I’ve been spending recent weeks trying to fill some of the gaps in my own education, although I admit War and Peace was more than I could take. I think the important thing is to approach all these works with a fresh mind, seeing them as works that have survived for a reason, not as chores you have to get through. And you won’t like or relate to everything. That’s okay.

# 60–absolutely right. If it isn’t good enough for me, it certainly isn’t good enough for my son. I make a point of reading what he does, not to check up on him but so that we can discuss it. It makes a difference.

Oh, and I want to comment on my previous post. I don’t think I dislike “the Merchant of Venice” just because it was presented badly to me (although it was). It’s really a vile play, and the anti-semitism is appalling. Mr. S. wrote plenty of good stuff, so there’s no need to inflict this one on ourselves or our children at all.

“butt, SAWFFT!! whut lahht thu’ yawnder winder brakes? it’s thuh AYYST, an’ ol’ JEW-lietts thuh SUNN!!”

on the other hand, i suppose it’s unlikely that elizabethan merry minstrels could do a credible bob wills or waylon.

One may extrapolate that recognizing good writing is dependent upon exposure to myriad examples of good writing. Alas, a large part of children’s literature has been thoroughly dumbed down; a Nancy Drew mystery from the 30s is far more complex than a Nancy Drew mystery of the 90s. (Incidentally, they apparently trimmed them down at some point, so there’s now an “Originals” line with all of the text as first published.) If you wouldn’t read it as an adult because it’s infantile or puerile (as opposed to preferring adult books because the children’s books aren’t complicated enough), are you so sure you should be giving it to your children?

*cough* Change of subject.

As a counter-example to the poor aliterate students above, I present two occurrences. Last fall, a friend of mine presented a show called Shakespeare On Request, in which she performs at least one monologue or dialogue from every Shakespeare play (including Two Gentlemen of Verona “because I’m hardcore”) in a semi-random fashion— the audience calls out a play (helpfully posted on a board), and she gives them a choice of speeches, i.e. silly props or no silly props.

During the run we had one whole family dragged to the show (not exactly kicking and screaming) by a teenager who had loved the show the previous weekend and wanted to see it again. Score one for Shakespeare.

The second example is Ashland, Oregon, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, considered the world’s second best Shakespeare company. (The first is Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company.) I routinely see teenagers and college students there and many of them are visibly excited about the performances.

But the real example is my husband’s niece, who utterly loved Christopher Marlowe’s Faustus, and to whom I gave a spare copy of the complete works of Shakspeare. (We had three.) She was not only overjoyed to receive it, but her mother reported that she began reading through it immediately upon returning home.

She was fourteen.

It’s got to be presented right. If the classics are a treat to you— or if you act as though they are— children will see them as one too. Visual aids are acceptible. I love books on the order of 180-200 a year, and I LOVE Jane Austen, but for some reason I can’t get my head around the funny until I’ve seen a movie adaptation of each work. Then the text is hilarious and remains so. I have no idea why this is— this doesn’t happen for any other author— but don’t discount an alternate method of presentation if the reading alone doesn’t work.

Except for those “translated” Shakespeares. Those are Abominations In the Sight of God. *shudder*

I can also add that Lucy Maud Montgomery and her “Anne of Green Gables” series are wonderful. Anne is so charming even Mark Twain liked her

The reading plan is designed to let the student absorb the themes of the Great Books in a logical, progressive manner, so that the student will learn from them. It will be a challenge, but I look forward to it. After all, how many other people in the world will be reading an obscure ancient comedy by Aeschylus at the same time as I am?

Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island, in particular), Albert Payson Terhune (the best dog stories ever told), Kent Curtis (Cruises in the Sun and The Last Wannigan, both largely forgotten) — I was mesmerized by those stories. Even the mass-produced Hardy Boys stories were good for the imagination.

In addition, my parents’ bookshelves were large and well stocked, providing me with a treasure trove of reading, even if a lot of it was way over my head at the time. There I discovered the Churchill memoirs that I mentioned earlier, as well as several bible translations, shelf after shelf of the classics, the ever-present Encyclopedia Britannica, incomprehensible business books, contemporary humor, and everything else imaginable.

