lou's library

Ah, classics! This almost arbitrary list of books we are forced to read at school that are so often hard to understand and will likely seem boring at first glance. Why would anyone read them voluntarily, you might ask? Because they are, if you persevere enough, incredibly rewarding! That being said, I totally understand it if they seem intimidating! But fear not, because here are some tips on how to start reading (and enjoying!) classics.

Take Your Time With Them

In a bookish world where some readers boast about reading hundreds of books a year (no shade to them, I bow to their dedication), it can seem like a race about who manages to read the most. But I would argue that a book benefits from being read leisurely, without hasting through its pages to finish it as soon as possible. Don’t get me wrong, I have ignored this advice on multiple occasions. Sometimes, I simply want to know what happens so badly I read as fast as my eyes let me. Other times, I am desperate to finish a book I might not enjoy as much as I had hoped I would. But most of the time, speeding does not improve your reading experience. And classics in particular want to be read slowly, so you give yourself the chance to understand what’s happening. A lot of them were written quite a while ago, so some words might not be familiar. Allow yourself to look them up, to read as slowly as you have to in order to understand what’s happening in the story. There’s no shame in slowly and deliberately making your way through a book!

Interact With Them As Much As Possible

Write in the margins! Highlight passages! Shake your head over how silly Mrs Bennet is behaving! Interact with these stories as much as you can, for it will make your reading experience that much more fun and rewarding. Don’t just passively let the story wash over you, but think about it and how it makes you feel. A lot of the time, the contents of classics can seem outdated, as they were written when the world was a vastly different place. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Instead, it can make you think about your own world, and how you would have behaved in the times the classic is set in. These books can teach us a lot about ourselves and the wider world. But for that to happen, you have to be open to them and try to engage with them. A fun way to do so can be to watch adaptations of classics, as most of them will have been made into movies or TV shows!

Start With The Right Ones

There are classics, and there are classics, if you know what I mean. Most contemporary readers will have no problem understanding The Great Gatsby (even though some of its more layered meanings might escape you at first), but Orlando or The Satanic Verses might be quite a different matter. I swear, some of these authors made it their sole mission to make their books as confusing as possible. It can be fun to keep at it and try to unriddle them, and I find it highly rewarding when I’ve finally made my way through one of these highly complex classics. But I do think that when you’re only just beginnnig to read them, starting with the right classics is key. A good way of finding out where to begin is to think about what genre of books you generally prefer. Are you into adventure stories? Treasure Island or Moby Dick might be a good start for you. You love books with lots of romance? Consider reading a book by Jane Austen or Anne Bronte!

Reread them!

I know some people hate rereading books. And I get it! There are so many books to get around to, rereading ones you already know can seem like a waste of time. But I promise you, it can be so worth it, particularly with classics. It wasn’t until my third read of The Great Gatsby that I finally fell in love with it, and I’m so glad I did. This is particularly true for those classics that are more difficult to understand, as they will get so much easier to comprehend every time you read them. But even Pride and Prejudice reveals new aspects to me whenever I read it, leaving me a bit more obsessed with it every time. Usually, I find that I pay attention to a different aspect every time I reread a book and will notice little details that had slipped my notice until then. For example, upon my most recent reread of Pride and Prejudice, I saw Mr Bennet in a completely new, and much more negative light than before. Where as before I had found his sense of humour highly entertaining and charismatic, I now found it almost insulting towards his wife and I found him lacking in character and to be a disastruously uncaring father. It makes complete sense to me that we bring part of ourselves into our reading experiences, so depending on what point in your life you are at, you will feel differently about a book, and classics often have so much wisdom to share with us, no matter our age or situation. Reading them again and again is a gift we can give to ourselves.

I hope this helped take away some of the fear some people have of classics. I know they can be intimidating, but they are worth sticking with! I’m thinking about writing an entire blog post about the best classics to start out with, so do let me know if you would like to read that! Until then, feel free to check out my post about classics I think everyone should read! ❤