This is a great essay and so true. I find myself at 76 returning to the classics to find in them what I missed because I was too young when I read them or skipped reading them in the past. In line with your thoughts, I’m very suspicious of current “best sellers “ or “recommended “new publications because they are often/always woke themes and often these blatantly pushed without any insight, thought provocation or even interesting writing style. Ideology reigns. And, prize winning is similarly skewed. However, my own resistance occasionally bites me. Someone I trust recommended Trust (pun intended) by Hernan Diaz, a Pulitzer Prize winner….which heighten my suspicion of its messages before I cracked it open. But, I gave it a try and I loved it. Interesting structure. Great writing. Relatable to me in some stunning ways. I read it in less than three days which is unusual for me, given the demand in my life and my old attention span (age, social media and iPhone degraded)! But, reading the great classics now seems a breath of fresh mountain air.
Thanks, Jan. I've not heard of Hernan Diaz – how nice to be surprised in that way. As for returning to the classics, I've got quite a bit of catching up to do...
You've captured the essence of something for me that I couldn't name. It used to be that reading a novel was a singular act - you sat with the material in front of you. You didn't run it through a filter of binaries and moral absoluteism. You simply read it and experienced it in a way that was relevant to the reader. I really, really miss those more innocent days of reading for its own sake. I hate now that so much writing is about "important messaging".
Yes, exactly. It's the same with films and the rest of it – everything has to be 'important messaging' now. It's exhausting and, at the same time, symptomatic of an exhausted culture, if that's not being dramatic.
Not being dramatic at all. It feels like the weight of all the ills are thrust upon our shoulders every day in every way. Compassion fatigue has taken hold. Stop "educating" me. Stop telling me how I'm supposed to think about something. Stop guilting me into false beliefs and values. There used to be a time when one could seek out information, mull it over, maybe discuss with trusted friends/family, and come to their own conclusions. It was all very civilized and respectful. Now, though, there appear to be strictly prescribed "takes" and woe be to the one who disagrees. Exhausting, indeed.
Great article. Best last sentence ever. I am so tired of my own cynicism. I don't trust the culture around me, always looking for the preachiness and the angle. It is exhausting and shouldn't it be unnecessary?
Wonderful. And I’m so happy to find someone who feels the same as me about Virginia Woolf. That made me laugh. I’m also sure that I was as insufferable as you with your pipe when I was young. I can remember reading Hesse as a teenager and feeling smug when someone took my photo with a book of his in my hand. And no, I didn’t manage to finish Ulysses despite the photo opportunities it provided.
Personally, I love Woolf - including To the Lighthouse - but in person she was an insufferable snob. If she were alive today, I would avidly read her work but keep well away from her social media presence: I expect she would be woke as hell.
She was, after all, a self-described 'anti-fascist' AND a frothing anti-Semite (despite, or because of, being married to a Jew), just like current-day 'progressives'.
I didn’t comment on her writing ability, merely that I didn’t like her novels. And in my world, differences of opinion are acceptable and are an opening for discussion. Perhaps you could try that in your writing classes.
Thank you for making me laugh out loud and for easing my conscience about Ulysses - I have borrowed it from the library numerous times, and taken it back with relief unfinished many times because my renewals were up.
Scott Bradfield wrote a brilliant essay - in a collection published under the same title in 2016 - called Why I Hate Toni Morrison's Beloved. It was originally given as a lecture in 2001. It echoes some of the sentiments expressed here and bemoans the fact that the act of reading Beloved has become entangled with all sorts of cultural assumptions about its worthiness and cut adrift almost from the simple act of reading its good prose. I expect that the reason Beloved ranks so high in this Guardian list is less to do with the inherent merits of Morrison's novel and more to do with the virtue-signaling of the people who chose it. It may well be a great novel, but sadly I feel hostile to the idea of reading it for exactly the same reason that others laud it, and I kind of hate myself for that.
It's a surprising list for The Guardian these days, very canonical and very <gasp> dead, white male. I've read 60 on the list, including all the Virginia Woolf, whom I couldn't face now but loved during my modernist period, which included an obsession with Ford Madox Ford I also shan't be revisiting. Tried Ulysses and gave up three times, much the same with Gravity's Rainbow. To my shame, I've not read the two Tolstoy classics, but I do own them.
This a lovely piece, Frederick, and it reminds me of my life a quarter of a century ago, before the dead hand of woke laid itself across all aspects of culture and society - I was a lefty then (of the old skool variety) and, yeah, even read the Guardian like yourself.
My awakening was slow and painful as I inched my way back towards God, but the double-whammy that really put the mokkers on my old way of thinking was the explosion in trans madness, with its state-sanctioned flight from reality, and the hysterical meltdown over Brexit among the liberal/left middle-classes - my kinda people! After that, the camel's back was well and truly broken, and I now live in a bemused and regretful state of internal exile.
