Defending Classic Novels

[rynling]

“book lovers” don’t love anything about books and it’s weird (or, defending classic novels)
https://zynart.tumblr.com/post/686874519007330304/book-lovers-dont-love-anything-about-books-and

This is a (very) long Tumblr post with a clickbait title taken from a clickbait tweet, but it's beautifully written and skillfully argued. I read this essay over the course of several days, and every paragraph filled me with joy and power.

Obviously I love literary fiction, and not just in my area of specialty. Still, I understand why a lot of people actively hate "the classics," not to mention the dripless onanistic litbros who take the gatekeeping of who gets to count as "a serious writer" to an almost biblical level. What I appreciate about this essay is that it relegates those sorts of culture war concerns to a corner and discusses literary novels on their own merit.

Also, while I'm not super into the concept of "a literary canon that everyone needs to read," I agree with the author that's it's good to read writing that wasn't specifically created for a teenage audience. Idk man. I just think it's good for people to be exposed to art that isn't easily digestible, and by "good" I mean "fun and interesting and inspirational from a creative standpoint."

Comments

[rynling]

I know right? I don't know what I expected when I started reading this essay, but it's so good and so true.

[lassarina]

That was really interesting and thought provoking. There are a fair number of classic books I do not like - I will fully admit I did not get more than ten pages into Catcher in the Rye, for example - but there is also so much classic lit I love. I love Jane Austen and Shakespeare and Chaucer and I was at one point (before I got distracted) reading War and Peace for fun. I don't always agree with the books or like them, or like their characters, but it's so wildly fascinating to see how genres evolve over time. I don't particularly care for book-Tolkien, but I can *see* how what he did became 80s fantasy became 90s fantasy became 2000s, you know? I can see what happened there, and then I can spend some time thinking about which parts survived and why.