You should read the classics. And furthermore you should expand the scope of what you consider a classic. Read Aurileus, yes, and Confucius. Read Beowulf of course. And Homer. But also The Tale of Genji and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Read Shakespeare but also Sappho, Rumi and Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo. - ThreadSky

simonm223.bsky.social • 218 days ago

You should read the classics. And furthermore you should expand the scope of what you consider a classic. Read Aurileus, yes, and Confucius. Read Beowulf of course. And Homer. But also The Tale of Genji and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Read Shakespeare but also Sappho, Rumi and Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo.

Comments

berkeleyeve.bsky.social•217 days ago

and reread them too. Genji in ones early 20s is completely different 30 years later. i think our emotional capacity expands over decades of wear and tear and we hear more fully... also Melville. EARLY melville!

marquemaire.bsky.social•217 days ago

Dante

laminx.bsky.social•216 days ago

🎯 May be a bit slow going but well worth it.

gwenckatz.bsky.social•216 days ago

I know I shouldn't pay attention to the randos but...what the hell

simonm223.bsky.social•216 days ago

Yeah I didn't respond to her. No point; if you're jumping into a discussion aimed at writers to address the importance of understanding the history of their art-form saying you hate that art form then really the discussion is moot to you.

cinewolf.bsky.social•218 days ago

Done. What's next ?

ilisabat.bsky.social•217 days ago

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Song of Roland, the Decameron, Paradise Lost, Journey to the West

ilisabat.bsky.social•217 days ago

T.S. Eliot, Philip Larkin, John Keats, Molière

cinewolf.bsky.social•217 days ago

Thank you. 🙏🏼

simonm223.bsky.social•218 days ago

Luo Guanzhong, Cervantes, al-Ma'arri, Mary Shelley, um... Chaucer

cinewolf.bsky.social•218 days ago

Thank you. I just need Luo Guanzhong & al-Ma'arri. I didn't realize I was so well read.

relative-void.bsky.social•217 days ago

I had a professor for a 100 great works class who was complaining about there not being enough women or poc on the list and I rattled off a few he could add and he just ignored me and silently docked my grade. He died the next semester tho so I win lol

relative-void.bsky.social•217 days ago

(I think Margaret Cavendish and Emma Orczy were the only two I mentioned not on your list here)

laminx.bsky.social•216 days ago

Agh! I misread what you wrote. He wasn’t unaware of more women and POC authors, he just didn’t like that you publicly addressed his insufficient list! 😅 His ego was bruised.

laminx.bsky.social•216 days ago

I mean, that’s an easy one, even for him! (I’m assuming he was narrow minded) The three musketeers leapt to my mind right away.

laminx.bsky.social•216 days ago

😅😅😅 Hope it’s not too soon to laugh!

billferris.bsky.social•217 days ago

No one said they have to *like* the classics. Anyway, they can just not read them, no one's going to make them do it! They're adults! Why do they need a social justice-flavored reason to not read something?

justleanin.bsky.social•217 days ago

I read 3 books as a kid and after beginning the 4th, I decided that reading is not for me and hoped as an adult I wouldn't have to pretend to read anymore. 🥹🥹 No one can make me read now and I'm ecstatic, no social justice needed, just say "fuck books!" And move on

laminx.bsky.social•216 days ago

Perhaps not the right books. I let my kid read just about anything she shows an interest in (my parents did the same). Of course, if I think it is too mature for her, I remind her that some things she won’t be able to “unsee” or “unread “. So we discuss what the book is about and the she decides.

justleanin.bsky.social•216 days ago

Definitely! My first three were fiction. The last was "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil". LOVED it! My lovely mom looked for other nonfiction for me, but most nonfiction still reads like fiction and bored me to death. Still, I'm grateful to my middle school library for giving me one good one

laminx.bsky.social•216 days ago

🤗❤️

magstheobscure.bsky.social•218 days ago

And also pay attention to the translators. A book you thought was a slog can be a delight with the right translator. A modern translation can pick up on different things. It's like listening to music being played by a different orchestra. The variation is endless.

laminx.bsky.social•216 days ago

Yes. Sappho’s poems read quite differently depending on the passion of the translator, as one example.

lifefeed.bsky.social•217 days ago

“I’m a bit of a classics guy myself.”

