DEBUNKING 10 MYTHS ABOUT CLASSIC BOOKS

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Dive into the fascinating world of classic literature as we debunk 10 common myths that have long overshadowed the timeless treasures found in classic books. From the misconception that "classic books are boring" to the notion that "classics are irrelevant today," this video is your ultimate guide to rediscovering the relevance, diversity, and excitement hidden within the pages of history's most celebrated novels.
📚 What You'll Discover:
Engaging Storytelling: Uncover the captivating stories and emotional depth that prove classic books are anything but boring.
Timeless Relevance: Explore how classic literature addresses universal themes and life's enduring questions, making it incredibly relevant to our modern lives.
Diverse Voices: We'll highlight the contributions of women, people of color, and other underrepresented authors in the canon of classic literature, challenging the myth that classics were written only by "rich white men."
🔍 Why Watch?
Whether you're a literature lover, a student grappling with a reading list, or someone curious about the classics you've yet to explore, this video offers fresh perspectives and encourages a deeper appreciation for the classics. Say goodbye to misconceptions and hello to a newfound love for literature that has stood the test of time.
Join my Patreon and support my channel:
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TRISTAN TALKS BOOKS
/ @tristantalksbooks
✨ Join Us:
Subscribe and hit the bell icon to stay updated on our journey through literature's most intriguing myths and facts. Comment below with the classic book myths you've encountered or a classic novel that has profoundly impacted you. Let's create a community where the love for literature thrives beyond the boundaries of time and stereotype.
#ClassicLiterature #BookMyths #LiteraryFacts #DiverseVoices #TimelessThemes #ReadingClassics #BookLovers #CulturalImpact #Educational #LiteratureAnalysis

Опубликовано:

6 авг 2024

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Комментарии : 174

@Jimbodisfan 5 месяцев назад

😂 Tristan seems like a man many of us would like to hang out with.

@thaneknight 5 месяцев назад

Getting upset and angry when finding European writers in European culture makes as much sense as getting upset finding black musicians in jazz.It's astoundingly idiotic.

@fionacreates 5 месяцев назад

Every time someone says something about classic books being too long (especially the ones that were serialised in magazines) I like to point out things like "there were 10 seasons of Friends". I personally try to read the long books a couple of chapters at a time, like watching a few episodes of TV, in between other books or shows or such because they kinda weren't meant to be read all at once, and I find them more fun and easier to read that way.

@johannalehto9154 5 месяцев назад

I never thought it like that before. But you are so right about that! I will also start to use this as a example the next time someone says that to me 😊

@JJDSports2012 5 месяцев назад

To the point that the classics are “European” - it’s like saying “I hate roses because a lot of them are red”. A) As you say, a lot of them aren’t red, but to me, what is even more relevant is that B) the qualities of many red roses are captivating. I read to find transcendent truths and thought provoking ideas, and that’s how I judge books, not by superficialities such as where the author is from.

@zibilanna 5 месяцев назад

Could not agree more!

@Yesica1993 5 месяцев назад

Thank you! It's all so ridiculous.

@sheryljohnson9540 5 месяцев назад

The first classic novel that truly impacted me was Gone with the Wind. Not sure if it's really defined as a classic but I consider it so. I read it in 1967, the summer I was 13, because the librarian in the bookmobile recommended it. I loved it and it opened my eyes to so many things, mainly that historical events that I had learned about in school (presented only as dry, date-driven facts) affected real people in the most profound ways never mentioned in my history classes. The lens of history was, and is, completely changed for me. Years later, Les Miserables became a favorite for the gamut of raw human emotion and character, from the worst to the divine.

@Yesica1993 3 месяца назад

GWTW is an all time favorite! I read it around the same age, in 8th grade. I've reread it countless times. Nice to see another fan!

@melissaaugust7016 5 месяцев назад

The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite classic. Exciting, accessible, fun. Every time I read it i'm blown away by the story

@tristanandtheclassics6538 5 месяцев назад

We are very much on the same page, Melissa. 😃❤️👍

@patsmith9192 5 месяцев назад

Absolutely agree!

@dh7314 2 месяца назад

I’m half way through it for the first time. Brilliant so far

@davidpardocossio8995 5 месяцев назад

Well... For those who are European... A lot of them ARE our classics! It is heartbreaking that even for reading, ideology is compulsory!

