ngl, I've loathed every "classic" book I've read for the aforementioned glazing over of the eyes. It shouldn't take me a half hour to read a ten page chapter but sometimes it does with those books if I don't manage to actually fall asleep first. I suppose the exception to this was Brave New World?
I loved Slaughterhouse Five, and also Flatland - (It's amazing). I am currently reading Frankestein - and it is pretty romantic in the literary sense of the world. There is beautiful description of the Alps in Geneva, passion when Viktor goes to school and meets an alchemic professor, and very cool pages of how the monster learns to speak human languages from zero, along with nice Zen philosophical moments. Reading the book feels like a nice video-essay about life and knowledge generally. So much more than just a monster coming to life story.
Mine would be Well's "The Time Machine", Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars", and Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time", but that's only because I haven't read many classics. EDIT: Oh. *Snap How could I forgot? And Lewis' "The Magician's Nephew" and "Treasure Island" from Louis Stevenson. EDIT AFTER THE EDIT: Aaaand "The Sign of Four" of Sir Conan Doyle... Wow, I had read more classics than modern novels than I though.
Favourite “classic” novel would be Mann's Magic Mountain, or Gaddis' Frolic of His Own (or The Recognitions)-former because of the descriptive & linguistic richness, latter because of the brilliant dialogues; the most “realistic” ones I have ever read without losing the spin of fiction, mayhaps the best dialogues written in a post-WW2 novel.
The thing for new readers to remember about Jane Austen is that her books were satires. It's meant to be funny. And unfortunately, much like Shakespeare comedies, some of the humour doesn't translate well through the centuries. The movie Clueless did a very good update on this novel. It helps modern audiences to see the main character in the way that contemporary audiences would have seen her - rich, vapid, very bad at understanding other people, but earnest and ultimately trying her best.
Nice. Another modern take on Jane Austen books is the monster series - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and Sense and Sensibilities and Sea Monsters. Loved them both.
Also, an intelligent young woman trapped in the country, with nothing to occupy her mind except all this matchmaking and sticking her nose into other people's business. Cher in "Clueless" had a lot more opportunities open to her.
I read annotated versions of the novels that have tons of footnotes that point out what was being satirized, adding context about aspects of life in that era, and pointing out words that meant slightly different things in that era. This slows down the pace of reading, but also enriched the experience. That being said, Emma felt like a slog to get through. I really liked Pride and Prejudice (the first one I read) and Northanger Abbey.
A note on Austen's context: at the time she was writing, ballroom dances were the equivalent of night clubs: a chance to meet, and engage in physical activity with, other young people without chaperones hovering.
Just so. I’ve sort of likened it to 200 year old speed dating. A chance for a guy to have 10-15 mins with a girl, or he might see someone he wants to be introduced to while going down the dance. And if he REALLY likes a lady he might ask her to dance a second time.
@@livtempleton And if she liked him, she might accept. Though the etiquette there did vary depending on the size of the crowd. For a casual private affair with four couples and an accompanist, those present might agree among themselves who should dance with whom without any great meaning attaching to a given pairing. It's at the larger balls, where one could dance every dance with a different partner and still not exhaust the company that dancing with the same partner more than once would be remarked upon.
@@rmsgrey thank you, forgot to point that out! It does after all explain how Darcy’s behaviour at the first ball was dreadfully rude 😅 (I sympathise with him a little I’d be anxious about dancing with strangers too)
@@livtempleton The situation would only have been made worse by current events - depending on the precise timing, a large portion of the young (and not so young) men of Britain (and of other nations) were either dying or dead fighting against France (under either the Revolutionary Government or Napoleon). An eligible bachelor like Fitzwilliam Darcy would have been a prime target for every marriageable young woman dreading spinsterhood - so attending a public ball would have been a bit like being an antelope walking up to a pride of lions - though someone with more interest in securing a wife would find Darcy's position far more appealing.
also, I've said it above but like...waltz the main "ballroom" dance that comes to mind when people think of the past wasn't actually THE main dance bc it was considered scandalous due to closeness of the partners and all that waist and back touching and exclusivity that it involved, since you usually dance the whole dance with a single person. I'm pretty sure that if they saw rumbas and tangoes(I'm going with classical/ballroom stuff here) the ladies and gentlemen of regency would probably get a heart attack and if they saw modern club dancing they'd probably be traumatized for life...seeing all that grinding and closeness and scantly dressed women.
Personally I would have gone for "Pride & Prejudice" or "Sense & Sensibility" instead, the intrigue in those have a bit higher stakes, and I find the characters more compelling.
@@ActualOphelia Right!? I don't know how ppl put S&S up with P&P. I do get why some ppl might not like my other two favorites, (Emma & Persuasion); and therefore, might put S&S above them. BUT I have tried again and again and just can not help but be BOARD with every attempt and even with the show adaptation. The wit may still be in the writing, but NONE of the characters are witty, and none of them, or either of the love stories; pull me in, or have me rooting for them, at ALL.... Well the Colonel is really cool, but he deserves better.
@@rosasutubechannel "Persuasion" didn't do it for me, mostly because it ended abruptly without any plot development bringing the two leads together. In "Pride and Prejudice", it's Wickham eloping with Lydia that leads to Elizabeth seeing the good qualities in Darcy. In "Persuasion", I believe they just have a heart-to-heart talk.
What people often overlook about Austen is how SATIRICAL she was. The opening line of Pride and Prejudice is meant to be exactly that, satire. What makes it so great is that the opening line is written from the perspective of/ expressing the thoughts of Mrs. Bennett who is absolutely obsessed with getting her daughter's married, so of course This would be a held belief of that character, not Jane Austen personally. What the book goes to show is that in fact this is not the case, and how believes that we hold about people (our prejudice) often tend to be wrong.
Being a Jane Austen fan, what I admire about her writing is how she is very much aiming as an author not to be pigeonholed. After the success of Pride & Prejudice, she could have milked that formula for the rest of her career. However in the following book, the personality type of character who was her heroine in P&P is an antagonist. While she stays in the lane of romance, she is constantly shaking up the types of characters, places, and circumstances and is always going back and re-examining what characters she used before and looking at them from completely different angles. Emma is her best written novel, as in she's at the top of her writing capabilities and technique. I wouldn't call it her best novel, but I would definitely say it is her best written one. Pride & Prejudice is her best known and most popular. It's likeability saves it from people being a bit more critical of the conveniences that sometimes occur in the plot of the novel, but it has a charm that allows you to forgive that. Persuasion is what I would argue is her best novel overall. It's not my favorite, but of all of Austen's novels it's the one where she dips her toes into early Romanticism and is arguably the most Romantic of all her works. Northanger Abbey is a loving parody of the types of novels she read as a teenager and young woman. It's a bit rough around the edges because it was her first novel written and it's a novel as the book "the Jane Austen Book Club" put it: a novel about novel writing. Sense & Sensibility is her first published novel, and is definitely a mixture of Austen reflecting on a painful experience that happened in her life, while simultaneously trying to make herself laugh through it. And then there's Mansfield Park, which I would call her most experimental novel. Her heroine comes from actual poverty and actuallycaptures what it feels like to be pulled up from poverty and to be placed among people of a higher social class extremely well--too well, some might say. Austen's social commentary on the rich, especially the rich which profit off of slavery is acerbic, and the overall criticism of slavery that runs under the surface of the novel by comparing it to how the wealthy relations treat their poorer cousin is a nice example of Austen working with allegory. Also add in the deconstruction of Cinderella in the story that's appreciated. Of course a lot of the reasons why I am praising this novel are a lot of the reasons why people either love it or hate it. Fanny, the heroine, can be too meek, too much of a people pleaser, and a bit too much of a wallflower. In our outspoken day of age, she is usually dinged for that. Nevermind that the reason why she is all those things stem back to the realistic depiction of a child plucked from poverty and then harassed by her relations for the rest of her childhood into always being grateful. And when she does speak up for what she wants and doesn't give in to others, she's accused of being a prude. The allegory for slavery is too subtle and often gets missed if you are surface reading--outside of Fanny for once being outspoken about a subject to ask about it over dinner right to the face of her uncle who owns the sugar plantation in Antigua. As for the deconstruction of Cinderella, it's Fanny's rejection of the "handsome prince" type which irritates most readers. If only she would just try to reform the bad boy, then the novel would be better, is what I imagine most people think, while they ignore that Fanny watched as said bad boy teased and tortured the hearts of her two cousins right in front of her eyes. She is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he is capable of reform, but believes him incapable of the constancy and perseverance to stick to it for very long. A read which turns out to be correct. Fanny isn't ready with a quick quip and a pithy reply, but she is dependable, a good judge of character, and knows how to reduce conflict in those around her--and actively does so behind the scenes. She's the engine that keeps things going that everyone takes for granted. Yes, Mansfield Park is my favorite Austen. And I will stop there. Then you get into the unfinished novels and juvenalia that she wrote. Of which Lady Susan should be noted as an outstanding example of late 18th Century writing style of the highest comedic order. A novel that is written in the epistelary style that had been a staple of novels since Pamela and Clarissa from the middle of the 18th Century. The novel is about a scheming young-ish widow aiming to marry her teenage daughter off to a man her daughter cannot stand, while trying to seduce a handsome young man herself, all while overstaying her welcome at her brother-in-law's house. Then there's Sanditon and The Watsons, both of which are unfinished novels. Sanditon because she died, The Watsons because the creative spark on it dried up--though there are ideas in The Watsons that Austen reuses later (a daughter who was raised by wealthy relatives returns home after many years; a character saves another character from humiliation and from feeling terrible at being snubbed for a dance, by another character swooping in to save the day; being two ideas which most easily come to mind). How I would suggest reading Austen's works to a novice: Sense & Sensibility Pride & Prejudice Persuasion Emma Northanger Abbey Mansfield Park Lady Susan Love & Friendship The Watsons Sanditon
Love the breakdown of Mansfield Park because I also have a soft spot for meek and gentle characters that I think are very overlooked now. Also why I like persuasion and I fond the modern adaptions never quite give either of these characters justice. They always make them too bold or too passive. They're strong characters, just not in the way that we think. Also, I love that Fanny doesn't fall for the bad boy trope. She even feels some attraction towards him when he visits her with her family, but she ignores that in favour of her better judgement. Something that Bella in Twighlight could've benefitted from for example 😅 so over stories that ignore their good sense because "he's pretty"
Yep, hit the nail on the head as to why I didn't like Mansfield Park. I felt like there was nothing appealing about Fanny (whereas there was something likable about every other heroine). Also, if I wanted a commentary on the brutality and cruelty of colonialism/slavery, I'd read 12 Years a Slave or the 1619 project.* But I can see how those would be aspects that people who love MP park celebrate. *Both of which I *have* read and got a lot out of. I'm just looking for something different when I would read (or now re-read) Austen.
