r/classicliterature

Hi everyone, I'm new to reading classics. I've just started Crime and Punishment, and I really like it! This makes me wanna read all of Dostoevsky. But after reading Dostoevsky, who are the next best authors to read? For context, I still don't have the stamina for works like Dante or Milton.

I tried to read ulysses about a year ago. Prior to reading, I heard that it was an extremely challenging book and only smart people actually enjoy it while everyone else who praises the book is just a snob.
I read the first chapter, didn't understand it, and then gave up.
A couple months later, I started boxing and it lowkey made me a little retarded.
I picked up ulysses again, and just completely understood it.

I think the reason Ulysses is challenging for most people is because they are trying to analyze it, and over-interpret every line. But the stream of conscious is associative and messy, and to understand it you have to just sit there like a monkey absorbing the book. Over time (it typically hits me about 5 pages after), you'll naturally understand the patterns, the underlying connections between each stream of thought, and resonate with the characters. The finer details that you are hyper focusing on are fuzzy for a reason. stop trying to smarten up before opening the book, be stupid.

I enjoy reading as much 19th century French literature as I can afford and I hope to learn French someday. My personal favorite author from that time would have to be Charles Baudelaire. Even though he did not write much, almost all of it is of the highest quality. He feels just as modern (perhaps even more so) as when he first appeared. Despair, ennui, the rapid mechanization of the world and life in the cities...all of these are just as timely now as they were in Baudelaire's time. And his style is so beautiful and intoxicating! What are your favorite writers from France?

Does anyone know if there is any place one can buy the Penguin Great Ideas as a collection? My local store only sells them individually at a price of around 16$ per book (149NOK). That would make the entire collection cost over 1900$, which is ridiculous for (mostly) abridged versions. If there were collections that would result in 5$ per book or less I think it would be worth buying them for me.

Thanks!

For such a popular author of his time, it seems that he is so little discussed. I have a thick collection of his poems and, while he isn't my favorite, I feel like he should be more popular. Swinburne was a master of rhythm and musicality, even if he does tend to overdo it. Has anyone else read Swinburne, and if so, what are your thoughts on him?

Nabokov once famously said, "“One cannot read a book: one can only reread it."

I think most of us in this subreddit have done this and had good experiences with it. I know that I have re-read several and only on the second reading did I realize "Wow! This is amazing!"

Some of my best re-reads have been:

Pride and Prejudice -- It clicked how witty and insightful it is
Brothers Karamazov -- I liked my first read, but I loved my second
Lolita -- Blew me away on my second reading
Brideshead Revisited -- Clicked on second read
Great Gatsby -- My all time fave, loved it my first read and loved it my tenth
Great Expectations -- Liked it first read, loved it the second
Jane Eyre -- Hated in high school, loved in my 40s
Anna Karenina -- Loved my first read, loved my second
Crime and Punishment -- Great first read, great second read
Gilead -- Great on first read, great second read
Dante's Inferno -- Hard for me to grasp on first read, more clarity on second

However, I've also had cases where I enjoyed a book on the first read, but just couldn't get into it on my second.

Winesburg, OH
Pale Fire
Catcher in the Rye
Of Human Bondage
Confederacy of Dunces

What has your reading journey been like with second readings?

Greetings fellow Austen fans!

I just purchased S & S from an online bookseller and was so excited to read. Sadly, the font size is too small.

Any recommendations for a better edition, publisher easier on the eyes? I prefer the book format to kindle.

Thanks.

Hello from Brazil !

1 - Posthumous memories of Brás Cubas, by Machado de Assis : An absurd story about a late bourgeois, who writes his memories of a life spent on shenanigans and wanderings through the high society from Rio de Janeiro, the emptiness of the character and all the people from that society. The author was inspired a lot by Rabelais, Jonathan Swift and Charles Dickens, but has a very unique writing, making him a genius and should be at the literary canon

2- Rebellion at the Backlands by Euclides da Cunha: The author describes a conflict ocurred on the northeast, between the republican army and a group of religious revolutionaries. The description of the region where the conflict ocurred, the devasted desert, makes Eliot's " The Waste Lands" looking like a mere walk at the park.

3- The poetry by Manuel Bandeira: Tragic, Sardonic, Feeling, Bitter, Sweet, even philosophical. You can feel his whole life is there. The description of a life dedicated to the art.

4- Yacala by Alberto da Cunha Melo: A tragic ballad of man obsessed with the discovery of something new. A discovery that took him from everything else.

5- São Bernardo by Graciliano Ramos: Imagine a mix between MacBeth and a Western ? We got São Bernardo, the tragedy of a Machavellian man who wanted to be a Landowner and obsessed on winning on life.

I would like to know yours too!

I'm interested in her work but overwhelmed with the choices!

This a is admittedly playing in a sand box but re-reading Vineland I got this dawning realization that some key elements to Tarentino’s Kill Bill biology was taken directly from Pynchon’s, imo, underrated novel. DL, the white, western gorgeous female Ninja with off the charts martial skills is out for revenge; complete with an arcane, rarely mastered skill called “Vibrating Palm”. It’s a delay kill technique. That is, when applied it seems harmless but it has set up a chain of fucked up chi diversions that drops the victim stone dead at a later point. Hm . . . This doesn’t really matter (I liked Kill Bill). I was just struck by the direct lift from Pynchon.

Kafka and Dostoevsky have some great reads.
The way Kafka explores absurdity, alienation, and existential anxiety feels strangely relatable even today, while Dostoevsky dives deep into guilt, morality, suffering, and the human mind in a way that feels painfully real. What are your best reads?

Hello! I've been chomping through this amazing collection of fitzgerald short stories to get a better classical foundation for my writing. Love May Day, Diamond as Big as the Ritz, he can do no wrong in my eyes. I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations of stories from that era told in the first perspective? From what I've gleamed the only real first person tale is great gatsby...