction, but when I do, I try to read a classic. My thinking is that the reason why they are classics is because they are considered very good books. What I'm finding out, however, is that most classics are considered classics for something other than the storyline. Which is disappointing, to say the least.

The latest example of this occured this past week, when I decided to read A Tale of Two Cities. I had never read this particular book, or anything by Charles Dickens. While I can admire his flowing lines, his detailed descriptions, and overall vocabulary use, I found the storyline itself to be... somewhat lacking.

I'm not really sure why this happens. One theory I have, is that the reason certain types of storylines have become cliche is because many writers of more recent times have copied the literary styles of the past great writers. (For example, I find nearly all of Shakespeare to be horrifically cliche.) Maybe, if I had read Dickens 150 years ago, I would not have thought it to be cliche at all.

What are others thoughts on this?

 

Ye heathen gods, man! Ok, put down the Dickens and back away slowly. I've got a torch here and we can scare it away with that.

Seriously, Charles Dickens is, in my opinion, one of the worst writers of all time. Yes, he's flowery, yes he's poetic, but he never gets to the point! I believe it was in that very book that I read a full-page paragraph, the entire purpose of which was to say the woman was blonde. I kid you not. You have to remember that Dickens (and many authors of the time) wrote in serial, which means they were paid either by the word or the page, and the longer the story went, the more they were paid.

Basically, they are to classic literature what Dragon Ball Z is to classic anime: a cheap trick that everyone's seen so it's considered 'popular'.

If you want to read some good classics, I'd go for the authors who wrote on their own dime, like Marry Shelly (Frankenstein's Monster), Sir Arthor Conan Doyle (Lost World), Jules Verne (Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, etc.), and the like. Ok, so I'm a sci-fi/fantasy fan and I don't know who would be their equivalent in mystery or the like, but my general point stands.

 

Depends on the book.

I find the descriptions in Hemmingway incredible, but his dialog sucked -- so I read his books with the least dialog. I've liked everything I've every read of Steinbeck. Mark Twain doesn't seem to lose anything over time even though it's dated. I found Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books to be really fun to read (hack and slash at its most basic). Frankenstein is an amazing book, but Dracula can be a bit slow at times (just the style of writing). Arthur Conan Doyle always kept me guessing and is certainly as good as any modern mystery novel (but I've only read Sherlock Holmes). I could even get through a few chapters of Crime and Punishment -- the writing style was too long winded (perhaps I had a poor translation).

I like classics, but I also need to be in the right mood for them.

 

This has always been a pet peeve of mine. A tale of two cities was very relevant and important when Engalnd and France were always at war. In other words, it is basically useless to today's readers. Without having a working knowledge of the period that the book was written makes it almost incomprehensible.

I have always thought that this is a problem with books that get the "classic" title. To take it one step further I've been concerned for years that the schools are doing nothing but turning people away from reading. Reading should be a passion. Being forced to read things that do not appeal to you will never help someone to develop that passion. I'm in my 40s and have a teenage son. My wife and I have worked hard to develop a love of reading in him. However, there is a marked difference in how he reads a book that he is assigned and how he reads one that he picks out. I have discussed this with my peers many times and it astounds me how few of my peers actually read for pleasure. One guy I work with claims he hasn't read a book since college.

 

Hmmm... Now that is an interesting point. I assume that by "working knowledge" you mean that you have actually studied the time frame in some depth? I imagine that most people are at least somewhat familiar with the history of England and France during the timeframe of the book, which is approximately the 1770s-1790s. Not only were England and France at war, but England had to deal with the American Revolution, and the climax of the book takes place during the French Revolution. Even we ignorant Americans have some knowledge of major historical events that don't directly involve us (speaking of the French Revolution - we obviously were involved in the American Revolution.)

