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Post by The mekanik on Aug 10, 2004 10:04:27 GMT
I dont know about you lot, but i love a great British novel.
The writers HG Wells and George Orwell are both fantastic chaps and well ahead of their times. HG Wells, was regarded to be the greatest interlectual in the world, and foresaw many great inventions, such as the aeroplane, the tank, the H bomb, and many others.
Besides British authors, I also find Jules Verne books irresistable. i am currently reading his first book Five Weeks in a Baloon. I also found Around the world in eighty days a fantastic book also.
Any thoughts on that?
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Post by TheCritique on Aug 10, 2004 20:30:17 GMT
Although I have never read it myself, HG Wells' 'The Time Machine' comes highly reccomended. According to a fantastic non-fiction book called 'Hyperspace', by Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, Wells had universe theory in mind when he wrote the book.
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Post by Naselus on Aug 11, 2004 8:22:55 GMT
Well, I have read the Time Machine, and I think Wells was more interested in putting forward social commentary than anything else. The book's more focused on how the lower classes have been forced to live underground, and eventually develope into the hideous, mutant, cannibalistic Morlocks, preying on the useless decendants of the upper-class, who have in turn become stupid, primative and weak. The time machine of the title is a means to an end, rather than being any sort of objective in the book.
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Post by HStorm on Aug 11, 2004 11:05:54 GMT
It should also be added that Wells, by modern standards, couldn't really be described as a novelist as his stories weren't really long enough. He was the world's first recognisable science fiction writer, and without his work things like Nineteen Eighty-Four wouldn't have been written (the dytopia genre was invented as a kind of fond retort against his Wells' vision of future Utopia).
His best work by far in my opinion is The War Of The Worlds.
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Post by The mekanik on Aug 14, 2004 21:55:25 GMT
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS!!!
I love that book. Besides 1984 I think that must be the best book ever written. Its Fantastic! Shame about the film though. Crap.
I hear Mr S. Speilberg is making another one. Hooray!
has anyone heard Jeff Waynes Musical Adaptation of the War of the Worlds? That is pure genius.
If anybody has that on LP i can offer a competetive price for it as i want it for my WOTW collection.
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Post by Incubus on Aug 25, 2004 21:22:01 GMT
Personally, I'm not a big fan of H.G. Wells. I prefer the likes of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
And let us not forget the Bronte sisters, the greatest English literary family of all time. From them we were blessed with such novels as Jane Eyre.
Skakespeare is also a huge part of classic literature. Thanks to him, we can also act (not only read) plays like Othello and Macbeth.
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Post by TheCritique on Aug 26, 2004 18:03:24 GMT
Er, yes, but without Shakespeare we wouldn't have Macbeth at all.
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Post by Incubus on Aug 27, 2004 11:36:19 GMT
That's what I said.
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Post by Thanatos on Aug 28, 2004 12:34:31 GMT
I maintain that Romeo and Juliet shows that even the greatest literary titan the world has ever seen or is ever likely to see can have an off-day.
As for British novels, I reccommend David Copperfield; I haven't read any other Dickens (apart from A Christmas Carol) but this, his favourite of his novels, is great. To go back a few millennia, the Iliad, Odyssey by Homer (whoever he, they or, very unlikely, she may have been) and the Aeneid by Virgil have, I think, proved themselves sufficiently immortal. I reccommend the Penguin Classics translations by E. V. Rieu for the first two and David West for the third. For something equally classical but more light-hearted, try The Frogs by Aristophanes.
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Post by Thanatos on Sept 28, 2004 20:23:07 GMT
How could I have forgotten Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird?
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Post by The mekanik on Oct 27, 2004 10:22:47 GMT
I read that one with school.
I cannot deny it is a fantastic book, allthough it did not really appeal to me.
Although not classic literature, without a shadow of a doubt Steven Kings books will go on for as long as there are people around to read them. My favourite is one of his lesser known books, The Mist. It is a short story in the compilation Skelington Crew. Read it if you can, its ace!
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Post by Naselus on Oct 27, 2004 13:13:14 GMT
To kill a mockingbird wasn't very good, guys. I'm sorry to say it, but it was quite poorly written. It made and excellent point, and it's extremely influential, but, much like Brave New World, it suffered because the writer was too busy getting his message across to really make the story worth while.
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Post by Thanatos on Oct 30, 2004 0:07:22 GMT
Do you really think so?
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Post by HStorm on Oct 30, 2004 10:38:17 GMT
Personally, I never managed to get past the fourth page of TKAMB when I tried to read it. You could argue that that puts me in a poor position to judge one way or the other, but equally it might say something about how badly written it really is. But I'll concede to the majority opinion, if we can get one.
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Post by Naselus on Oct 31, 2004 19:33:57 GMT
I do think so. The problem with the 'classics' is that they tend to be very poor books, but they have the weight of their historical existence behind them. The idea is, they're too old to be bad.
