Where are my Maeve Wiley fans?
I love Netflix’s Sex Education, more specifically the beautiful character of Maeve Wiley! Just like me (only I wish I was as sassy as her), while her classmates are drinking cheap beer at house parties, she’s sitting on a couch, reading a classic.
So I got inspired and I decided to give you my ultimate beginner’s tbr list for classics, full of both international as well as British literature (tell me your favourite)!
Jane Austen’s Emma:
Be aware there will be more Jane Austen in this list!
Now, Emma is an exceptional piece of classic fiction.
When Jane Austen sat down in 1814, her purpose was to write a revolutionary book – many critics have said that this book “changed the meaning of fiction” – and she succeeded.
Here, Austen paints a world of excess.
In simple words, Emma Woodhouse is one of Austen's most captivating and vivid characters. Beautiful, spoilt, vain and irrepressibly witty, Emma organizes the lives of the inhabitants of her sleepy little village and plays matchmaker with devastating effect.
Although the majority of the readers – whether they like Jane Austen or not – hate Emma as a character for being self-absorbed in a way that only someone who hasn't really known any sort of hardships can be, this just proves even more how talented Jane Austen really is since when she began writing this novel, she had famously said: “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like."
Well done, ma ’lady!
Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights
Often described as a “cult classic”, Wuthering Heights is surely one of the best pieces of literary fiction to ever exist. Some may even say that it is “the greatest love story of our time - or any time!”
In 1801, Lockwood, a wealthy young man from the south of England, who is seeking peace and recuperation, rents Thrushcross Grange in Yorkshire. He visits his landlord, Heathcliff, who lives in a remote moorland farmhouse, Wuthering Heights. There Lockwood finds an odd assemblage: Heathcliff, who seems to be a gentleman, but whose manners are uncouth; the reserved mistress of the house, who is in her mid-teens; and a young man, who seems to be a member of the family, yet dresses and speaks as if he is a servant.
Wuthering Heights takes us to a world that is somehow outside of all social and moral norms. It's closer to the realm of dreams or Greek myth than the rational everyday life of civilized habit. As if the characters are dramatizing the psyche or the unconscious in the midst of everyday life.
Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird:
"'Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'
You know these books you have to read for your English Literature class? This is one of those books that I’ve been having a blast reading, annotating and discussing in class-although the essays are a pain in the *ss– with our teacher (my favourite !).
It's such a clever exposure of prejudiced attitudes from the point of view of innocent children. One of those books that are made to be discussed over glasses of wine and deep thinking.
A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice.
Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment:
"It's usually the first Dostoyevsky people attempt, as it's one of his shorter and more accessible novels."
This novel is truly a piece of art, it is the quintessential crime novel, with not only an intriguing plot, where every chapter builds upon the previous but also an incredibly well-realized environment.
Focusing on the moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who formulates a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money, "Crime and Punishment" broaches the idea that killing might never be justified.
The central character in Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov is a poor student who cannot afford to continue to go to the university. Forgoing the offer of a friend to work together, he spends a lot of time in his room thinking. In his isolation, Raskolnikov decides to try his murderous experiment. If that isn't a reason to read this book, then what is it?
Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita:
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. “
From the very first line, this book is the ultimate definition of seducing the reading audience.
Vladimir Nabokov’s most controversial and iconic work.
As we all should know, reading and enjoying a book is largely about interpretation. People are not the same and we all view things differently; one individual might see a relationship in a book as "passionate" while another could see it as "damaging". For me, you have to read this book a couple of times before forming an opinion on the characters, especially on the narrator.
“Lolita is a small masterpiece, it is a savage satire on the inadequacy of ‘psychological realism.’ ”
(Robert R. Kirsch, The Los Angeles Times, August 31, 1958)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle:
Sherlock Holmes is perfect if you're new to classics since it was also my own introduction to this beautiful world of literature, particularly the short stories, which are essentially mini-mysteries which you'll easily fly through in no time. I would recommend beginning with the short stories and then proceed to read the novels!
The stories of Sherlock Holmes are easy to understand (you might have to look up a word or two if you don't read the annotated versions) and really entertaining. They contain specifically just the right mix of mystery, intrigue, a bit of humour, and astounding intelligence by the favourite detective of all times.
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen:
Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print."
Again, a book by Jane Austen on my list, because sometimes I like to embrace the silly romantic side of myself. However, this isn’t just any book, but it is the widely known and loved romance novel with the romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr Darcy. This classic is a good place, to begin with, because the characters are very varied and there's a lot of witty and engaging dialogue which will pull you along into their relationships.
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde:
"Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde’s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author’s most popular work.”
Being the only book written by the wonderful and complicated soul of Oscar Wilde, it has come as no surprise to anyone that this book is often described as a “must-read” for every generation.
Though Wilde was attacked for the novel’s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, “a terrible moral in Dorian Gray.”
The story of one beautiful, innocent young man's seduction, moral corruption, and eventual downfall. After you finish reading this book, you will, for sure, have learned a lot of valuable lessons and truths. One of them is that living a life for mere pleasure and reproducing the acts that provide it obliterates the soul and mind.
D.H Lawrence:
You guessed it.
He is my favourite right now.
Maybe the fact that we’ve been reading his poetry in class (you should read “Piano” ) or that I happen to love “Lady Chatterley’s Lover “.
Lawrence’s work was beautiful, powerfully sexual and presented a warning of what industrialization was bringing to the then young 20th century. So, bear in mind that he wrote in a wide range of genres.
Lawrence himself said: ‘If I try to write down what I see—why not? If a publisher likes to print the book—all right. And if anybody wants to read it, let him. But why anybody should read one single word if he doesn’t want to, I don’t see. Unless of course, he is a critic who needs to scribble a dollar’s worth of words, no matter how’.
Another popular book of his that I love, is the so-called " Sons and Lovers".
If you ask me why you should read D.H Lawrence, the answer is: he is a genius. The solemn purpose of him writing -poems or fiction- was to work out what life is and how we ought to live it. He was attempting something so ambitious in his response to life.
Do you remember Walt Whitman? who said: ‘Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself’.
Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude:
A Nobel Prize-winning Latin American author.
What else do you need?
I might have been late to discover who this author was (how dare me ?!) but as soon as I began reading his work, there was no stopping!
From “Love at the times of cholera“to the widely popular and award-winning “ One Hundred Years of Solitude “, Gabriel García Márquez is a master in his craft and knows better than anyone how to treat the term “ magical realism “.
Magical realism is a style of fiction in which the everyday world is infused with magical elements.
García Márquez, as a Latin American author, is able to make the events of the novel seem realistic, even when they are clearly magical.
Described as one of the greatest novels of all time, One Hundred Years of Solitude focuses on seven generations of the Buendía family in the city of Macondo. This novel is always a must on everyone’s “to-read” list for its unabashed depiction of humanity as well as millions of other reasons.
And so that’s the end of my classics recommendations for any newbie out there (even though I have a dozen more!).
Comment below which ones have you read?
See you soon lovely people,
Missreader aka Leni
Xoxoxo
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