Great observations and suggestions, especially about the refusal to just repeat herself. What's interesting is that all of her novels are commentaries on courtship and marriage, something she must have had a lot of time to think about as a spinster. So she is something like a Mozart writing symphonies which don't just copy the past ones and yet they follow the same basic structure and medium. Anne Elliott is a quiet introvert like Fanny Price. Emma is an extrovert like Elizabeth Bennett. Elizabeth is economically precarious but unworried. Anne is a disappointed spinster. Fanny is a poor child in love with her foster brother. Emma is a generous but very young busybody. Mrs Norris is an evil busybody. Mr Bennett is a humorous failed father. Sir Thomas is patriarchal failed father. Etc.
The Chronicles of Narnia is my entire childhood. I love that soft magic and world building and just magical feeling that oozes out of every page. I have so many memories of walking around and reading it.
Same! I'm a huge fan of the Chronicles, I even have a Narnia tattoo 😅but I do always give a disclaimer to new readers that they have to remember they are children's books, and to adjust their expectations based on that.
I love Narnia as well, I remember reading the part in the second book where they realise that Edmund has left the Beavers' house, and he's on his way to the White Witch, just before bed. It shocked and gripped me so much, I wanted to keep reading but I had to go to sleep, excited and scared about what would happen next. Such a specific memory haha, a memorable moment for me of one of the first times I was so gripped by something that happened in a book. Idk if these count as classics, but I read a lot of Enid Blyton as a child and the Famous Five were some of the first books I ever read, and I really enjoyed them.
I've read pride and prejudice twice a year since I was 16. I would have recommended that book first because I think it's an easier stepping off point. As for jane austin and her writing as a whole, she was one of the first authors to introduce the unreliable narrator which is in part why she remains so prevalent in academic circles. Not enough people know that the great male writers of the early 20th century have jane austin to thank for the revelation of what a novel could be. I won't say she invented it but she, at the very least, made it mainstream. Similar Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, it may not be the best but it deserves the respect for being the first
It's not "unreliable narrator" so much as that her technique of free indirect discourse puts you in the mind of the character. So you know what they know, read how they think, and speak of characters how they think. This is not objective narrative
@@AllTheArtsy I'm saying "unreliable narrator" because an English professor teaching at Stanford said it and not because it's my own opinion or because I am trying to attribute false accolades to women of the past
I felt that _Emma_ was the worst of Austen's works (I have all her published works in one book). P&P spoke to me more because of the main characters first; but, on rereading the other characters and their interactions were interesting and relatable to people I have met. Also, sci-fi/fan has to be more explicit in describing their created world because it's new to the reader. Austen was writing for her peers. The world was a known quantity.
@@hectorrobertocontrerasmiranda I'll have to do that. I think these books really get better with age. Re-read 'Pride and Prejudice' last Spring and loved it even more. Miss Bingley was so obnoxious, and several times, I wanted to pinch her smug little nose.
Maybe I'll give Emma a re-read? I really really didn't like it the first time.... like I got a refund for it I disliked it so much 😅 It did take several reads of P&P to really get it though, and I absolutely love that book. Rosamund Pike is lovely.
Emma might be considered “the best” novel but I would also argue it’s the second least approachable (Mansfield Park being a challenge as well) for your first Austen novel I would have recommended Persuasion or Pride and Prejudice - especially if you liked the witty banter between Emma and Knightly. Emma’s great but it is harder to read than most of her other books!
@@Hana9916 Yeah, P&P is the best intro to Austen. Persuasion is great, but like Mansfield Park it can be a bit too slow for a new reader, and the heroine a bit too passive.
I have read every book Jane Austen ever wrote and my favorite would be Pride & Prejudice, but a lot of critics say that arguably her best is Persuasion. I love her dialogues because of their wittiness and at the same time I can read miles of Tolkien’s world descriptions. But for some reason i can’t sit through Dickens’ descriptions or dialogues to save my life.
Dickens published his writing in magazines first, so he earned more money by dragging things out. I never read a Dickens book without thinking it'd be vastly improved by cutting a hundred pages or so... 😄
Exactly! I would whole-heartedly take expert advice as to which is the best, but I would never recomend starting there. I feel like the context of the story is more directly involved in P&P, so it's easier to follow and understand.
Sometimes fans of an Author/genre can really shoot themselves in the foot when trying to get others to try it. You have to set aside your personal preferences and think about what a first-timer would respond to.
So great you got to read Emma! I always loved Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey is also one of my favourites. Growing up as a girl I kind of had two experiences of reading Austen: First time when I was very young it was so romantic and polite and beautifully written. But as I got older, I really got to enjoy her sharp and witty sense of humour and her cool way of caricaturing the society of her time. Still love her!
I need to read more classics, but my favorite is Dracula. It was a breath of fresh air to see a vampire be an actual animalistic force of fear instead of a love interest 😂 Its been a few years since I read it though
Persuasion and Pride & Prejudice are probably my favorite Jane Austen stories. Emma, as a character, is so different from me that I have a hard time getting into the book.
I've only read Pride and Prejudice, but it's one of my favorites! The cozy, low stakes vibes is what I really love about the story. Austen's writing definitely improves on the re-read. The more you read it, with the context of the rest of the story, the more the tricky dialog makes sense, and there's really lovely dramatic irony in the characters speaking past each other. It also makes you appreciate it more when you see it in real life, like "that's not what I meant, but I see the logic that lead you to respond with that"
I'd recommed reading the rest too, although I'd save Mansfield Park for last. I really need to re-read that one, since it's the only one I still don't enjoy.
XD I did my BA senior seminar on Pride and Prejudice after my wife made me watch the BBC series; I was the only male in a class of 16, like a dancing bear for everyone else to marvel at. It was actually a great and entertaining experience, largely because Dr. Ingrassia was amazing, as were my classmates, and I got side-tracked (obsessed) with the Lizzie Bennet Diaries (a modern vlog retelling of P&P which is amazing for so many reasons). Check out the Lizzie Bennet Diaries!
I haven't read Emma, but Pride and Prejudice is definattly one of her best novels. And I agree that her prose and dialogues sound so clever and beautiful. As far as other clasics, my favorites are David Copperfield and Anna Karenina. Hardly recommend the last one if you like really psicological novels
I agree that Emma is the best one but I think you can only like it after getting used to her style. Despite me resenting the novel slightly for being Jane Austen's most popular work when Sense and Sensibility and Emma are both way better in my opinion, Pride and Prejudiced should be the one everyone starts out with after watching an adaptation of it. I think that's the best way for people who don't read books like this often to adjust to the style of it and hopefully adapt to her AMAZING sense of humor.
Watching the 1995 Pride and Prejudice tv series was my introduction to Austen, and I'm convinced it's the best possible introduction. Not only did I, as a 12-year old boy, love it, but my 10-year old brother did too! It's one of the few adaptations I've watched where I've read the book afterward without thinking "wow, I wish they'd left this part in".
Huckleberry fin by mark Twain is by far my favorite book of all time. It is a perfect slice cut right out of the era and perfectly depicts the time and era in a fun adventure that deals with amazing themes. I’m also just a mark Twain nerd though so I’m biased as hell lol
My favorite is "Northanger Abbey," another Jane Austen. She's my favorite and I was not expecting you to read this XD I think Emma is the hardest main character out of all Austen's heroines for audiences to like. I still love Emma though. (From what I think I understand about your taste, you might like "Northanger Abbey" the most out of her work. You'll definitely get academic enjoyment from all the Austen novels, but I just think you're likely to find "Northanger Abbey" entertaining versus the others, like "Emma" or "Pride & Prejudice." Who knows, I could be wrong) For me, my favorite literary experiences were "Northanger Abbey," "Pride & Prejudice," and the Percy Jackson book series and if that is a weird and specific list you can fight me Anyway. Jane Austen is not for everyone. I think that you're right: understanding the language with their societal implication really makes a difference. For that reason, I think new readers should be picking up annotated copies of her books. David Shepard made some really good annotated copies of the Jane Austen books that provide context for language, customs, etc. I originally read "Pride & Prejudice" when I was 12 (I watched the Lizzie Bennet Diaries when it came out, realized it was based on a book, and decided to try to read it because I was a snooty little show off as a child). I thought the words were pretty and I felt cool about having read the book. Didn't fully grasp the information or nuances. When I was 16, though, I read "Sense & Sensibility" through an annotated copy. Some of the notes in the margins explained things that occur in the book AND in "Pride & Prejudice" - things I hadn't been aware of that affect the social politics of the day. It was really interesting and eye-opening to me, and made a passing enjoyment of Jane Austen an honest passion. Nowadays I collect copies of Austen novels. At 21 years old, the collection is steadily growing...
"Pride and Prejudice" was the first Jane Austen I ever saw/read and will therefore always have a special place in my heart. Having read all of Austen's novels, my favourite on is probably "Persuasion" because of the angsty, pining aspect of the love story - the two main characters were in love, but the marriage proposal was rejected by the woman because she was persuaded to do so by her family. Still very much in love with the guy they meet again years later - but the rules of society prohibit them from having an actual conversation and instead she has to watch him spend time with her single friends when he is apparently looking to settle down and marry... But again, probably only your cup of tea if you are into these types of love stories :)
I think from what's considered a classic my absolute favourite is "The Mysterious Island" by Jules Verne. By far the best of his "trilogy" for me. And as a kid I was really compelled by the group dynamics and how they overcome the obstacles and tame the nature to survive.
My favorite classic novel is “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”. The main character does almost exactly what I would do in that situation, especially since it’s just an isekai.
My favorite classic novel has to be The Once and Future King by T.H White, which follows the life of king Arthur and the people around him throughout his life. Fun fact is that the first part of the book inspired the Disney movie “The Sword in the Stone”!
One Hundred Years of Solitude and 1984 are genuinely the exact same two novels I always say (besides LOTR of course) 😂 outside of that though, C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy is probably my favourite (assuming it can be considered a "classic", as it's certainly missing a certain notoriety that most books given that label have), and I'm also quite fond of Paradise Lost and Candide.
I think Emma is pretty hard to read if you've never read Austen. I would have gone with the classic Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility. Oh, and my favorite classic is The Picture of Dorian Gray
I put off reading "Bleak House" for a long time because I was put off by the title. But it turned out to be one of the more entertaining Dickens novels, and the "Bleak House" of the title was actually a safe haven for the main character. Also, Dickens experimented with alternating between first and third person, which was kind of gutsy of him.
Mine would be Well's "The Time Machine", Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars", and Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time", but that's only because I haven't read many classics. EDIT: Oh. *Snap How could I forgot? And Lewis' "The Magician's Nephew" and "Treasure Island" from Louis Stevenson. EDIT AFTER THE EDIT: Aaaand "The Sign of Four" of Sir Conan Doyle... Wow, I had read more classics than modern novels than I though.
