Classic Remarks: Recommending Diverse Classics

April 30, 2021

 

Classic Remarks is a meme hosted by Pages Unbound that poses questions each Friday about classic literature and asks participants to engage in ongoing discussions surrounding not only themes in the novels but also questions about canon formation, the “timelessness” of literature, and modes of interpretation.

If you’d like to participate, the list of prompts can be found here. Each Friday, visit Pages Unbound and provide your link in the comments, though I want to see your posts linked below, too!


This Week’s Prompt:

Recommend a diverse classic.


 

This is such a fun prompt it’s actually a repeat from last year– and I couldn’t be happier. But, only one?! Come on, ladies! How can I stop at just one?!

::rolls up sleeves:: Let’s do this.

All titles below are links to the book’s Goodreads page.


 

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Year Published: 1982

Author’s Birth Location: Georgia, United States

Why You Should Read This Book: Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award, The Color Purple explores the struggles of Black Americans in the early 1900’s through letters. It’s exceptionally moving and actually the only diverse classic I recommended last year!

 

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Year Published: 1985

Author’s Birth Location: Aracataca, Columbia

Why You Should Read This Book: If “Love conquers all” appeals to you or you’re a cynic when it comes to that sort of thing, read Love in the Time of Cholera. A beautifully written novel with magical realism at the fore, this book follows one man who vowed to love his childhood sweetheart eternally, no matter what befalls them. And through his eyes we see how love can become an illness, not unlike cholera. 

Though, if you’re exhausted from the pandemic talk, maybe wait until you’re ready for this theme in the background.

 

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Year Published: 1981

Author’s Birth Location: Bombay, India (modern-day Mumbai, India)

Why You Should Read This Book: The 1981 Booker Prize winner is another exploration into Magical Realism. About the children born at midnight on the day India gained independence from British colonialization, who are all imbued with extraordinary powers for a mysterious reason. Filled with history, culture, politics, and more – this historical fiction, magical realism, post-colonial, post-modern novel explores multiple versions of reality. An intense rollercoaster you don’t want to miss. 

 

The Epic of Gilgamesh by Anonymous, Collected by Sin-Leqi-Unninni, Translated by Benjamin Foster

Year Published: 2100-1200 BCE

Author’s Birth Location: Mesopotamia

Why You Should Read This Book: This epic poem is a literary history of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk. It is the oldest surviving work of literature in the world. This poem explores the Hero’s Journey in a fascinating and rousing adventure of battles, religion, love, loss, life, and death. If you find a translation you enjoy reading, you’ll love it. I enjoy this translation as it portrays the archaic nature of the text while making the humor known to the reader. Plus, all the additions such as illustrations, annotations, and explorative essays help you truly understand the magnificence of this ancient work.

 

One Thousand and One Nights by Anonymous, Translated by Sir Richard Burton

Year Published: EThe collection was originally compiled during the Islamic Golden Age from the 8th-13th century; the earliest stories are dated around 750 and were collected over centuries. 

Author’s Birth Location: Somewhere in the Middle East in the Middle Ages

Why You Should Read This Book:  The frame story is one well-known: The Sultan marries a new woman each evening only to kill her the next morning. When only one woman remains in the Kingdom, Scheherazade hatches a cunning plan: Each night she will tell the Sultan a story but she won’t complete it. This buys her another night of life as the Sultan is curious to the ending. The next night she completes the previous night’s tale and begins a new one, only to leave it unfinished. Thus 1001 nights pass and Scheherazade lives.

The versions differ, the stories differ, the cliffhangers differ, even the endings differ – but no matter the edition you select the collection of Middle Eastern folk tales is riveting. This is the collection we get Aladdin’s Wonderful LampAli Baba and the Forty Thieves, and The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor from. What’s stopping you?

 

The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki

Year Published: Between 1000 and 1012 AD

Author’s Birth Location: Heian-kyo, Japan (Modern-day Kyoto, Japan)

Why You Should Read This Book: The Tale of Genji is a fictional account of the son of a Japanese emperor, disowned, and living the life of a commoner. The storyline focuses on Genji’s romantic life and Japanese aristocratic society. It is considered the world’s first proper novel.

 

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Year Published: 1969

Author’s Birth Location: Berkley, California, USA

Why You Should Read This Book: Winner of the 1970 Nebula and Hugo Awards, The Left Hand of Darkness examines androgyny through science fiction. And when you read it, consider it was published in 1969 America. That’s a bit mindblowing. Le Guin’s novel kicks off the subgenre of feminist science fiction and is one of the most well-acclaimed and well-read books of her massive collected works to date.

 

And, as a push to my favorite poets…

If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, by Sappho Translated by Anne Carson

Year Published: ~550 BCE

Author’s Birth Location: Lesbos, Greece

Why You Should Read This Book: As I mentioned in my Poetry in Translation post, Anne Carson’s translations of Sappho are my favorite. I find her translations wonderful for recitation, her notes concise and respectful, and the formatting she chooses to give both gravitas and elegance to Sappho’s fragments. This edition in particular is fascinating as Carson not only uses brackets in her translation to show where the poems are fragmented, but the opposite pages contain the original Greek – including fragments of words with too few characters to effectively translate. It’s an exceptional experience to read. 

 

The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by Matsuo Bashō, Penguin Classics edition

Year Published: 1702

Author’s Birth Location: Ueno area of Igo Province, Japan

Why You Should Read This Book: Posthumously published, The Narrow Road to the Deep North (and The Narrow Road to the Interior) is considered the quintessential haibun and is one of the major texts out of the Edo period of Japan. Haibun is a literary style combining prose and haiku, of which Matsuo Bashō is the Master. This travel diary is a memoir of Bashō’s dangerous journey through Edo Japan and captures the serenity and dramatic beauty of rural 16th century Japan. 

 

 

Book reviews from the above found on Death by Tsundoku:
The Color Purple
The Left Hand of Darkness


What do you think?

  • What are your favorite diverse classics?
  • Do you have any specific translations of the above classics you prefer? Please share! (I am still looking for a favorite for The Tale of Genji, personally…)
  • Which diverse classics are still on your To Be Read list?
  • Are you participating in Classic Remarks? Leave your link below!

4 Comments

  • Kim @ Traveling in Books April 30, 2021 at 9:46 pm

    I think you touched on most of my favorite world classics, though I’d trade out Love in the Time of Cholera for One Hundred Years of Solitude. And it’s nigh impossible to beat Anne Carson’s translations of Sappho…

  • Sam@WLABB May 2, 2021 at 10:01 am

    It is wrong that I felt a bit of pain, when I saw a book published when I was a teen labeled a “classic”? I know, I need to change my perception of what a classic is. I read The Color Purple in the 80s, and it really left an impression on me. It earned a place on this list.

  • Laila@BigReadingLife May 3, 2021 at 8:40 pm

    Great list! Two diverse classics I have read and enjoyed in the last couple of years are Nella Larsen’s Passing and Quicksand. Both very good!

  • Grab the Lapels May 5, 2021 at 12:27 pm

    What a nice post! I remember having conversations in college classrooms about how to add more books to reading lists by people who are not white men. Then you get into conversations about The Canon. And then folks talk about the African American Canon and the Latin/Hispanic Canon and the LGBTQ Canon, etc. And then people wanted to know why the canons were all separated, and why weren’t writers who aren’t old white men on THE canon, etc.

Participate in the discussion!

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