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62% of people pretend to have read classic novels

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S

squidyj

Member
I've only read 1984 from that list, although I've started a passage to India which I think I will continue now.

I have no interest in reading Jane Austin but I'll probably jump on some of that russian stuff.

I guess my tastes just don't line up with the mainstream in terms of 'classics' I like Hemingway and Ham on Rye.
 
A

Amikami

Banned
Having not read these books does't even make you less intelligent. There's no reason to lie about it, but I guess because they're classics, there's that pressure. I guess it's a good thing that being intelligent is becoming "the thing." It's means people are striving.

I read "To kill a Mockingbird" which was okay, but I had to read it so young, I don't think I could appreciate it enough. I can't remember much other than the very basic points of the plot. Maybe I should try that one again.

Other than that, I read:

"1984"
"The Catcher and the Rye"
"Pride and Prejudice"
"Jane Eyre"

Loved all these titles, but the only reason I read them in the first place is because I was forced in high school, which isn't bad, especially since I have very fond memories of all the books. Taking an AP English and Lit class also really exposed me to a lot of classics.
 
R

rpmurphy

Member
1984 by George Orwell – Read it.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – No.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – No.
Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger – Read it.
A Passage to India by E M Forster – Read it.
Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein – Read it.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – Read it.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – No.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – No.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – Read it.
Click to expand...
High school days... I've been meaning to start reading again though.
 
F

Freezasaurus

Member
entrement said:
Most people stop reading altogether out of college.
Click to expand...

See, I love reading. In fact, I'm usually reading some book or another. I just have a terrible track record with "classics". Most of the ones I've read, I haven't enjoyed. So I don't feel compelled to waste time reading things I'm not enjoying.
 
G

Gannd

Banned
1984 by George Orwell – Read it.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – No.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – Yes.
Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger – Yes
A Passage to India by E M Forster – No
Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein – One of my favorites
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – Favorite Book
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – No
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – Yes. Hated it.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – No.


I had to read most of these just in english class in high school. I bet a lot of the people who replied to this write for The Verge.
 
A

Amikami

Banned
"Other tactics employed by people to make themselves appear smarter include changing their appearance, correcting other people's grammar, dropping famous quotes into conversation and claiming a higher level of fluency in a foreign language."

Hehe. That's one for a few gaffers.
 
B

Bandit1

Member
I'll admit I've never read any of those, but it's kind of funny because I mostly read older books. They might not be quite so "classic" but stuff from the 1930s/40s mostly in the vein of noir. I would never try to tell somebody I'd read something I hadn't. I'd be afraid they would talk about it and I'd have no idea what was going on.
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
Only read the Lee, but many of these are probably worth my time. I'm not massively in-the-know about more obscure literature, but I'm doing my best to get exposed to world lit more diversely than like this. I only took AP English for one year, but getting to read Blood Meridian was a great experience. I've recently gotten away from noir and am reading a good many paperbacks full of goodies.
 
Brian Fellows

Brian Fellows

Pete Carroll Owns Me
The only one I've read is LOTR.

I read like the first 50 pages of 1984 then I lost the book and never got another one.

Have no desire to ever read any of the other and don't want anyone to think I have.
 
M

MIMIC

Banned
1984 by George Orwell – 26%
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – 19%
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – 18%
Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger – 15%
A Passage to India by E M Forster – 12%
Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein – 11%
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – 10%
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – 8%
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – 8%
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – 5%
Click to expand...

I've only read 2 ("Mockingbird" and "Catcher"), seen the trilogy of LoTR, and seen a bunch of parodies for "Great Expectations" :)

I've always wanted to read "1984". I hear it referenced ALL the time. Just never got around to it.
 
T

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Six of the top ten were required reading at my high school.
 
M

Mgoblue201

Won't stop picking the right nation
Out of everything on the list, I've read 1984, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Rings, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Crime and Punishment.
The Technomancer said:
I've never even heard of A Passage to India before
Click to expand...
One of those EM Forster novels that was adapted into a (very good) film by David Lean.
 
M

Mumei

Member
Messofanego said:
The top ten books people claim to have read, but haven't, are:

  • [*]1984 by George Orwell – 26%
  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – 19%
  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – 18%
  • Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger – 15%
  • A Passage to India by E M Forster – 12%
    [*]Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein – 11%
    [*]To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – 10%
    [*]Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – 8%
    [*]Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – 8%
    [*]Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – 5%
Click to expand...

I've read the bolded. I read 1984 and To Kill A Mockingbird sometime in high school or middle school, Lord of the Rings in high school and again earlier this year, Crime and Punishment in 2008, and Austen and Brontë in 2011.

Of the books on the list I haven't read I'm most interested in War and Peace. I think I've only read Dostoevsky of the big nineteenth-century Russian authors.

someday said:
After graduating from high school, I realized that I had made it through 12 years of public school without reading most of the classics. I was a voracious reader already so I made it a purpose to go to the library and read them. I've read these above and so many others. People who avoid these books because they assume they're boring are missing out. Yeah, some are a slog (Brothers Karamazov went completely over my head at 19 and Dr Zhivago was a pussy; I threw the book across the room when I finally finished it) but so many others were phenomenal and once I got used to how they were written, were as easy to go through as anything written by contemporary authors.
Click to expand...