@Bumblebeesly 5 месяцев назад

Thank you Tristan!! I sincerely appreciate your frankness. So often ppl don’t speak plainly and skew their honest views. One of the reasons I do love Classic novels is precisely because the grasp of language used to be taken so much more seriously. Now it’s memes and pictures and emojis and since they took handwriting out of our education system we have become dumber and dumber. It’s just how I feel. Our lack of comprehension and focus is precisely the reason why we have to keep in touch with our actual language. And reading classics is how I like to learn, expand my vocabulary, & expand my understanding of history as well. You’re really always a very welcome and uplifting source of inspiration and knowledge for me. Thank you as always. 📚🤩

@battybibliophile-Clare 5 месяцев назад

I love every book mention. Nothing is better to me than a thick book that was written by a good writter. The fact that the book is a Classic , tends to mean it is well written, although not always the case, but usually. I am elderly so grew up when TV was limited and radio was the go to. My strict father got rid of the TV when I was eleven and going to Grammar School. As q result I don't have a string attachment to TV, and my main source of entertainment, education and sheer fun is a good, well written "chunkster" as the Americans say. Well done Triistan for your defence of Classics and all you do for your Patreon group.😢

@battybibliophile-Clare 5 месяцев назад

The other thing about long books is that, when you finish, the characters often have got under your skin and you miss them. When I get told that classics were written by privileged, white men, I laugh and say Dumas's father was a fathered by a white slave owner on a black slave woman. Those that say Classics are Eurocentric get pointed to my shelves of Japanese, Chinese and African classics, and my small collection of Bible exegesis. The facts are that most people who criticise the Classics are often nonreaders or shallow readers.. Additionally you have to remember that readers are a minority now, a large minority, but a minority. Your list of writers at the end included many favourites, yet there were plenty of ones I haven't read or just one book, still lots to explore.

@DramaPixie-wt8hm 5 месяцев назад

Thanks so much for this - you've given me a lot of 'ammunition' for when I next get verbally attacked by someone when I tell them that I have recently started reading classic fiction, after a forty year gap (since school). I have actually been quite stunned that only ONE friend has been supportive when I said I read classic fiction now, and everyone else has come up with at least one of the myths you've just listed. The most common one I've had is number nine - that classics are elitist, and read by people who think they are superior. Although I realise that that is more a comment on the person who said it, than it is on me, I do find it strange that any other 'hobby' that I've tried has not gained anything like as much resistance and hostility.

@wcwright44 5 месяцев назад

It’s a shame that educating oneself and lifelong learning are frowned upon. Good for you for ignoring them!

@marjoriedybec3450 5 месяцев назад

The morality discussion is so interesting. I just finished Felix Holt: The Radical. Les Miserables felt utterly divine to me. Jane Eyre left her one chance at true love for her morality. In nearly every Dickens novel he makes a rant about the politics of the time.

@mtnshelby7059 5 месяцев назад

I recently finished Felix Holt as well. Congratulations, it's not an easy read.

@marjoriedybec3450 5 месяцев назад

@@mtnshelby7059 The words were beautiful. I love Eliot's wordsmithing. But it wasn't my favorite of her novels. Middlemarch and Mill on the Floss are superior, IMHO. Bravo to you too.

@dh7314 5 месяцев назад

I’m a couple of hours in to The Three Musketeers and enjoying my new love of the classics

@Dezertroze43 4 месяца назад

I was raised in Cairo, Egypt and went to a British School named Manor House. My teachers were all British and we read Shakespeare and Dickens. We never read Austen and I read her as an adult. I had an amazing teacher Mrs.Jones who brought Shakespeare to life. She taught me to read as though I stood on stage performing to an audience. I just discovered ur channel and i want to thank u from Uostate NY on my farm 😊 for the delightful approach u have to classics. Thank u!❤❤❤❤❤

@apollonia6656 3 месяца назад

Manor House near Syramis ? Gosh, my grandfather was in British Intelligence stationed in Egypt and my grandmother told us some marvellous stories of the schools my aunts a d uncle's went ti, the European shops Gropi in Cairi, the Lido in Heluopolis.... Wow 🙂

@Dezertroze43 3 месяца назад

@@apollonia6656 oh wow! My school was in the Zamalek district. It was quite international and many of the embassies sent their children to our school. I was exposed to amazing people from all around the world thanks to my wonderful father.

@ChrisHunt4497 5 месяцев назад

Thanks to your channel I have just started reading the classics and I can honestly say I have missed out on so much by thinking they were not for me. I could not have been more wrong. They are so enjoyable my reading pleasure has gone through the roof. ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

@cynthiabrown5456 5 месяцев назад

I absolutely love the long list of authors from around the world, beyond only Europe & America, but especially the passion behind the insistence that classics are not the domain of only rich, white men from Europe & America. I do feel that where I'm from & in my generation, with few exceptions there's been a bias in required reading & many of those you mentioned, unfortunately I admit I don't know, but would love to learn more about. :D A video where you list those authors/works in the descriptions (or more slowly with more info) & perhaps expand on this idea of how classics really aren't only European, would be amazing! Congratulations on starting your new channel also, and thank you for that very kind statement regarding the comments. It's difficult to see people get hammered.

@bookworm_and_tea 5 месяцев назад

I. Love. This. I am a newbie at classics, and those myths are EXACTLY the reason why I waited until my mid-twenties to enjoy classics. I remember reading 2 in high school and then hearing about all the other classics being too hard to understand and complex. I thought you needed to be a scholar to read them. I love how you just destroy those myths and I'm so glad! It makes me happy to see someone promoting classics and explaining them. :) I am myself exploring the world of classics and literature and trying to self-learn Literature and I think you'll be one of my favorite channels ! (This is the first video I watch from you.)

