My father loved a good-lookin’ car with a love pure and true—my mother told us kids the first time she saw him he was waxing his father’s shiny black Chevrolet, and she fell in love with him on the spot—and when I was about ten, he bought a 1955 Ford Thunderbird from a friend. (It looked just like this, only the paint was faded.) He spent months restoring it, a few years driving it, and when he sold it, it was still quite valuable for a car its age. It was, as they say, a classic.
What makes a car classic? A few things (aside from age, which is a whole other ball o’ wax). Speaking generally, a car might be called a classic due to its uniqueness; at the time it released, it broke the mold, either in design or in features. Additionally, it had broad popular appeal; it was widely admired when new. Furthermore, long past the time other cars find themselves out of favor, classic cars continue to be bought and sold and loved. They are always in fashion.
That’s a lot like classic literature, don’t you think?
We’ve been talking a lot about reading lately: how important it is for writers to read … what you can learn from reading fiction … books for loved ones who don’t care much for reading … even about giving up on books you’ve started to read but don’t like. And in my post about why the books writers choose to read should be good ones, a thoughtful reader commented, “Interesting column and good advice. The classics may be hard but there’s a reason they’re still around.”
This brings up an interesting point. As noted, writers should read widely and should read the very, very best of literature. But in that post I specifically avoided saying “read the classics” because—compelling as so much classic literature is—many fiction-writing conventions have changed, even from as recently as the mid–twentieth century. And a manuscript written in the style of, say, Faulkner or Steinbeck, not to mention someone like Thomas Hardy or Charles Dickens (and I’m very fond of Charles Dickens), is, frankly, unlikely to find a publisher in 2013. We were talking about learning by osmosis—that is, learning how to write well by reading good writing. So if you are writing for today’s audience—and you are—I think you’d do well to read plenty of today’s great literature.
Of course, that’s not enough. To truly write well you also need to be culturally literate, and that would involve having a frame of reference that includes classics of literature, the Bible, philosophers, poets, and so on. I’m not letting you off the hook. Sure, Mark Twain once said classic literature was “something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read” (in his “Disappearance of Literature” speech, 1900)—and I will concede you need to be in the right frame of mind (or in school) to tackle some classic literature.
But don’t forget what defines a classic, friends. My fave dictionary says classic is “of the highest quality or rank; having recognized and permanent value; of enduring interest and appeal; forming part of the permanent cultural achievement of mankind; historically memorable.” This should reassure you. If you don’t know where to start, I’m going to suggest five memorable titles:
Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre (1847)
Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist (1837)
Alexandre Dumas: The Count of Monte Cristo (1844)
Others might have other lists. This is mine. Tell me what you think!
UPDATE: There’s more on this subject here.
Tweet: To truly write well you also need to be culturally literate, and that would involve reading the classics.
Tweet: What makes a car classic? Uniqueness, popular appeal, always in fashion. Like classic literature.
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