Even for classic novels, its good.
Just to say that
my emphasised part of this strikes dissonance. The point is that they are classics because
someone (or, rather a significant number of someones) thought them to be good. In the future, Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy might be considered 'classic' (as an example, plucked from the air) while any random book by Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (ditto, but with more conviction[1]) might not.
This does not mean that they necessarily offer themselves up to the imaginations of schoolchildren all over the
landworld like they did their contemporaries and their immediate descendants, however. This could be for many reasons...
Archaic languageI'll readily admit that I'm a Shakespeare Buff, and was introduced to his works (directly in play-form) at a very young age. Not forced into it. I was not, and am not, in the strata of society where "One
must see Shakespeare performed at the Old Vic", or the like. It was a happenstance thing, not (intentionally) pushed at me by my parents, and long before schoolwork involved Shakespeare. And it was an unwatered-down
Richard III performance, not aimed at children (especially not 4-5yo kids, like I was at the time). So I reckon I picked up something of the language back then, and it's stuck. But most people get introduced to Shakespeare in school, which leads onto the second point...
Drisabone!"Right, you lot, take a book and pass one one!" <shuffle shuffle, murmer murmer> "Act 1, Scene 1,
you, be the PROLOGUE[2],
you be FLAVIUS,
you, yes,
you, be MARULLUS, and you two girls giggling on the second row can be the FIRST and SECOND COMMONERs. The rest of you will be given parts when we need them. Now read!" Not quite what happened to me and my class, but not far off. For various reasons I'd not encountered Julius Caesar before, and despite still remembering the whole "Friends, Romans Countrymen" speech[3] I can't call the lessons particularly inspiring. Of Mice And Men is (I acknowledge) an adept social commentary, but it was given to us as "work to do". Animal Farm (and we even saw the film... the '50s animated version, not
that film, though I suspect I've seen the other one, albeit without that title, since then *ahem*) was creatively taught, but I couldn't really get into the "Imagine that you're Napoleon the pig, and writing secret dossiers on the other animals..." and the muse really wasn't with me as I recall, with "Must keep an eye on Boxer" alongside some dossier entry, with just "ditto" alongside the next few...
My overwhelming memories of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe were that, at that time, our current English teacher[4] was largely absent and we had an on-again/off-again "Permanent Supply" replacement. Who, if anything, was a little bit more old-school than the regular one, though whether through accident or design made the lessons a little bit more fun.
Left to myself, I could have demolished the reading list so quickly. In English Lit. we were given a tabled sheet of A4 upon which to write down the books we had read. My regular trips to the local library (having half a dozen books out at a time and very rarely not revisiting within the next week to swap some read ones for some new unread ones) meant that even though I often forgot to note everything down, I still went through a number of sheets, when classmates had (through forgetfulness or lack of material) barely accrued a few meagre lines on their first sheet, by the end of the year. But, of course, I didn't
analyse them. Except for the couple of books (one a Foundation-series Asimov, one I think was
High Crusade by Poul Anderson) that I actually wrote reviews for. For 'book review competitions', but effectively just an ordained cross-school homework where those who didn't submit anything ended up being let off after all.
Archaic SocietyI originally had this alongside the Archaic Language, but I've shifted it to allow the above to flow better (still awfully). Let's take Charles Dickens. Victorian Britain is a conceptual trope that pretty much is understandable by most Anglo-centric civilisations, mostly through exposure to his works in various media. But even then the likes of Scrooge's younger days in apprenticeship doesn't ring any (Christmas) bells to a lot of people, especially school-kids, these days. Dickens was largely (though not entirely) the person responsible for giving us the image of Christmas we often see on the front of those cards that inexplicably arrive from friends, relations and neighbours every December, and he has actually created an understanding of the era
Because His Works Are Dickensian, by definition, but at the same time the modern teenager (and I'm going back at least four decades, arguably six although that's by induction and not experience) has had a completely different lifestyle from his or her 'contemporaries' in the classics. The adults that they became (or will become) are only exposed to the clichés unless they pursue such a scholarly career as allows (and requires) them to delve into the deeper meaning.
Moral Improvements and other selective choicesWhereas a book
becomes a classic because it is right for the age, in some way, or is a suitably extant example for a given purpose (I'm looking at you, Pliny Jr!), at some point between its own time and ours the hypothetical median teacher will find that the story and background of something like The Water Babies just no longer appetising to the modern reader (except, perhaps in demonstrating the state of morality tales of the 1860s). Very much a Little Match-Girl story. But longer. And if you've seen the animated version of the story, there are quite a few differences that quite probably reflect modern sensibilities on the matters, as well as the 'usual' bowdlerisations made when enscripting an existing tale.
...Well, I had more points to add, but there seems no point going on, because this is becoming more of an essay than I had intended.
Essentially, "meh, this is what classics are" is most likely what's going to happen if you don't find yourself embroiled in them of your own volition (albeit that without a guiding hand, or happenstance, very little embroiling will occur). I'm also very much in agreement with the points Willfor made, with some minor caveats (Classics will
have been considered good, but need no longer be so; Classics Of Modern Times are often pronounced so as soon as they are published, as part of the advertising blurb... they may be deserving but really need to be seen in hindsight to be assuredly so).
Also, as with everything, YMMV, even with everyone giving every book an equal chance at being properly read and understood. Plus some tales just don't work for anyone of the day, and some just don't work once the day is past. And you can't consider a Classic Author to be an automatic Classic creator. Maybe there was a reason why Paris In the 20th Century was unpublished (indeed, undiscovered!) until very recently?
[1] NPI!
[2] I don't actually think there is one in JC, BICBW.
[3] For someone with an absolutely awful memory, it's one of the things (along with "But soft..." from R&J, naturally 2B||!2B from the Danish Play, significant swathes of Skimbleshanks The Railway Cat and (from maths, although only on a good day) more digits of Pi than most people would normally need) that I learnt by rote and still remember, several decades later.
[4] Actually, the previous titles were being studied in English Literature (a subject that I elected to take once it was available, because I was so enthusiastic about books and reading in general), but tLtW&tW was one of the books taught in plain-old English (that class being least at first mostly about (de)composition; speeling; grammar also).
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Topic: What book are you reading/want to read? (Read 13643 times)