Why are they Classics?

2010-01-22T03:19:00.000-08:00

Like most people my reading career has developed and evolved over time taking me to many different genres, styles of writing, time periods, favourite authors, loves and of course hates! As a young lad I was obsessed with rather main stream horror novels, with the likes of Stephen King, Richard Laymon, Thomas Harris and my youthful favourite; Dean Koontz taking over my book shelve. As time went by I started to enjoy more modern fiction, mostly with (and I know I will sound pretentious here!) a strong sociological and psychological base, as this is what I was studying during this time. So I developed love affairs with Rupert Thomson and Chuck Palaniuk, and then dabbled with other authors who poke fun at, and delve into, the state of modern society and mind, such as Bill Bryson, Mark Watson and Paulo Coelho. Then came the third year of University during which time I had no place in my life for novels as my world was awash with the Philosophy of Science, hegemony, communism and a host of other equally mind bending concepts! And therefore my bookshelf had no time for fun as the fiction moved out and in moved Popper, Gramsci, Freud, Marx and the mother of all difficulties; Nietzsche. During University I had only managed to read a handful of novels, and when I finished there was no one book calling my name, no one author waiting for my attention, there was just an unbelievably strong desire to read something that was fictional and for enjoyment rather than because I had to! Don’t get me wrong I loved my time at University and what I read was so mind boggling and eye opening that my mental and reading age must have shot up about ten fold! But it was nice to be back in a place where I had time to read for fun! And so left with a summer of solitude (due to unemployment) I found my greatest love of all; The Classics.

The £1.99 Wordsworth Classic collection has to be one of the greatest inventions of the 21st century! For next to no money I was able to ram my bookshelf full of some of the greatest novels ever written! I started with Crime and Punishment, and although it was incredibly different and more complex to any kind of novel I had previously read, I found it to be simply fantastic! The way Dostoyevsky has created a character that you loathe, love, have sympathy for and despair over is just phenomenal. It delves into the individual psyche of man with a Napoleon complex but also represents a harsh and relentless period in Russia’s history in a very strong visual manner, and the heart wrenching and poetical way in which it is written is simply breathtaking.

After this I wanted more and so moved onto other great classics such as Tolstoy’s The Death of ‘Ivan Illyich’, Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’, John Buchan’s ‘The Thirty-Nine Steps’ Bram Stokers ‘Dracula’ and many, many more. I loved all of them, the sea tales made me long for simpler times, hard graft and fresh air, the Russian literature gave me an insight and interest into a country that has suffered so much hardship and has been continually torn apart throughout history and the thrillers and horror novels just kept me on the edge of my seat more thoroughly than any modern day adventure film let alone novel!

Altogether things were going swimmingly until I picked up Salinger’s ‘The Catcher in the Rye’. I just didn’t understand what was meant to be so great about it. Everyone I talked to about it said it was fantastic and a must read and “ooo didn’t you know it was the book Mark Chapman carried when he killed John Lennon”, well that may be so but I don’t normally take my book recommendations from nutters! Anyway, the point is I read it and felt nothing! The lead character wasn’t particularly accessible, the story was basic and the writing was good but not anything extra special. Basically I thought it was an ok book but definitely not in the same league as the other Classics I had read. Now when I tell people this they all come out with the same response, (which you are probably thinking of now!), “that I just didn’t get it and it is a classic because it is a fantastic representation of the time”, well I will admit it is a great representation of the time, there is no doubt about that, but most books are good representations of their time in either writing style, language or subject matter but they are also good books with enjoyable stories.

I hoped this was only a blip in my love affair with the Classics but unfortunately it kept happening, every so often I would pick up a supposed ‘classic’ and find a complete dud! The next one to cross my path was Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, which is a fantastic sea tale, as all his books are, and would be the perfect story to be told around a camp fire or on a naval voyage, but in writing the feeling, drama and excitement just didn’t come across. There is no doubt that Conrad has some excellent tales from his time in the navy but his writing style just doesn’t do them justice. All the characters are visually identical (except some have moustaches and some don’t), have very similar personalities and no matter which of his books you are reading you will always feel like you are in the same one dimensional place as every description is the same! This was bad but nothing compared to the mother of all classic disappointments; Wuthering Heights.

Wuthering Heights must be the most overrated love story I have ever come across. Again everyone I talked to about this book went on and on about how great it is and gushed over Heathcliff as if he was the poster boy of the 1800’s, but I found it to be a dismal read and was shocked over how much every woman seems to love Heathcliff who is essentially an egotistical, abusive, angry little man who doesn’t deserve the love of any woman! But when I say this again I am thwarted by people saying “yes but he had a hard upbringing” and “but he loved Cathy sooooo much!” Well that may be true but Pip had a tough start to life and didn’t turn into a complete jerk and yes he did love Cathy but treated everyone and everything, including her, like dirt! And I know he is supposed to be the anti-hero who you actually like but this guy surpasses the likes of Dracula and Dorian Gray in anti-hero terms and I just cannot stand how much people rave about him!

Now whether you agree with me or not about these particular examples is not the point here, the point is that there are some Classics that aren’t as good as we are lead to believe. And so I started wondering what gives something the right to be a classic? Is it how well it represents that period in history? The quality of the story? The quality of the writing? Sheer longevity? Or is it just word of mouth and BBC adaptations? I would like to think that a book needs all of these things to be considered a Classic (well all except the BBC film) and that whether or not we agree on which ones are better than others we can all agree that some are not up to scratch in all these areas, such as Conrad’s writing, Salinger’s story or the fact that most people are basing their opinion of Wuthering Heights on a BBC production! And so to call them Classics may be a bit of an overstatement and perhaps the great prestige of the term Classic should not be used so freely but reserved for the tales that are perfect in every way.

What do you think?

Matthew Read.

The Classic Debate

Why are they Classics?