This clearly isn't the case. Language changes, generally allowing people to make themselves clear with much fewer words. New stories raise the standard of literature. Simply, things generally get better, and the old should be replaced once it passes it's 'sell-by' date. It happens with everything else. The works of Jane Austin are trash, but they were the first trash of their kind and now everyone attributes them a foolish 'holyness', as if they couldn't be improved on in every respect. To Kill a Mocking Bird, and Brave New World, had marvelous ideas in them, but the books themselves were appallingly poorly written. It takes until more than halfway through BNW for Huxley to introduce his main character, for god's sake! This does not make a good story. He paints his picture, but the book should have been a rival to 1984, where as it clearly isn't.
Being old doesn't make something good. People rarely remember that when it comes to books, and tend to simply assume that you have to like these or you're a heathen. "If it's hard to read, well, what does it matter? It's a classic!" No, it's not. It's hard to read, it's dull, it's a pain in the arse. These books have aged too long and too hard to be considered top-quality literature now. You can see where the story's going from the first page. Sure, it's because we've seen what the books inspired, we've read the works of a hundred authors who've all built on these stories, but the problem is those same books created as a legacy overshadow their inspiration and leave it looking weak, feeble, pathetic.
Now, I'm sure that some of you will scoff at this, claim I'm just saying they're rubbish because I found them hard. However, it's not that. I find quantuum physics hard, too, but I read books about it whenever I can because it interests me. I have read several of Austin's books, I've read To Kill A Mockingbird three times in case I missed the genius I was told lay within, I've worked, laboriously, through Dickens. I didn't give up. I finished the books. They just aren't a patch on modern work. They address irrelevant topics and issues, they crawl hopelessly through long-winded, drawn out and unnecissary descriptions, their stories are weak and their endings obvious. If someone wrote A tale of Two Cities now it would disappear without a trace.
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Post by ringmasterrob on Oct 31, 2004 21:24:00 GMT
I am inclined to agree with most of what you say, a lot of books are put up on a pedestal by the modern literature readers purely because they're old and 'classic'. How many books of this type are in English curriculums, both school, college and uni purely because the exam board has decided everyone HAS to know them because anyone who doesn't is a heathen. However, while I whole-heartedly agree that classing all books of a certain age and type is foolish and a bad attitude to literature, dismissing them all as rubbish is equally as foolish.
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Post by Thanatos on Nov 1, 2004 0:17:47 GMT
Come on, someone must have got the reference in my question, "Do you really think so?"
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Post by The mekanik on Nov 4, 2004 20:54:40 GMT
Sorry, not me.
I think, despite its age, HG Wellses work is completely up to scratch, even today.
Top class work indeed.
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Post by Naselus on Nov 4, 2004 21:30:11 GMT
I've always judged books on their own merits, and most of those that fall under 'classic' are awful rubbish. Wells was not actually such a fabulous author. His books were often rather dull, regularly under-achieved, sometimes never seemed to get started at all. He had good ideas, but he squandered them many times. Besides, the average length of an HG Wells book was around 150 pages, which is more of a short-story by the standards of today's authors.
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Post by Thanatos on Nov 9, 2004 0:19:35 GMT
"Do you really think so?" is what Atticus says when he's about to get very dangerous in To Kill A Mockingbird.
As for the merits of classic literatury works: while no informed person can deny that many of them contain many points of objective merit, I agree that how good they are in the sense of how enjoyable to read is obviously a matter of opinion. However, I strongly disagree (and this is not solely subjective) with the assertion that "they tend to be very poor books". I have read some 'classic' novels which bored me stiff, such as Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge and Ernest Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea. I couldn't get past the first few pages of Brave New World, but I have greatly enjoyed even older classic literature like the Sherlock Holmes stories, David Copperfield and various classical (in the Greek/Roman sense) works of different sorts. Turning to plays, Romeo and Juliet I can't stand but Twelfth Night and, indeed, Oedipus the King and The Frogs I like very much.
To say such things as, "It's hard to read, it's dull, it's a pain in the arse," you must either be generalising unforgivably, have read very little classic literature (I've not read all that much and I still find plenty to appreciate in what I have), have very unusual (and, in my opinion, equally bad) taste or simply be prejudiced against anything written before you were born. I've never read any Jane Austen or H. G. Wells, so I can't comment, and neither have I read A Tale of Two Cities, but if it's anywhere near as good as David Copperfield it most certainly would not "disappear without trace". Whether classic works "they crawl hopelessly through long-winded, drawn out and unnecissary descriptions" must be a subjective judgement (but one made for each individual work, not in so general a manner as you have) but no one in his right mind could accuse Copperfield, Mockingbird, Oedipus or even Casterbridge, one of my pet hates, of having a weak story, not even someone who didn't enjoy it. Ditto obvious endings. As for "irrelevant issues", many works are considered classics precisely because the issues they address remain relevant to this day: Oedipus, over 2,400 years on, still provokes worthwhile though about justice, the state and the security of the status of the great, to name but a few themes.
