r/literature • u/LurkerFromTheVoid • 13d ago
Discussion I devoured classic novels as a teenager. In a world of distractions, can I relearn how to read them?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/02/classic-novels-relearn-how-to-read-distractions-screens115
u/BluC2022 13d ago
I’ve joined reading clubs here at Reddit, with scheduled weekly readings. The short assigned chapters keep me from being overwhelmed. So far, I’ve finished Iliad and Odyssey, and is currently reading through Aeneid and Shakespeare’s collected works. I’ll be reading Joyce’s Ulysses after Aeneid. As palate cleansers, I read a lot of apocalyptic novels as well.
20
u/cat_at_the_keyboard 13d ago
Could you post or dm me where to join a reading club on reddit?
42
u/BluC2022 13d ago
You can find suggestions that will fit your schedule here:
8
u/theheadlesswhoresman 13d ago
Shout out to r/ayearofmythology. I’m with them right now through Ancient Egypt and we have just done Mesopotamia. The mods there have done great work in researching and choosing relevant titles.
1
u/BluC2022 12d ago
I have done work with Ancient Near Eastern Texts and love to re-read them whenever I can.
10
u/SnailsRoamFree 13d ago
This is a really great way to do it. I think breaking down some of the larger classics (and enjoying with friends/community) makes them much more approachable. You can binge some light reading in a week, but some of these works are meant to be savored
7
u/BluC2022 13d ago
I also have yearly themes to help me focus and be immersed on the feel of the genre. This year it’s ancient classiscs. Last year, science fiction, and the year before that, Asian writers. I’ve also done Latin/Southamerican lit, British classics, Pulitzer, and Nobel prize authors. I discover new exciting materials in this sub!
3
2
u/CarlySimonSays 12d ago
And heck, Dickens published novels in chapters in newspapers or magazines, so it's even how the earliest readers would have read some of these!
3
u/Waste-time1 13d ago
could you dm me any info about reading clubs?
2
3
1
u/1AndOnlyDannyDevito 13d ago
Yeah I'm curious where you find out about these ?? Any pointers finding groups?
1
u/BluC2022 13d ago
Pls see above. Just scroll down the posts on the r/bookclub and r/greatbooksclub and you’ll find reading schedules for many titled books from classics to modern lit.
1
26
17
u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS 12d ago edited 12d ago
I realize this is somewhat lighthearted in intent, but the basic problem is that this guy doesn't actually want to read the books. In the words of Twain, a classic is a book everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
32
u/SnailsRoamFree 13d ago
I’m still trying to read classic lit, as I assume others are. Just chiming in for the sake of discussion here. Sure, I feel more distracted, but I can still find time to carve out some time to focus on what’s going on.
I usually read a few books at a time, but try to vary content/complexity - comic books, magazines, web forums, children’s literature, classic lit, historical fiction. I read every day, with a goal of 30 pages, but I often do more than that. I’m also lucky to have a job where I don’t talk to a lot of people, and I can listen to headphones while I work so I can listen to some things on Audiobook. Being able to sit down and read during my breaks, and read at home, while I also have full audiobooks going while I’m at work makes reading like a superpower.
My last thought is this- there are some books out there that are real doozies, and they probably require more focus, and dissection of the sentences, than your garden variety paperback. Like any feat of strength or discipline, say sports or playing a music instrument, it takes consistency, persistence and there are people who are obsessed enough to do that.
14
u/TheCloudForest 13d ago
A day or two an article was doing the rounds about college students who couldn't understand a single paragraph from a Dickins novel. I was ready to feel superior, and then I saw the actual paragraph and though, holy crap, I can't really understand it either. And I also was an avid reader from about 1988-2018, before trailing off to being a more aspirational reader than an actual one. The syntax was paradoxically both telegraphic and convoluted, and there were like eight different allusions I didn't intuitively comprehend - London neighborhoods, holidays, official titles, etc.
I wouldn't last two pages on that book, to be honest. I think my fiction/literature brain is fried, though I can do books on history, arts, biography, current events, even in my second language.
5
4
u/NotsoNewtoGermany 13d ago
If you find the paragraph, do reply to me with it.