My fave classic (is it a classic?) is Fahrenheit 451. I remember falling in love with that story when we had it read to us by a cool teacher in high school. She actually made English fun for me again, and this book was the one of the many she read to us that I fell in love with.
The Catcher in the Rye is my fav classic novel. I love the way it’s written, Holden’s character, and the deep nexus of connections I make when analyzing the story. Plus, the whole situation in the novel feels really relatable on a personal level, no matter how old I’ve become in my life so far.
Well, I'm a little miffed because the thumbnail had me thinking you were going to talk about Pride and Prejudice, which I LOVED in high school (to my English teacher's surprise, because that's apparently rare, and there were two of us that adored it), but now I feel mildly inspired to maybe read Emma or some of her other novels. Or just reread P&P or Sense and Sensibility... Either way, always fun to be reminded of Jane Austen's wit!
Listening to Tim talk about Austen's writing is like listening to non-tolkien-readers talk about Tolkien's writing.. almost exactly to a T, and I'm glad he noticed that similarity himself xD That whole "be prepared to ask, wait who said... and how do they relate to..." sums up many peoples descriptions of Tolkien's works. I've read both and love them, but can understand both viewpoints when they're at their "worst". I think it's one of those things where they love something, and become good at it, but also rely on it a bit too much - type of scenarios.
My favorite classics (you cannot expect me to choose one, fool) would probably be; The Secret Garden which felt very *F R E S H*, which all its wonderful descriptions, and A Little Princess (very sweet). Also, Little Women (I adored it but I must admit it is a product of its time), Anne of Green Gables, and Pollyanna, What Katie Did, and yes there's a pattern here lmao Followed closely by The Invisible Man, not very fresh but very intriguing. But the number one is taken by my beloved, the Sherlock Holmes series, just impeccable
I forgot how many classic books I read as a child until I saw your comment! I remember enjoying Anne of Green Gables, and Pollyanna, and almost finishing Little Women haha. I read Katy by Jacqueline Wilson, which is like a modern version of What Katie Did, which I remember I liked as well.
Wonderful review with a great separation of objective and subjective thinking. This is The Way. I haven't read Emma yet but I loved "Pride and Prejudice" and "Sense and Sensibility." I'm glad you're diversifying your reading because those old classics are amazing; especially if we get some context for them and enjoy them as books not stuffy bricks. On a fun note, until recently classics were what I mostly read and it's only recently that I've been expanding into more modern books and especially into fantasy and sci-fi so it's funny hearing you talk about basically my thought process of comparing different types of book... but in reverse XD And my favorite classic is either "Moby Dick," "War and Peace," or "Dracula." I can't choose for sure:)
I listen to The Christmas Carol narrated by Tim Curry every single Christmas. It's short, with beautiful, vivid language, and Tim's performance is fantastic.
I agree with everything you said about the conversations. I've read many books of her and that always happens to me, I get lost on who is saying what or who is who but I still love every book
The Count of Monte Cristo is one of those "old long classics" that is absolutely worth it to read. It occupies my brain at every moment since I've finished it.
I love your book reviews. I find that even when you’re not a big fan of the book (or when my personal opinion differed from yours), you’re still being fair and I can understand where you come from. I loved how you mentioned the fact that a lot of the dialogue is about not really saying what they mean. It’s also true that it might require knowledge of the time period. I haven’t read “Emma,” but my first Jane Austen was “Pride and Prejudice,” and I can see some of your thoughts apply to it as well. As far as classics… I’m a fan of the Gothic, so I love “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” “Frankenstein,” some of Vernon Lee’s supernatural stories… And in the non-Gothic end, “Lord of the Flies,” “A Separate Peace,” “Sir Gaiwan and the Green Knight,” “Catcher in the Rye,” and a few others.
great thoughts! i actually really struggled with pride and prejudice when i first read it and couldn't understand the hype, i think mostly because i would glaze over too much of what was going on and then get lost and frustrated and bored. i then watched the Lizzie Bennet diaries adaptation on youtube, and then picked up p&p again - it then became an enjoyable read. i think the adaptation gave me a map through which to navigate the book (particularly because i could now place every speaking character) which was the help i needed to enjoy it. a couple of years and a bunch of classical English lit novels later, i read Emma and had no problems of the sort - it was a 5 star read and I agree with your friend's authoritative opinion that it's the best one ;). so i can say from personal experience that one can definitely get used to the style!
It’s not easy to honestly approach a book out of your comfort zone. Well done. As always, I appreciate how you have giving an honest but fair review. I agree with other commenters that Prude and Prejudice is Austen’s best. She was known even at the time as a satirical writer making social commentary on behaviors at the time she thought deserved comment. And balls were the place to see and be seen, to meet potential spouses, and to be close to a boy/girl to whom you weren’t related in a socially acceptable way. I have read P&P probably two dozen times in the past 3 decades as well as listened to the audio book and watch the movies. I think it’s her best. Maybe try that if you find yourself wandering out of your comfort zone again. Thank you for being nerdy!
The Chronicles of Prydain is an underrated classic children's series. The latter books dive into places you just don't see in books meant for young people today (which is a shame). The entire book Taran Wanderer is Taran's "dark night of the soul," where he is emotionally and psychologically crippled by shame when he realizes that he would wish death on someone innocent because it would allow him to pursue his dreams. And The High King beautifully illustrates an often avoided lesson, which is that choosing to do the right thing sometimes means that you must choose to sacrifice your own happiness. So dark and so true and so beautiful.
The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is my favourite classic! 🙂My expectation from knowing the character in pop culture is that it would be a kind of pulpy action thing where Jekyll would turn into the hulk. I was honestly so delighted when it turned out to be this diary-style mystery novel about the dangers and ethics of science. It's not long and I recommend it to everyone!
As much as I love fantasy, I am also a lover of 1800's classics, and so its difficult for me to pick just one, but my favourites include Charles Dicken's A Tale of two cities, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. But my favourite Jane Austen is Persuasion, for very personal reasons. Edit: I would not have recommended going to Emma as your first dive into Jane Austen. Most readers find "Pride and prejudice" easier to get into. But still, I'm really glad you're also giving classics a go.
I have most of Jane's books, but the annotation versions. Which is so delightful since it also explains context of what people are doing. I think Jane might be my favourite classical author, but I can't pick which of her works I like the most. I also enjoy having my characters talk with either cultural double meaning or they talk a lot of fluff, which I probably got from reading a lot of Jane's works.^^
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain is one of the rare novels from before the 20th century that is accessible to readers today. It's a fun adventure, and funny as hell.
My favorite over all is Tolkien, followed closely by Lewis. For Jane, it's Pride and Prejudice. More modern, I love the Dragonlance series, Lightning and Watchers, and the first Odd Thomas. Classic classic, I'd probably always go with Dracula and almost anything by Dumas.
My favourite "classic" novel is probably Wuthering Heights, though I will admit to Mr Midshipman Easy a slightly guilty pleasure. Only read one Austen - Sense and Sensibility - and it was fine but I've yet to read another.
never read Emma, but i did first read Pride and Prejudice in university...i enjoyed it more becasue we were given so much useful context for the time period and i felt that i could enjoy it more when i knew what Austen was poking fun at.
I took an entire seminar on Jane Austen and it was a back-breaking amount of work but COMPLETELY worth it. The best class I took in college by far. As much as I loved Austen and Milton before, taking them in college made me appreciate them so much more.
Cool that you're venturing into classics. Would love to hear your thoughts on classic horror like Bram Stoker's "Dracula" or Mary Shelley's "Modern Prometheus" aka Frankenstein which can also be categorized as science fiction. I agree with the previous comments. While I do like Emma, I much prefer Pride & Prejudice, and Sense & Sensibility.
I accidentally like Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend". "Le Petit Prince" i also love, and I would count the Canterbury Tales as my favorite (at it's best it's counted a proto-novel), or "The Tale of Genji" (in a similar vein), but Dickens surprised me when I actually sat down and read his stuff instead of just osmosing it xD My cats are named Chaucer and Dante, and Chaucer came to us named already. I cannot imagine how we ever existed without them, they fit so well, but it should be noted if for no other reason than I'm an old books nerd and feel like my preferences should be treated accordingly.... Edit: Also, these are my favorite "classics", i have other favorites that i wouldn't put into that particular category but thank Tim for any tiny criteria to help sort through the book lover problem of "they're all my favorite!!!!"
Brideshead Revisited is mine. Definitely worth a read, Waugh's prose is just filled with clever phrasing and dry humor that makes it a joy to read, and it rides a line between that cozy feeling of a book about intimate relationships, while still being able to deal with death as it happens naturally over the course of a lifetime. In many ways I feel like Waugh is cut from the same cloth as Tolkien, as another Anglo-Catholic war veteran with a love of highly descriptive language, but where Tolkien writes in a deliberately antiquated way to evoke the style of a grand epic, or a whimsical way to evoke fairy tales, Waugh writes in a more modern style, and leans into dialogue and biting wit. It feels almost as if Tolkien had written a novel in the style of his letters, which as a concept, I just adore. He's especially good at giving each character their own voice, and while he obviously has his own point of view, I think he does a good job of treating other people's opinions with weight and respect. I read Pride and Prejudice a few years back, and to be honest, it just didn't leave very much of an impression. It definitely had that cozy feeling, and the long and sometimes unclear dialogue that was nevertheless occasionally very charming, but the stakes just felt too low, and the characters felt a little thin, like I couldn't tell you what matters to them that's different from the things that matter to virtually everyone. There's a moment when the protagonist's sister seems to be in genuine danger, but her love interest is able to handle it fairly easily as his way of proving himself. The themes that you mentioned, of misunderstandings, and of the main character being averse to romance initially, are also abundantly present, which makes me unsure of how varied Austen's writings are overall. Not my cup of tea really, and I felt there was a reputation for intrigue that was sadly lacking in my reading, which left me a little disappointed. Not a bad book by any means, I still left it feeling mildly uplifted and happy at least, but not what I'd hoped for in terms of drama and characters.
I think there's a good reason Austen films are considered more accessible to modern audiences than her books. She really wasn't writing for people who weren't already familiar with the setting, any more than do authors of contemporary fiction today. I also enjoy audiobooks of Austen's work. It makes the considerable dialogue more fun.
Good video. I liked how you paid tribute to Austen even as you mentioned the struggles readers might have with the book. I think Pride and Prejudice is much more exciting. The story is more focused on the main characters, Elizabeth and Darcy, and it may be easier to care about Elizabeth and Darcy than it is to care about Emma, due to the number of absurd mistakes Emma makes and how she takes matters into her own hands. I remember Emma being more satirical. Elizabeth is more human, if I remember right. If you enjoy stories where the locus of control is somewhat (key word) more external, where more things happen to the main character rather than the main character having to only or primarily fix self-caused issues, Pride and Prejudice may be easier to get into.