Ah, well, the old world was fun while it lasted, but it's gone - and, with hindsight and the clarity that only sobriety can bring (I was a drinking alcoholic, you see?), I realise it was vanishing long before 2003 - and it's not coming back, either. Your essays are great, though, and I look forward to reading them when I can.
The books on this list are there because they are taught in English classes.
Not that many of them aren't great novels. I teach novel-writing for a living, and I have studied in-depth most of the novels on that glimpse of the list. But that doesn't mean they all are great. It means they all are taught in English classes.
I mean, Moby Dick? Please. It's a perfectly good tale constantly interrupted by exhaustive nonfiction treatises on Melville's knowledge of whaling. Why? No reason. He was just a show-off. That makes it a terrible novel.
And To the Lighthouse is a brilliant little novel. It might have been badly taught in your English class. But that doesn't affect the quality of the novel. Woolf's only problem was that she and her husband published her own books, so the ends of her long novels weren't properly edited before they went to press. She was too tired by then. But a short novel like To the Lighthouse certainly was. Woolf was a wonderful wielder of language--especially in her shorter fiction--and an experimentalist fifty years before experimentalism really took off.
James Joyce, on the other hand, was a terrible experimentalist. He wasn't even experimental so much as deliberately obscure. He went to great lengths to make sure his reader couldn't follow him. Judith Butler does the same thing today. It's not good writing--it's showing off. That makes it a terrible novel.
I will tell you, also, that when a woman reads Homer's Odyssey, she is indeed forced to accept the politics of it. What she comes away with is a story of how brutal and domineering men are and how passive and obedient women are. The ancient Greeks were terrible, violent women-haters. Just because men's version of their lives is all we have now doesn't make that great fiction. A woman's version of The Odyssey--now THAT would be great.
This is a great essay and so true. I find myself at 76 returning to the classics to find in them what I missed because I was too young when I read them or skipped reading them in the past. In line with your thoughts, I’m very suspicious of current “best sellers “ or “recommended “new publications because they are often/always woke themes and often these blatantly pushed without any insight, thought provocation or even interesting writing style. Ideology reigns. And, prize winning is similarly skewed. However, my own resistance occasionally bites me. Someone I trust recommended Trust (pun intended) by Hernan Diaz, a Pulitzer Prize winner….which heighten my suspicion of its messages before I cracked it open. But, I gave it a try and I loved it. Interesting structure. Great writing. Relatable to me in some stunning ways. I read it in less than three days which is unusual for me, given the demand in my life and my old attention span (age, social media and iPhone degraded)! But, reading the great classics now seems a breath of fresh mountain air.
Thanks, Jan. I've not heard of Hernan Diaz – how nice to be surprised in that way. As for returning to the classics, I've got quite a bit of catching up to do...
You've captured the essence of something for me that I couldn't name. It used to be that reading a novel was a singular act - you sat with the material in front of you. You didn't run it through a filter of binaries and moral absoluteism. You simply read it and experienced it in a way that was relevant to the reader. I really, really miss those more innocent days of reading for its own sake. I hate now that so much writing is about "important messaging".
Yes, exactly. It's the same with films and the rest of it – everything has to be 'important messaging' now. It's exhausting and, at the same time, symptomatic of an exhausted culture, if that's not being dramatic.
Not being dramatic at all. It feels like the weight of all the ills are thrust upon our shoulders every day in every way. Compassion fatigue has taken hold. Stop "educating" me. Stop telling me how I'm supposed to think about something. Stop guilting me into false beliefs and values. There used to be a time when one could seek out information, mull it over, maybe discuss with trusted friends/family, and come to their own conclusions. It was all very civilized and respectful. Now, though, there appear to be strictly prescribed "takes" and woe be to the one who disagrees. Exhausting, indeed.
‘Compassion fatigue’ - perfect.
Great article. Best last sentence ever. I am so tired of my own cynicism. I don't trust the culture around me, always looking for the preachiness and the angle. It is exhausting and shouldn't it be unnecessary?
Wonderful. And I’m so happy to find someone who feels the same as me about Virginia Woolf. That made me laugh. I’m also sure that I was as insufferable as you with your pipe when I was young. I can remember reading Hesse as a teenager and feeling smug when someone took my photo with a book of his in my hand. And no, I didn’t manage to finish Ulysses despite the photo opportunities it provided.
Personally, I love Woolf - including To the Lighthouse - but in person she was an insufferable snob. If she were alive today, I would avidly read her work but keep well away from her social media presence: I expect she would be woke as hell.
😂 I think you’re probably right.
She was, after all, a self-described 'anti-fascist' AND a frothing anti-Semite (despite, or because of, being married to a Jew), just like current-day 'progressives'.
I should probably give Woolf another go.