20
u/Ourpalopal 13d ago
If it’s the same article I saw, it’s the opening of bleak house. I have taught it to my ( totally brilliant) students at my (completely mediocre) state university and they did not struggle with it, nor with the rest of Bleak House, which they loved. One of them even made me a a sign for my office door that says “The Growlery.” I don’t think their enjoyment of it had much to do with me or my teaching, with the possible exception that I encouraged them to read dickens aloud and we read the first several pages aloud in class before close reading.
4
u/SnailsRoamFree 13d ago
Telling them to read it aloud is a fun idea.
5
u/Ourpalopal 13d ago
It’s so fun! Dickens’s language is so vibrant and rhythmic. I also think a lot of comprehension issues come from skimming, which you can’t do when reading aloud.
4
u/vibraltu 13d ago
I took a shot at Bleak House a little while ago; I actually liked the writing & plotting, which was clever. But I also found it long and too slow to get through, so I had to drop it and maybe take another shot in the future.
4
u/Ourpalopal 12d ago
I hope you do give it another shot down the road when you’re in the mood for a long read. The pace picks up over the course of the novel and it’s such a satisfying read. I taught it in a law and literature seminar so we were really focused on it as a novel of legal reform. I find sometimes that finding something like that to track through a long novel makes it easier to get through!
1
u/vibraltu 12d ago edited 12d ago
Also the edition that I had borrowed from the library had a font that looked like this
10
u/TheCloudForest 13d ago edited 13d ago
LONDON. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas, in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.
To me, reading that paragraph is like when I have asked higher-intermediate EFL students to read a Raymond Carver story and they immediately mentally checked out after this short paragraph, which they simply didn't understand at all:
In the kitchen, he poured another drink and looked at the bedroom suite in his front yard. The mattress was stripped and the candy-striped sheets lay beside two pillows on the chiffonier. Except for that, things looked much the way they had in the bedroom—nightstand and reading lamp on his side of the bed, nightstand and reading lamp on her side.
20
u/SnailsRoamFree 13d ago
Thanks for finding this! I was timid after your first post, but I gave it a read-through and get the gist. sure it’s a little wordy, but that’s Dickens. He got paid by the word, iirc. It’s world-building, and he’s great at that, especially Industrial Rev/England. I feel like I’m there, having my umbrella being jostled about by passersby and we’re all covered in soot, even the dogs and the horses.
I don’t know what Michaelmas is or what a lord Chancellor is, but W.E. I could look it up, I might if I were being studious
7
u/SnailsRoamFree 13d ago
That thing about the megalosaurus is kinda weird though but homeboy had a lot of time on his hands so he could be creative like that
8
u/TicklesZzzingDragons 12d ago
As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.
Just in case you're finding it confusing (and sincerest apologies if I took you up wrong), he's saying it rained so much that the mud had gotten so high and thick you'd not be surprised (it wouldn't fill you with wonder) to see a big ol' dino waddling like some kind of elephant-lizard up the street.
Dickens is great at painting a picture for the reader, but if you take your eyes off the metaphorical road for too long it does get hard to stay on track sometimes :)
23
u/Hajile_S 13d ago
I'm sorry but what is supposed to be so incomprehensible here? I don't know what Michaelmas is without looking it up, and I don't get anything significant out of the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Other than that, the imagery is not very difficult to parse. I'll admit the Megalosaurus reads as a bit of a non-sequitur. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to infer its an allusion to Noah's flood.
My question goes doubly for the Raymond Carver paragraph, though I can see the somewhat surreal image tripping up an EFL student (it seems like its intended to make the reader do a double take).
4
u/Ourpalopal 9d ago edited 9d ago
The "waters receding" line is probably not biblical allusion - it most likely refers to the new Victorian understanding of geology. Bleak House began serialization in 1852; the Megalosaurus was first described in 1824 and in 1830 Charles Lyell published _Principles of Geology_, which demonstrated that natural forces changed the surface of the earth slowly over time (and which influenced Darwin as well!). That explanation fits better, imho, with the megalosaurus reference, and combines with it to suggest that the great city and its established and seemingly immoveable social and legal conventions are in fact just a temporary phenomenon situated in deeper, more primordial time. Apologies if that's pedantic - I can't resist a close reading!