A few years ago, I came to two realizations: One, that in the last few years I had been reading very little outside of a Murakami, my brief flirtation with epic poetry in 2007 - 08 after a history professor's lectures had inspired me (The Odyssey, Faust, and The Divine Comedy), and various manga series. And secondly, I realized that even when I had been a regular reader, I had been avoiding works that I perceived as being too hard for me - which meant that I had been reading mostly genre fiction such as science fiction or forensic mystery stuff.

I had read The Count of Monte Cristo in 2005, and Cyan's book club for that got me to reread it. I had realized those things about my reading habits around the same time, so I made an informal resolution with myself that I was going to try to keep reading on a regular basis. I'm on my third year now and I think it's going pretty well for me. I haven't really made it a point to only reading great works of literary fiction and instead have jumped around between serious literature, genre fiction (though there's obviously some overlap here), epic poetry, poetry collections, nonfiction books about singing, race, sex, gender, reading education / pedagogy, young adult / children's novels, biographies, comics and manga, and some other stuff I'm not thinking of offhand.

The Flash said:
I did read The Count of Monte Cristo when I was 16. Never again.
Click to expand...

You probably read the wrong version. Read it agaiiiiin. It's so amazing.
 
S

Speedy Blue Dude

Banned
•1984 by George Orwell – Never heard of it, except for maybe in a reference to it in Call of Duty Black Ops.

•War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – Never heard of it.

•Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – Never heard of it.

•Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger – Pretend like I read it.

•A Passage to India by E M Forster – Never heard of it.

•Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein – Never read them, constantly lie about having read and watched them to start a conversation with LoTR fans.

•To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – Class room had to read it in 10th grade, I watched the movie and lied about reading it

•Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Lied about it.

•Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – I have lied about "reading" this book.

•Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – Never heard of it.


I'm part of the problem I guess, I don't like reading.
 
P

Pau

Member
Freezasaurus said:
I did, but I kind of hobbled through the whole thing. I just couldn't get into Tolkien's writing style.
Click to expand...
I got bored during the walk up Mount Doom and never picked it back up. I do that a lot though. If I put down a book for longer than a day I will probably never return to it. I did the same with Watership Down. :/

Mumei said:
A few years ago, I came to two realizations: One, that in the last few years I had been reading very little outside of a Murakami, my brief flirtation with epic poetry in 2007 - 08 after a history professor's lectures had inspired me (The Odyssey, Faust, and The Divine Comedy), and various manga series. And secondly, I realized that even when I had been a regular reader, I had been avoiding works that I perceived as being too hard for me - which meant that I had been reading mostly genre fiction such as science fiction or forensic mystery stuff.

I had read The Count of Monte Cristo in 2005, and Cyan's book club for that got me to reread it. I had realized those things about my reading habits around the same time, so I made an informal resolution with myself that I was going to try to keep reading on a regular basis. I'm on my third year now and I think it's going pretty well for me. I haven't really made it a point to only reading great works of literary fiction and instead have jumped around between serious literature, genre fiction (though there's obviously some overlap here), epic poetry, poetry collections, nonfiction books about singing, race, sex, gender, reading education / pedagogy, young adult / children's novels, biographies, comics and manga, and some other stuff I'm not thinking of offhand.
Click to expand...
Holy shit, you've read a lot in a short amount of time then. D:
 
T

The Artful Dodger

Member
It's funny how so many people link their level of enjoyment to how good a book is.

You're not going to enjoy every great work of literature out there, that being said, it doesn't mean you can't appreciate how great of a work it is, or how important it is.


"Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read." - Mark Twain

Also there are a great many classic novels that aren't read by everyone. One of my old Professors said one time that even in a group of English Professors the only book they found that they all had read was The Road, and that was mostly cause of Oprah's book of the Month Club.


In general, I do wish people read more of the great works, that is to say that list is fluid and changes as time progresses, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't go back and read the old ones and see for themselves. I always liked reading them, especially when I found out a favorite author of mine read them, reading your favorite writer/artist/musician/etc's influences is always amazing. And sometimes, when you read those stories you understand where some of the modern thoughts come from or how certain "genres" evolved.


That being said of those top-ten I've only read about 3 of them.
 
B

Buddha Beam

Banned
I've only read 1984, Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Rings from that list.

Read 1984 once, but always tell myself I'm going to read it again.
Read Catcher in the Rye twice, but not since high school, which was in the 90's. Didn't much care for it though.
I've read the LOTR books maybe 5 or 6 times, I'd say. I used to make it a point to read them every year, but meh. Now I just listen to the audiobook versions about once a year :D
 
S

sqwarlock

Member
Of the books listed, I've only read Lord of the Rings and To Kill a Mockingbird. I see no reason to lie about the books I have or haven't read. Most of the time I have zero desire to read them (eg. Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice) or I want to read them but other books get in the way (eg. 1984, War & Peace).
 
