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The classics I read in 2023 that got me back into reading!!
I’d love to know what classics made you love or get back into reading!
I’m a recent college grad that used to love reading. Growing up, English was my best and favorite class. I am drawn to finding the deeper meaning, symbols, and themes in literature like Winnie the Pooh is to honey. In highschool, I was obsessed with fiction like Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Great Gatsby, Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein, Hamlet, Things Fall Apart, Metamorphosis, Macbeth, and Jane Eyre. But I had some experiences with teachers that made me not love fiction as much. So in college, I really only read non fiction.
But having graduated college in 2023, I decided I was going to let myself enjoy fictional classics again. So here is my list of classics I read in 2023 and what I gained from them:
1. The Bluest Eye (5/5) — wow. you can bet I’m going to devour the rest of Toni Morrison’s works in 2024. From tackling poverty, beauty standards, dysfunctional family dynamics, I was moved, horrified, and felt understood. She somehow is able to do more telling than showing but in such a way that I can’t help but admire it. The psychoanalyses of each character is brilliant.
2. The Awakening (5/5) — I feel like I should be concerned by how much I relate to Edna. Or maybe Kate Chopin just understood depression and wanted to use the ocean as a symbol to express that.
3. Brave New World (4.2/5)— weird, thought provoking, dark, brilliant, terrifying, honest, satirical, all of the above?
4. Ethan Frome (3/5) — Ethan is a melodramatic idiot, but the writing is rich. I need to read more Wharton in 2024.
5. Songs of Innocence and Experience (2/5) — the poetry is too cheery, cheesy, and positive for me.
5. The Haunting of Hill House (4/5) — horror isn’t my go-to genre, but I love the way Shirley Jackson writes.
6. The Lottery (4/5) — see? Another Shirley Jackson. she’s so nonchalant with horror. We all collectively do move on after horrors are committed against humans, especially humans we don’t know. We often treat horror nonchalantly, just as Jackson.
7. Little Women (5/5) — duh. A book about domestic life that is so much more than a Bildungsroman.
8. Anne of Green Gables (5/5) — I laughed, I cried, I fell in love (with Matthew.) I wish I’d read this when I was younger. I liked how the story felt like chronological vignettes.
9. Anne of the avonlea (4/5) — the twins annoyed me but I laughed, I cried, and I fell in love again but this time with MY man, Gilbert.
10. Anne of the Island (5/5) — Gilbert Blythe owns my heart.
11. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall — let me tell you, this…this was a masterpiece. Part 2 was a struggle to get through because the toxicity and building trauma was palpable through the pages. Part 2 sometimes triggered me enough to put the book down for a bit. Anne Brontë understood toxic relationships. Reminded me of how Emily Brontë depicted Heathcliff and Catherine. Did their parents possibly have a toxic relationship? Was this ever discussed? I know Charlotte did not like this book because she didn’t think it represented Anne, but it’s a brilliantly written novel. And now I have two men to love: Gilbert and Gilbert.
12. A Room with a view (4.4/5) — loved the symbolism of the wild nature. See, this is when I noticed a pattern in me: I have a thing for men in classic literature whose name starts with a “G.”
13. The Picture of Dorian Gray (4.4/5) — both loved and hated that the majority of the book is just dialogue. There are so many great themes and gay undertones (more like overtones). We love the gays of classic lit. Wilde has an interesting worldview, especially when it comes to art.
14. Poems 1817 (3/5) — this man sure loves pretty language about nature. we get it. you write beautifully but like where’s the poetic honesty?
15. Pride and Prejudice (4.5/5) — I get the hype now. Shy Mr. Darcy is not my usual kind of guy, but I see the appeal. That man was a simp. Love the satire.
16. Dracula (3/5) — it was Halloween.
Now, I’m reading Anna Karenina!! Any tips for reading Russian lit for the first time?
#entertainment
source
I’d love to know what classics made you love or get back into reading!
I’m a recent college grad that used to love reading. Growing up, English was my best and favorite class. I am drawn to finding the deeper meaning, symbols, and themes in literature like Winnie the Pooh is to honey. In highschool, I was obsessed with fiction like Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Great Gatsby, Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein, Hamlet, Things Fall Apart, Metamorphosis, Macbeth, and Jane Eyre. But I had some experiences with teachers that made me not love fiction as much. So in college, I really only read non fiction.
But having graduated college in 2023, I decided I was going to let myself enjoy fictional classics again. So here is my list of classics I read in 2023 and what I gained from them:
1. The Bluest Eye (5/5) — wow. you can bet I’m going to devour the rest of Toni Morrison’s works in 2024. From tackling poverty, beauty standards, dysfunctional family dynamics, I was moved, horrified, and felt understood. She somehow is able to do more telling than showing but in such a way that I can’t help but admire it. The psychoanalyses of each character is brilliant.
2. The Awakening (5/5) — I feel like I should be concerned by how much I relate to Edna. Or maybe Kate Chopin just understood depression and wanted to use the ocean as a symbol to express that.
3. Brave New World (4.2/5)— weird, thought provoking, dark, brilliant, terrifying, honest, satirical, all of the above?
4. Ethan Frome (3/5) — Ethan is a melodramatic idiot, but the writing is rich. I need to read more Wharton in 2024.
5. Songs of Innocence and Experience (2/5) — the poetry is too cheery, cheesy, and positive for me.
5. The Haunting of Hill House (4/5) — horror isn’t my go-to genre, but I love the way Shirley Jackson writes.
6. The Lottery (4/5) — see? Another Shirley Jackson. she’s so nonchalant with horror. We all collectively do move on after horrors are committed against humans, especially humans we don’t know. We often treat horror nonchalantly, just as Jackson.
7. Little Women (5/5) — duh. A book about domestic life that is so much more than a Bildungsroman.
8. Anne of Green Gables (5/5) — I laughed, I cried, I fell in love (with Matthew.) I wish I’d read this when I was younger. I liked how the story felt like chronological vignettes.
9. Anne of the avonlea (4/5) — the twins annoyed me but I laughed, I cried, and I fell in love again but this time with MY man, Gilbert.
10. Anne of the Island (5/5) — Gilbert Blythe owns my heart.
11. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall — let me tell you, this…this was a masterpiece. Part 2 was a struggle to get through because the toxicity and building trauma was palpable through the pages. Part 2 sometimes triggered me enough to put the book down for a bit. Anne Brontë understood toxic relationships. Reminded me of how Emily Brontë depicted Heathcliff and Catherine. Did their parents possibly have a toxic relationship? Was this ever discussed? I know Charlotte did not like this book because she didn’t think it represented Anne, but it’s a brilliantly written novel. And now I have two men to love: Gilbert and Gilbert.
12. A Room with a view (4.4/5) — loved the symbolism of the wild nature. See, this is when I noticed a pattern in me: I have a thing for men in classic literature whose name starts with a “G.”
13. The Picture of Dorian Gray (4.4/5) — both loved and hated that the majority of the book is just dialogue. There are so many great themes and gay undertones (more like overtones). We love the gays of classic lit. Wilde has an interesting worldview, especially when it comes to art.
14. Poems 1817 (3/5) — this man sure loves pretty language about nature. we get it. you write beautifully but like where’s the poetic honesty?
15. Pride and Prejudice (4.5/5) — I get the hype now. Shy Mr. Darcy is not my usual kind of guy, but I see the appeal. That man was a simp. Love the satire.
16. Dracula (3/5) — it was Halloween.
Now, I’m reading Anna Karenina!! Any tips for reading Russian lit for the first time?
#entertainment
source
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