Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Classic Immortals

Anna Karenina returns
I’m reading more with the Kindle (helps with sanity).  I was expecting this because of the mobility and ease of making last minute decisions on what to read.  What I was not expecting is the selection of books I’ve been reading recently-classics I’ve read in high school.   Flaubert, Hesse and now Tolstoy.  One of my first Kindle books was Goethe (Sorrows of Young Werther)-expected since it is one of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors.  But then for some odd reason I decided to read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse again (classics from Kindle are free).  A completely different experience this time around.  I don’t even remember he had a little boy or how a fateful circle was referenced.   I got so much more out of the book than I did a long time ago.  So I’m going to reread Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.  I’m sure I will get a different perspective for these books.  Thanks to the free classics on Kindle, I get to read books that I most likely would not have even purchased.   For people who love to read, I highly recommend rereading some classics (and they are free).






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2 comments:

  1. Eventually I plan to buy a Kindle, but too many other expenses at the moment. I'm glad the classics are free. I would be in the boat as you, wherein that I wouldn't normally pay for classics (you can always get them for free at the library, or very cheap on Amazon), but the convenience of the Kindle would peak my interest more to read them again.

    I know what you mean also, about how some of the classics have a different meaning as you get older. I read a lot classics during my school years (through college), but they were mostly reading assignments. I enjoyed them, but I didn't grasp (or had time to grasp, really) the emotions taking place. I didn't really understand what the characters were going through. I have a much better understanding now when I have re-read classic (Dream of Red Chamber, or Mansion, depending on the translation, is a favorite of mine, but I ended up reading a lot of Chinese classics while studying in college). These characters went through horrible experiences! I realized when I first read Red Chamber how terrible everything was for many of the characters, but I didn't realize just HOW terrible their lives were until I re-read it for enjoyment almost 10 years later.

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  2. And that's exactly why they are classics.....

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