@Meroose 5 месяцев назад

You’re probably the most amazing advocate for the reading of classics. I've always loved reading the classics. At the age of 10, my favorite book was "Notre-Dame de Paris" by Victor Hugo. The only ones I have a bit of trouble with are those that were compulsory at school.

@charityverte4799 5 месяцев назад

Thank you Tristan, your love and enthusiasm for books is contagious and I love every video you release. Keep them coming please😊

@NadineTouzet 5 месяцев назад

Wow. I studied humanities and learned a lot about literature, but I wish I’d had teachers like you then. I used to think that classics were just a necessary evil, and I loved a few by the way, rarely those we were set in school in some cases, but in recent years I’ve decided to go back to them and try to extract more from the viewpoint of human experience. Madame Bovary read at 15 and at 65 is not the same book. Thank you as ever.

@caewing85 5 месяцев назад

I love the point that we are becoming sludgy in our vocabulary, especially in a world of memes. Memes drive me batty because there is no depth. I adore classics because they make me think.

@nostradamus1162 5 месяцев назад

i love memes because a good laugh is always nice, some memes are also just very clever and make me think 'oh how'd you come up with that', but they really decrease my attention span so i try to limit scroll time

@PunchlineEverytime 5 месяцев назад

Loved the video! Numbers 3 and 4 drive me especially crazy. As a Latino bookworm who makes it a point to read classics from around the world, I really can't stand those talking points! There is so much to enjoy and be enriched by from every continent, written by people of every social class! As an American I do like a lot of US classics, but I also particularly love Latin American, Russian, and Japanese classics. So many amazing works out there if you make the effort to look.

@zibilanna 5 месяцев назад

I agree! The salient point is "to make the effort to look". The literary canon was mostly if not totally male and European when I was at school in the 80ies. I don't know how it is today. But this does not mean that "literature" is like that. I have found so many great books through this chanel - and once startet, one author leads to an other. It's such a wonderful journey! (I still mostly travel by book 😊)

@bxp_bass 4 месяца назад

Captain Blood was the first book ever that proved me that reading could be even more interesting than gaming. Before it I was firmly convinced that literature is boring and it exists purely to torture children in school. For the context: I'm Russian and our literature curriculum consists of extremely depressive and irrelevant to the children's brain pieces. Pieces that would better fit some 40 year old who had seen some bad stuff in life. I thought all literature is like this and I swore I would never read literature in my life except non fiction about house plants and programming. And then, when I was playing Sea Dogs, in early 2000's, I found a book with large wooden ship on the cover. And started to read. After a couple of days with dictionary in my hands (there was some old fashioned words I didn't know, especially some related to clothes, I couldn't care less about clothes my whole life) I noticed that I can't put the book away! It was so vivid and dynamic, that I was delighted, clenching to the book not able to put it down whole night. So, Captain Blood is awesome.

@lcn325 5 месяцев назад

I'm looking for the topics about newer books too!! What fun! Last week I finished The Moonstone and hung in there. I'm glad I did! I love the Narratives! My expectations were high, so for me, I want to read The Woman in White. Right now, it's The Great Gatsby and Ken Follett's The Pillars of The Earth. I was going to read 10pgs. of Fitz., 20pgs. of Pillars.... I had to switch my plan. Read Gatsby 1st because I can't follow the characters. As long as I enjoy reading! Thank you!!❤

@Anna-wh1zn 5 месяцев назад

Loved this video. I could listen to your videos on a loop.

@asteroefstathiou5407 5 месяцев назад

What i love in your channel is that you concentrate on just classics which i could say is my passion. Very interesting points are raised in this video.well done!

@cynthiabrown5456 5 месяцев назад

The idea of the detailed, gorgeous descriptions in older works also serving the purpose of helping people get a sense of the world, and helping them to travel through books is a lovely point! I prefer classics normally for many reasons, including how they capture the place but often within in a particular time through a particular lens. It's always been part of the charm of classics for me. But, many readers today just skim descriptions and see them as fillers & simply want to see where the plot goes. Honestly, I'm just glad people are reading. But, I do wish I could download the part of my brains that finds joy there, because they are really missing out on something wonderful!

@NoCauseForComplaints 4 месяца назад

My introduction to the classics, before I was twelve, was the abridged versions published by Readers Digest. In high school and college, I realized that the stories I enjoyed as a child were whole long books. I read the unabridged versions of course. Thank you for acknowledging Jose Rizal.

@kimi.9741 5 месяцев назад

Tristen, I thoroughly enjoyed this video as I happen to agree with you on all accounts. I am taking a lot of your advice from previous videos and striking out again reading classic literature. One problem that comes up for me is what translation to look for to get the most enjoyment and understanding from a book. For example, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, has so many variations it would be helpful to get your perspective on how you select which version to read. Thank you for another great lesson!

@bradchristy5002 5 месяцев назад

Excellent work - well done, very well done! You are a tonic and tremendous help in my exploration of classics - bless you & your work!

@althompson3085 2 месяца назад

Would love to hear about your personal formation as a reader: when and how you first fell in love with books, how this progressed in life, your training and your profession as a Podcaster of classic literature.

