The Classic-ness of Classics

Or, what makes a classic a classic?

Welcome to 2013 and my tiny part of the Classic Reads Blog Hop.

My favorite book of all time is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Although I have read Pride and Prejudice I have to admit it is not on my favorites list. However, indisputably, both are classics.

This begs the question what makes a classic if, clearly, it is not whether I personally have the book on my favorites list or not.

My own personal take is that it boils down to characters. Can you, the reader, identify with the character of the book and experience their emotion? If the answer is yes for multiple generations then the book is a classic.

The reader, be they high school kids or experienced adults like yours truly, can identify with Scout's confusion over the differences in how people were treated simply because of their skin color. I can feel her terror that dark night walking back from the school. I empathize with her indignation when her sense of right is violated. Not only are readers now able to identify and empathize but readers in the early 1960s could also identify and empathize.

People I know who love Jane Austen say much the same things. (To put words in their mouths) they feel the conflicting emotions of Austen's characters and identify with their struggle. It is the emotion and the struggle that is the same even though the mores, the plot, the scene are vastly different than the reader's, the reader is transported and is part. That is a classic.

This follows in other areas of writing as well. My favorite young adult book has been thrilling, mostly boys, for over a hundred years - Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. Despite the much different setting, I was excited from the start with David Balfour and could experience the adventure through his eyes. This was true for boys when the novel first came out and boys (again, mostly, though not exclusively I am happy to say) now still grasp that excitement and adventure.

It is a similar vein for girls with Laura Ingalls Wilder's books (though, I admit, I read most of them, too!). My sister loved them and my daughter a generation later, and for the same reason. The characters were real, their troubles were real, and the reader invested in them and shared their fates, if only mentally.

I could go on with other genres and situations but, that, I think you'd agree would be beating the proverbial dead horse. Whether Scout, Elizabeth, Balfour, or Laura, it is the ability of generations of readers to connect, empathize, and see the world through the character's eyes that, for me, make a classic novel classic.

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Back to Youth

I was a voracious reader when I was a kid, literally hundreds of books a year. Now that I'm more mature it is interesting to go back and re-read what I thought was prime literature at the time, or even read a book I wanted to but didn't back then. Since they are written for kids they take hardly any time to read.

One of the latter category is Lloyd Alexander. Best known for his Prydain Chronicles series he also wrote a series of adventures featuring Vesper Holly as well as many others. I must admit to enjoying them. The Vesper series is humorous even today with its historical references to Victorian mores and custom but with a very modernist tilt.

To Kill a Mockingbird was my favorite book and, I am pleased to say, has passed the test of time. It is still my favorite. Another set that also passes the test of time is anything by Ruth Chew. I highly recommend them to any child who is interested in history and adventure.

One that I was not interested in as a youth and still have not plunged into but was incredibly popular is the V. C. Andrews series. I do have a friend who has recently re-read many and she says they still hold her interest even almost 30 years on.

Happy Reading!