We are all familiar with classics that haunt us in every conversation where we desire to seem like a so-called ‘intellectual’. This club is so infamous we convince ourselves we get their gist; we can name-drop titles into conversation and get away with it. No one needs to know we devote hours binging contemporary romance over the hefty prose of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. What lit student is unfamiliar with Fitzgerald? What politics student has never touched Orwell? Truthfully, there are books many of us have never picked up, and the longer we live in our collective facade, the more we’ll convince ourselves: “It’s basically like I’ve already read it anyways…right?”
The Russian Giants:
Some of the most renowned novels for being long and challenging, titles like Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov are essential to this group. Anyone who aspires to be a ‘serious’ reader has at least one of these in their never-ending aspirational to-be-read pile, and it is probably sat in that list so long it’s collecting dust.
The Serious Readers:
A response to the side of Booktok saturated with Romantasy, YA and feel-good fiction, a new side of the platform has emerged. This group, well they consume Sylvia Plath and Camus, opposing popular Booktok trends with more intense themes in true contrarian spirit.
The Classics We Definitely Read in High School:
These are the books we all say we’ve read because we know we were supposed to as teenagers. Including staples like The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye and 1984, who has not completed a book review on these? They are definitely not staring at you accusingly from your bookshelf.
The Old Masterpieces:
We may not pretend we have read these texts, but we might feel we practically know everything about them, regardless. While beautifully composed, old English and translations of Homer are hardly entry level, and with countless adaptations of Romeo and Juliet and EPIC: The Musical, it’s easy to trick ourselves into thinking we are already experts.
But why do we pretend and aspire to belong in these intellectual circles? Why is intellectualism in literature so closed off? No one denies the literary merit of the aforementioned texts; they are classics for a reason. Their prose, cultural commentary and thought-provoking messages are why we consider them masters of
the literary craft. But as publishing and reading are more accessible than ever, our perspective of what constitutes ‘valid’ reading should grow accordingly.
All reading counts. Pick up that new Emily Henry release and join the Hunger Games resurgence (and debate over its exploration of just war theory if you crave that analytical twist). Enjoy your tropes and perhaps pick up a classic or two to learn what all the fuss is about. Literature is not a medium for snobbish behaviour; it is a world where fun and critical analysis can coexist pretence-free.
“Bookshop Window” by garryknight is licensed under CC BY 2.0