When I was in community college, I dropped out of an English class because it was centered around Pride and Prejudice and after I read the first chapter I was *done*. I went on to get a BA in English.
I do love "100 years of solitude" but I think my favorite classic is "The parfum". The descriptions are just divine, the writing style on the whole was captivating for me. It's also one of the very few instances where I read a novel with a clearly evil protagonist and enjoyed it.
I’d have to say my favorite classic novel is 1984, but only because Speaker for the Dead is probably too recent and somewhat unknown to qualify as a classic. I do have an extremely long list of books left to read, though, so that’ll most likely change soon.
I was gonna say my favorite classic novel is One Hundred Years of Solitude :o I'm very happy that see people from outside Latin America know of this book, because it's so good
I read almost entirely sci-fi/fantasy growing up and couldn’t get through the first few chapters of Austen on my first attempt. But seeing part one of the A&E Pride and Prejudice for some reason flipped a switch for me, and I ended up reading it all in one sitting after that. I love Austen’s satire and her insight to human nature. Emma’s not my favorite, but Austen herself expressed concern that readers would dislike the main character, and it’s definitely a matter of taste preference. Pride and Prejudice is probably her best known/loved work, but Mansfield Park has a special place in my heart as an example of that rare breed - the quiet/humble main character.
i think a big difference between Tolkien and Austen for me was the time periods they were form. for Austen, this format of writing was expected and what styles were considered "good" was very narrow (in addition to the societal and gender hurdles she faced, and ESPECIALLY the weird sexism she faces now with people depicting her as a guiding maternal figure who didnt care for money and just loved writing so much, when theres letters where she did very much care about money and was actually a very judgey and not maternalistic person (and i love her sO MUCH)) versus Tolkien who did have a lot more freedom in how he wrote things and got to choose a style that felt most natural to him and hone that. and Austen is masterful for being able to take that narrow availability and make herself stand out; she's an absolutely fabulous satirist and an excellent writer but i also admit, Austen can be hard to read for anyone who finds long sentences and dense text hard to read. i think Austen is similar to Shakespeare in the sense that, we have a better understanding of the importance in having clarity of tone via tags for dialogue NOW versus back then (or, in Shakespeare's case, we more consistently have acting cues and guides for dialogue and how dialogue should be said). like, Austen's books and Shakespeare's plays CAN be read, yes, but they were more often *read aloud/acted*. and so a lot of classics make more sense to modern readers when they are in an audio format and are acted, because that was the form which most people back then processed the novel. the acting of the novel helped popularize the stories. this is due in part for entertainment and in part because books were relatively rare/very expensive (plus universal literacy wasnt a thing), so it was extremely common during the regency era for one's experience with books have them be read aloud and acted rather read yourself (even amongst the rich; it was one of the talents expected for a person to hone, to be able to hold an audience's attention by reading aloud to a party in an entertaining way) i really like dramatizations for that reason, which is a subgenre of audiobooks where every character has their own actor and there's often sound design details (eg rainfall or ballroom music or carriages) to help set scenes. Pride and Prejudice has plenty of dramatizations, tho my favorite is the BBC Radio 4 version with Amanda Root because the opening with Mrs Bennet running around screaming as the narration plays comfortably louder than her is fantastic at sucking you in lmao i hope you end up enjoying her other books! Emma is another great one ♡ i always loved Austen's tenacity in making a character she thought nobody but herself would like. the 2020 movie is an EXTREMELY HISTORICALLY ACCURATE adaptation if you ever watch it (tho p much all of the big Emma movies are good lmao ♡) at any rate, this is another great video ♡ thanks so much for gifting us it!!
My sister forced me to read Pride and Prejudice, and I liked it. As someone with autism it was refreshing to see someone explain the nuances of the conversation, which is stuff I normally miss. But it's not the kind of stories I really need more of, and besides Shades of Milk and Honey I haven't really read anything Austenesque since then. I *can* see why people like it, however.
I always find it hard to identify a "favorite" of any type, but one classic novel I think about often and definitely recommend to others is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. If you don't already like classic novels or find them generally hard to read, this is a short and easy read, and if you love to read anything too this story has a lot to look deeper at and is really just an amazing metaphor for the dangers of giving in to temptations.
I watched the 2005 movie of P&P in theaters, fell in love with it, and then read the book. I enjoyed it a lot, but I did have to maintain a different mindset while reading it. It often didn't feel like a novel as I'd expect today, with much looser ways of conveying scenes and information. To that end, I was glad I had seen the film first, because it helped me follow the beats of the story and the intent of the characters amongst the word smorgasbord. If you've never seen it, I highly recommend Pride and Prejudice (2005), with Keira Knightley and Matthew McFadden. I also highly recommend Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Make it a paired experience!
I don't have a favourite classic novel. But I will always go back to thinking about R. A. Salvatore's series of novels featuring and about Drizz't Do'urden, the dark elf. Do recommend
You mentioned how knowledge of the time period would help in reading and appreciating this and Austen's work. Ballroom dancing *was* the epitome of flirting back then. It was one of the only socially acceptable ways to be near a suitor or potential suitor, talk, touch them and even smell them (are they repulsive up close? Important thing to find out before you court or get engaged!). So it's not an obsession of hers but a realistic part of life as she knew it.
Emma is one of those books that just gets better on rereads because, yes, there's a lot of dialogue one just glosses over because it's your first time reading it and you just HAVE TO know where the story is even going, bu it's precisely all that seemingly superfluos dialogue what gives the novel it's sense of consequence and expansiveness. It's not just the characters speaking, it's a glimpse into the world they inhabit, all the people they know in the flesh but we only get to realize they even exist because they are speaking about them and the way they speak about them succeeds over one of the biggest pitfalls of any writer, they show us! even when they're quite literally just telling us! also, Tim, your favourite classics aren't "classics" they're too recent to be classics, they're more what's usually called "modern classics"
Mary Robinette Kowal has a Jane Austen inspired fantasy series called The Glamourist Histories. First book is SHades of Milk and Honey. Worth a read and a great way to get a Jane Austen vibe and still get your fantasy magic kick.
I read Emma as one of the first books in English (which is not my first lanuage) and i admit i was glazing through dialogs but mostly, when this one talkative lady was speaking. I could imagine how everyone else in the group was tired of her because I was as well. Simmilarly when I was trying yo make sense of who i whose relative it was just like when I try to remember how am I connected to a distatnt aunt or uncle. It all created a vivid image of realistic relationships. Well maybe not all. The fact that even durring arguments everyone gets to finish their sentences is reminding me that it is an old book and not real live
Classic novels are notable in their explorations of language and style, character and theme. I encourage anyone wanting to go on such a journey to dive in, but those works we traditionally accept as classics worthy of study are important because they have resonance different from those works that strive to entertain. Going into the process with less expectation of being catered to in that regard will prevent a reader-for-entertainment-only’s own expectations from working so much against them. I have never been particularly good at picking favorites in this arena. No one work can do it all. Some of my most rewarding reads include Nabakov’s *Lolita*, Faulkner’s *Absalom, Absalom*, Toni Morrison’s *Beloved*, Margaret Atwood’s *The Handmaid’s Tale*, but I could spit out authors worth reading for reason or another all day. Jane Austen is certainly one of those authors most worth reading. I’d even say her works have more to offer than any others written in her specific time period and locality (GB). Her successful pioneering and adept crafting of “free indirect discourse” is why we still employ it in our own novels today.
My SO is a big Austen-fan and getting in deep through her I would say: You should read Austen for the quaint and cosy atmosphere, The narrators amazing wit and for some of the healthiest love and relationship advice you can find in the romance genre. Two words that define Austen would be "Cottagecore Queen".
I think for me it's either Little Women, The Secret Garden or the What Katy Did series. They've got the same cosy kind of vibe, what I always think of as "gentle dramas". Nothing too exciting but it's oddly comforting to follow the characters on their journeys and see what they get up to. Especially with the Katy books as they branch out into the rest of her family and their children so you get a kind of generational story.
I read Emma in my first year of university. I was very nonplussed with it, but it's not at all the kind of story I normally read so I'm sure that impacted the experience.
My favourites Classic is Goethe's Faust. It is the only classic I've read so far, and I liked it. I actually plan to reread it again. And the second part after that.
My favourite classic is Faust - The tragedy's first part by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It's a staple of German literature, it's some of the most beautiful poetry I've ever read, the characters are iconic, the plot is a wild ride and I can't go two days without quoting it.
Nah, now it's Slaughterhouse 5, not 1984. Just read it! Which is your favourite classic novel?
~ Tim
ngl, I've loathed every "classic" book I've read for the aforementioned glazing over of the eyes. It shouldn't take me a half hour to read a ten page chapter but sometimes it does with those books if I don't manage to actually fall asleep first. I suppose the exception to this was Brave New World?
I loved Slaughterhouse Five, and also Flatland - (It's amazing).
I am currently reading Frankestein - and it is pretty romantic in the literary sense of the world. There is beautiful description of the Alps in Geneva, passion when Viktor goes to school and meets an alchemic professor, and very cool pages of how the monster learns to speak human languages from zero, along with nice Zen philosophical moments. Reading the book feels like a nice video-essay about life and knowledge generally. So much more than just a monster coming to life story.
Mine would be Well's "The Time Machine", Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars", and Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time", but that's only because I haven't read many classics.
EDIT: Oh. *Snap How could I forgot? And Lewis' "The Magician's Nephew" and "Treasure Island" from Louis Stevenson.
EDIT AFTER THE EDIT: Aaaand "The Sign of Four" of Sir Conan Doyle... Wow, I had read more classics than modern novels than I though.
Favourite “classic” novel would be Mann's Magic Mountain, or Gaddis' Frolic of His Own (or The Recognitions)-former because of the descriptive & linguistic richness, latter because of the brilliant dialogues; the most “realistic” ones I have ever read without losing the spin of fiction, mayhaps the best dialogues written in a post-WW2 novel.
Mine isn’t a novel, but actually a play called A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
The thing for new readers to remember about Jane Austen is that her books were satires. It's meant to be funny. And unfortunately, much like Shakespeare comedies, some of the humour doesn't translate well through the centuries.
The movie Clueless did a very good update on this novel. It helps modern audiences to see the main character in the way that contemporary audiences would have seen her - rich, vapid, very bad at understanding other people, but earnest and ultimately trying her best.
Nice. Another modern take on Jane Austen books is the monster series - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and Sense and Sensibilities and Sea Monsters. Loved them both.
Also the Lizzie Bennett Diaries, which takes this story and tells it as a webseries/mock blog. It does a surprisingly good job at updating it as well.
Also, an intelligent young woman trapped in the country, with nothing to occupy her mind except all this matchmaking and sticking her nose into other people's business. Cher in "Clueless" had a lot more opportunities open to her.
