Classics I am half-way through... and always will be.

Do you have any book you've started-- more than once-- but can never seem to finish? For me, there are several, but Don Quixote is my nemesis. I like the author's style, the story is fine... but I just can't seem to finish it. Three times now I've gotten well into it before my interest sort of petered out. And I've read the Iliad and many more 'difficult' works.

You need the right "mood" to tackle reading such novels and classics.

Why not try to watch the DVD version of Don Quixote . and this will boost your interest to finish reading the book?

This really works for me especially the "long" novels.

I seem to have a bit of a block when it comes to Don Quixote too. Probably because it's such an episodic book, I feel I can put it down at the end of a chapter without big problems, but then I somehow don't get around to picking it up again fo months or years. I even taught myself enough Spanish to read it in the original in the gap between two chapters, but that didn't help...

Try to read notes on this novel. It will give a good outline of the novel, one of the greatest Spanish's literature.

www.sparknotes.com/lit/donquixote/context.html

www.sparknotes.com/lit/donquixote/summary.html

These study notes are for literature students and may proved to be useful.

>4 razzamajazz:, you may have a point there. Some classics I seem to have enjoyed more than I would have if I didn't know the story arc and ending ahead of time; A Farewell to Arms and Emma being two examples that come to mind.

I enjoyed Don Quixote for whatever reason, but I did become stuck halfway through Great Expectations in highschool and couldn't bear another attempt. Now I've a gameplan. Besides reading about its story arc and ending, I've also embarked on reading all the Dickens novels in publication order. So far I'm only up to The Old Curiosity Shop, but by the time I return to GE I should be more than ready to see it through.

Study notes do help to understand the book better, and a good prelude to reading the actual novel.

Many study notes are available in the internet for popular classics. The notes are free.

Reading the study notes do spoil your enjoyment for the novel you intend to read. Ii is a matter of choice. No "spoilers" needed.

Translations can be an issue at times. I had a problem with Don Quixote because I was reading the Smollett translation, and the mid-18th-century style was too archaic for me.

Which version of English's translation is more comfortable to read and readable to under the episodes of the main novel?

Another option is to have small/medium/large sections send to you via email once a day. Dailylit.com has Don Quixote in 394 installments. So you could get 1, 2, or 4 installments a day. It's how I'm currently reading Great Expectations. I don't do this with many books. Only the ones I would have a challenging time sitting down and reading for any length of time.

Don Quixote sat on my bookshelf for years till I took a deep breath and determined to read it. I was amazed to find it laugh-out-loud funny in parts, but thought the first half was sufficient and getting to the end of second was a drag.
Had a good translation with lots of footnotes which were invaluable.

A good translation online:

www.online-literature.com/cervantes/don_quixote/

Plain English. Readabe

4, 6

Right on! There's absolutely nothing wrong with reading summaries and study guides, for leisure.

(But I sheepishly admit I don't quite remember too much about the ol' Don)

Critical studies/ Critic reviews/Cpmmentaries on some popular classics are also worth reading.

All available in the internet.

Harold Bloom : critic/commentator on classics)

www.theguardian.com/books/2003/dec/13/classics.miguelcervantes

>12 Sandydog1: - I vividly remember the lions, his poor sidekick weeping bitter tears for his poor master's fate as he runs for the hills, lol ...

My nemesis would be Dante's Paradiso. I had no trouble with the Inferno and Purgatorio, but I've tried Paradiso about 3 or 4 times and I have never got past the tenth canto, almost one-third through. Maybe it ends differently, but the beginning is a little too abstract for me.

Try to get the late Modern English text's translation.

This text is simple to understand, and it is available FOC in the internet.

I am trying to read the narrative text in Modern English - The Divine Comedy.

Try to read this narrative version:

www.poetryintranslation.com/klineasdante.htm

Thank you, I'll have a look at your narrative version. My translation is the verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum - not the easiest one out there, but it has a beauty of its own and the notes are great.

>16 razzamajazz: Dante's Paradiso is definitely the weakest of his trilogy. Inferno is magnificent, Purgatorio is interesting, but Paradiso... not so much.

I'm going to take another stab at Don Quixote this summer. Maybe I'll just pick up from where I left off, and not reread the beginning.

>18 madpoet:, You're right, much of "Paradiso" was a slog to get through, although Dante's Empyrean in the concluding Cantos is one of the most fantastically conceived creations in all of literature.

The classic I've never managed to get more than halfway through is Tristram Shandy. It's one long joke, and I got it after the first hundred pages.

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. I just could not get through it. Only classic I have given up on so far.

Don Quixote was a slog. Was funny for a while, then got very repetitious, an therefor tedious.

For works such as Dante, and most of the Russian writers, I recommend Cliff Notes or other such aides. For the Russian classics, I use them for the cast of characters, as I get lost easily with the Russian names and titles. I already have the Cliff Notes for War and Peace for when I decide to try and tackle that.

Regards,

Bill

>20 Betelgeuse:, Tristram Shandy is waiting on my shelf. I've heard from others too that it's a challenge.

>21 Bill_Masom:, I read Moby Dick in seventh grade and loved every page of it. I guess all a twelve-year old cares about it is are they gonna catch that poor whale or will it get away? lol. At that age it's a great adventure story, and the tension really ramped up at the end.

I use SparkNotes.com myself.

Has anyone read anything by Tobias Smollett ? Have downloaded some of his works but not yet looked at them.

>23 Morphidae:, Sparknotes is great. Not sure who did those writeups but very insightful. I couldn't have gotten through Augustine's Confessions without it (although they didn't cover the last chapter for some reason, and it was the most oblique ...)

The Great Gatsby, have tried to read 3 times and it is just mind numbingly boring. I have also seen 3 different film versions--ditto.

The Grapes of Wrath ughh!

Iʻve lost count of the number of times Iʻve tried Burroughsʻs The Ticket that Exploded. Havenʻt given up yet, and the next time will
be # 5 or 6. (Who knows, I might even get into Chapter 3!) I must admit that the title, not its classic (?) status was what attracted me to it.