One of the greatest gifts my parents gave me was this exposure to the written word.

George MacDonald:
fairy tales and novels
G. K. Chesterton
Hillaire Belloc
C. S. Lewis (wrote a lot more than Narnia!)
J.R.R. Tolkien
Charles Williams
Dorothy Sayers

The modern biographer Joseph Pearce has shed some amazing light on these figures and others in the same vein. Look up his works for more.

In addition to the classics, and in answer to the earlier question about modern American writers, I highly recommend Ernest Gaines [The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman; A Gathering of Old Men; etc.].

Also, though not “literature” in the strictest sense, any of Issac Asimov’s books of astronomy and/or astrophysics for the layman [Is Anybody Out There? and others] are excellent examples of how to present complex and difficult subject matter in a format that is both interesting and understandable for the non-expert.

I also enjoy Michael Crichton’s cautionary tales about modern scientific and engineering advances [Jurassic Park; Prey; etc]. Good stories combined with plausible extrapolations of scientific, engineering and mathematical concepts now in existence. How many people had ever heard of Chaos Theory before reading [or seeing at the theater] Jurassic Park?

La Shawn, let’s do it. This is a wonderful idea, and I would love to take part in something like this. If you have the time with the schedule that you keep, I know that I should definitely be able to find the time as well. (Even though I’m immersed in Book 5 of HP right now.)

I finally made it through *War & Peace* last summer and was completely engrossed this time. (In my previous attempts, I would put the novel down too long and completely forget who the characters were.) What a great novel that was! I read Don Quixote in the spring and really got a kick out of it. Sancho Panza’s little sayings were pretty funny. I do wish I’d read both books sooner. I think sometimes we put them off thinking they will be boring…but far from it!

However, my favorite by far is *The Brothers Karamozov.* For some reason, Dostoevsky’s writing always hits closest to home for me.

Went through a Mark Twain phase in high school and still LOL at *Roughing It* and *Innocents Abroad.* Love Jane Austen too! Took Milton and Chaucer the same semester at college and also joined choir, where we sang Haydn’s Creation; it was the most enjoyable semester of my entire college career.

National Review has a great couple of volumes of children’s stories out. I bought one for Christmas and read through it with my girls over a couple of months. Highly recommended! We are currently reading a volume of Thornton Burgess Animal Tales, also purchased from NR. Excellent stories that any child would enjoy having read aloud to them. Even my 4yo likes to listen in. Getting kids into reading is as simple as reading wonderful, engaging literature aloud to them regularly. Milne, Potter, Grahame, Wilder, Lewis…children’s literature is the best and I still enjoy it the most. Reading aloud is the greatest pleasure of my homeschooling experience. We also have several volumes of family stories compiled by great aunts or distant relatives. My girls were *fascinated* by a look back in time in our own family history. If you have those, make use of them!

(BTW, my dad read me Uncle Remus tales and I loved them. Uncle Remus was so kind to that little boy.)

Anyway, I can’t believe that anyone would say Faulkner is overrated!!!!!!! He is probably the greatest novelist of the past century. Yeah, okay, I grew up in Texas and had ancestors from Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma, so maybe I’m a bit biased. But, hmmm, still, a pox on your houses!

I would love to read all the classics and study Latin, though right now I have my hands full with trying to learn Hebrew since we moved recently to Israel. I am missing a mentor, and would really welcome an online group. If anyone knows such a thing, please mention it here. Thanks!

I must agree – respect for the classics has diminished, and people now shy away from wonderful litterature – the works of Mark Twain, for example – because it is racist or “too hard”. While I’ll admit that Hugo (my favorite author) unabridged is not for everyone,it is at least ART, not pulp to be thrown into the Goodwill pile.

I’m presently a college student, but I’m putting away money to buy a set of the Harvard Classics (check them out on eBay) to peruse through after graduation and work on gaining a more thorough understanding of the classics. For the price of one semester of books, I get 52 volumes of some of the greatest works ever written… it’s a bargain I’d recommend more people got in on. Not to mention how nice they look on your shelf…

(Forgive spelling/other errors, I’m typing without contacts…)