@Yesica1993 5 месяцев назад

I do want to read Hunchback. I am too broke to travel, so I think I would like some of the description. We'll see!

@cynthiadies9055 5 месяцев назад

So well said! I am reading Wuthering Heights with the Patreon group and also a few titles for Febregency. I haven't seriously read fiction for quite a while. The richness of language in the classics is thrilling! I love Hugo's descriptions!

@tammiejo 5 месяцев назад

Great point about the laziness of modern speech- 1984 utilized the concept of an oppressive government nearly eradicating language by consolidating and removing redundancies in order to prevent people from being able to speak about their oppression.

@nnjack9931 5 месяцев назад

Wonderful video! Love your enthusiasm! Trully, even a bad classic is a great book!

@anayrre2062 4 месяца назад

I really love your new microphone, the sound is so improved! ☺️ What a great video!

@rogerevans9666 3 месяца назад

Always rewarding to hear your videos!

@terri6743 5 месяцев назад

Excellent video, Tristan! Thank you!

@suzannebousquet2710 5 месяцев назад

Absolutely fantastic video! Thank you for making it. My favorite book last year was "The Count of Monte Cristo". I just finished "Pride and Prejudice", and while I loved the Kiera Knightly movie adaptation , I appreciated the fact that the book fleshed out the characters. I find classics very relatable! Just subscribed to your new channel!

@robertocatrone715 5 месяцев назад

Thank you, sir. Your points are Brilliantly done.

@terrysbookandbiblereviews 5 месяцев назад

Great video!!!

@jerryB75 5 месяцев назад

Thanks Tristan. This is a great channel. I really enjoy your perspectives. My next classic will be Armadale by Wilkie Collins. I agree with many of your recommendations.

@juanmorales9738 5 месяцев назад

Great video. Can’t wait to check out your new channel.

@LaurieInTexas 5 месяцев назад

Great points, Tristan. Most of us who read classics hear variations of these comments periodically. I try to point out that every classic isn't for every reader, but there are classics for everyone if you keep looking.

@tristanandtheclassics6538 5 месяцев назад

That's the perfect, reasonable response. 😀❤️

@4thlinemaniac356 5 месяцев назад

"A classic book becomes a classic because it is never finishes what it has to say."- ?? Forgot her name?

@deblawrence8341 5 месяцев назад

I favor the classics and found this video BRILLIANT! I'm going to jump over to your new channel now and am looking forward to what you have to say over there ...

@SevenUnwokenDreams 5 месяцев назад

Thank you for making this video. All your points are excellent and well made. I knew a person who said she couldn't get into the classics because they confused her. I tried to encourage her to keep trying (when I was young the classics tended to be above my comprehension so I did have to put work into understanding them in the beginning). To my disappointment, the person did not take my advice. Some people just want to read something that doesn't push them, and that's fair; life can take a lot out of a person. As for me, I like to read for nourishment. I read to expand.

@peacelilly8456 5 месяцев назад

I love this. Thank you! I couldn't agree more.

@hollybriggs1701e 5 месяцев назад

Wonderful video. Thank you

@katrinaKJB1611 5 месяцев назад

Some of my favorite classics: Ivanhoe, an exciting read! Robin Hood and knights. Come on! War and Peace. If you say it's boring, you've only read one chapter. Jane Eyre. Some of the most moving, heartfelt prose. ❤ One I just finished and is rivaling Jane Eyre is Shirley by Charlottle Bronte. There are so many twists, turns, and funny characters. A must read, in my opinion.

@BEVERLYRANDOLPH-lx4qu 5 месяцев назад

So pertinent, Tristan. These sweeping statements say far more about the speaker than anything about classics. As a society (not individuals) we’ve become lazy in knowledge acquisition. And education for the “masses” is being steadily more “dumbed down.” And don’t get me started on the interaction of the brain and cursive writing. Okay, I’ll stop now. Thank you for this, Tristan.

@Imjetta7 5 месяцев назад

Fabulous, thank you!

@dqan7372 5 месяцев назад

Interesting points. Subscribed to the new channel.

@DebraDooley 5 месяцев назад

Loved this! My favorite is David Copperfield!

@anayrre2062 4 месяца назад

OMG, your discreption of the hunchback of Notre dame made me want to immediately buy the book!

@Beesmakelifegoo 5 месяцев назад

You are such a wonderful person. I enjoy how you share your knowledge. Thank you very much. Reading is great,very satisfying. One simply won’t be bored,especially when one shares it. Friendships based on reading such books is enormously pleasurable. Thank you for reminding me to continue reading daily. Bye

@applejade 3 месяца назад

I’ve come to realize that it’s really not a coincidence that the classic books that I loved were the ones I picked up on my own and just… read. Dare, I say, enjoyed? The ones that were boring, grating, tiresome were the ones that were assigned in school.

