why read the classics

Why Read the Classics
Italo Calvino

The classics are the books of which we usually hear people say, "I am rereading . . . " and never "I am reading . . . "

We use the words "classics" for books that are treasured by those who have read and loved them; but they are treasured no less by those who have the luck to read them for the first time in the best conditions to enjoy them

The classics are books that exert a peculiar influence, both when they refuse to be eradicated from the mind and when they conceal themselves in the folds of memory, camouflaging themselves as the collective or individual unconscious.

Every rereading of a classic is as much a voyage of discovery as the first reading.

Every reading of a classic is in fact a rereading.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

The classics are the books that come down to us bearing the traces of readings previous to ours, and bringing in their wake the traces they themselves have left on the culture or cultures they have passed through (or, more simply, on language and customs).

A classic does not necessarily teach us anything we did not know before. In a classic we sometimes discover something we have always known (or thought we knew), but without knowing that this author said it first, or at least is associated with it in a special way. And this, too, is a surprise that gives much pleasure, such as we always gain from the discovery of an origin, a relationship, an affinity.

The classics are books which, upon reading, we find even fresher, more unexpected, and more marvelous than we had thought from hearing about them.

We use the word "classic" of a book that takes the form of an equivalent to the universe, on a level with the ancient talismans. With this definition we are approaching the idea of the "total book," as Mallarmé conceived of it.

Your classic author is the one you cannot feel indifferent to, who helps you to define yourself in relation to him, even in dispute with him.

A classic is a book that comes before other classics; but anyone who has read the others first, and then reads this one, instantly recognizes its place in the family tree.

A classic is something that tends to relegate the concerns of the moment to the status of background noise, but at the same time this background noise is something we cannot do without.

A classic is something that persists as a background noise even when the most incompatible momentary concerns are in control of the situation.

catholic novel reading list

Silence, by Shusaku Endo.
Mariette in Ecstasy, by Ron Hansen
Beloved, by Toni Morrison.
The Lieutenant, by Andre Dubus.
The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner.
The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene.

Today, for the first time in 17 months, we watched a little bit of television. Our antenna is not terrific and I got bored of the Sunday afternoon sitcom patter within 2 minutes. Canned track + 38-word joke buildup = weak.

more reading

American gothic tales / edited by Joyce Carol Oates.
Esquire's big book of fiction / edited by Adrienne Miller.
Gogh's room at Arles : [three novellas] / Stanley Elkin.
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Mapp and Lucia / E.F. Benson ; with a new introduction by Stephen Pile.
Rediscovering values : on Wall Street, Main Street, and your street : a moral compass for the new economy / Jim Wallis.

Burning your boats : the collected short stories / Angela Carter ; with an introduction by Salman Rushdie.

A bit of Fry & Laurie. Season four [videorecording] / BBC Video ; 2 Entertain Video Ltd. ; written by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie ; producer, Jon Plowman ; director, Bob Spiers.

Mental To-Read Dump

I have many messes right now. My external life mirrors my internal and vice versa. Write it down, get it done, set it free.

Don De Lillo - White Noise, Underworld
Carson McCullers - Ballad of the Sad Cafe
Jeffrey Eugenides
Rohinton Mistry - A Fine Balance
Doris Lessing - The Golden Notebook
Philip Roth - The Plot Against America
Christopher Isherwood - The Berlin Stories
Lewis Nordan - Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair
Elinor Lipman - The Way Men Act
Carol Shields - The Republic of Love
Elizabeth Hay - Late Nights on Air
Sara Jeanette Duncan
James Morris
Paul Scott
Iris Murdoch - A Severed Head, An Unofficial Rose
Jonathan Lethem - Amnesia Moon
Titles: An Unexpected Light, Travels in Afghanistan
David Goodis
Cornel Woolrich
Terence Blacker - Kill Your Darlings
Haim Ginott - Between Parent and Child
Howard Zinn
Marc Reising - Cadillac Desert

Noise

I'm reading The Power of Now and am learning lots. The practice toward enlightenment is one that takes patience, dedication and self-discipline, however.
Pretty much everything I do: child-rearing, working, marriage-wise requires all that, but I don't believe I have enough patience, dedication and self-discipline to make it through.

Advice from Helen Gurley Brown on how to life life to its fullest. Why not?

I'm particularly irritated because our delayed bathroom countertop has the wrong circumference hole for our faucet, it's hot, I had to endure some third-rate pabulum sixties Muzak, a poorly edited menu (erratic Capitalization of nouns which is hard on the Eyes), who actually has seventy-five/hundredths of a cent, which is 0.75¢?) and a pencil drawing of Kurt Cobain as representative artwork at a restaurant which had changed hands. Whenever I see .75¢ I think it takes one hundred of those to make seventy-five cents. What's so wrong or bad about $0.75, or 75¢?

Giving blood, then doing work after that. Such a chore to work through the noise of the neighbors' dog who must bark at everything and everybody, to work through my general dissatisfaction, but at least I'm learning that there is joy in holding things and situations up to the Light, where the Truth is, and there is Reward from working through pain. It's the journey to acceptance that's blistering me.

I do recommend The Power of Now by Eckhard Tolle, by the way, even if I am still Ms. Grumpypants. Off now to buy plants and see about a replacement battery.