"The other major concern is that if you’re reading older books, there will be less diversity."
A concern she says, nay, a major concern!
Why is reading classic books problematic, as they say these days, because they are less diverse? Aren't we all the same? And isn't that a good thing? Sameness is the ideal, is it not? So why do we need diversity? Diversity is bad!
Of course, you know, I know and she knows -- we all know -- why she says older books are a major concern.
Ah, nuts.
I read the so-called classics and teach them to my children because they meld me to my civilization, my culture, which is different from all others and is special to me. I prefer my culture to those of others, which are very different, in the same way I prefer my children to yours, my husband to yours, my mother and father to yours, my family stories to yours...all the way back generation after generation. Those classic novels and poems, philosophies and histories are my cultural, my civilizational, memories. If I don't have them, if we all don't have and share them, our civilization dies.
I don't want our civilization to die and right now it seems like it is not merely dying, but is being killed -- murdered -- by those who...who... I don't know why they act as they do, believe as they do.
But I don't believe as they do, and I will resist them and help in however I can to act as a monastery of memories to outlast the darkness to come.
I think you’re making a lot of baseless assumptions and seem to have missed the entire thrust of the conversation. she wrote an entire book defending the Great Books canon and inviting people to read them! you heard the word “diversity” and had an automatic, unthinking reaction and seem to think she’s advocating for destroying Western civilization’s literary culture. she’s not. she’s responding to why some potential readers might think the classics aren’t for them.
ironically, you ask “aren’t we all the same?” yet then advocate for your culture which is “different from all others.” so which is it? if we’re all the same, presumably then you’d have much to learn from other cultures, just as you’re suggesting people who don’t see themselves represented in the Great Books canon can still learn from them! it’s clear that you don’t really think we’re all the same, seeing as you’re seemingly quite afraid of other cultures and are accusing people of murdering your culture.
I don't understand people who find Moby Dick boring. Besides all its other fine qualities, it's frequently hilarious. Likewise Thoreau ... I think Transcendentalists in general had a dry, ironic, slightly absurdist sense of humor that maybe some readers just don't get anymore.
Maybe framed like that, I could see Thoreau in a more positive light. New Englanders do have a flinty, dry sense of humor. I was reading Nietzsche a few weeks ago and had to ask my son: "Is he being sarcastic a lot? Because if so, he's hilarious." And that was not what I expected from Nietzsche!
There used to be a meme explaining (for the benefit of Boomers, I guess) that "John said" means I'm quoting John; "...then Cindy was like" means I'm paraphrasing Cindy but doing so pretty accurately; and that "...and then Matt was all" means that not only am I *not* quoting Matt, I'm paraphrasing him, but I'm being kind of a dick about it, at the very least sarcastic about whatever Matt said.
When I was teaching Intro to Brit Lit, I told students to see how often they could read Jane Austen as though she were using "was all" voice. They were *shocked* at how much more clear to them her satire suddenly became.
I just finished a wrap-up of your list. It was shockingly hard to get all my thoughts down in one (well, two) places. I have loved getting to know some classics, and look forward to watching this.
Naomi’s response is strangely reductive. She flags two ‘major concerns’ with older books: one, they’re too difficult and inaccessible; two, reading them means less diversity.
She found Moby-Dick dull on a first read and somehow struggled with the absolute page-turner that is Don Quixote?
It’s astounding that even experienced readers and authors cling to such a childish take on the classics. Sure, pre-17th-century English works (Shakespeare included) can have archaic language hurdles, but that doesn’t erase their richness.
Post-17th-century classics, in English or translation are often wildly entertaining and engaging once you meet them on their terms.
Customs from another era might jar a modern sensibility, fine, but an academic should spot the humor, irony, and brilliance buried in those differences, not recoil from them.
And let’s be real, the classics are infinitely more entertaining than the didactic, message-heavy contemporary writing we have today. Books that lecture you on approved views instead of letting the story breathe and surprise.
And the diversity complaint is pure nonsense. What could possibly be more diverse than literature from centuries ago, written in entirely alien cultural and intellectual worlds? Why does ‘diversity’ always mean modern demographic checkboxes and never diversity of thought, worldview, or historical vantage?”
did you miss the rest of the forty-minute conversation where she advocates strongly for the Great Books canon? she’s brings up these two concerns because she is describing how her book is different from previous writers’ attempts to advocate for the Great Books. she is taking criticisms of the canon seriously, instead of snidely dismissing them as you’ve done. she is responding to an audience who might be wary of the Great Books and inviting them in, not castigating them.
I don’t think she or anyone else is saying that the classics’ sometimes archaic language is devoid of “richness” or meaning. Don Quixote is an incredibly long, meandering novel. Moby Dick is a bizarre specimen stitched together from various kinds of writing: travelogue, technical nautical information, cetacean biology, melodrama. and yet, she’s advocating for reading both of them! I think it’s refreshing to see someone say “this didn’t resonate for me the first time, but I tried again because I knew there was something valuable there.” I don’t understand why you’re acting like the classics can’t be difficult to get into. also, she’s not talking about reading these books as an academic. she’s not an academic, she’s a critic and a fiction writer.
lastly, go look at her Substack. she’s quite critical of a lot of contemporary fiction—that’s part of why she’s written a defense of the Great Books! I think you’re getting triggered by the fact she said the words “difficulty” and “diversity” and not actually engaging with what’s being said, which is a shame because this is a good conversation.
"The other major concern is that if you’re reading older books, there will be less diversity."
A concern she says, nay, a major concern!
Why is reading classic books problematic, as they say these days, because they are less diverse? Aren't we all the same? And isn't that a good thing? Sameness is the ideal, is it not? So why do we need diversity? Diversity is bad!