@pawzir 5 месяцев назад

In Sweden, we have writers like Stringberg, Martinsson, Lagerlöf and Söderberg from around 1900, that became the template classics writers. They write in the German style and with archaic word forms (with person conjugations two hundred years after it disappeared in proper speech). That's quite difficult to read. Also the translations of foreign classics were written in that style until recently; Homeros and the bible were translated to formal and old speech, because that's how classics are supposed to be. It has started to change slowly with modern translations of old books and perhaps Lindgren will be regarded as proper enough to be a classics writer.

@ryanand154 5 месяцев назад

Scandinavian lit is terrible but we all admire your social solidarity.

@thomasjoyce7870 5 месяцев назад

I bumped into your channel 2 days ago and have already watched something like 15 or so of your vids. I'm in love! (with your subject matter, not with you [sorry, fella' 😏, though you're personally perfectly fine and delightfully engaging]). R&J (this is where I paused this vid): Whew! U.S. high school, senior (4th) year, 1969/70. English (meaning British - American was the year before ) Lit. Macbeth, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, and, of course, my beloved Romeo and Juliet. The class was 2 semesters, and these 4 works took up something like ⅓ of the whole. In 1968, during my junior year American Lit class, the inimitable Franco Zeffirelli's R&J, starring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, hit the screen. Because we students were on a college preparatory course, it was known that we would be studying Shakespeare the following year, and since the movie wouldn't be available then, we should strike while the iron was hot, so to speak. Field trip! I was (almost) always a better than average student, but I wonder, without Zeffirelli, would Shakespeare have had such a profound impact on me? I was 17 at the time, basically Romeo's age, and my post-pubescent predilections were pounding my pate; my nascent romanticism was certainly at play in my appreciation of the film. Nino Rota's score, too (I was a young violinist), did much to influence me. But R&J&Z alone wouldn't explain the impact on me of Macbeth, and especially of the Merchant (Caesar, at 17, left me unfeeling). I'm 72 now, and my assessment is that I would nonetheless have developed an appreciation for the Bard, but I daresay not to the extent that it has developed had I not seen the Zeffirelli. I was over the moon when Shakespeare in Love beat out Saving Private Ryan for the 1999 Best Picture Oscar. What an utter delight that flight of fancy was! OK, back to the rest of your vid....

@rohanrohilla1080 5 месяцев назад

Tristan, a thoroughly great video, yet again. But to your second point about how classics being unreadable is a myth and I totally get it, I read my first classic (Victorian) in 2022 and since then I have read 23 classics. It is not a lot by a long shot but what for me makes them still sometimes incomprehensible is the situations the characters are and how they behave in it. Sometimes they behave as a modern person would do but sometimes they behave in a way that I can’t fathom a modern person behaving. This throws me off and I start doubting if the writer and I are on the same page, did I even understand what just happened. It is a struggle especially if I am reading an author from a culture that I don’t know much about (eg. Russian, Norwegian). Just for the reference English is my second language.

@seanmurphy7011 5 месяцев назад

5:11 - I'm sorry, but Dune is HORRIBLY written.

@tristanandtheclassics6538 5 месяцев назад

Your not the only one to say that 😅 It's not a genre I particular enjoy, but I used it as an example of a classic in its field which has captured and excited many people rather than bored them. It's always the names that put grit in my reading wheels in this book. 😀

@Yesica1993 5 месяцев назад

I tried it years ago and couldn't follow it for anything. I tried again the past year and ended up loving it so much that when I got to the end, I read it through a second time! I only meant to read a bit of the first chapter, to refresh my memory of things now that I knew the full story. Before I knew it, I couldn't stop!@@tristanandtheclassics6538

@ryanand154 5 месяцев назад

Dune feels as though it’s written by AI.

@bdwon 5 месяцев назад

You are right to criticize some of his choices. On the other hand, Chinua Achebe, Tagore, Rulfo and others were good examples of his point..

@ryanand154 5 месяцев назад

@@bdwon Achebe et al are great. Check out Cortazar if you have the time. Maybe some Water Abish if you still have the urge to read a white CIS male.

@GemmaDrue-zw3dw 5 месяцев назад

Yes, many romances are inspired by Romeo and Juliet but I believe R & J was inspired by the Celtic myth Tristan and Isolde. Even the TV series Sons of Anarchy is inspired by Hamlet. Many stories whether classic or newer, are inspired by what has come before.

@MrPleers 3 месяца назад

I strongly agree about myth nr 7. Movies vs the book. I love Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. But so far, there hasn't been a movie that came close to the book. Either the story is different. Or the look/intelligence of the creature. (Often both.)

@reneehawkins7266 5 месяцев назад

I need "Don't judge a book by today" Merch. 📚📖

@georgesly 2 месяца назад

Shakespeare would be an exception between reading and performance. Shakespeare was a playwright, his works except for the sonnets were meant to be performed. It's preferable to see a good production of Hamlet on stage or on film than to read it (I've done both). Otherwise Tristan is right, books are more involved and require more imagination than watching a film.

