Classics Questions 

This list (somewhat modified here) has been showing up a LOT lately, and although I’m not partaking in any Classic Club challenges I thought I’d throw some answers out there. So... 

If you could explore one author’s literary career from first publication to last, who would you explore? 

There’s a few I’m intending to do this with – George Orwell (both fiction and non-fiction), Agatha Christie (one I finish the Miss Marple series I’ll start on the others) and Virginia Woolf (probably). I WAS going to say the Maigret series by George Simenon, but there are 77 of them and I’m not sure I’m going to be around long enough to finish ALL of them even if they tend to be rather short! Oh, and I forgot Graham Greene!  

First classic you ever read? 

1984 by George Orwell around age 14. It was given to me (to borrow) by my High School English teacher. She had no idea how it would affect me.   

Favourite children’s classic? 

Surprisingly I didn’t read much as a child so missed out on the standard children's classics. I did, however, start reading some of them recently and have been honestly impressed. I think my favourites are probably Peter Pan by J M Barrie (which was intriguing – for a host of reasons – rather than enjoyable), The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (mostly for the tale of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi) and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson which I thought was very good.  

Which classic is your most memorable classic to date? Why? 

‘Memorable’ is a multi-faceted word so... I think one of the earliest classics to have a significant impact on me was The War of the Worlds by H G Wells. It's a great story that still resonates. Despite being my 2nd favourite by the author, I still love Persuasion by Jane Austen. One other is Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. I’m still amazed that such an iconic work could have been written by a teenager – even one oddly educated and surrounded by the greats of the age.  

Least favourite classic? Why? 

I have a few that might surprise people. My most well-known (I suspect) is The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald. I think it’s HIGHLY overrated. Another is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte which I do struggle with the idea that this is a ROMANTIC classic. I was not impressed!   

Favourite movie or TV adaption of a classic? 

Probably the 2005 movie version of Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley. But I first fell in love with the story (and Elizabeth Bennett) during the 1995 BBC version, starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth.  

Favourite classic author in translation?  

Hans Fallada, Hermann Hesse, Albert Camus and Georges Simenon. 

Do you have a favourite classic poet/poem, playwright/play? Why do you love it? 

Poetry really isn’t my ‘thing’, but I am quite partial to a bit of Shakespeare. I’ve only seen most of his plays by their movie versions but did see Romeo & Juliet on stage which I thought was amazing.  

Favourite edition (or series) of a classic you own, or wished you owned, if any? 

My favourite edition of a classic I own is an old hardback of Pride & Prejudice I picked up from a second-hand bookshop sometime in the deep past. On the face of things it doesn’t look like much, but not only did I fall in love with the story (and author) on reading it it’s also a small piece of history in that it was printed in the aftermath of WW2 and is printed on VERY thing paper to save resources. Part of its beauty (and value to me personally) is how delicate it is. My favourite classic series is the ever-growing number of books in the British Library Crime Classics. The Imperial War Museum Classics are a close second.   

Which classic character most reminds you of yourself? Which classic character do you most wish you could be like? 

Not my thing I’m afraid. There’s no one quite like me! 

What is the oldest classic you have read or plan to read? Why? 

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (1531). Why? I’m interested in politics and it hardly gets more classic than this. Although thinking about it The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius is MUCH older!  

Do you reread classics? Why, or why not? 

I don’t re-read much, but I have read several classics more than once. I THINK I’ve read 1984 three times so far and Brave New World at least twice... Classics are so for a reason. You can often get something new out of them every time you read them.

Has there been a classic title you simply could not finish? 

I’ve DNF’d several classics over the years. Most recently they are Erewhon by Samuel Butler, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Hard Times by Charles Dickens and The Purple Cloud by M P Shiel. 

Has there been a classic title you expected to dislike and ended up loving? 

Well, I would never start a book I was EXPECTING to dislike – life is far too short for that kind of thing – but there have been a few (not already mentioned) that ended up impressing me a great deal. They are A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves, The Plague by Albert Camus, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kessey, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene, A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and The End of the Affair by Graham Greene,  

If you’ve ever participated in a read along on a classic, tell us about the experience? 

Yes. I MUCH enjoyed ‘buddy-(re) reading all of the Sherlock Holmes books with Marian H a while back. It was really good both the revisit some of my favourite stories and to discuss them with someone who has also just re-read them.