Of course, you know, I know and she knows -- we all know -- why she says older books are a major concern.
Ah, nuts.
I read the so-called classics and teach them to my children because they meld me to my civilization, my culture, which is different from all others and is special to me. I prefer my culture to those of others, which are very different, in the same way I prefer my children to yours, my husband to yours, my mother and father to yours, my family stories to yours...all the way back generation after generation. Those classic novels and poems, philosophies and histories are my cultural, my civilizational, memories. If I don't have them, if we all don't have and share them, our civilization dies.
I don't want our civilization to die and right now it seems like it is not merely dying, but is being killed -- murdered -- by those who...who... I don't know why they act as they do, believe as they do.
But I don't believe as they do, and I will resist them and help in however I can to act as a monastery of memories to outlast the darkness to come.
I think you’re making a lot of baseless assumptions and seem to have missed the entire thrust of the conversation. she wrote an entire book defending the Great Books canon and inviting people to read them! you heard the word “diversity” and had an automatic, unthinking reaction and seem to think she’s advocating for destroying Western civilization’s literary culture. she’s not. she’s responding to why some potential readers might think the classics aren’t for them.
ironically, you ask “aren’t we all the same?” yet then advocate for your culture which is “different from all others.” so which is it? if we’re all the same, presumably then you’d have much to learn from other cultures, just as you’re suggesting people who don’t see themselves represented in the Great Books canon can still learn from them! it’s clear that you don’t really think we’re all the same, seeing as you’re seemingly quite afraid of other cultures and are accusing people of murdering your culture.
Apparently, you don’t understand sarcasm.
この議論を続けたいなら、日本語でやりましょう。私は標準語を話し、読み、書きます。お前 は？
This was great. I've got no bones to pick. Listening to 2 smart people talk about the classics for an hour and 20 minutes. We need more of that!!
"The other major concern is that if you’re reading older books, there will be less diversity."
lol
What if the question should be “Why not read classic books”?
I don't understand people who find Moby Dick boring. Besides all its other fine qualities, it's frequently hilarious. Likewise Thoreau ... I think Transcendentalists in general had a dry, ironic, slightly absurdist sense of humor that maybe some readers just don't get anymore.
Maybe framed like that, I could see Thoreau in a more positive light. New Englanders do have a flinty, dry sense of humor. I was reading Nietzsche a few weeks ago and had to ask my son: "Is he being sarcastic a lot? Because if so, he's hilarious." And that was not what I expected from Nietzsche!
There used to be a meme explaining (for the benefit of Boomers, I guess) that "John said" means I'm quoting John; "...then Cindy was like" means I'm paraphrasing Cindy but doing so pretty accurately; and that "...and then Matt was all" means that not only am I *not* quoting Matt, I'm paraphrasing him, but I'm being kind of a dick about it, at the very least sarcastic about whatever Matt said.
When I was teaching Intro to Brit Lit, I told students to see how often they could read Jane Austen as though she were using "was all" voice. They were *shocked* at how much more clear to them her satire suddenly became.
I'll bet your students still remember that!
Well, the other day I just downloaded the complete works of Petronius & Aristophanes for my Kindle, so I'm certainly on board with this.
Not the quality I have come to expect from Ted.
I read the "Great Brain" books. Does that count?
I just finished a wrap-up of your list. It was shockingly hard to get all my thoughts down in one (well, two) places. I have loved getting to know some classics, and look forward to watching this.
Naomi’s response is strangely reductive. She flags two ‘major concerns’ with older books: one, they’re too difficult and inaccessible; two, reading them means less diversity.
She found Moby-Dick dull on a first read and somehow struggled with the absolute page-turner that is Don Quixote?
It’s astounding that even experienced readers and authors cling to such a childish take on the classics. Sure, pre-17th-century English works (Shakespeare included) can have archaic language hurdles, but that doesn’t erase their richness.
Post-17th-century classics, in English or translation are often wildly entertaining and engaging once you meet them on their terms.
Customs from another era might jar a modern sensibility, fine, but an academic should spot the humor, irony, and brilliance buried in those differences, not recoil from them.
And let’s be real, the classics are infinitely more entertaining than the didactic, message-heavy contemporary writing we have today. Books that lecture you on approved views instead of letting the story breathe and surprise.
And the diversity complaint is pure nonsense. What could possibly be more diverse than literature from centuries ago, written in entirely alien cultural and intellectual worlds? Why does ‘diversity’ always mean modern demographic checkboxes and never diversity of thought, worldview, or historical vantage?”
did you miss the rest of the forty-minute conversation where she advocates strongly for the Great Books canon? she’s brings up these two concerns because she is describing how her book is different from previous writers’ attempts to advocate for the Great Books. she is taking criticisms of the canon seriously, instead of snidely dismissing them as you’ve done. she is responding to an audience who might be wary of the Great Books and inviting them in, not castigating them.
I don’t think she or anyone else is saying that the classics’ sometimes archaic language is devoid of “richness” or meaning. Don Quixote is an incredibly long, meandering novel. Moby Dick is a bizarre specimen stitched together from various kinds of writing: travelogue, technical nautical information, cetacean biology, melodrama. and yet, she’s advocating for reading both of them! I think it’s refreshing to see someone say “this didn’t resonate for me the first time, but I tried again because I knew there was something valuable there.” I don’t understand why you’re acting like the classics can’t be difficult to get into. also, she’s not talking about reading these books as an academic. she’s not an academic, she’s a critic and a fiction writer.
lastly, go look at her Substack. she’s quite critical of a lot of contemporary fiction—that’s part of why she’s written a defense of the Great Books! I think you’re getting triggered by the fact she said the words “difficulty” and “diversity” and not actually engaging with what’s being said, which is a shame because this is a good conversation.
Amen