I read annotated versions of the novels that have tons of footnotes that point out what was being satirized, adding context about aspects of life in that era, and pointing out words that meant slightly different things in that era. This slows down the pace of reading, but also enriched the experience.
That being said, Emma felt like a slog to get through. I really liked Pride and Prejudice (the first one I read) and Northanger Abbey.
Ohh!
A note on Austen's context: at the time she was writing, ballroom dances were the equivalent of night clubs: a chance to meet, and engage in physical activity with, other young people without chaperones hovering.
Just so. I’ve sort of likened it to 200 year old speed dating. A chance for a guy to have 10-15 mins with a girl, or he might see someone he wants to be introduced to while going down the dance. And if he REALLY likes a lady he might ask her to dance a second time.
@@livtempleton And if she liked him, she might accept.
Though the etiquette there did vary depending on the size of the crowd. For a casual private affair with four couples and an accompanist, those present might agree among themselves who should dance with whom without any great meaning attaching to a given pairing. It's at the larger balls, where one could dance every dance with a different partner and still not exhaust the company that dancing with the same partner more than once would be remarked upon.
@@rmsgrey thank you, forgot to point that out! It does after all explain how Darcy’s behaviour at the first ball was dreadfully rude 😅 (I sympathise with him a little I’d be anxious about dancing with strangers too)
@@livtempleton The situation would only have been made worse by current events - depending on the precise timing, a large portion of the young (and not so young) men of Britain (and of other nations) were either dying or dead fighting against France (under either the Revolutionary Government or Napoleon). An eligible bachelor like Fitzwilliam Darcy would have been a prime target for every marriageable young woman dreading spinsterhood - so attending a public ball would have been a bit like being an antelope walking up to a pride of lions - though someone with more interest in securing a wife would find Darcy's position far more appealing.
also, I've said it above but like...waltz the main "ballroom" dance that comes to mind when people think of the past wasn't actually THE main dance bc it was considered scandalous due to closeness of the partners and all that waist and back touching and exclusivity that it involved, since you usually dance the whole dance with a single person. I'm pretty sure that if they saw rumbas and tangoes(I'm going with classical/ballroom stuff here) the ladies and gentlemen of regency would probably get a heart attack and if they saw modern club dancing they'd probably be traumatized for life...seeing all that grinding and closeness and scantly dressed women.
Personally I would have gone for "Pride & Prejudice" or "Sense & Sensibility" instead, the intrigue in those have a bit higher stakes, and I find the characters more compelling.
Agree!!!
For sure. I love Pride and Prejudice, and dislike Emma.
Off it took me so long to get through S&S!! But I loved p&p
@@ActualOphelia Right!? I don't know how ppl put S&S up with P&P. I do get why some ppl might not like my other two favorites, (Emma & Persuasion); and therefore, might put S&S above them. BUT I have tried again and again and just can not help but be BOARD with every attempt and even with the show adaptation.
The wit may still be in the writing, but NONE of the characters are witty, and none of them, or either of the love stories; pull me in, or have me rooting for them, at ALL.... Well the Colonel is really cool, but he deserves better.
@@rosasutubechannel "Persuasion" didn't do it for me, mostly because it ended abruptly without any plot development bringing the two leads together. In "Pride and Prejudice", it's Wickham eloping with Lydia that leads to Elizabeth seeing the good qualities in Darcy. In "Persuasion", I believe they just have a heart-to-heart talk.
What people often overlook about Austen is how SATIRICAL she was. The opening line of Pride and Prejudice is meant to be exactly that, satire. What makes it so great is that the opening line is written from the perspective of/ expressing the thoughts of Mrs. Bennett who is absolutely obsessed with getting her daughter's married, so of course This would be a held belief of that character, not Jane Austen personally. What the book goes to show is that in fact this is not the case, and how believes that we hold about people (our prejudice) often tend to be wrong.
Being a Jane Austen fan, what I admire about her writing is how she is very much aiming as an author not to be pigeonholed. After the success of Pride & Prejudice, she could have milked that formula for the rest of her career. However in the following book, the personality type of character who was her heroine in P&P is an antagonist. While she stays in the lane of romance, she is constantly shaking up the types of characters, places, and circumstances and is always going back and re-examining what characters she used before and looking at them from completely different angles.
Emma is her best written novel, as in she's at the top of her writing capabilities and technique. I wouldn't call it her best novel, but I would definitely say it is her best written one.
Pride & Prejudice is her best known and most popular. It's likeability saves it from people being a bit more critical of the conveniences that sometimes occur in the plot of the novel, but it has a charm that allows you to forgive that.
Persuasion is what I would argue is her best novel overall. It's not my favorite, but of all of Austen's novels it's the one where she dips her toes into early Romanticism and is arguably the most Romantic of all her works.
Northanger Abbey is a loving parody of the types of novels she read as a teenager and young woman. It's a bit rough around the edges because it was her first novel written and it's a novel as the book "the Jane Austen Book Club" put it: a novel about novel writing.
Sense & Sensibility is her first published novel, and is definitely a mixture of Austen reflecting on a painful experience that happened in her life, while simultaneously trying to make herself laugh through it.
And then there's Mansfield Park, which I would call her most experimental novel. Her heroine comes from actual poverty and actuallycaptures what it feels like to be pulled up from poverty and to be placed among people of a higher social class extremely well--too well, some might say. Austen's social commentary on the rich, especially the rich which profit off of slavery is acerbic, and the overall criticism of slavery that runs under the surface of the novel by comparing it to how the wealthy relations treat their poorer cousin is a nice example of Austen working with allegory. Also add in the deconstruction of Cinderella in the story that's appreciated. Of course a lot of the reasons why I am praising this novel are a lot of the reasons why people either love it or hate it. Fanny, the heroine, can be too meek, too much of a people pleaser, and a bit too much of a wallflower. In our outspoken day of age, she is usually dinged for that. Nevermind that the reason why she is all those things stem back to the realistic depiction of a child plucked from poverty and then harassed by her relations for the rest of her childhood into always being grateful. And when she does speak up for what she wants and doesn't give in to others, she's accused of being a prude.
The allegory for slavery is too subtle and often gets missed if you are surface reading--outside of Fanny for once being outspoken about a subject to ask about it over dinner right to the face of her uncle who owns the sugar plantation in Antigua.
As for the deconstruction of Cinderella, it's Fanny's rejection of the "handsome prince" type which irritates most readers. If only she would just try to reform the bad boy, then the novel would be better, is what I imagine most people think, while they ignore that Fanny watched as said bad boy teased and tortured the hearts of her two cousins right in front of her eyes. She is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he is capable of reform, but believes him incapable of the constancy and perseverance to stick to it for very long. A read which turns out to be correct.
Fanny isn't ready with a quick quip and a pithy reply, but she is dependable, a good judge of character, and knows how to reduce conflict in those around her--and actively does so behind the scenes. She's the engine that keeps things going that everyone takes for granted.
Yes, Mansfield Park is my favorite Austen. And I will stop there.
Then you get into the unfinished novels and juvenalia that she wrote. Of which Lady Susan should be noted as an outstanding example of late 18th Century writing style of the highest comedic order. A novel that is written in the epistelary style that had been a staple of novels since Pamela and Clarissa from the middle of the 18th Century. The novel is about a scheming young-ish widow aiming to marry her teenage daughter off to a man her daughter cannot stand, while trying to seduce a handsome young man herself, all while overstaying her welcome at her brother-in-law's house.
Then there's Sanditon and The Watsons, both of which are unfinished novels. Sanditon because she died, The Watsons because the creative spark on it dried up--though there are ideas in The Watsons that Austen reuses later (a daughter who was raised by wealthy relatives returns home after many years; a character saves another character from humiliation and from feeling terrible at being snubbed for a dance, by another character swooping in to save the day; being two ideas which most easily come to mind).
How I would suggest reading Austen's works to a novice:
Sense & Sensibility
Pride & Prejudice
Persuasion
Emma
Northanger Abbey
Mansfield Park
Lady Susan
Love & Friendship
The Watsons
Sanditon
Mansfield park is also my favourite, good on you :)
Love the breakdown of Mansfield Park because I also have a soft spot for meek and gentle characters that I think are very overlooked now. Also why I like persuasion and I fond the modern adaptions never quite give either of these characters justice. They always make them too bold or too passive. They're strong characters, just not in the way that we think.
Also, I love that Fanny doesn't fall for the bad boy trope. She even feels some attraction towards him when he visits her with her family, but she ignores that in favour of her better judgement. Something that Bella in Twighlight could've benefitted from for example 😅 so over stories that ignore their good sense because "he's pretty"
Yep, hit the nail on the head as to why I didn't like Mansfield Park. I felt like there was nothing appealing about Fanny (whereas there was something likable about every other heroine). Also, if I wanted a commentary on the brutality and cruelty of colonialism/slavery, I'd read 12 Years a Slave or the 1619 project.* But I can see how those would be aspects that people who love MP park celebrate.
*Both of which I *have* read and got a lot out of. I'm just looking for something different when I would read (or now re-read) Austen.
Great observations and suggestions, especially about the refusal to just repeat herself. What's interesting is that all of her novels are commentaries on courtship and marriage, something she must have had a lot of time to think about as a spinster. So she is something like a Mozart writing symphonies which don't just copy the past ones and yet they follow the same basic structure and medium. Anne Elliott is a quiet introvert like Fanny Price. Emma is an extrovert like Elizabeth Bennett. Elizabeth is economically precarious but unworried. Anne is a disappointed spinster. Fanny is a poor child in love with her foster brother. Emma is a generous but very young busybody. Mrs Norris is an evil busybody. Mr Bennett is a humorous failed father. Sir Thomas is patriarchal failed father. Etc.
The Chronicles of Narnia is my entire childhood. I love that soft magic and world building and just magical feeling that oozes out of every page. I have so many memories of walking around and reading it.
The Hobbit gives me the same vibe as the Narnia books
Same! I'm a huge fan of the Chronicles, I even have a Narnia tattoo 😅but I do always give a disclaimer to new readers that they have to remember they are children's books, and to adjust their expectations based on that.
I love Narnia as well, I remember reading the part in the second book where they realise that Edmund has left the Beavers' house, and he's on his way to the White Witch, just before bed. It shocked and gripped me so much, I wanted to keep reading but I had to go to sleep, excited and scared about what would happen next.
Such a specific memory haha, a memorable moment for me of one of the first times I was so gripped by something that happened in a book.
Idk if these count as classics, but I read a lot of Enid Blyton as a child and the Famous Five were some of the first books I ever read, and I really enjoyed them.
I've read pride and prejudice twice a year since I was 16. I would have recommended that book first because I think it's an easier stepping off point. As for jane austin and her writing as a whole, she was one of the first authors to introduce the unreliable narrator which is in part why she remains so prevalent in academic circles. Not enough people know that the great male writers of the early 20th century have jane austin to thank for the revelation of what a novel could be. I won't say she invented it but she, at the very least, made it mainstream. Similar Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, it may not be the best but it deserves the respect for being the first
Whoaaa!!!!! That's amazing!!!!!! I'm grateful for her now!