(Goes back to reading 120 Days of Sodom and Hogg.)

euqinimodart.bsky.social•217 days ago

Question: do you know if all these books are still available as physical copies? I don't mind reading if I can have the book in hand

simonm223.bsky.social•217 days ago

Most, yes, though, for some of the poetry I mentioned, you might need a university library.

fireflyandowl.bsky.social•217 days ago

There's a website called Open Library that has tons of ebooks available. https://openlibrary.org/

fireflyandowl.bsky.social•217 days ago

Including international classics.

sjcmanuel.bsky.social•216 days ago

How about Twain and Kipling? Vonnegut and Kerouac.

simonm223.bsky.social•218 days ago

Classic literature is not a "scam" to "force you to read old white men" but the living, breathing, legacy from which literature extends.

The people who see it otherwise are mistaken. Their view of what "classics" entails is too small. Usually they just want you to buy their book instead.

jeffchon.bsky.social•218 days ago

Classic literature is a scam, says author of book based on *checks notes* Arthurian Legend.

zas.bsky.social•217 days ago

that's more like it. I was sorta despairing for good literature takes on this site.

seventhguest.bsky.social•217 days ago

thankfully, HS English has come and gone;
however, Lysistrata was enjoyable...

sovietentropy.bsky.social•217 days ago

i like whenever people on the left re-invent racial essentialism but say it in a way that they think they are woke. as if reading "to kill a mockingbird" is a conspiracy of white america to silence black voices.

ianrb.bsky.social•217 days ago

Absolutely read "Gilgamesh." That dude went through some sh!t.

casuallychaotic.bsky.social•217 days ago

And punched ghosts! 😄

crazycatladyabroad.bsky.social•217 days ago

My favorite version of the Ziusudra story too.

smogsteve.bsky.social•217 days ago

Now I have to remember all of these. Sitting in a trench in Korea reading was a way to pass the time before you got shot at.

laminx.bsky.social•216 days ago

❤️ 🙏 My dad was in the Korean War. Not in a trench, thankfully, but he saw enough to hurt his heart. Glad you are still here to tell the tale. ❤️

dreamsofvenus.bsky.social•217 days ago

If it helps, you can read all the surviving works of Sappho in under an hour

simonm223.bsky.social•217 days ago

Like another one of my Greek faves, Epicurus that way.

dreamsofvenus.bsky.social•217 days ago

Quite!

iliketocrochet.bsky.social•217 days ago

Also, Fritz Lieber, Edger Rice Burroughs, and Frank Herbert

frankd7.bsky.social•216 days ago

Ursula Le Guin , Octavia Butler, Terry Pratchett

laminx.bsky.social•216 days ago

I keep a copy of Beowulf on my bookshelf so I can seem well read! Haven’t opened it since 10th grade, but as I remember, it was “epic”. 🤗

gwenckatz.bsky.social•216 days ago

You should read it tho

simonm223.bsky.social•216 days ago

My biggest folly in university was taking a class in Old English specifically to read Beowulf untranslated. I succeeded and then promptly dropped the class because I was poorly suited to spending hours learning a dead language via reading endless prayers.

costakout.bsky.social•216 days ago

There are so many great translations, I’ve got the Raffel one and a digital copy of the Hall one at home. I need to get Tolkien’s, and I hear that Dahvana Headley’s is great too.

gwenckatz.bsky.social•216 days ago

When I took medieval English lit, there was a problem at the bookstore and our copies of Beowulf didn't arrive in time, so we raided every copy from the library and read them comparatively. Amazing impromptu lesson!

costakout.bsky.social•216 days ago

That sounds like both a chaotic nightmare but also really fun classroom reading.

laminx.bsky.social•216 days ago

My high school English teacher spoke old English and would read excerpts to us until we were laughing so hard that she had to stop! She was amazing! 🤗

robpatrick.bsky.social•218 days ago

that does sound like a lot of work

simonm223.bsky.social•218 days ago

No slacking.

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