@lynnadamson2340 5 месяцев назад

Hi Tristan, do you have an index of the books you have reviewed? I am reading the classics this year. Your review of Far from the Madding Crowd was extremely helpful. Have you reviewed A Passage to India? If so, could you please direct me to that review? I love your channel. Thanks Lynn

@davidgagen9856 5 месяцев назад

Gaining traction because of the way literature is taught at universities these days..deconstruction, identity based interpretations.

@Yesica1993 5 месяцев назад

Yep. I don't know exactly how things are in the UK, but in the US, we are in a full blown "woke" (how I loathe that illiterate term) neo-commie revolution. EVERYTHING remotely "Western", white, Christian, etc. is being destroyed. If I had the money, I'd buy good copies of many classic books and movies. Some years ago I bought a new copy of Gone With the Wind (both the book and the DVD), for this very reason. These barbarians are going to destroy it all.

@TraceyValleroy-gj9kz 5 месяцев назад

Loved your description "sludgy in the brain"

@jackiesliterarycorner 5 месяцев назад

I think people need to put more in effort in looking for more variety in classics, because they do exist as you pointed out. Today we have the internet and television to entertain us, and books were the entertainment, so that's why I assume classics were so long.

@christineschollar1317 5 месяцев назад

I've just finished Jane Austen's 'Emma' and I really struggled with it and found it quite boring and repetitive in alot of places as well as being hard to understand at times. However I love 'Sense & Sensibility'. I know many love 'Emma' so I'm not sure why it was such a struggle. I'm only pleased I knew the story and used 'Sharps notes from time to time. I'm in my 60's does that make a difference?

@joysedgwick812 5 месяцев назад

Interesting, I much prefer Emma, though my favourite is Persuasion. I am a native of England so do not struggle with the language, perhaps that helps? I’m afraid I find Marianne irritating so S&S is never going to be a favourite! Each to his own,

@annettep28 5 месяцев назад

Emma, I also found annoying. Mainly because of Emma. But I do love Persuasion.

@Yesica1993 5 месяцев назад

I am trying to find the the Jane Austen book that is least about romance! I know I need to read her. I know I'm missing out. I hate that I am missing out. But I just can't take all that courtship stuff. I'm sure if I find one that I like, then I can go back and read the more romance heavy ones and enjoy them. I just need to work my way up to it. @@annettep28

@christineschollar1317 5 месяцев назад

@joysedgwick812 I am also a native of England so that's not the problem really. I did enjoy Persuasion too. I think I just found Emma a bit irritating or probably more interfering. Each to their own I guess.

@qamarqammar7629 5 месяцев назад

I don't see why your age would make any difference. Emma is in some ways a mature novel, and the author knew she was making a bit of a gamble: It deliberately gives us a heroine we cannot like, showing us the social harms that Emma does, but without malice, and without turning her into an object of satire. Emma is the privileged girl Austen never was and Emma is completely unconscious of it - all the things that Austen would likely have found infuriating. I love how Austen shows us the depth of Emma's self-delusions, while allowing her eventually, to climb out of them. We all have privileges we take for granted and a touch of narcissism. Personally, I find that I have to be in the mood for Austen, and I reread her when I know I will enjoy it. (I hated Pride and Prejudice until I was in my mid-20s for example.) Maybe come back to it another time? Or just move on :). Her books are all different.

@margaretinsydney3856 5 месяцев назад

I think that, in passing, you have hit on the true source of many of these misconceptions; it's high school. Unless you are very lucky with your English teacher, you emerge with a hatred of books in general and poetry in particular. (Speaking of English, Tristan, I love what you do and the engaging way you present literature, but please, don't say 'myth' when you mean 'lie'.)

@thomasmoore7976 5 месяцев назад

Tristan, the next time someone comments on your snobbery (or as we know lack thereof) just quote Michael Caine. “We British don’t have a monopoly on snobbery, more of a controlling interest!” 😂

@ryanand154 5 месяцев назад

The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hogarth is a good entry into the “classics.”

@tristanandtheclassics6538 5 месяцев назад

Thanks for this. Just purchased it. 😃👍

@ryanand154 5 месяцев назад

Have you read it yet? Have you read it yet? Have you read it yet?

@ryanand154 5 месяцев назад

There’s a car crash in King Lear.

@Iza56 5 месяцев назад

How long is oliver twist by dickens? I want to read it but ive seen editions of 600pages and not even 200pages.

@DramaPixie-wt8hm 5 месяцев назад

There are 'pocket editions' of Oliver Twist around, and they are abridged. Some more successfully than others!

@nicholasjones3207 5 месяцев назад

Get the penguin. Good notes and illustrations. I loved it when I read it recently and I couldn’t get on with dickens when I was a teenager.

@smyying 5 месяцев назад

May we look at your book collection / shelf? :-)

@Scottlp2 5 месяцев назад

One myth eg about large books is difficult to read. I’m doing War and peace in my book club and no one is having any trouble reading it (I sent everyone a character list beforehand). Vs eg Frankenstein which I personally found unreadable despite reading Austin, and many other authors in that time period. Virginia Wolf, Joyce and Dostoyevsky and others are more challenging but readable and worth it.