I love Jane Austen. 'Pride and Prejudice' gives me Spring vibes, so I read it last Spring, and it was perfect.
It's not "unreliable narrator" so much as that her technique of free indirect discourse puts you in the mind of the character. So you know what they know, read how they think, and speak of characters how they think. This is not objective narrative
@@AllTheArtsy I'm saying "unreliable narrator" because an English professor teaching at Stanford said it and not because it's my own opinion or because I am trying to attribute false accolades to women of the past
@@AllTheArtsy Isn't that just an unreliable narrator?
I felt that _Emma_ was the worst of Austen's works (I have all her published works in one book). P&P spoke to me more because of the main characters first; but, on rereading the other characters and their interactions were interesting and relatable to people I have met.
Also, sci-fi/fan has to be more explicit in describing their created world because it's new to the reader. Austen was writing for her peers. The world was a known quantity.
No, pride and prejudice is the best one 😂 also there’s a wonderful audiobook of it by Rosamund Pike on audible, she’s an excellent narrator
Emma is WAY BETTER, especially on rereads
@@hectorrobertocontrerasmiranda reread challenge accepted ✨
@@hectorrobertocontrerasmiranda
I'll have to do that. I think these books really get better with age. Re-read 'Pride and Prejudice' last Spring and loved it even more. Miss Bingley was so obnoxious, and several times, I wanted to pinch her smug little nose.
Disagree on the first point, hard agree on the second! Also Emma Thompson has narrated Sense and Sensibility and it's amazing!
Maybe I'll give Emma a re-read? I really really didn't like it the first time.... like I got a refund for it I disliked it so much 😅
It did take several reads of P&P to really get it though, and I absolutely love that book. Rosamund Pike is lovely.
Les Miserablés is easily my favorite classic book, exhaustive description of Waterloo and the history of the Parisian sewers not withstanding
Emma might be considered “the best” novel but I would also argue it’s the second least approachable (Mansfield Park being a challenge as well) for your first Austen novel I would have recommended Persuasion or Pride and Prejudice - especially if you liked the witty banter between Emma and Knightly. Emma’s great but it is harder to read than most of her other books!
Uff, Persuasion is my personal favourite, but it's probably her slowest. Not for the faint of heart
@@Hana9916 Yeah, P&P is the best intro to Austen. Persuasion is great, but like Mansfield Park it can be a bit too slow for a new reader, and the heroine a bit too passive.
I have read every book Jane Austen ever wrote and my favorite would be Pride & Prejudice, but a lot of critics say that arguably her best is Persuasion. I love her dialogues because of their wittiness and at the same time I can read miles of Tolkien’s world descriptions. But for some reason i can’t sit through Dickens’ descriptions or dialogues to save my life.
Dickens published his writing in magazines first, so he earned more money by dragging things out. I never read a Dickens book without thinking it'd be vastly improved by cutting a hundred pages or so... 😄
Persuasion has become my favorite Austen book as I've gotten older (I'm a hail and healthy 30yo lol). Anne is the female protagonist that we need
@@AllTheArtsy I believe JA in her letters said that she was afraid that Anne Elliott was too good to be true. I hope she is wrong! 😁
I'm not shocked your friend said Emma is the best JA novel but I am surprised they recommend you read that over Pride and Prejudice
Yeah when I saw the title I thought it would definitely be Pride and Prejudice.
Exactly! I would whole-heartedly take expert advice as to which is the best, but I would never recomend starting there. I feel like the context of the story is more directly involved in P&P, so it's easier to follow and understand.
Sometimes fans of an Author/genre can really shoot themselves in the foot when trying to get others to try it. You have to set aside your personal preferences and think about what a first-timer would respond to.
So great you got to read Emma! I always loved Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey is also one of my favourites. Growing up as a girl I kind of had two experiences of reading Austen: First time when I was very young it was so romantic and polite and beautifully written. But as I got older, I really got to enjoy her sharp and witty sense of humour and her cool way of caricaturing the society of her time. Still love her!
My favourite classic is Jane Eyre. Definitely worth the hype. Absolutely beautifully written and so important in the feminine coming of age.
Jane Eyre is a must when trying classical romance as a genre. In the same dark tone would be Wuthering Heights.
I need to read more classics, but my favorite is Dracula. It was a breath of fresh air to see a vampire be an actual animalistic force of fear instead of a love interest 😂 Its been a few years since I read it though
I picked it up as one of those books to read before I die, AND THEN I GOT INTO IT AND HOLY COW ITS SO GOOD!!!!
Persuasion and Pride & Prejudice are probably my favorite Jane Austen stories. Emma, as a character, is so different from me that I have a hard time getting into the book.
Austen wrote her to be unlikeable, and while I couldn't identify with her, I enjoyed laughing at her the first time I read the book!
I've only read Pride and Prejudice, but it's one of my favorites! The cozy, low stakes vibes is what I really love about the story.
Austen's writing definitely improves on the re-read. The more you read it, with the context of the rest of the story, the more the tricky dialog makes sense, and there's really lovely dramatic irony in the characters speaking past each other. It also makes you appreciate it more when you see it in real life, like "that's not what I meant, but I see the logic that lead you to respond with that"
I'd recommed reading the rest too, although I'd save Mansfield Park for last. I really need to re-read that one, since it's the only one I still don't enjoy.
XD I did my BA senior seminar on Pride and Prejudice after my wife made me watch the BBC series; I was the only male in a class of 16, like a dancing bear for everyone else to marvel at. It was actually a great and entertaining experience, largely because Dr. Ingrassia was amazing, as were my classmates, and I got side-tracked (obsessed) with the Lizzie Bennet Diaries (a modern vlog retelling of P&P which is amazing for so many reasons). Check out the Lizzie Bennet Diaries!
I haven't read Emma, but Pride and Prejudice is definattly one of her best novels. And I agree that her prose and dialogues sound so clever and beautiful. As far as other clasics, my favorites are David Copperfield and Anna Karenina. Hardly recommend the last one if you like really psicological novels
I agree that Emma is the best one but I think you can only like it after getting used to her style. Despite me resenting the novel slightly for being Jane Austen's most popular work when Sense and Sensibility and Emma are both way better in my opinion, Pride and Prejudiced should be the one everyone starts out with after watching an adaptation of it. I think that's the best way for people who don't read books like this often to adjust to the style of it and hopefully adapt to her AMAZING sense of humor.
I could only not get completely lost on who's who while reading Emma solely because I know Clueless like the back of my hand
Watching the 1995 Pride and Prejudice tv series was my introduction to Austen, and I'm convinced it's the best possible introduction. Not only did I, as a 12-year old boy, love it, but my 10-year old brother did too! It's one of the few adaptations I've watched where I've read the book afterward without thinking "wow, I wish they'd left this part in".
Huckleberry fin by mark Twain is by far my favorite book of all time. It is a perfect slice cut right out of the era and perfectly depicts the time and era in a fun adventure that deals with amazing themes. I’m also just a mark Twain nerd though so I’m biased as hell lol
My favorite is "Northanger Abbey," another Jane Austen. She's my favorite and I was not expecting you to read this XD I think Emma is the hardest main character out of all Austen's heroines for audiences to like. I still love Emma though. (From what I think I understand about your taste, you might like "Northanger Abbey" the most out of her work. You'll definitely get academic enjoyment from all the Austen novels, but I just think you're likely to find "Northanger Abbey" entertaining versus the others, like "Emma" or "Pride & Prejudice." Who knows, I could be wrong)
For me, my favorite literary experiences were "Northanger Abbey," "Pride & Prejudice," and the Percy Jackson book series and if that is a weird and specific list you can fight me
Anyway.
Jane Austen is not for everyone. I think that you're right: understanding the language with their societal implication really makes a difference. For that reason, I think new readers should be picking up annotated copies of her books. David Shepard made some really good annotated copies of the Jane Austen books that provide context for language, customs, etc.
I originally read "Pride & Prejudice" when I was 12 (I watched the Lizzie Bennet Diaries when it came out, realized it was based on a book, and decided to try to read it because I was a snooty little show off as a child). I thought the words were pretty and I felt cool about having read the book. Didn't fully grasp the information or nuances.
When I was 16, though, I read "Sense & Sensibility" through an annotated copy. Some of the notes in the margins explained things that occur in the book AND in "Pride & Prejudice" - things I hadn't been aware of that affect the social politics of the day. It was really interesting and eye-opening to me, and made a passing enjoyment of Jane Austen an honest passion.
Nowadays I collect copies of Austen novels. At 21 years old, the collection is steadily growing...
"Pride and Prejudice" was the first Jane Austen I ever saw/read and will therefore always have a special place in my heart. Having read all of Austen's novels, my favourite on is probably "Persuasion" because of the angsty, pining aspect of the love story - the two main characters were in love, but the marriage proposal was rejected by the woman because she was persuaded to do so by her family. Still very much in love with the guy they meet again years later - but the rules of society prohibit them from having an actual conversation and instead she has to watch him spend time with her single friends when he is apparently looking to settle down and marry... But again, probably only your cup of tea if you are into these types of love stories :)
As a foreign speaker, reading Pride And Prejudice was FRUSTRATINGLY difficult. Gave up around the 30% mark.
I think from what's considered a classic my absolute favourite is "The Mysterious Island" by Jules Verne. By far the best of his "trilogy" for me. And as a kid I was really compelled by the group dynamics and how they overcome the obstacles and tame the nature to survive.
My favorite classic novel is “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”. The main character does almost exactly what I would do in that situation, especially since it’s just an isekai.
My man coming in with the first American isekai lol
But not harems and Saitama-wannabes I presume?
@@carlosroo5460 the main character literally decides against being with anyone until the near end of the book
Love that book-also love the inverse of that book, Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton which brings the medieval into the 19th Century.
My favorite classic novel has to be The Once and Future King by T.H White, which follows the life of king Arthur and the people around him throughout his life. Fun fact is that the first part of the book inspired the Disney movie “The Sword in the Stone”!
One Hundred Years of Solitude and 1984 are genuinely the exact same two novels I always say (besides LOTR of course) 😂 outside of that though, C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy is probably my favourite (assuming it can be considered a "classic", as it's certainly missing a certain notoriety that most books given that label have), and I'm also quite fond of Paradise Lost and Candide.
Love your book reviews!!
I think Emma is pretty hard to read if you've never read Austen. I would have gone with the classic Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility. Oh, and my favorite classic is The Picture of Dorian Gray
Pride and Prejudice is probably her best work. It's very timeless.