B

Buddha Beam

Banned
commedieu said:
Heyy.. weren't most 80s babies forces to read to kill a mockingbird? Stateside....?
Click to expand...
I feel like I might have in high school... but it's one of those things where I can't really remember reading it at all. I think I was SUPPOSED to read it, but then didn't. And just kinda bullshitted my way through class.
 
A

Azulsky

Member
equippedwithtowel said:
you-re-a-bad-person.gif
Click to expand...

Only considered 'classic' because it was about race issues and it was published in 1960. Harper Lee winning the Pulitzer is about as relevant as Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

We should now talk about the other amazing books Harper Lee has written.

Wait....
 
Mr Nash

Mr Nash

square pies = communism
Gotta find the right classic novels to get interested in this sort of stuff. There are some amazing Victorian authors that went out of their way to cram as much scandal as they could into their books (because it helped them to sell!).

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy is a great example. The thing starts off with the main character getting piss drunk, complaining to his wife and new born daughter that they're holding him back from greatness, and proceeding to auction them off to a sailor so he could realize his ambitions. And it just goes on like that the whole novel.

Or, The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. The main character here was another total dick. I love the part where he sends his autistic brother-in-law to plant explosives in the town center, said brother-in-law botches it, blows himself up, then the main character doesn't understand why his wife's so upset.

Also, Cake and Ale by Somerset Maugham is just amazing from cover to cover. One of my favorite books ever.

Some classics of literature can be dry, but there are others that are absolutely fantastic. You just have to dig around for them.
 
E

Erico

Unconfirmed Member
Azulsky said:
Only considered 'classic' because it was about race issues and it was published in 1960. Harper Lee winning the Pulitzer is about as relevant as Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

We should now talk about the other amazing books Harper Lee has written.

Wait....
Click to expand...

Are you really hating on To Kill a Mockingbird? C'mon.
Even if you offhandedly dismiss the racial themes (which you shouldn't), that book gave one of the truest portraits of life in late childhood. It's a classic.
 
A

Azulsky

Member
Erico said:
Are you really hating on To Kill a Mockingbird? C'mon.
Even if you offhandedly dismiss the racial themes (which you shouldn't), that book gave one of the truest portraits of life in late childhood. It's a classic.
Click to expand...

As far as a book that covers Racism, Childhood/Coming of Age, Southern

There are better in every category
 
I

Ivan 3414

Member
I'm detecting a lot of animosity towards Pride and Prejudice in this thread. Why?

I read most of it in high school, and it was sort of entertaining...
 
B

bonesmccoy

Banned
  • 1984 by George Orwell – Yup.
  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – Nope.
  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – Nope.
  • Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger – Yup.
  • A Passage to India by E M Forster – Nope.
  • Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein – Yup.
  • To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – Yup.
  • Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky –Yup.
  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – Nope.
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – Nope.
 
T

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
commedieu said:
Heyy.. weren't most 80s babies forces to read to kill a mockingbird? Stateside....?
Click to expand...

I was born in '76 and forced to read it, but the only ones that weren't on the curriculum were The Lord of the Rings, A Passage to India and Jane Eyre.
 
M

MetatronM

Unconfirmed Member
1984 by George Orwell – yes
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – no
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – yes
Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger – yes
A Passage to India by E M Forster – no
Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein – yes
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – ...honestly I can't remember...I think yes in school
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – no
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – yes
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – no
 
B

BigDes

Member
Slate Soda said:
I'm detecting a lot of animosity towards Pride and Prejudice in this thread. Why?

I read most of it in high school, and it was sort of entertaining...
Click to expand...

I suspect a misunderstanding on what the book is actually about?

People having the mistaken idea that it is a bodice ripper and such
 
D

Derwind

Member
Messofanego said:
The top ten books people claim to have read, but haven't, are:
  • 1984 by George Orwell – 26%
  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – 19%
  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – 18%
  • Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger – 15%
  • A Passage to India by E M Forster – 12%

    [*]Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein – 11%

    [*]To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – 10%
  • Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – 8%
  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – 8%
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – 5%
Click to expand...

I've only read two books on this list (BOLDED), Lord of the rings because its Lord of the rings and To Kill A Mockingbird for school, so that one was forced.

I don't read many classical literature, some classic sci fi novelllas but most books I read are from modern authors.

/shrug
 
G

Geido

Member
A couple of years ago I thought I should read all of the classics, only went through The Art of War and Crime and Punishment though. The Art of War is pretty cool and easy to read. Crime and Punishment was a tightrope walk of boring and brilliant. I still don't know what I really think of the book.

Other than that I think I've read 1984 for English at school, not sure though... And LOTR of course.

I have War and Peace and the Brother Karamazov lying on my shelf, but I really don't want to start them.

Anyway, all bragging aside, why lie about it?
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
Mumei said:
A few years ago, I came to two realizations: One, that in the last few years I had been reading very little outside of a Murakami, my brief flirtation with epic poetry in 2007 - 08 after a history professor's lectures had inspired me (The Odyssey, Faust, and The Divine Comedy), and various manga series.
Click to expand...

Speaking of Divine Comedy, I've only read Dante's Inferno but it's a really fun read. Surprisingly easy to get into for such an old poem. I read a version which also explained the references he makes to real-life people he hated.
 
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