@MorganKing95 5 месяцев назад

I think people are also very vague when it comes to the word "difficulty". There are some classics that may be hard to get into if you don't know the historical and cultural context behind them, but then become quite straightforward if you just do a little digging beforehand. And then there are books that may not have the most difficult story or themes, but a writing style that can be off-putting and alienating. Of course, there are also a lot of mystery books or detective books that require the reader to imagine the "puzzle" and figuring out the conclusion

@livingfullyinchrist1168 2 месяца назад

I think our society has gotten far to use to slang. I am currently reading The Idiot . I am truly enjoying the rich description and artistic language.

@bdwon 5 месяцев назад

Nothing at all "rough" about Emily Dickinson's background! Her family wasn't wealthy, but they owned their own home and are usually described as prominent. She even had over 8 year o f schooling at the elite schools for women in Massachusetts.

@tommonk7651 5 месяцев назад

Sadly, we are witnessing in culture, certainly here in the US, a strain of anti-intellectualism in society. Reading classics is often seen as the pastime of the elite or intellectual in today's society.

@autumn5852 5 месяцев назад

I didn’t know there were any myths about classics but I’m here anyway, because I can’t sleep.

@tristanandtheclassics6538 5 месяцев назад

Oh no. Not sleeping is the worst. I hope you can drop off soon. I find audio books help me sleep.😀

@autumn5852 5 месяцев назад

@@tristanandtheclassics6538 thank you ~ I think I did fall asleep as I can’t remember any of this video. So I get to watch it again ☺️

@kurtfox4944 5 месяцев назад

I find that the people most of these sorts of comments are ignorant. I don't necessarily mean ignorant as a slur, but ignorant as in they haven't read them so they do not know what they are talking about. To make those wide-sweeping statements without any background, well, that's just idiocy rearing its ugly head. And it is as they say, you can't argue with an idiot because they drag to down to their level and then beat you with experience.

@HannahsBooks 5 месяцев назад

Excellent discussion! I especially like your take on Hugo and Pickwick Papers--and your discussion of the idea that all classics are Western and all by privilged white men.

@Whatever_Happy_People 5 месяцев назад

Hullo Tristan I was wondering if you have read any sir Walter Scott? If so do you like him? I haven't read him.

@JJDSports2012 5 месяцев назад

Chinua Achebe

@tristanandtheclassics6538 5 месяцев назад

Yes, thank you. I noticed on watching it back that I said Anichebe. Thank you for the correction 🙏 ☺️

@JJDSports2012 5 месяцев назад

@@tristanandtheclassics6538 I’m sorry; I missed that and had no intention of correcting you. I thought you’d forgotten him and meant someone else!! Thx. Great content.

@annettep28 5 месяцев назад

For races, you could read Ben Hur. For big Fights, you could read Spartacus. Then there are the adventuress , you mention. You also can try to imagine yourself finding informations without the Internet... could you do it?

@melissaaugust7016 5 месяцев назад

how many pages is considered a TOME?

@MorganKing95 5 месяцев назад

To me, it's when we're talking about over, or at least close to, 1000 pages

@testcardII 5 месяцев назад

🎉🎉🎉

@psalmer5690 5 месяцев назад

Twain’s Huck Finn is a timeless example of great literature addressing moral issues with wonderful wit and irony. It’s language challenges a “woke”culture woefully ignorant of history and the importance of context, which is to say dangerously illiterate.

@tankmatt2276 4 месяца назад

Gilgamesh great non-western classic

@telltalebooks 5 месяцев назад

Have to disagree with the comment about "big words." The problem usually is that older classics use words that were common in their day, but have fallen out of use today. It isn't that people don't know enough big words, but that they prefer books that talk the way we do now.

@brianhaas1154 5 месяцев назад

26:34 😂😂😂

@patriciatolliver4057 5 месяцев назад

Patty-How about the Mahabarata. That wasn't written by a western author.

@DogRabbitPigMonkey 2 месяца назад

Based. Nothing wrong with Western education and culture prioritizing canonical works of the West. What would be wrong is to believe or pretend that the great tradition of literature is unique to the West as that is simply not true.

@westzed23 4 месяца назад

Classics are still being written. Lord of the Rings, Dune, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter.

@Jordan-calver1993 2 месяца назад

I don't really want to comment this because it comes across as incredibly pretentious but is it just me that found some of the "difficult" lengthy classics (War and Peace, Les Mis, Anna Karenina) were actually a breeze in terms of sheer readability?

@tedwunderlich2741 5 месяцев назад

“The ultimate cure for insomnia” 😂😂😂

@ryanand154 5 месяцев назад

Dialectical.

@ryanand154 5 месяцев назад

Bakhtin was a Dickens character: He listened to Tool and drank beer ironically.

@taylorharvey3980 5 месяцев назад

thank you for getting it correct and saying Palestine

@Yesica1993 5 месяцев назад

Palestine was the name for Israel. It's not some magical separate country as people pretend today.