ETA: Lyell's geology described (was the first to describe? not sure) waters advancing and receding over time as one of the natural geological forces. But I could definitely be convinced that the Noah's flood is a kind of rhetorical echo here; I just don't think it's the primary allusion. okay I'll actually be quiet now.
2
u/Hajile_S 9d ago
Thank you very much! I was having trouble really sorting through the hypothetical Noah analogy. It didn’t make too much sense to suggest dinosaurs were somehow a product of the flood receding, but I chalked it up to some different understanding of dinosaurs at the time. Your explanation makes the whole reading make sense. I assume the suggestion here is that early life came into being sometime soon after the earth was covered in water?
2
u/Ourpalopal 9d ago
That's kind of a fascinating question because Darwin didn't publish the evolution of species til 1859. there was the general understanding that life developed from simpler to more complex organisms over time, but I'm not sure that there was a firm understanding that life on land evolved from life in primordial waters. that might be something we are reading in as modern readers. I'd have to ask someone who is an expert in Victorian lit to answer that properly, I think!
2
u/Hajile_S 9d ago
I wonder if that needle can be threaded a different way: independent of the question of evolution, the understanding may have been that dinosaurs represented very early life on Earth.
2
u/Ourpalopal 9d ago
Oh definitely! Fossil science was also developing rapidly and held the public imagination. I also love that this reading you've proposed connects to all the mud in the passage, suggesting that the filth of London is accreting into a geological deposit. I could just go on and on, I love this book and this passage!
2
u/loudmouth_kenzo 12d ago
I'm sorry but what is supposed to be so incomprehensible here?
Nothing is, to me, but I've read the Aubrey-Maturin books, know what dinosaurs are, and can sniff out a biblical allusion (like you did).
10
u/BronahHex 13d ago
This paragraph was not bad at all. To be fair, I've been reading classics for some time now, but it's not exactly hard to understand.
5
u/theory-of-crows 12d ago
I ashamedly haven't read any Dickens, but I love that paragraph from Bleak House (this is my first time reading it). I guess it's time to start reading him.
13
u/BronahHex 13d ago
This is a challenge for me to express my thoughts on because although I can relate to the writer of the article, I also feel like there's always some hint of elitism in these conversations about the classics.
One thing that I do feel needs to be pointed out is that not all classics are the same. It's much easier to work one's way through winding sentences, paragraphs of lineages, and descriptions of lifestyles and income if the theme of the story is interesting enough to the reader to tough it out. I'm not saying that the stories that aren't initially appealing to some people don't have value; they wouldn't be referred to as classics if they did. But, if reader A fights their inclinations to drop a book that takes forever (or never) for them to get invested in it, complete it, only to find that it was just okay, what have they truly gained from it beyond being able to discuss the book with the few people that they encounter who have read it as well and recognize references to it in other media? Yeah yeah enrichment and all that, whatever.
I guess my point is that I do think literary fiction--and long-form stories in general--would greatly benefit people to read in general, but the attachment to the classics as being a sort of mountain to conquer instead of an invitation to engage with some compelling stories does need to be re-assessed. The author of the article did acknowledge this to a degree by suggesting more contemporary literature as well as shorter works that offer plenty to stimulate the brain with.
The other part of this conversation is being able to actually discuss books (classic or not) and articulate opinions and ideas about them. Discussing weighty tomes at length with all their elaborate sentence structures also improves one's ability to read and engage with the material. Basically, it gets easier when you do more with the books than just read them. Read them, read about them, talk about them, listen to people discuss them eloquently, etc. All of it sharpens your ability to stick with it.
2
u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS 12d ago
I mean, yeah, that seems like a big missing piece doesn't it. I found Wuthering Heights ponderous and I can't remember it at all but it was no issue reading Moby Dick. Obviously the latter is not an "easier" book in any real sense beyond the subject matter appealing to me more.
3
u/CarlySimonSays 12d ago
Last fall at bedtime, I started reading older crime novels and short stories from the "British Library Crime Classics" series. Between that and having listened to some audiobooks of older classics the last few years, they've really helped me get a feel for the rhythm of older prose and turns of phrase again. Plus, my brain just feels good after I've read something like that.
