r/classicliterature

I was wondering what is people’s accompanying music choice, if any, when reading.

For example, during Orwell’s “1984”, I listened to ”The Wall” album from Pink Floyd on repeat. For older english literature, e.g. Dracula, I like Rachmaninoff a lot, while I usually go for relevant music soundtracks when reading sci-fi (The latest odyssey one is a particularly nice one).

p.s. Not sure if this is on-topic, I apologise if not.

EDIT: wow so many comments! It seems people are split about it, which I guess says how different people like different things. Hope you all keep enjoying reading in any way and form you do!

I just finished The Stranger and was looking into some more of his works. What should be the next story of his that I should read? Any recommendations would be appreciated.

I'm also likely going to read more Kafka, since I read Metamorphosis. I will also start reading Dostoyevsky.

I thought about posting this in r/moralityscaling, but they have a rule against posting real people, and maybe this sub is more familiar with Wodehouse, anyway.

So after Paris fell during World War II Wodehouse - British humorist and author of the Jeeves stories - and other British men in France at the time, were imprisoned as enemy aliens. After a period of being schlepped around to various internment camps Wodehouse was offered, and accepted, the deal that Louis Zamperini turns down in Unbroken; he was put up in a Berlin hotel and made radio broadcasts at the behest of the Germans.

He did not praise or defend Hitler or Germany; he made light jokes about his circumstances and assured people he was alright. However, when you get right down to it, the broadcasts wouldn't have happened if the nazis didn't feel they were helping their cause in some way or another. The response in Britain was explosive; his career there was damaged irrevocably for the rest of his life.

What do we make of this, today? Undeniably Wodehouse was given a chance to do something heroic and did not take it. Did he have an obligation to? Wodehouse is my "desert island" author but as I reflect on his writings I can't help but think how spectacularly, ehm, "not-'bout-that-life" he seems to me. He wasn't built for those circumstances.

I guess the reason this story is on my mind is that I fear the choice he made was deeply immoral, and that I would make the same choice in his place, lol

This book genuinely changed me into a better person. I love it so much that recently I was in a bookstore looking for the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and I had to ask for help finding where Victor Hugo's books were so a kind bookstore lady help me. She reached for the book, and also another, and held up the Hunchback and Les Misérables and said, "Here's another we have by Victor Hugo, if you were interested." I told her that I had already read Les Misérables, that it was actually my favourite book of all time, and she asked me what I like about it. I physically started shaking as I rambled on semi-incoherently and I think I scared her a little and my face got really hot. In the end I really don't think I said anything at all, because I got so nervous, and now I'm ashamed of that incident. Whenever my friends mention anything that remind me of Les Misérables, I feel like a pop bottle that got shaken up. The lid is my mouth, and if I open it I will explode.

I have only read it in it's entirety once, as it is massive, and I read it a year and a half ago for the first time. I spent nearly ten months with it on my bedside table, and almost every night I'd open it up and read random bits.

Okay I wrote a review on it for a grade 12 assignment so here's a part of it, to convince you to read it:

Les Misérables is humanity as Victor Hugo saw it lived out on the streets of France sewn together into one lengthy, semi-historical epic. Everything beautiful and soft there is about different types of love, and the more cruel, merciless aspects of society. In fact, the novel argues that “of all the things that God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds the most light, alas! And the most darkness” (Hugo 875). Never does this novel lack passion for human emotion and expression... Valjean’s redemption is not treated as something unachievable, but rather as something even the most discontented person can realize through a practice of compassion for others, especially towards those fellow men who society puts down and crushes with hunger, poverty and misfortune. The novel critiques the scornful attitude society generally has towards those it considers ‘less than’ by offering a protagonist completely devoted to serving anyone but himself.

GUYS PLEASE READ IT IM GONNA START SHAKING AGAIN ITS SO GOOD PLEASE

okay thanks for listening with patience everybody, have a great day! Let me know if you feel this way about another book, and why. I'd love to know I'm not the only coocoo one around here

Hey everyone!

While on my drive back from Slovenia, I was listening to a great podcast about Dostoevsky. I have been curious about his work for a while, but I have decided to bump him up my TBR.

While I’m probably not the first person to ask this, my question is: in which language should I read his work? I’m a native Dutch speaker, but I’m also an English teacher, and I’m weirdly enough not really used to reading literature in my native language (although I do want to change that).

I’m curious to hear your thoughts, and maybe some Dutch residents on this subreddit could offer some advice about what they did?

Thanks!

1866: Dostoevsky had signed a predatory contract: deliver a new novel by November 1st, or lose the rights to EVERYTHING he'd ever written — and everything he'd ever write — for nine years, for free. He had one month. He hired a 20-year-old stenographer, dictated the whole book in 26 days, and made the deadline.

The book was The Gambler. About a man addicted to roulette who can't stop betting everything he has.

The stenographer became his wife. And he kept gambling in real life until he'd nearly ruined them both.

He literally wrote a book about addiction while gambling his entire career against a deadline. Is that irony or prophecy?

There are so many artists who are known as generation-defining for works they did when they were below the age of 40 that captured the zeitgeist.

Are there any who managed to capture the zeitgeist when they were above the age of 60?

I know its a long book. But I'm curious how long I should expect to be reading it for.

So for the people here who already finished it, how long did it take you to read War and Peace?