nope it's not me, it's just something i googled on a whim.
the thing is, even i can disagree with the opinion of those informed people, if what they described in their essay is not something i want to read in a fiction.
i may not be a well-read person, but i know what i want to read, and i had enough of people breathing my throat about books i 'have to read' but can't like no matter what.
just because they are timeless will not change whether i like it or not, but at least i can appreciate what makes them timeless although some of them aren't probably worth the appreciation. some of the classic authors are deemed overrated by critics, like leo tolstoy.
Perhaps you have grown tired of Tolstoy’s moralism, the endless speeches of Dostoevsky’s heroes, or the wild imagery of Bulgakov. We still love them,...
www.rbth.com
personally i haven't gotten to read Tolstoy, and judging by how the works is 'preachy' it turned me off even more.
while I'm not a fan of Tolkien's stories, although I'm inspired by his worldbuilding. he's the Author I can respect for his dedication and i think he's worth all the appreciation.
hemingway is also one of the authors i respect, since he built up the simple writing style that became a thing in modern fiction, and i also read about how he went to his favorite places to really portray the scenery. while i haven't really found his stories my cup of tea, he did inspire me to an extent.
but i guess my hats went to kafka, since his beliefs in writing made me who i am now. i couldn't get into all of his works, but those that i did, i enjoy it.
it's a shame how he's so unnoticed when he was alive, and how tragic his life went.
it boils down to my preference as well. and these well-informed critics do have their preferences.
but if we did match up in our thinking and i happen to enjoy their essay, i might have gotten something valuable in my pursuit of stories. though it's not something i usually did.
it's just a habit of mine, i tend to just post what i want on a whim and edit it later.
back in the days, i did read a lot of classic, with a few bits of modern fiction. stuff like kafka, italo calvino, vonnegut, haruki murakami, theodore sturgeon. i also read most of the novels from my school library way back, the illustrated ones like from dickens and twain, to name a few.
when i think about it, the writing's probably not an issue if i can actually get engrossed in the story. and the abridged version's actually easy enough to read, even when english isn't my first language.
take more than human by sturgeon for example, while the language used was complex and i barely understood it back then, i managed to read to the end 'cuz the concept and idea behind it was just amazing.
so i guess, it's all about how the writing isn't to my taste. but even if the writing is simple, if the writing isn't engaging enough for me, i wouldn't bother reading it.
in the end i was wrong, i probably didn't like a lot of classic, as i didn't like a lot of stories. i don't care if they became timeless, I enjoy it because the story personally appeals to me. like i could relate to the story's ideals, the characters, their struggles, joy and such.
because reading is a commitment, if i were to do it, i'd rather read my ideal story, or something close to it. because i don't want to waste even a bit of my time feeling stressed and bummed, waiting for something that's probably not going to come.
so yeah, it boils down that I just don't like the usual writing style in classics, but that doesn't mean a lot of them are the same. take hemingway, for example. and to say, it's not that modern writing can't be filled with complex language and spam of descriptions either.
as for the rest, i'll just treat it like any other story. timeless classic or not, i won't bother with it, if i know i won't like it. because my free time is limited, and i want to use it to enjoy something worthwhile for me.