Sometime in late July, I found that my interest in the books I was reading was waning. I was finishing up the first of three books in a fantasy series (Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders Trilogy) and looking ahead to what I would move on to reading once I was done with them. Looking over my bookshelves, I didn’t feel “in the mood” for the few books I had on my to-be-read list, and soon realized that I was feeling a bit lost in my literary journey. The genres I’d been reading were mainly fantasy/sci-fi, some crime/mystery, a few coming-of-age novels, and some historical fiction…all works written within the last 40–50 years. That’s not to say that I hadn’t enjoyed what I was reading, but a certain element of excitement was missing.
I was in a reading slump.
Then I thought, “Wait a minute, I have a degree in English Language and Literature…surely there’s something there I can explore!”, as my mind turned back to my university days of what feels like a lifetime ago…25 years, to be exact. I flipped through the catalogue of my memories in recollection of the materials we studied. There was, of course, Shakespeare’s plays, and later, American literature classics such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Great Gatsby, and a couple of Hemingway’s books, and Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper; also some plays like 12 Angry Men and Waiting for Godot, and some of Chekhov’s work. We then covered modern classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. But I was drawn to thinking primarily of the English 18th and 19th century classics that we studied such as Robinson Crusoe, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Heart of Darkness. I remember, too, covering The Scarlett Letter, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Silas Marner, and Great Expectations.
Interestingly, no Jane Austen, but that’s neither here nor there.
These stories feel so familiar to me, but save for one or two books, I can’t remember having actually read them. Perhaps, for limitations of time, we were required only to read certain chapters? I do not recollect. But now my interest in these classics was suddenly re-awakened and the excitement I was missing in my reading was found.
But then, where and how would I start? The possibilities were endless. There are countless books to choose from, I couldn’t just jump in without some preparation. I needed to do some research first, come at things with fresh eyes, now older and wiser, and compile a list of the books whose themes and ideas would interest me to read. I went on Youtube and searched for “reading the classics” or something along those lines, found a few creators, listed below, whose personalities and enthusiasm for sharing their love of classics (and reading in general) spoke to me, and I was hooked!
Their passion for the books they talked about was contagious, filling me with delightful anticipation and eagerness for reading ALL THE CLASSICS!
Based on their recommendations, the list of books that I couldn’t wait to get into very quickly began to grow, and it soon looked to me that I would need to get a new bookshelf (or two) as I started purchasing some of the books on this new and rapidly-expanding TBR list.
For no particular reason, other than it being the first book on this list that I saw at a secondhand bookstore and therefore the first to be purchased, the first classic I read was The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. I knew only a little about the plot—that it revolves around a large sacred jewel that is stolen from an Indian temple by a British army officer and subsequently goes missing in England after he wills it to his niece upon his death—and that it is considered to be one of the best English detective novels, but beyond that, I had no idea what awaited me. I was worried about racist tropes and language pertaining to colonial superiority…but thankfully, Collins attitudes leaned toward anti-imperialist and the racial stereotypes weren’t as bad as I thought they were going to be.
By the time I finished it two weeks later, I had gone from not knowing if I would enjoy The Moonstone, or even classics in general, to loving the book so much that I worried if what I was planning on reading next (Jane Austen’s books) would live up to my experience of it!
Needless to say, and to my relief, Austen’s books were of course just as good as everyone says they are. I finished reading Mansfield Park yesterday and started Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein this morning, as my classics-reading journey continues…