• ✍️ WORDS ✍️

    Welcome Guest!

  • Words Moderators: deficiT

Thoughts What Modern Classics Would You Recommend For Someone Who Usually Hates Classics?

Atomic_Decay said:
Yep. Penguin Cassics is a whole series of the world’s greatest literature all in the best available English translation. When I was a teenager and had no friends on account of being commonly perceived as a dangerously crazy drug-fucked nut job I first read all the nineteenth century French ones and then all the Russian ones. Totally opened my mind and changed my life.

I was looking through the Penguin website to remind myself of anything else you might like and found these great lists you might find something in:

Vintage Classics

If it’s beautiful, it’s bound to be Vintage
www.penguin.com.au www.penguin.com.au

Penguin Classics hipsters love

Books coveted for their eye-level bookshelf real-estate.
www.penguin.com.au www.penguin.com.au

https://www.penguin.com.au/books/lists/604-high-times (all drug-related)

Classic book recommendations from our authors

Celebrating the 75th anniversary of Penguin Classics.
www.penguin.com.au www.penguin.com.au

At home with the Classics

Tackle the classics you’ve been putting off forever.
www.penguin.com.au www.penguin.com.au

Penguin English Library

Iconic books, beautifully designed.
www.penguin.com.au www.penguin.com.au

Vintage Classics Russians

Discover the epic masterpieces of Russian literature.
www.penguin.com.au www.penguin.com.au

2020 Classics of the Month recap

12 classics revisited – perfect inexpensive Christmas stocking stuffers for the literature lovers in your life.
www.penguin.com.au www.penguin.com.au

www.penguin.com.au

Honoré De Balzac

www.penguin.com.au www.penguin.com.au

Also, it’s not really ‘modern classic’ but if you want something lighter and enjoy history and satire then I really recommend trying the first book in The Flashman Papers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flashman_Papers?wprov=sfti1, I liked it so much I couldn’t read anything else until I’d read the whole series. It’s a bit like the Sharpe series of books by Bernard Cornwall but tongue in cheek and much funnier.
Click to expand...

Amazing-helpful! Thank you! :)
 
tubgirl.jpg said:
Henry Miller - Tropic of Cancer
Knut Hamsun - Hunger
Herman Hesse - Steppenwolf
Jean-Paul Sartre - Nausea
Tom Wolfe - The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Denis Johnson - Jesus' Son
Hubert Selby Jr - Last Exit to Brooklyn
Click to expand...

ANYTHING Hubert Selby Jr for me! Only thing I haven't read of his is Song of the Silent Snow, as I can be picky about short stories. Anyone read it? Opinions?
 
Brief update:

I read The Portrait of Dorian Gray. It was less...eventful...than I;d expected it, but I did really enjoy it. Mostly due to just enjoying the way Wilde writes. Shame this was his only novel. I've since bought, but not yet read, De Profundis which also includes The Ballad of Reading Gaol, The Decay of Lying, The Critic as Artist and The Soul of Man Under Socialism.

Currently reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I almost decided against it, mostly due to A LOT of reviewers on GoodReads saying they HATED it, hated his prose etc, but I really like it, so far (~60% into it).
 
Keep up recommendations or reviews! For everyone, not just me lol.

Finished On the Road by Jack Kerouac and loved it :)
Reading Franz Kafka The Metamorphosis now.
 
Okay, I am VERY confused.
So my copy of The Communist Manifesto came today and it's a small book and also only 52 pages. But then on GoodReads and amazon there are copies that say it is almost 300 pages?
Did I accidentally some how get a SUPER abridged version? It doesn't say that. It's a reputable publisher (Penguin Classics), the title is "The Communist Manifesto" and the authors are "Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels"

Did I go wrong somewhere??
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
I'm excited to read it now!
What is it about? (without spoilers)? The blurb on the back is extremely vague.
Click to expand...
i think its one of those books where different people take different things from it. i take things very literally so only figured out half way through that its in part at least fantasy. i keep meaning to reread it given i was like 3 weeks into rehab last time. by the end i was pretty certain there was a religious element. as with all great books, the fallibility of the human condition is central but in blood meridian its laid brutally bare.

or its just a western, old school cowboys and indians, with some thick, biblical prose. certainly gives a flavour for how the west was really won.

i'm scared to say too much without spoilers. my memory is shoddy anyway.

currently reading the stand after having meant to get around to it for ages, seeing it in this thread jogged my memory.

i'm not sure if its been mentioned in this thread but i thought inherent vice by thomas pynchon qualifies as a classic. i feel like having a totally incomprehensible (unless you've read the book) film made should count for something.
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
Okay, I am VERY confused.
So my copy of The Communist Manifesto came today and it's a small book and also only 52 pages. But then on GoodReads and amazon there are copies that say it is almost 300 pages?
Did I accidentally some how get a SUPER abridged version? It doesn't say that. It's a reputable publisher (Penguin Classics), the title is "The Communist Manifesto" and the authors are "Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels"

Did I go wrong somewhere??
Click to expand...
The 300 page work you are thinking of is Das Kapital or Capital by Marx and Engels.

