What Deems a Book as “Classic”?

I haven’t hid the fact that I don’t care much for classics, but I can’t really escape them.  I’ve read a few classics for school, and a few for fun.  But honestly?  I don’t feel like I’m missing anything with classics.  There are a few that I enjoyed, but the majority, I know I either won’t read them or probably won’t like.

The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird, two of the only classics I liked.

There are several classics I’ve come across, and most of which I didn’t enjoy. I think I was around seven when I read my first classic, Black Beauty.  I wasn’t a fan.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was a classic on my summer reading list for 2013.  It has 180 pages.  Took me two weeks to read.

That’s a no…

And there are several others I read like Animal Farm, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest (I barely remember what happened in this play, but it’s something else I read last summer), Moby Dick, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and a few others that I read that I feel I could have lived without reading.  I remember a friend in school reading Around the World in Eighty Days, and I tried to read it because she was, but I wasn’t feeling it.

But what deems these books as “classics”?  Is there an official list?  (Probably not.)  Is it a matter of opinion?  I think so, though it seems like with most of these books, it’s common knowledge that they’re classics.  But I’ve spoken to people who don’t like them.

What are your thoughts on the subject?  Do you like classics?  Or maybe you don’t.  Let me know!

Also I wanted to mention that Yvo @ It’s All About Books nominated me for the One Lovely Blog Award!  Thank you so much for the nomination, Yvo. 😀  I love the blogging awards, and it’s so nice that you guys consider me when you’re writing your responses. ^-^ I don’t know if I’ll have time to write a whole response to this post, as school is pretty intense this year, but I wanted to thank her for the nomination. 😀  Hopefully I’ll have some free time one of these days and I’ll put together a post for this award!

-littleonion

Book Review: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Title: The Catcher in the Rye

Author: J.D. Salinger

Summary: Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with “cynical adolescent.” Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he’s been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.”

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation. -Goodreads

*My formatting for that part of the review is different because my laptop is acting weird.  😛

Review:

I recently picked up an itty, bitty copy of The Catcher in the Rye at my local bookstore.  Along with that, I also purchased To Kill a Mockingbird (a really small copy of that, as well).  I don’t know what had me so interested in this book, but I really wanted to read it.  I think it’s because in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie talked about his teacher telling him to read this.  I don’t know if I actually finished The Perks…

I’d heard a lot about this book, and I knew it was on the “banned books list,” but I think that’s what intrigued me even more.  There were some more mature topics introduced in this book, though nothing was graphic.  Language was an issue, as well.  In fact, I was beginning to think it was a serving of curse words with a side of story.

Aside from that, though, it really was a good book.  The storyline was very realistic, and, as Goodreads says, his observations “capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.”

To my surprise, I liked Holden, the main character.  He had a very interesting thought process, and very interesting thoughts in general.  I think he could have been Candor, as he was always pointing out the phonies.

I loved the writing style, as well.  It was like Holden was talking to me and telling me this short little story of his journey.  The dialogue was amazing, too, and sometimes I caught myself laughing (though I’m not sure I was supposed to be).  The slang was great, too, like “that killed me” or  “I can’t sleep so hot” or “she knocks me out.”  Awesome.

I also really liked the relationships Holden had with his siblings.  It seemed like he had been closest to Allie, his brother.  He also seemed pretty close with Phoebe (in my head, I kept calling her Fobe), his younger sister.

I feel like Holden needs a theme song, or two.  Here are some songs that I think would be his theme song:

“Isolation” by Alter Bridge

“A Beautiful Lie” by 30 Seconds To Mars

“Lithium” by Nirvana

“My Own Worst Enemy” by Lit

Favorite Lines:

I told him I liked Ring Lardner and The Great Gatsby and all.  I did, too.  I was crazy about The Great Gatsby.  Old Gatsby.  Old sport.  That killed me. 

Loved the Gatsby reference!

~

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.

4/5 stars!