Armchair BEA: Classics

 

Classics were my first love in literature. When I began reading a lot more as a kid, I picked up more classics than any other kind of book. I read everything from Mark Twain to Charles Dickens to William Shakespeare to The Bronte Sisters, and more.  To be honest, I wasn’t interested much in anything modern for a long time. Not until I was older with the exception of a very few—and only those came to me recommended, and usually were adult reads. I didn’t read much YA or Middle Grade until I was actually an adult. Except when Harry Potter popped onto the scene. Then I was devouring those books in my teen years without shame.

I did have some favorite YA and children’s classic reads as a kid: Nancy Drew. I adored those. I also loved A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, and The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. I’m sad that somewhere along the way, through several moves and growing up, I’ve lost my supply of the books. I know I had a big collection of them. I remember sitting down and flying through a book within quick hours. And my mom would get mad because I finished the book so fast. Ha. I think it was mostly because I read through them all so fast. My dad taught me to read when I was four using Dr. Seuss. Green Eggs and Ham, anyone? Still one of the best books ever in my opinion.

I was around eleven or twelve when I discovered William Shakespeare. This is probably why I’m such a Shakespeare geek, too. I read him for fun. I wasn’t forced to read one of his plays for the first time for any kind of school required reading. I had free reign of my school library to check out whatever I wanted because I was on the gifted reading program, and when I found a Shakespeare book, I was enchanted by the language. I wanted to take it home and read it and understand it. The librarian tried to steer me away from it by saying I was “probably too young to get it”, but I insisted and got it anyway. It was Romeo & Juliet. Since then, I’ve read 13 of his plays so far and all 154 of his sonnets. What’s my favorite play? It’s still Romeo & Juliet. Though I would say that Hamlet is now a close second.

I was slightly older when I found Wuthering Heights. That was a required school reading. I think I remember being the only one in the class that liked it. It’s one of my favorites. (I recently read her sister’s, Jane Eyre, just to see if it was as good—and it was amazing. Only sad that I’d waited so long on that one.) Once again, maybe it was me being already into classics. But there’s something about the way that story was presented. There’s a dark, gothic tone to it. But the style is romantic. And with most classics. This is what I like. I like being transported to the past and feeling this heavy sense. It’s almost creepy. Haunting. The writing is beautiful. That doesn’t mean our modern reads lacks on the writing, of course. But you can certainly see a difference most of the time between a book from 2013, and book written in the late 1800s-early 1900s. And I like that dense reading sometimes.

Some of my other favorite classics that I just can’t forget to mention (and I certainly recommend if you haven’t read them):

The Hobbit

Fahrenheit 451

Dracula

Edgar Allan Poe : The Raven, Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Masque of the Red Death

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

 

Thanks for coming by!

What do you think of classics? Have any favorites?