 

Aldeth - Ah, the "great English novel." Dickens is still one of the most beloved writers, even for those who read largely for his entertainment, rather than literary value. For instance, my wife loves Dickens and she has read most of his major works: Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and probably a few more. But she "gets" Victorian Literature. There is something about the themes, the characters, their situations, especially the social and family situations, and its historical background, that really strikes a chord with her. She also likes Emily and Charlotte Bronte, William Thackery, George Elliot and Anthony Trollope. Again, a lot of the same literary themes are at work with these writers, much like Jane Austen, who's the major per-cursor to the Victorian novelist. And on the American side she also likes Edith Warton and Henry James.

Me, not so much. The Victorians aren't my thing, unless it's Oscar Wilde. The guy was just brillant. I had to read some of the Victorians in college, and I liked it for what it was and I certainly understand why some people would like it, especially the social satire of Dickens or Thackery. They are well-crafted books, but they tend to be "dense" in style, as has been pointed out. Different writers apply their craft according to the general psyche of the period in which they find themselves. People didn't have cable TV or a 24 hour news cycle with its random bytes of information. They had their books instead, which have a particulaly expansive quality in both its scale and prose and the stories unfold with a slow grandeur for which some readers today may not have the patience. I guess there is an "art" to reading as well as writing.

 

Dickens was paid by the word. That contibuted greatly to his verbosity.

Some classics hit the mark for me beautifully -- I loved Great Expectations and David Copperfield. I loved Middlemarch. I loved Frankenstein and Dracula. I even enjoyed the Moonstone, though it isn't quite as popular today as it was back in the day.

I could list several classics that I hated, though. I think that one thing that hasn't changed is that different books resonate with different sorts of people (or people at different stages of their lives). That's the same for classics as it is for modern works.

The other thing, though, is that many of the older books were written before movies and television. people took more time to read and thus the level of description and setup was higher. Today, we don't want to wade through al that crap -- we want to action to start NOW!

 

Actually, there's a lot to be said for not giving all that detail. Just look at Edgar Allen Poe's stories. There's a reason that they can't be effectively made into plays or movies, and it's because those methods of communication HAVE to portray things. Poe's greatest genius was in just laying enough seeds of terror in the writing without describing things in detail, thus the reader fills in the details with their own greatest fears.

 

There's a fine balance to be struck when it comes to detail -- too much and you bore your reader. Too little and when the language or culture shifts and people can't relate to what few seeds you dropped, the work cannot be understood by readers and ends up losing popularity.

I think that any story with insightful observations about human nature can be enjoyed by thoughtful readers even if the times have changed. The behaviours of the idjits in "A Tale of Two Cities" can be observed in many people today, where today's patriots are tomorrow's traitors.

But you know, some great books just don't resonate with some readers. I hated Fahrenheit 451 even though I loved the theme behind it. I just found the writing so abstract and ungrounded that I couldn't relate to the characters. The insights were profound. The writing, . . . . failed to move me.

The same can be said for the writings of C.S. Lewis. As a Christian I love his desire to project Christian values, ideas, and doctrines in his writings. But his writing style leaves me cold. I barely made it through "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." Snoresville.

 

Really? Would you say the same about _All Quiet on the Western Front_, or _The Red Badge of Courage_?

BTW, A Tale of Two Cities is really set in during the French Revolution. The Wars between England and France have only a marginal place n the story.

Here is more help for you regarding a Tale of Two Cities:

Some of these themes are fairly typical of the Victorians in general: "the worsening poverty of those at the bottom of the social structure, and the impact of industrialisation and urbanisation."

One could apply these themes (and many have) to 20th Century America as well.

Rubbish. Perhaps you can explain the whole problem with the "classic title." What would you put in place of The Odyssey, Macbeth, The Canterbury Tales, or the Scarlet Letter? I would really be interested to know.



http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=45&EventId=611

 

I don't think we can generalise about this topic. Some 'classic' books are great, some are rubbish. Same goes for 'classic' music and 'classic' movies. There's no accounting for taste.