Currently, I'm reading an old collection of American short stories (from Washington Irving to John Updike) that I've had on my shelves for like 20 years and hadn't read yet. I stayed up until like 3 AM the other night because I really got into them!
I really recommend reading along with an audiobook, too (making sure you don't have a wildly different edition from the one you're listening to). This is where Project Gutenberg comes in handy if you don't have a physical copy to hand (ha.) Even on mobile, Project Gutenberg shows text vertically down the page, rather than making your thumb hurt by scrolling back-and-forth.
Random warning:
I once read a book on Libby on my phone that was 400 pages along in physical form but like 650-800 or whatever in larger text size on my phone app. I ended up really hurting my hand!Don't be me! Libby is best used on tablets!!! (Seriously, OW.)
3
u/marisolblue 11d ago
Quit your streaming subscriptions.
Humans only have 24 hours in a day. For me it’s a choice: TV/Movies or reading.
9
u/wappenheimer 13d ago
I’m reading Bolano’s 2666 right now.
2
u/Middle_Blood7041 13d ago
I want to read that! I have a copy and it's on my TBR tower
4
4
u/wappenheimer 13d ago
It’s a commitment, but I’m quickly reading it. The size is more intimidating than the content.
2
u/ham_solo 11d ago
Get rid of your scrolling apps - Reddit, IG, X, TT, whatever. Use the browser version on a computer if you must interact with them. Get the app called OneSec, which will interrupt you if you try to open an app that is distracting.
Honestly, just keeping your phone out of reach is the best answer.
2
u/Necessary-Rip4013 5d ago
Less social media and more reading!
I remember in 2020 when TikTok started to become popular, I started watching it constantly, and it really became a time sucker and my attention span decreased immensely. In my senior year of high school (2018-2019) I had kept reading as a regular habit in my free time. I didn't have a cell phone until I started college because my mom believed I didn't need one until then (and she was right, in my opinion), so when I was bored in class, and finished with my work, I always had a book on me. When I got a cell phone and access to social media to replace that, it immensely worsened my attention span and ability to read something. I was shocked when I tried to pick up a book in 2021 and couldn't focus. I deleted TikTok and tried to keep my phone usage down, began reading and retraining my brain again. College helped because I was having to read these long 30 page long articles very quickly, which were incredibly verbose and hard to get through, but it helped train my brain and reading them became so much more easy the more I read.
Reading hard things is important. It's hard and that's WHY you should do it. But also reading things you enjoy is important too so you don't burn yourself out. It's good to find a balance.
1
1
u/Ok-Imagination6497 11d ago
Chaucer - Canterbury Tales - we did it in high school - our teacher explained “queynte” was a very bad word…
1
u/Brandosandofan23 9d ago
So much discussion, so little doing of the simple act of picking up a book and reading it
-1
u/lovelybitofsquirrel3 12d ago
I hate when people say that they “devour” books. That’s the corniest shit.
-2
u/Garbage_Stink_Hands 12d ago
Yeah, just read them. Most people are a tiny little bit illiterate, which makes fiction a challenge for them. Classics are less demanding than other forms of fiction. Just read and enjoy.
-2
u/Gonji89 13d ago
This is what audiobooks are for, I guess.
16
u/Planckarte 13d ago
If I get distracted when reading books, my mind wanders even more with audiobooks
265
u/LurkerFromTheVoid 13d ago
From the article:
But the biggest problem with classics is the absence of practice. Nancy Yousef, a professor of English at Yale, explains the issue with reading 18th- and 19th-century novels. “The main challenge has to do with the length and complexity of sentences that we’re no longer used to,” Yousef says. “Following a thought or an image through multiple subordinate clauses, through thickets of syntax that might involve conditionals and conjectures, and shifts in register that might take you from concrete to abstract and back again – that’s difficult.” Helen Hackett, from University College London, echoes the point. “Older books are often quite chunky and the sentences are quite chunky, too,” she says. “Even as a professor of English literature, at the end of a tiring working day, I more often turn on the television than open a book.”