Once upon a time as I sat in a room of my own and read A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf spoke to me. She gave me things to appreciate and things to ponder. At one point, she said this:
At any rate, where books are concerned, it is notoriously difficult to fix levels of merit in such a way that they do not come off. Are not reviews of current literature a perpetual illustration of the difficulty of judgement? ‘This great book’, ‘this worthless book’, the same book is called by both names. Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes.
And now, at this moment, perhaps you’re flipping around to re-read the description of this text because, if Ms. Woolf has spoken to me, why would I be proceeding to take up page after page of judgment? Book judgment? When Ms. Woolf has specifically indicated it’s a futile effort?
Well, reader, I have never particularly liked being told what to do—don’t believe anyone actually likes that—especially with my reading life. There are far too many books out there for me to discover for someone to tell me to read The Great Gatsby or The Scarlet Letter. Or, at least, to tell me to read those books because they’re “Classics.” I see that classification doing nothing other than promoting the book’s age. Even then, American classics are infants in the scheme of things, and a piece of literature being referred to as an “American classic” is likely the equivalent to being handed a participation award.
I will—I must—acknowledge, of course, that plenty of sensible, reasonable, and well-read people enjoy both F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s. Many of these books I will carry on to condemn here are beloved favorites for a good deal of people (my husband included, so, outraged parties, you’re in good company). I have nothing against that, I have nothing against their personal preference, and I don’t mean to offend, if you take these matters seriously. The purpose of this scorekeeping is not to convince you to not read the “Classics” or to tell you to pick up the books I’ve found so valuable; the purpose is to paint a picture of reading’s accessiblity.
Often, the act of reading is seen as either boring or intimidating. Some people think it’s a waste of time. Others find it nap-inducing. Still others simply aren’t sure they can make time for it in their busy schedules. Regardless of where you fall on the reading spectrum, I believe there are books for you. There are stories you must read and cherish and find pieces of yourself within. Stories you should pick up when you need a stay-cation from reality. Stories you must read when you need a good laugh, a good cry, a good friend.
Some of these stories you encounter and fall in love with may very well fall under this “Classics” umbrella. Some of them may not. Either is fine. It is simply good to be reading.
But sometimes people feel they are not reading the “right” things because they prefer high fantasy series and have never read Jane Austen or Charles Dickens; can’t get enough of Nicholas Sparks and other romances yet have no interest in Ernest Hemingway; or had to read “Romeo and Juliet in high school but never had a desire to read anything else by Shakespeare.
Let me reassure you that these things don’t make you a “bad” reader. They don’t mean you’re reading the “wrong” things. You read whatever the heck you want. The point is this: just read.
When I was brainstorming this idea and trying to figure out how to determine what’s a “Classic” text and what is not, I began searching for ways to understand and create a set of criteria. I needed to provide some form of measurement so there could be a level of consistency within my judgments. I needed to know what criteria other people had already set since I am nowhere near the first person to ever wonder, What makes a book a classic? That is not a new question. I should not reinvent the wheel.
I found it easier to first make a compilation of what numerous lists around the internet thought were “Classics.” Sources such as PBS, the BBC, Time magazine, etc. This seemed like a far more straightforward task and resulted in 177 books.
Such a basic task was finished quicker than I would have liked, and I returned to scouring for inspiration that would help me determine credentials for the texts. I had to set a bar. I had to know what factors comprised the quality of a “Classic.”
Italian writer Italo Calvino was one of the first voices of authority who offered me something to work with. In his Why Read the Classics? he offers many reasons as to why, and one of them jumped out at me. He suggests, “A classic is a book which has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers.”
I liked that, and it turned out all I needed was one spark to set me off on my own development.
The results of my brainstorming gave me these ten guidelines:
Classics Scoring Rubric
There is never a bad time to be reading this book; rather, this is a story that can pull you out of any mood or satisfy any craving for a good story.
It is a timeless piece of literature that can be enjoyed when it was published and also with each generation that appears on this Earth to encounter it.
It is well-written and exhibits good wordsmithing and craftsmanship.
It connects with a universal, human emotion, dilemma, challenge, or joy.
It is unforgettable in a positive way.
There is joy and discovery in the re-reading, too.
There is a sense of gaining a dear friend.
It can withstand much critical and intellectual discourse.
It is stimulating and inviting; readers are not obligated to turn pages of a book, so a “Classic” must make them want to.
It is comprehensive, plot hole-less, and provides ways for readers to make and find sense within the story.
For each category, I then decided a book would receive a numerical score of something between 1 and 5 in accordance with this scale:
1 = disagree
2 = kind of disagree
3 = neither agree nor disagree
4 - agree
5 = strongly agree
Though a rather simple, elementary way of scoring, I found it workable. If a book then wanted to earn the title of “Classic,” it must rate, at the very least, 40 out of 50. That was my initial thought. However, that score was accounting for the sixth criteria, which pertains to the re-reading of a text. As I was diving into my “Classics” list, I found myself frowning at that category again and again because there were far too many texts I was already dreading the prospect of a second read, though I was not even through its first.
Luckily, a friend of a friend suggested I remedy this issue by simply changing the numerical total for the books I didn’t want to read again yet keeping the percentage they had to attain the same. So, some of these texts you will see as being out of 45 and have a threshold of 36 points (80%), and others are out of 50 and the threshold of 40 points remains.
Feel free, at any point, to wonder why I have created such a project for myself. No one directed me to do this. No one said, “Hey, Q, could you please make a system of scoring books that no one will care about?”
Such is the way of hobbies, I suppose.
Such is the reason why, though no one else cared about this endeavor, I was the one who told myself, “Q, you tumultuous creature, you have to finish what you started even though you have no authority over this, and you’re right—it doesn’t matter.”
Still, here we are, and I hope you enjoy. I hope you forgive me for possibly trash-talking a book you adore, and I hope you find the impulse to pick up a story that speaks to you. Reading is, after all, vastly personal as it is universal. Be curious in your reading, get your heart broken, seek diversity, explore a new planet, listen to a voice you’ve never heard before. But read. If nothing else, just read.