Reading Classics

Although there's plenty of time for reading the new novels of our day (what are Donna Tartt and Marlon James up to lately?), I'm always drawn back to classics. What is a classic? Other than a book that has "stood the test of time," no one knows. Some people use a hundred years as a guideline, but that's too strict for me and I've settled on something around 50 years or so, which feels just about right. That takes us back to the mid-sixties, and aren't the books of that time about due to be classics? Catch-22, Portnoy's Complaint, To Kill a Mockingbird, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Crying of Lot 49, The Fire Next Time, The Collector, Slaughterhouse Five, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, A Clockwork Orange, The Golden Notebook, all worthy company. Come on, you consider at least a couple of those classics already, yeah?

Of course not all classics are created equal. Some books have stayed in print simply because of other greater books by the same author. I'm not sure all of Thomas Hardy's books are equally good, but most can still be found pretty much. Write one great book, you'll have a better chance of keeping your other books in print. We tend to think of "classics" as profound, difficult, and sagacious, but some novels have lasted just because they're a good yarn. Dumas could rip out a darned good plot, but I'm not sure he reaches the same depths as Eliot, Tolstoy, or Kafka. Or is that just the snob in me sticking its snout out of the mud?

I like thinking of classics as wee time machines. As so many were contemporary novels, they take me back to the time they were written, to see how common people lived, what they did and thought, what their concerns were and how like us, or unlike us, they were. I can travel to many different times and many different countries. Historical novels (hello Phillipa Gregory!) are all well and good, but I can't trust them quite as much -- sometimes history has to give way to a good, juicy plot. I want the real thing, short of a well-written history, perhaps. But the wee time machine also takes us back to today. By reading classics I know the book has stood the test of time and millions of readers have loved it. When I read Ali Smith, Chabon, Morrison, Tartt, I wonder if they'll last, how many good books they'll write, was it really a good book or did I just have a good meal before reading. But with classics I have no such doubts. Not all will be for me, but they'll all have quality worth looking for. 🐢