Fellas, you want to know the real reason you need to read the Classics™?
So that you can distill them for your children (and grandchildren).
Imagine not seeing the look of wonder in their eye when you tell them how Alexander conquered the known world.
Imagine not being the first one to tell them about Samson, or David, or Noah.
Imagine being willing to GIVE UP the honour of explaining the Sword in the Stone or the Labors of Hercules or Beowulf and Grendel... To fucking HOLLYWOOD.
In sum:
Read the Classics. Tell the stories to your children (And eventually grandchildren). When they're ready, give them the books to read themselves.
Don't give one of the greatest gifts a parent gets up to Hollywood without a fight.
I've been asked to supply a list of classics that would best fit this category. I'm probably not the best person to ask for this, because I read books even if they're boring and not really worth it, but I'll do my best.
1. The Bible, KJV (Don't argue, this is for the literature of it)
2. Iliad and Odyssey. Probably the Fagles translation for easy reading, but there are lots of options.
3. Plutarch's Lives. Alexander at the very least, but you should read all of them eventually.
4. Herodotus' Histories. Powell translation if you can find it.
5. Ovid's Metamorphosis
6. Aesop's Fables
7. 1001 Nights
8. Le Mort D'Artur
9. Beowulf (Tolkien translation is good enough)
10. Shakespeare
[POWER GAP FOR OUR PURPOSES, NOT QUALITY]
11. Divine Comedy
12. Eddas
13. Gulliver's Travels
14. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
15. The Three Musketeers
16. Rime of the Ancient Mariner
17. Dracula
18. Frankenstein
19. (#8 could be replaced by Once and Future King)
20. Most of Dickens and Twain
21. The Picture of Dorian Gray
22. Most of Robert Louis Stevenson
23. Grimm's Fairy Tales
24. Carlyle's The Heroic in History
25. Moby Dick
26. Washington Irving's Sketch Book
27. Poe generally (for Halloween)
28. Don Quixote
29. Kipling generally
30. Heart of Darkness
31. HG Wells and Jules Verne generally
After these guys, I get lost between "worth reading" and "worth retelling", so I won't bother.
This list is obviously VERY sparse. I'm sorry for forgetting anything obvious. This is not about quality necessarily, but retellability. Be sure to ask people who are better at reading than me to give more recommendations.
/Fin
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.