Having said all this, I feel no shame in stating that my favourite author is Terry Pratchett.
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Post by Naselus on Nov 9, 2004 12:16:44 GMT
I have read a great number of the so-called 'classics' (which don't include the Greek works, by the way. Those are translations of translations, and I do agree that for the most part they are very fine, particularly the Odessy, but since a great deal of the work will have been written by a translator in 1957 they are not part of the 'classic' literature branch, which usually refers to the appalling trash coming out between 1700-1900), and while I do generalise I do so from an educated position. My teachers in school took great offence to me reading science fiction or comedy books, and one of them insisted I plow my way through Dickens, Austin, Bronte, and so forth. And I tell you now, they are not good books. They are cornerstones in the creation of good books, but in themselves they have had their day and do not compete.
I didn't say they all had weak stories, I admitted that a few of them are blessed with ideas that have held up through the centuries (again, notably the greek works). They are poor books. They are written clumsily, they are slow-paced, and they don't compare with any half-decent newer work. And I'll tell you why.
For starters, the newer works have to out-do these 'classics' just to get published. They must have more original storylines, more inventive twists, more interesting characters. They must compete against many thousands more books to try an gain any notice at all, including the 'classics'.
Then, we have the evolution of language. Language constantly changes, and, while most of you will probably disagree, it does so for the better. Ideas can be transfered quicker, with fewer words needed to make a point. This means that you can, nowadays, write War and Peace (god awful 'classic') in about a third of the pages without losing any of the important details. The books of 150 years ago are out of date. It's just how they're going to be, they're 150 years old, so naturally they are clumsy, often irrelevant, generally dull. Of course they aren't 100% through, but they lack the imagination, the pace, the sheer inventivness of the modern author.
In short, these books may well be giants, but since we stand on their shoulders we should look to the stars. These books have had their day, and without them modern literature would not be so good, but people often fall into the trap of insisting that the 'classics' are the greatest writings that can possibly be, and refuse to acknowledge that they have been surpassed. The Hitchhikers Guide series pisses all over Dickens. Terry Patchett makes Shakespeares Comedies into Tragedies. Austin is so bad that it pisses on itself, to be honest.
That isn't to say that one or two manage to hold out and nearly equal some of their decendants. I can't stand any Dickens, but I can see why one or two of his books might be considered reasonable. However, even the 'mighty' David Copperfield isn't much cop compared to some of the books that come out every day. I don't say that classics MUST be shite, but I do say that they should not be put upon a pedastal and worshiped, as many people tend to. I'm speaking to English teachers everywhere with this. Vast swathes of these books are awful. Thomas Hardy had less talent that a dyslexic frog on acid. The Bronte sisters, sorry Liquidus, were hopelessly overrated. Harper Lee couldn't write for toffee, hence nothing else he ever wrote was published. Tolstoy was a morbid idiot, Dostoyevsky a dullard.
To look at it from a different point of view, what do scientists think of the works of Darwin? They think he was wrong, for starters. He was on the right lines, but still wrong. However, they recognise that he was vital to the continuation of biology, paleontology, botany and zoology. Doesn't mean they have to say his work was excellent. In philosophy, we recognise Nietzsche and Macheavelli as philosophers, and ones of great standing, but no-one says their ideas are valid today. We've learned and improved from the frankly horrific ideas put forward, and now their philosophies are defunct. Why literature can't understand similar, I just don't know.
Just as an aside, if you liked the Greek myths, may I recommend the Norse ones? They're excellent stuff, very much the same kind of 'naughty' gods and heroic men.
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Post by Thanatos on Nov 9, 2004 17:13:06 GMT
Oh, something else I meant to point out: Harper Lee is female. I'll reply to your latest message some other time, I'm quite busy.
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Post by Incubus on Nov 16, 2004 10:22:39 GMT
I would love to know whether you have actually read any of the above books; if they were so poor, why are they called classics and taught at A Level and degree level? Some of the best English writers in history were from the past.
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Post by ringmasterrob on Nov 16, 2004 12:32:05 GMT
Just because a book is taught for a qualification does NOT make it a good book, I have found that out often. The reason for this is that the people that decide the curriculum for these courses tend to be the kind of people who consider these books classics and decide that they are good example of literature, whilst completely ignoring many of the superior modern books. I haven't read a lot of older literature so i can't comment too deeply on that specific issue. I would think that from the depth in which Thanatos and Naselus are dicussing these books then they must have read them, otherwise they wouldn't be talking about them in such detail and accuracy.
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Post by loremastermiar on Nov 17, 2004 10:26:02 GMT
Some of the best English writers in history were from the past. I agree Tom. I am personally a big fan of classical literature, in particular Robert Louis Stevens and Charles Dickens. These men wrote such landmark books as Treasure Island and Christmas Carol. Now these books must be considered great by some, and they still prove popular over a century after they were written.
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