Pity you haven't learned how to disagree with people without insulting them.
I didn’t comment on her writing ability, merely that I didn’t like her novels. And in my world, differences of opinion are acceptable and are an opening for discussion. Perhaps you could try that in your writing classes.
bitter much?
De gustibus non est disputandem - a phrase I live by.
"The trouble is that once the Geiger counter has been trained, it crackles at things that may not deserve suspicion at all." 💯
Thank you for making me laugh out loud and for easing my conscience about Ulysses - I have borrowed it from the library numerous times, and taken it back with relief unfinished many times because my renewals were up.
Scott Bradfield wrote a brilliant essay - in a collection published under the same title in 2016 - called Why I Hate Toni Morrison's Beloved. It was originally given as a lecture in 2001. It echoes some of the sentiments expressed here and bemoans the fact that the act of reading Beloved has become entangled with all sorts of cultural assumptions about its worthiness and cut adrift almost from the simple act of reading its good prose. I expect that the reason Beloved ranks so high in this Guardian list is less to do with the inherent merits of Morrison's novel and more to do with the virtue-signaling of the people who chose it. It may well be a great novel, but sadly I feel hostile to the idea of reading it for exactly the same reason that others laud it, and I kind of hate myself for that.
Very good 👍
It's a surprising list for The Guardian these days, very canonical and very <gasp> dead, white male. I've read 60 on the list, including all the Virginia Woolf, whom I couldn't face now but loved during my modernist period, which included an obsession with Ford Madox Ford I also shan't be revisiting. Tried Ulysses and gave up three times, much the same with Gravity's Rainbow. To my shame, I've not read the two Tolstoy classics, but I do own them.
Quite frankly, I’m amazed that Sally Rooney wasn’t on the list (yes, this is Gen-X cynicism).
Haha. I love your descriptive, evocative writing. And I like Michel Houellebecq.
Thanks, Bob. Yes, Houellebecq will be on a list like this in another 50 years, if they still do book lists then.
I remember finding an excellent English-langage bookshop below one end of Charles Bridge
I was probably there.
Well done!
"encyclopaedic ignorance"--Now there's a term that makes you think.
That caught my eye too! Definitely a past version of me.
This a lovely piece, Frederick, and it reminds me of my life a quarter of a century ago, before the dead hand of woke laid itself across all aspects of culture and society - I was a lefty then (of the old skool variety) and, yeah, even read the Guardian like yourself.
My awakening was slow and painful as I inched my way back towards God, but the double-whammy that really put the mokkers on my old way of thinking was the explosion in trans madness, with its state-sanctioned flight from reality, and the hysterical meltdown over Brexit among the liberal/left middle-classes - my kinda people! After that, the camel's back was well and truly broken, and I now live in a bemused and regretful state of internal exile.
Ah, well, the old world was fun while it lasted, but it's gone - and, with hindsight and the clarity that only sobriety can bring (I was a drinking alcoholic, you see?), I realise it was vanishing long before 2003 - and it's not coming back, either. Your essays are great, though, and I look forward to reading them when I can.
Here's to a good day, just for this moment.
Peace...
Thanks for the generous comment, Patrick. I can relate to a lot of what you say here.
The books on this list are there because they are taught in English classes.
Not that many of them aren't great novels. I teach novel-writing for a living, and I have studied in-depth most of the novels on that glimpse of the list. But that doesn't mean they all are great. It means they all are taught in English classes.
I mean, Moby Dick? Please. It's a perfectly good tale constantly interrupted by exhaustive nonfiction treatises on Melville's knowledge of whaling. Why? No reason. He was just a show-off. That makes it a terrible novel.
And To the Lighthouse is a brilliant little novel. It might have been badly taught in your English class. But that doesn't affect the quality of the novel. Woolf's only problem was that she and her husband published her own books, so the ends of her long novels weren't properly edited before they went to press. She was too tired by then. But a short novel like To the Lighthouse certainly was. Woolf was a wonderful wielder of language--especially in her shorter fiction--and an experimentalist fifty years before experimentalism really took off.
James Joyce, on the other hand, was a terrible experimentalist. He wasn't even experimental so much as deliberately obscure. He went to great lengths to make sure his reader couldn't follow him. Judith Butler does the same thing today. It's not good writing--it's showing off. That makes it a terrible novel.
I will tell you, also, that when a woman reads Homer's Odyssey, she is indeed forced to accept the politics of it. What she comes away with is a story of how brutal and domineering men are and how passive and obedient women are. The ancient Greeks were terrible, violent women-haters. Just because men's version of their lives is all we have now doesn't make that great fiction. A woman's version of The Odyssey--now THAT would be great.
I thought one had been done, from both Helen and Clytemnestra's point of view - I'm sure I've read it. I'll have a think.
The upcoming movie of The Odyssey is a woman's version, apparently.