I put off reading "Bleak House" for a long time because I was put off by the title. But it turned out to be one of the more entertaining Dickens novels, and the "Bleak House" of the title was actually a safe haven for the main character. Also, Dickens experimented with alternating between first and third person, which was kind of gutsy of him.
Mine would be Well's "The Time Machine", Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars", and Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time", but that's only because I haven't read many classics.
EDIT: Oh. *Snap How could I forgot? And Lewis' "The Magician's Nephew" and "Treasure Island" from Louis Stevenson.
EDIT AFTER THE EDIT: Aaaand "The Sign of Four" of Sir Conan Doyle... Wow, I had read more classics than modern novels than I though.
As a author, pride and prejudice is Austin at her very best.
My fave classic (is it a classic?) is Fahrenheit 451. I remember falling in love with that story when we had it read to us by a cool teacher in high school. She actually made English fun for me again, and this book was the one of the many she read to us that I fell in love with.
The Catcher in the Rye is my fav classic novel. I love the way it’s written, Holden’s character, and the deep nexus of connections I make when analyzing the story. Plus, the whole situation in the novel feels really relatable on a personal level, no matter how old I’ve become in my life so far.
Well, I'm a little miffed because the thumbnail had me thinking you were going to talk about Pride and Prejudice, which I LOVED in high school (to my English teacher's surprise, because that's apparently rare, and there were two of us that adored it), but now I feel mildly inspired to maybe read Emma or some of her other novels. Or just reread P&P or Sense and Sensibility... Either way, always fun to be reminded of Jane Austen's wit!
My favorite classical novel is definitly 1984
Listening to Tim talk about Austen's writing is like listening to non-tolkien-readers talk about Tolkien's writing.. almost exactly to a T, and I'm glad he noticed that similarity himself xD That whole "be prepared to ask, wait who said... and how do they relate to..." sums up many peoples descriptions of Tolkien's works. I've read both and love them, but can understand both viewpoints when they're at their "worst". I think it's one of those things where they love something, and become good at it, but also rely on it a bit too much - type of scenarios.
My favorite classics (you cannot expect me to choose one, fool) would probably be; The Secret Garden which felt very *F R E S H*, which all its wonderful descriptions, and A Little Princess (very sweet). Also, Little Women (I adored it but I must admit it is a product of its time), Anne of Green Gables, and Pollyanna, What Katie Did, and yes there's a pattern here lmao
Followed closely by The Invisible Man, not very fresh but very intriguing. But the number one is taken by my beloved, the Sherlock Holmes series, just impeccable
Ugh I remember loving the Secret Garden as a kid. I need to reread that
I forgot how many classic books I read as a child until I saw your comment! I remember enjoying Anne of Green Gables, and Pollyanna, and almost finishing Little Women haha. I read Katy by Jacqueline Wilson, which is like a modern version of What Katie Did, which I remember I liked as well.
Wonderful review with a great separation of objective and subjective thinking. This is The Way. I haven't read Emma yet but I loved "Pride and Prejudice" and "Sense and Sensibility." I'm glad you're diversifying your reading because those old classics are amazing; especially if we get some context for them and enjoy them as books not stuffy bricks. On a fun note, until recently classics were what I mostly read and it's only recently that I've been expanding into more modern books and especially into fantasy and sci-fi so it's funny hearing you talk about basically my thought process of comparing different types of book... but in reverse XD
And my favorite classic is either "Moby Dick," "War and Peace," or "Dracula." I can't choose for sure:)
Great review.
Pride and Prejudice is the most consistently funny book I've ever read. It's still funny every time I read it.
I listen to The Christmas Carol narrated by Tim Curry every single Christmas. It's short, with beautiful, vivid language, and Tim's performance is fantastic.
I agree with everything you said about the conversations. I've read many books of her and that always happens to me, I get lost on who is saying what or who is who but I still love every book
The Count of Monte Cristo is one of those "old long classics" that is absolutely worth it to read. It occupies my brain at every moment since I've finished it.
I came here to say Monte Cristo, and I was so surprised to see how long it took to find another fan of the work!
I love your book reviews. I find that even when you’re not a big fan of the book (or when my personal opinion differed from yours), you’re still being fair and I can understand where you come from.
I loved how you mentioned the fact that a lot of the dialogue is about not really saying what they mean. It’s also true that it might require knowledge of the time period. I haven’t read “Emma,” but my first Jane Austen was “Pride and Prejudice,” and I can see some of your thoughts apply to it as well.
As far as classics… I’m a fan of the Gothic, so I love “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” “Frankenstein,” some of Vernon Lee’s supernatural stories… And in the non-Gothic end, “Lord of the Flies,” “A Separate Peace,” “Sir Gaiwan and the Green Knight,” “Catcher in the Rye,” and a few others.
great thoughts! i actually really struggled with pride and prejudice when i first read it and couldn't understand the hype, i think mostly because i would glaze over too much of what was going on and then get lost and frustrated and bored. i then watched the Lizzie Bennet diaries adaptation on youtube, and then picked up p&p again - it then became an enjoyable read. i think the adaptation gave me a map through which to navigate the book (particularly because i could now place every speaking character) which was the help i needed to enjoy it.
a couple of years and a bunch of classical English lit novels later, i read Emma and had no problems of the sort - it was a 5 star read and I agree with your friend's authoritative opinion that it's the best one ;). so i can say from personal experience that one can definitely get used to the style!
It’s not easy to honestly approach a book out of your comfort zone. Well done. As always, I appreciate how you have giving an honest but fair review.
I agree with other commenters that Prude and Prejudice is Austen’s best. She was known even at the time as a satirical writer making social commentary on behaviors at the time she thought deserved comment.
And balls were the place to see and be seen, to meet potential spouses, and to be close to a boy/girl to whom you weren’t related in a socially acceptable way.
I have read P&P probably two dozen times in the past 3 decades as well as listened to the audio book and watch the movies. I think it’s her best. Maybe try that if you find yourself wandering out of your comfort zone again. Thank you for being nerdy!
The Chronicles of Prydain is an underrated classic children's series. The latter books dive into places you just don't see in books meant for young people today (which is a shame). The entire book Taran Wanderer is Taran's "dark night of the soul," where he is emotionally and psychologically crippled by shame when he realizes that he would wish death on someone innocent because it would allow him to pursue his dreams. And The High King beautifully illustrates an often avoided lesson, which is that choosing to do the right thing sometimes means that you must choose to sacrifice your own happiness. So dark and so true and so beautiful.
Fahrenheit 451 is my personal favorite classic
The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is my favourite classic! 🙂My expectation from knowing the character in pop culture is that it would be a kind of pulpy action thing where Jekyll would turn into the hulk. I was honestly so delighted when it turned out to be this diary-style mystery novel about the dangers and ethics of science. It's not long and I recommend it to everyone!
As much as I love fantasy, I am also a lover of 1800's classics, and so its difficult for me to pick just one, but my favourites include Charles Dicken's A Tale of two cities, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. But my favourite Jane Austen is Persuasion, for very personal reasons.
Edit: I would not have recommended going to Emma as your first dive into Jane Austen. Most readers find "Pride and prejudice" easier to get into. But still, I'm really glad you're also giving classics a go.
I have most of Jane's books, but the annotation versions. Which is so delightful since it also explains context of what people are doing.
I think Jane might be my favourite classical author, but I can't pick which of her works I like the most.
I also enjoy having my characters talk with either cultural double meaning or they talk a lot of fluff, which I probably got from reading a lot of Jane's works.^^
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain is one of the rare novels from before the 20th century that is accessible to readers today. It's a fun adventure, and funny as hell.
My favorite over all is Tolkien, followed closely by Lewis. For Jane, it's Pride and Prejudice. More modern, I love the Dragonlance series, Lightning and Watchers, and the first Odd Thomas. Classic classic, I'd probably always go with Dracula and almost anything by Dumas.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein- I remember vividly the first time I read it, still puts me through the emotional wringer every time.
My favourite "classic" novel is probably Wuthering Heights, though I will admit to Mr Midshipman Easy a slightly guilty pleasure. Only read one Austen - Sense and Sensibility - and it was fine but I've yet to read another.
War and Peace by a long shot. I love it to my core.
never read Emma, but i did first read Pride and Prejudice in university...i enjoyed it more becasue we were given so much useful context for the time period and i felt that i could enjoy it more when i knew what Austen was poking fun at.
I took an entire seminar on Jane Austen and it was a back-breaking amount of work but COMPLETELY worth it. The best class I took in college by far. As much as I loved Austen and Milton before, taking them in college made me appreciate them so much more.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley will always be one of my favourites. It will never age.
Cool that you're venturing into classics. Would love to hear your thoughts on classic horror like Bram Stoker's "Dracula" or Mary Shelley's "Modern Prometheus" aka Frankenstein which can also be categorized as science fiction. I agree with the previous comments. While I do like Emma, I much prefer Pride & Prejudice, and Sense & Sensibility.
I really love The Great Gatsby [a bit modern for a "classic" but hey] but if it has to be from the Victorian Era then it's Dracula.
I accidentally like Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend". "Le Petit Prince" i also love, and I would count the Canterbury Tales as my favorite (at it's best it's counted a proto-novel), or "The Tale of Genji" (in a similar vein), but Dickens surprised me when I actually sat down and read his stuff instead of just osmosing it xD
My cats are named Chaucer and Dante, and Chaucer came to us named already. I cannot imagine how we ever existed without them, they fit so well, but it should be noted if for no other reason than I'm an old books nerd and feel like my preferences should be treated accordingly....
Edit: Also, these are my favorite "classics", i have other favorites that i wouldn't put into that particular category but thank Tim for any tiny criteria to help sort through the book lover problem of "they're all my favorite!!!!"
Brideshead Revisited is mine. Definitely worth a read, Waugh's prose is just filled with clever phrasing and dry humor that makes it a joy to read, and it rides a line between that cozy feeling of a book about intimate relationships, while still being able to deal with death as it happens naturally over the course of a lifetime. In many ways I feel like Waugh is cut from the same cloth as Tolkien, as another Anglo-Catholic war veteran with a love of highly descriptive language, but where Tolkien writes in a deliberately antiquated way to evoke the style of a grand epic, or a whimsical way to evoke fairy tales, Waugh writes in a more modern style, and leans into dialogue and biting wit. It feels almost as if Tolkien had written a novel in the style of his letters, which as a concept, I just adore. He's especially good at giving each character their own voice, and while he obviously has his own point of view, I think he does a good job of treating other people's opinions with weight and respect.
