I've tried to read quite a few of the classics, and found a lot of them difficult to read . . . I was wondering if anyone had suggestions of classics that are a little easier to understand . . . I don't mind an in-depth book, but I'd rather not have to spend more time trying to figure out what the author is saying than I do on the actual plot.

Do you find them difficult because of the archaic language?

and do you REALLY have a Posh&Becks avatar?

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That would be a double yes. Posh & Becks are sort of my celebrity guilty pleasure.

The Great Gatsby is a pretty easy read, I think. It's an easier read than, say, Pride and Prejudice. Although Pride and Prejudice is a good novel.

Gulliver's Travels is positively ancient, but a very easy read.

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Time is the distance that you can't return by miles.

I escaped somehow. Let's go

actualy [sic] I have quite a blessed life if I'm honest. I have many people to love, hate few and have few money problem's [sic].... What more does a person need? Oh yeah and I have some kind of humbleness unlike you of course ^_^ ~ CarefulCarpenter

Absalom, Absalom!

professor bort. are you well versed in fitzgerald? i recently read "this side of paradise" and only finished it because i can't live with myself if i don't finish a book.

do you have thoughts on "the beautiful and the damned" or "tender is the night"? tender has that crazy bitch in it i think. i'd probably enjoy that. please advise.

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Go with "Tender". I'm no Gatsby-phile, but I think his prose style is accessible.

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Time is the distance that you can't return by miles.

I escaped somehow. Let's go

actualy [sic] I have quite a blessed life if I'm honest. I have many people to love, hate few and have few money problem's [sic].... What more does a person need? Oh yeah and I have some kind of humbleness unlike you of course ^_^ ~ CarefulCarpenter

thanks bort.

now someone should recommend me some poetry. like keats.

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i found jane eyre and wuthering heights pretty easy to read. austen on the other hand, ugh no. i suggest reading the brontes' work before austen's.

i haven't read this one but i can recommend as i lay dying. the stream-of-consciousness is a bit weird if you aren't used to it, but i thought it was easy to get into.

i can second wuthering heights, but unfortunately, i couldn't get into jane eyre at all.

perhaps this goes without saying, but the catcher in the rye?

i'm not a dickens fan, but you might try a tale of two cities.

dracula's also an easy read, though i don't really like the second half of the book.

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Tender is the Night is a beautiful novel, i like it better than Gatsby.

salinger

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you'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking

I'm definitely going to try out all of these.

oh, well i was actually making a (bad) joke with the absalom absalom, actually. it's really fucking difficult. i'd wait a while before picking that one up. and that's not me feeling superior because i never could have gotten through the fuckin thing on my own and i'll be the first to admit it (read it for a class).

I second this.

Especially his short stories.
( personal favorites: For Esme - With Love And Squalor, A Perfect Day For Bananafish, & Uncle Wiggily In Conneticut)

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My mind is like a plastic bag.

yes, and i would add "just before the war with the eskimos." the sandwich really gets me.

oh and while we're talking about salinger, read franny and zooey. i don't know if it's considered a classic but read it anyway. "there's something about the way you're going at this prayer that gives me the willies, if you want to know the truth."

salinger isn't even dead, leave off with the classic label (but raise high the roof beam, carpenters is the best one, franny and zooey a close second. THE FAT LADY IS JESUS)

dostoevsky's crime and punishment is easyish to read, i think the brothers karamazov has given the writer a difficult reputation. the outsider/the stranger by camus is a piece of piss, you can finish it in an afternoon and then you've passed your existentialist hip credentials 101. conrad's heart of darkness is also very short

shit my spelling today. my holy spelling

Classics i would recommend are Medea by Euripedes and The Odyssey by Homer. Very old but still very good. and although they are a lil bit difficult to read it is very worthwhile.

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Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Wuthering Height by Emily Bronte
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence

These have pleased me immensely.

I get confused when it comes to labels such as "Classics," and usually bite my tongue only too late after shouting out something like "Slaughterhouse Five!"

But I think Joyce's Dubliners counts as a classic, and it is a pretty easy (and wonderful) read. I recommend that first and foremost.

I agree with Crime and Punishment, especially when I compare it to the other two of his that I've read. It was the first I had read of Dostoevsky's and by far the easiest. It's one of my favorite, books, too.

Hemingway is an easy author and writes straight-forward plots. I know quite a lot of people detest Hemingway, but I really like him and recommend A Farewell to Arms.

And a big YES to Rebecca.