The past few weeks have been full of reading. I stumbled across Donna Tart's excellent 1992 book "A Secret History" when I was checking the literary references in the movie, " Dead Poet's Society". Hailed as a modern classic, the book is a first person narrative of the macabre experiences of a Californian fresher, who joins an elite university in Vermont, and befriends a clique of students who study Greek literature under a very enigmatic professor. Pretty soon, the academic idyll is shattered with the death of one of these friends, and the ensuing repercussions is what constitutes the bulk of the narrative.
In fact I was so besotted with the reviews and references of this book, that I actually went to Popular to buy the book when I could't get it online. Alas! After I combed through most of the shelves, trying to look beyond the " Fifty Shades of Grey" and other modern bestsellers piled up in eye-grabbing patterns, it was time to ask my brother to send me an e book. The moment he sent that, all I did, apart from lab work, was to read and savor the book.
In fact I was so besotted with the reviews and references of this book, that I actually went to Popular to buy the book when I could't get it online. Alas! After I combed through most of the shelves, trying to look beyond the " Fifty Shades of Grey" and other modern bestsellers piled up in eye-grabbing patterns, it was time to ask my brother to send me an e book. The moment he sent that, all I did, apart from lab work, was to read and savor the book.
Around that time, Thomas Vinterberg's adaptation of the Thomas Hardy classic " Far from the Madding Crowd" released. There is an interesting memory associated with this book. I had won it in a creative writing competition when I was an undergraduate, but had not read it until recently. There are two versions already adapted for the big screen, one in 1967 (starring Julie Christie) and another in 1998.
Which sort of made me think why the classics have the power to draw us back to them again and again, and how each time, they speak new things, altering our perception of them, and the associated memories while reading them. I have not seen the previous two movies, but the 2015 one starring Carey Mulligan as the intrepid Bathsheba Everdeen and the extremely handsome Matthias Schoenaerts as Gabriel Oak left me spellbound.
And that set the tone for Thomas Hardy, and I went ahead and watched " Jude" based on his other novel, " Jude, the Obscure" as well as " The Return of the Native", and was left transfixed by the modernity of the respective heroines Sue Bridehead and Eustacia Vye. D H Lawrence revered Hardy and was inspired by him, and probably that's why both these authors' predominant themes revolved around class issues, repression of freedom and sexuality, and men and women suffering due to these shackles of society.
I know Jane Austen is a universal favorite, but I'm more of a Bronte' sisters' fan, especially "Wuthering Heights" and " Jane Eyre". And the fact that there are so many screen and theatre adaptations spanning decades is a testament to the greatness, timelessness, universality and popularity of theses classics. Jane Eyre has close to 10 movie adaptations, my favorite being the 1996 version directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsbourg as Jane and Mr Rochester. The more recent 2011 version directed by Cary Fukunaga starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender is good too. Its the same with " Wuthering Heights" too, with close to 10 adapations for the big screen as well as TV series over the course of five decades.
The surprising aspect is that each adaptation of these classic tales, as much as each reading or re-reading of the same brings out something new each time. Little details spring to notice, and certain issues become more noteworthy for their everlasting influence.
I think we reread and love to revisit the classics for the simple reason put forth by Italo Calvino, that " A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say". Most people are initiated to read the classics at a young age (my assumption), sometimes by enthusiastic adults or as part of the school curriculum, or as abridged books, and hence it is but natural that those books become an inherent part of childhood memories, some still fresh in the mind, some tucked away in the hidden folds of memory. The same book, when read as an adult conjures up the memories of childhood, at the same time, in the light of maturity that comes with age, highlights some other aspects of the book. Moods too have so much to do with how a book is perceived.
While this is applicable to most books, classics have their own niche in this scheme of things. They are timeless, for one. Pick any Shakespearean tragedy or comedy, and extrapolate that in the contemporary travails of society or life, you will find instant resonance. Pick any heroine from a Thomas Hardy novel, and instantly, a likeness with your personal struggles as a woman in today's world will appear. And think about when these were written. The sixteenth century. Or 1860. We talk about sexuality and openness today. Read Lady Chatterley's Lover, written by the brilliant D H Lawrence in 1928, and feel the passion of his views on repression of sexuality and class discrimination, and in a snap, you will be able to relate to it, despite a difference of more than 8 decades. Little Women, published in 1880, which I read when I was 11, then at various stages of my life time and again, continues to bewitch me, soothe me, transport and transcend me. Maybe that's why we read them over and over again.
My 10 best classics are:
1) Little Women
2) Lady Chatterley's Lover
3) Great Expectations
4) To Kill a Mockingbird
5) Far from the Madding Crowd
6) Rebecca
7) Gone With The Wind
8) The Thorn Birds
9) Wuthering Heights
10) Jane Eyre
Of course, the list is endless.
Here is a list of 100 best classics from the Guardian.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/12/features.fiction