I read Pride and Prejudice a few years back, and to be honest, it just didn't leave very much of an impression. It definitely had that cozy feeling, and the long and sometimes unclear dialogue that was nevertheless occasionally very charming, but the stakes just felt too low, and the characters felt a little thin, like I couldn't tell you what matters to them that's different from the things that matter to virtually everyone. There's a moment when the protagonist's sister seems to be in genuine danger, but her love interest is able to handle it fairly easily as his way of proving himself. The themes that you mentioned, of misunderstandings, and of the main character being averse to romance initially, are also abundantly present, which makes me unsure of how varied Austen's writings are overall. Not my cup of tea really, and I felt there was a reputation for intrigue that was sadly lacking in my reading, which left me a little disappointed. Not a bad book by any means, I still left it feeling mildly uplifted and happy at least, but not what I'd hoped for in terms of drama and characters.
Hands-down for me is the Hobbit it's the book that got me into reading and inspired me to be a writer and the reason I love fantasy so much
I think there's a good reason Austen films are considered more accessible to modern audiences than her books. She really wasn't writing for people who weren't already familiar with the setting, any more than do authors of contemporary fiction today. I also enjoy audiobooks of Austen's work. It makes the considerable dialogue more fun.
My favorite classic novel is Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. I love it so much, I've reread it a few times, best book ever!
Good video. I liked how you paid tribute to Austen even as you mentioned the struggles readers might have with the book. I think Pride and Prejudice is much more exciting. The story is more focused on the main characters, Elizabeth and Darcy, and it may be easier to care about Elizabeth and Darcy than it is to care about Emma, due to the number of absurd mistakes Emma makes and how she takes matters into her own hands. I remember Emma being more satirical. Elizabeth is more human, if I remember right. If you enjoy stories where the locus of control is somewhat (key word) more external, where more things happen to the main character rather than the main character having to only or primarily fix self-caused issues, Pride and Prejudice may be easier to get into.
When I was in community college, I dropped out of an English class because it was centered around Pride and Prejudice and after I read the first chapter I was *done*. I went on to get a BA in English.
I do love "100 years of solitude" but I think my favorite classic is "The parfum". The descriptions are just divine, the writing style on the whole was captivating for me. It's also one of the very few instances where I read a novel with a clearly evil protagonist and enjoyed it.
I’d have to say my favorite classic novel is 1984, but only because Speaker for the Dead is probably too recent and somewhat unknown to qualify as a classic. I do have an extremely long list of books left to read, though, so that’ll most likely change soon.
I was gonna say my favorite classic novel is One Hundred Years of Solitude :o I'm very happy that see people from outside Latin America know of this book, because it's so good
My favorite classic novel is the giver. The movie based off of it is also pretty nice
I read almost entirely sci-fi/fantasy growing up and couldn’t get through the first few chapters of Austen on my first attempt. But seeing part one of the A&E Pride and Prejudice for some reason flipped a switch for me, and I ended up reading it all in one sitting after that. I love Austen’s satire and her insight to human nature. Emma’s not my favorite, but Austen herself expressed concern that readers would dislike the main character, and it’s definitely a matter of taste preference. Pride and Prejudice is probably her best known/loved work, but Mansfield Park has a special place in my heart as an example of that rare breed - the quiet/humble main character.
i think a big difference between Tolkien and Austen for me was the time periods they were form. for Austen, this format of writing was expected and what styles were considered "good" was very narrow (in addition to the societal and gender hurdles she faced, and ESPECIALLY the weird sexism she faces now with people depicting her as a guiding maternal figure who didnt care for money and just loved writing so much, when theres letters where she did very much care about money and was actually a very judgey and not maternalistic person (and i love her sO MUCH)) versus Tolkien who did have a lot more freedom in how he wrote things and got to choose a style that felt most natural to him and hone that. and Austen is masterful for being able to take that narrow availability and make herself stand out; she's an absolutely fabulous satirist and an excellent writer
but i also admit, Austen can be hard to read for anyone who finds long sentences and dense text hard to read. i think Austen is similar to Shakespeare in the sense that, we have a better understanding of the importance in having clarity of tone via tags for dialogue NOW versus back then (or, in Shakespeare's case, we more consistently have acting cues and guides for dialogue and how dialogue should be said). like, Austen's books and Shakespeare's plays CAN be read, yes, but they were more often *read aloud/acted*. and so a lot of classics make more sense to modern readers when they are in an audio format and are acted, because that was the form which most people back then processed the novel. the acting of the novel helped popularize the stories. this is due in part for entertainment and in part because books were relatively rare/very expensive (plus universal literacy wasnt a thing), so it was extremely common during the regency era for one's experience with books have them be read aloud and acted rather read yourself (even amongst the rich; it was one of the talents expected for a person to hone, to be able to hold an audience's attention by reading aloud to a party in an entertaining way)
i really like dramatizations for that reason, which is a subgenre of audiobooks where every character has their own actor and there's often sound design details (eg rainfall or ballroom music or carriages) to help set scenes. Pride and Prejudice has plenty of dramatizations, tho my favorite is the BBC Radio 4 version with Amanda Root because the opening with Mrs Bennet running around screaming as the narration plays comfortably louder than her is fantastic at sucking you in lmao
i hope you end up enjoying her other books! Emma is another great one ♡ i always loved Austen's tenacity in making a character she thought nobody but herself would like. the 2020 movie is an EXTREMELY HISTORICALLY ACCURATE adaptation if you ever watch it (tho p much all of the big Emma movies are good lmao ♡)
at any rate, this is another great video ♡ thanks so much for gifting us it!!
My sister forced me to read Pride and Prejudice, and I liked it. As someone with autism it was refreshing to see someone explain the nuances of the conversation, which is stuff I normally miss. But it's not the kind of stories I really need more of, and besides Shades of Milk and Honey I haven't really read anything Austenesque since then. I *can* see why people like it, however.
When I was a kid, I read a lot of that sort of classics. My preference now is for much older stuff
I always find it hard to identify a "favorite" of any type, but one classic novel I think about often and definitely recommend to others is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. If you don't already like classic novels or find them generally hard to read, this is a short and easy read, and if you love to read anything too this story has a lot to look deeper at and is really just an amazing metaphor for the dangers of giving in to temptations.
I watched the 2005 movie of P&P in theaters, fell in love with it, and then read the book. I enjoyed it a lot, but I did have to maintain a different mindset while reading it. It often didn't feel like a novel as I'd expect today, with much looser ways of conveying scenes and information. To that end, I was glad I had seen the film first, because it helped me follow the beats of the story and the intent of the characters amongst the word smorgasbord.
If you've never seen it, I highly recommend Pride and Prejudice (2005), with Keira Knightley and Matthew McFadden. I also highly recommend Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Make it a paired experience!
The Count of Monte Cristo... abridged. I'm gonna get to the full thing, I swear, but the abridged is like 500 pages already.
I don't have a favourite classic novel. But I will always go back to thinking about R. A. Salvatore's series of novels featuring and about Drizz't Do'urden, the dark elf. Do recommend
You mentioned how knowledge of the time period would help in reading and appreciating this and Austen's work. Ballroom dancing *was* the epitome of flirting back then. It was one of the only socially acceptable ways to be near a suitor or potential suitor, talk, touch them and even smell them (are they repulsive up close? Important thing to find out before you court or get engaged!). So it's not an obsession of hers but a realistic part of life as she knew it.
Personally I think my favourites from her are persuasion, sense and sensibility and pride and prejudice. I haven't yet read all the others but I will.
Emma is one of those books that just gets better on rereads because, yes, there's a lot of dialogue one just glosses over because it's your first time reading it and you just HAVE TO know where the story is even going, bu it's precisely all that seemingly superfluos dialogue what gives the novel it's sense of consequence and expansiveness. It's not just the characters speaking, it's a glimpse into the world they inhabit, all the people they know in the flesh but we only get to realize they even exist because they are speaking about them and the way they speak about them succeeds over one of the biggest pitfalls of any writer, they show us! even when they're quite literally just telling us!
also, Tim, your favourite classics aren't "classics" they're too recent to be classics, they're more what's usually called "modern classics"
Favorite classic - All Quiet on the Western Front
Emma is a great novel. Pride and P is terrific until it becomes clear Mr D and Lizzy start to appreciate each other.
My favourite classic is probably a tie between Anne of Green Gables, The Bell Jar and The Yellow Wallpaper.
Mary Robinette Kowal has a Jane Austen inspired fantasy series called The Glamourist Histories. First book is SHades of Milk and Honey. Worth a read and a great way to get a Jane Austen vibe and still get your fantasy magic kick.
I read Emma as one of the first books in English (which is not my first lanuage) and i admit i was glazing through dialogs but mostly, when this one talkative lady was speaking. I could imagine how everyone else in the group was tired of her because I was as well. Simmilarly when I was trying yo make sense of who i whose relative it was just like when I try to remember how am I connected to a distatnt aunt or uncle. It all created a vivid image of realistic relationships. Well maybe not all. The fact that even durring arguments everyone gets to finish their sentences is reminding me that it is an old book and not real live
Classic novels are notable in their explorations of language and style, character and theme. I encourage anyone wanting to go on such a journey to dive in, but those works we traditionally accept as classics worthy of study are important because they have resonance different from those works that strive to entertain. Going into the process with less expectation of being catered to in that regard will prevent a reader-for-entertainment-only’s own expectations from working so much against them. I have never been particularly good at picking favorites in this arena. No one work can do it all. Some of my most rewarding reads include Nabakov’s *Lolita*, Faulkner’s *Absalom, Absalom*, Toni Morrison’s *Beloved*, Margaret Atwood’s *The Handmaid’s Tale*, but I could spit out authors worth reading for reason or another all day. Jane Austen is certainly one of those authors most worth reading. I’d even say her works have more to offer than any others written in her specific time period and locality (GB). Her successful pioneering and adept crafting of “free indirect discourse” is why we still employ it in our own novels today.
My SO is a big Austen-fan and getting in deep through her I would say:
You should read Austen for the quaint and cosy atmosphere, The narrators amazing wit and for some of the healthiest love and relationship advice you can find in the romance genre. Two words that define Austen would be "Cottagecore Queen".
I think for me it's either Little Women, The Secret Garden or the What Katy Did series. They've got the same cosy kind of vibe, what I always think of as "gentle dramas". Nothing too exciting but it's oddly comforting to follow the characters on their journeys and see what they get up to. Especially with the Katy books as they branch out into the rest of her family and their children so you get a kind of generational story.
I read Emma in my first year of university. I was very nonplussed with it, but it's not at all the kind of story I normally read so I'm sure that impacted the experience.
Asks what my favorite classic is
Me: the one you are reviewing good sir
My favourites Classic is Goethe's Faust.
It is the only classic I've read so far, and I liked it. I actually plan to reread it again. And the second part after that.
Yooo 100 years of solitude book rewiew WHEN?!?!??
To be absolutely honest, Dracula is such a wild ride
To kill a mockingbird, is a great classic.
My favourite classic is Faust - The tragedy's first part by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It's a staple of German literature, it's some of the most beautiful poetry I've ever read, the characters are iconic, the plot is a wild ride and I can't go two days without quoting it.