Capital contains all the sociological evidence/argument for the specific political demands and social changes called for in the Manifesto:

It’s a bit difficult to really understand or agree with the ‘why’ of the Manifesto if you have not read Capital.

But 99% of self-declared Marxists/Communists have not read Capital because it is mind-numbingly turgid and boring - even the bits that are true.
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
Keep up recommendations or reviews! For everyone, not just me lol.

Finished On the Road by Jack Kerouac and loved it :)
Reading Franz Kafka The Metamorphosis now.
Click to expand...

Also Metamorphosis is maybe Kafka’s most difficult work. If you don’t enjoy it you might still like The Castle. It is the most “kafkesque” of his books.
 
Atomic_Decay said:
The 300 page work you are thinking of is Das Kapital or Capital by Marx and Engels.

Capital contains all the sociological evidence/argument for the specific political demands and social changes called for in the Manifesto:

It’s a bit difficult to really understand or agree with the ‘why’ of the Manifesto if you have not read Capital.

But 99% of self-declared Marxists/Communists have not read Capital because it is mind-numbingly turgid and boring - even the bits that are true.
Click to expand...

Ah, that helps, thanks :)
In that case, I'll probably read The Communist Manifesto but not Das Kapital. I'm honestly not that interested in communism (didn't Marx believe in...you know...marxism? Or are they similar?).
I only really bought it because I'm on a Classics/Modern Classics binge and it was on all the lists and was only £1.80 new on amazon* lol.

*A LOT of these books are available for around £2.25 to £2.69 if you search [insert name of classic/modern classic here] with "Wordsworth Classics" on Amazon. And I mean New, not used, and the completely unabridged versions. In the UK, anyway. Just thought I mention it as it's been amazing for me (paying like £2.50 instead of like £8.99 for these books) and thought it might help someone else.
 
Atomic_Decay said:
Also Metamorphosis is maybe Kafka’s most difficult work. If you don’t enjoy it you might still like The Castle. It is the most “kafkesque” of his books.
Click to expand...

In what terms do you mean "difficult"? (like concept/theme/grammatically/etc?)
I really liked Metamorphosis! The families reactions (besides his sisters initial reaction) and behaviour really frustrated me, I must say. I just kept thinking that if it was MY brother, the first thing I;d do was establish a rudimentary system to figure for sure whether he could understand me or not (even just "shuffle left for yes, shuffle right for no") and I'd probably try and treat him as normally as possible.
What would you have done? (question is open to anyone who's read the book: I'm genuinely interested).

I'll definitely read The Castle, too. The book I got (and a steal for brand new and £2.69/$3.52) has Metamorphosis, The Trial and The Castle in it (plus some shorts: In the Penal Colony, The Judgement, Letter to my Father, A Hybrid, A Message from the Emperor, On Metaphors and A Commentary) 👍
 
  • PiHKAL and TiHKAL by Alexander and Ann Shulgin
  • Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
  • A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
  • The Rosy Crucifixion by Henry Miller
  • Junkie by William S. Burroughs
  • Howl a poem by Allen Ginsberg
  • Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
  • Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
  • Neuromancer by William Gibson
  • Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
  • Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  • Rant by Chuck Palahniuk
  • The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson (his 2nd finest work next to Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas)
  • After Dark by Murakami, Haruki
 
Last edited:
My list so far:

Macbeth*
Romeo and Juliet*
King Lear*
1984***
Animal Farm**
Great Expectations*
Oliver Twist**
A Christmas Carol*
Death of a Salesman*
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde****
The Picture of Dorian Gray***
The Metamorphosis*****
American Psycho*****
Fight Club****
Invisible Monsters*****
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest****
A Clockwork Orange****
Carrie*****
The Shining
The Stand*****
On the Road****
The Bell Jar****
Junky***
Queer***
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas***
 
The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte is my favorite Marx, concerning the revolution of 1848 and the high hopes it raised in France before they were promptly crushed in1851 by the coup d'etat of Louis Bonaparte and the Republic's subsequent degeneration into a squalid dictatorship (a.k.a the Third Empire, after Louis crowned himself Napoleon III).

All of this (and the broader failure of '48 in Germany & elsewhere) were basically "current events" at the time the book was written. Marx's prose style is enlivened by his palpable bitterness and his total contempt for Louis Bonaparte, so it's enjoyable to read as well as insightful.

I don't think you need to have extensive background knowledge of modern French history to appreciate it, but a quick Wikipedia refresher on France from 1789 to 1848 wouldn't hurt. The famous line about history repeating itself – the first time as tragedy, the second as farce – comes from this book.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top