My personal two cents:
- I loved 'David Copperfield' (the transition in the point of view of the narrator throughout the story is brilliant) and 'Nicholas Nickleby' but hated 'Oliver Twist' (Oliver is such a lamo) so I can't even make a generalisation about Charles Dickens.
- 'Dracula' comes across as the most cliche-ridden horror story ever, but that is all in retrospect, because it seems that almost of all of the modern horror crutches came from that book.
- 'Les Miserables' is an enormous book but it is pure genius from start to finish. Wordy does not always equal boring and pointless.
- 'The Count of Monte Cristo' is action-packed and suspenseful, the ultimate revenge tale.
- 'Robinson Crusoe' is actually so old that it is quite difficult to follow the language used, but old stories like this provide an incredible insight into the way people thought several centuries ago.
- I can't make head nor tail of what happens in 'Wuthering Heights'. I have never been able to get into all those girly classics.

 

Putting the 'classic' header in front of anything is the permission to look other people down their noses and start some serious snobbery.

For instance, if you don't understand classic literature, you're stupid, boorish scum, not worth the silk I wipe my bottom with, it would be better if you could never spawn anymore of the likes of the ignorant low-brow sub-human that you are.

 

In all honestly I never really enjoyed what most people term "classic" literature, with things like Wuthering (spelling?) Heights boring me to tears.

Maybe I just cant relate to any of the characters...

 

"Classic literature" is a marketing term - you can blame the capitalists. In literary studies anything "classical" refers mostly to Greek or Roman texts, not Dickens, or even Shakespeare.

 

We live in a different era. We've got fast-paced movies, TV, video games. 150 years ago I imagine life was a bit slower and spending a few hours a night easing your way through a 700 page novel by candle light was pretty entertaining. I mean, what else were you going to do? Go out and milk the cows? Play croquet?

 

My opinion of classics is divided on one side I am thinking that the books we view as timeless classics now were the Stephen King of their day except more boring. I have started countless and finished very few. I found "Crime and Punishment" to be very good and not very hard to read I also found some entertainment in "Great Expectations" but never really got into the other Dickens. Wilde as has been stated is very good but overall I find a lot more enjoyment and intellectual challenge in many modern genre books. Reading 500 pages of boredom for a few thought provoking sentences just don't cut it for me.

 

Classic literature can be difficult in that sense, because it has changed/taken form over so long a period of time. For instance, the Odyssey, one of my favorite "classics," was really crafted as a poem, which was read a loud and not written down as a "book" in its own time. Even though now Homer's story iis widley read as a book, and still sort of like a poem, that no longer rhymes, unless you read it in archaic Greek. Another of mine, Macbeth, was a play, although the story itself predates Shakespeare as a "history." We can still see it as a play, a movie, on TV or we can just read the "book." The Canterbury Tales is a different problem, because it too was a "poem," which no longer rhymes as well, but it's really a story but a "frame narrative" - a story within a story. But we tend to read it as one book, or as a collection of short stories, which is to my mind the least satisfying. Whether or not these writers were the "Steven Kings" of their times is hard to say. Nevertheless, I'm sure they were popular.

 

Lord knows no one reads 700 page novels these days.

 

I'd consider the word 'classic' to be applied to those books which are found worthy of intellectual study at colleges over a prolonged period of time. A book isn't debated for over 200 years on the grounds that "it's a fun read." It goes much further than that, it probably focuses on use of language, symbolism, social commentary, influence on other writers, etc. Think of the films that sweep the critics awards versus those that you actually watch and enjoy. There's some overlap but they're hardly a perfect match.

Now many of these books would have been deemed entertaining at some stage (they likely would have faded into obscurity if not) but with changing tastes the appeal might not be the same. A full Shakesperean play will typically be four to six hours if acted out, not something modern audiences would tolerate. A lot of Shakespeare's plays end unhappily, in a bloodbath, while most modern pieces will end happily because that's what audiences want. Pulp Fiction, a modern classic, has a distorted time line as one of its main features. Quarantino said a major reason for this was it allowed an unhappy ending chronologically whilst still leaving the audience feeling happy at the end of the movie because the last scene played is a happy one with the dead characters still alive.

To get why a lot of these books are considered classics I think most people would need a set of notes explaining it beside them. That takes a fair bit of commitment and doesn't make for light reading.

 

You've obviously never read George R.R. Martin