The Thing About Classics

((Disclaimer: I have no idea what I’m trying to say in this post, it started off with a point and then evolved into something without one.))

So classic books loosely defined are ones that are old and have been popular for a while. They usually are also what you are required to read in middle school and high school English courses. The thing that I think is a little strange about classics is the fact that there are classics. Let me just elaborate on that.

So classics are books that have managed to stay relevant. What surprises me about this is the fact that society is constantly changing. And while we say that these books remain relevant in the modern world, let’s face it, no one can really identify with Little House on the Prairie. Not really. I don’t mean that you can’t identify with their struggle, but you can’t really see eye to eye with them in the way that the author intended. Especially when the main thing that I remember about that book is that the father had to build the whole thing and it just went on and on about building and whatever. So are we reading these books because they’re still relevant, or are we just reading them out of habit? And it’s not necessarily a bad thing if it’s out of habit, you still learn something from it. Just it’s a different something, something that has changed with society, and I don’t know if that warrants its status as a classic. Because really, any book can do that. And I don’t mean to say that these classics don’t have literary merit, because many books have literary merit but aren’t considered “classics” for whatever reason. I’m just talking about the distinction here.

Then there are the multitudes of war novels and social justice that make up the classics genre. They’re still relevant because war continues and stuff like that. This seems to indicate that society hasn’t changed at all, that we are still at the place in time when the author was writing the book. We haven’t truly escaped that struggle yet. Once again, I think it’s a good thing to remember the past struggles and all, but does that merit the distinction as a classic? Probably not if we have truly overcome the injustice that the book is talking about.

So both types of classics indicate that society really hasn’t changed that much, despite all of the overwhelming evidence that we don’t build our own homes on prairies anymore. I mean, what? What does that say about us and our society?

 

Maybe we haven’t changed as much as we think we have.