apropos of nothing and certainly not recent twitter conversations, what’s a classic novel you’ve read that absolutely rules

I’ll go with HOUSE OF MIRTH, a complete barnburner

also THE GREAT GATSBY is the deserved front runner for Great American Novel if you didn’t take to it when you read it in high school give it another go

JUDE THE OBSCURE contains the legit most heartbreaking moment in any novel I’ve come across, one that still gives me shivers

I started JANE EYRE so begrudgingly as part of a college English course then spent hours at the library devouring it, a completely satisfying experience

not sure if Chinua Achebe’s THINGS FALL APART qualifies under this definition of a “classic” but it:
1) was published 62 years ago
2) was force fed to me by an English teacher as part of course reading
3) is absolutely fantastic

one thing about the "don't force kids to read classics in school, let them read what they want!" argument is that a) they're already reading what they want and b) sometimes there are books you have to be nudged to engage with that end up being the best books you've ever read

of course it's essential to continue to interrogate the classics, question what gets that tag and what doesn't, expand the canon, upend the canon, discard the canon, but also remember that classic books became classics because generations of readers fell in love with them

I had kind of the reverse experience of the the "teach the classics" argument: I only read my first Raymond Chandler novel because I took a course and it was on the reading list. That gave me "permission" to read it, and thank the stars above that I did