@taylorharvey3980 5 месяцев назад

@@Yesica1993 hope you can't inflict yourself upon kids

@PunchlineEverytime 5 месяцев назад

I noticed/appreciated that too

@Yesica1993 5 месяцев назад

LOL! What does that illiterate sentence even mean? What did I say that was false? Get lost.@@taylorharvey3980

@Noa-cc9ur 5 месяцев назад

where did you say the bible was written?

@tristanandtheclassics6538 5 месяцев назад

I said, Palestine. I used the term historically, having in mind the broader Roman province Syria Palaestina through to the Byzantine Palestina Prima and Secunda. These areas hold more of the original territories of the nation of Israel than the current state of Israel. Of course, not all of the Bible was written there - some parts being written in Babylon, Shushan, Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Patmos and perhaps a few other places - but the greater part was written in ancient Israel, whose original boundaries exceed those possessed by the modern state. When I speak of Palestine in the video, I am also not referring to the modern state of Palestine, rather, the historical Palestine area which included parts of modern Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. My comment certainly has nothing to do with recent events. I hope this clarifies. 😃❤️🙏

@Noa-cc9ur 5 месяцев назад

the place wasn't called palestine though, not back then. it was called palestine by the romans as a sign of colonialism, and yes it's much bigger the current state of israel. but since it was written way before the romans conquered it the name palestine is incorrect.@@tristanandtheclassics6538

@Noa-cc9ur 5 месяцев назад

that incorrect though... when the romans conquered the area they renamed part of it as palestine as a sign of colonialism but the bible was written way before that time so it wasnt palestine when it was written and it's not palestine today. and a part from it significant parts of it was written in the region in places that were never part of the so called palestine. so it's just incorrect in fact when it was written it was mostly the nation of israel and Judea @@tristanandtheclassics6538

@Noa-cc9ur 5 месяцев назад

@@tristanandtheclassics6538 I wonder why my comment was removed…? 🤔 I only explained why your explanation is incorrect

@tristanandtheclassics6538 5 месяцев назад

@Noa-cc9ur Oh no, I didn't see your comment at all. I haven't deleted anything. 😕 ❤

@Yesica1993 5 месяцев назад

"morally bankrupt / immoral" - WHAT? People think that? How can people think that? The moral questions are some of the most important parts of classics! People of today who are promoting p * r n books in schools/libraries and s * x u a l mutilation of children have no business talking about morality. I loved Uncle Tom's Cabin! I read it for the first time a couple of years ago as another one of those, "Oh, I should read this", type of chores. I fell in love with it. In fact, I should do a reread soon.

@paulhammond6978 5 месяцев назад

You know, explaining that gay and trans people exist is not promoting that, and trans kids generally do not do anything beyond social transitioning until they are of an age to make those decisions for themselves, right? Please don't spread ignorant falsehoods about LGBTQ+ folk.

@Iza56 5 месяцев назад

@@paulhammond6978 well that's not what left is saying and trying to force on kids. Also trans kids.

@kurtfox4944 5 месяцев назад

Yeah, I never heard anyone say that they are "morally bankrupt." But, I think this may be ill-worded comments I hear when people judge books by today's standards, which I find very irksome. To judge a book by today's standards just shows how ignorant that critic is because they do not understand what was acceptable at the time it was written. If they are that ignorant and uneducated, then I tend to dismiss their criticism out of hand. Books that have slavery in them, use the N-word (which was acceptable, or at least common parlance, in the time they were written), the treatment of women (or pick you minority slice of humanity). As Tristan points out, we can't know how people of the future will judge our books. I liken it to the climate debate and people of the future may hate _The Great Gatsby_ because someone drives a gas-guzzling yellow car... and how many autos or airplanes are in books today. Or perhaps it might be vegetarians and ban old books because they mention steak or hamburgers, or ...

@MillennialDandy 5 месяцев назад

I agree that it’s definitely a myth that ‘classics are from white, men’, but that’s definitely how a lot of, at least American, schools teach literature, which has a massive impact on the general public’s understanding/ knowledge of the classics. So I do think it’s a bit reductive to blame ‘younger people’ for this perception when, if anything, younger people are the driving force , at least online, behind the very point you were making about how many great books fall outside of the parameters not so arbitrarily set by school districts.

@ryanand154 5 месяцев назад

You’ve put me off on the Dickens. He’s a tad rubbish.

@nnjack9931 5 месяцев назад

He's very rubbish. I read him and think of how much better it would be if someone else had wrote .

@tristanandtheclassics6538 5 месяцев назад

I understand he's not everyone's cup of tea. 😅 Of course, I agree that not all books are beloved of everybody. Personally, I think Dickens is delightful, and he isn't really demanding in most of his books - apart from length 🥵😂

@dh7314 5 месяцев назад

He’ll never make it as a writer

@nnjack9931 5 месяцев назад

@@tristanandtheclassics6538V Very true. And the wonderful thing is there are a lot of other classics to enjoy!

@ryanand154 5 месяцев назад

@@nnjack9931 The Corseted Corsican’s Deposited Conduit by Genovese Kreskin is a very strange tale involving landlines under a youn person’s dream factory.