classics

I read this today in the intro to The Three Musketeers.  I loved it!


Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could know whether a book or movie, tape or CD was worthwhile just by looking at it?  Imagine what it would be like if every form of entertainment, every work of art, had a special label on it that said 'this is the good stuff' a label you could actually trust to tell you: 'This is really worth it.  This is the best there is.'
Imagine the hours of time you'd save.  You'd be browsing in a bookstore or record shop, looking at the weekend movie ads, considering a concert or play, and you'd see that label and relax, knowing your time wouldn't be wasted.
There actually is such a label - at least for books.  The label is classic.
It means 'of the highest quality,' or 'of enduring interest and value.' You've heard the word before, used for everything from soft drinks and sporting events to hairstyles and antique cars.  But it's also used to describe something that's one of the best examples of its kind, whether it's the dialogues of Plato, the music of Mozart, the architecture of the Renaissance, or a cherry-red 1957 Thunderbird convertible.
When book publishers use the word classic to describe a book, they really mean it.  There's a kind of honor system operating.  They've set aside that word solely for books that have passed the test of time, that really are among the best works of their kind ever written.  The book you're holding in your hands is one of those books.
Unfortunately, a lot of people think 'classic' means something else.  They think it means 'old' or 'boring.'  As a result, they miss out on some of the most interesting, engaging stories ever told.
It's not too difficult to figure how this idea got around.  First, it's a fact that a lot of 'classics' are 'old' in a purely chronological sense.  They were written fifty or a hundred and fifty years ago, and some people think a story has to be brand-new to be interesting.
Second, some of the people recommending that you read 'classics' are the same people who recommend that you brush your teeth, or wear a motorcycle helmet, or save your money for the future -  things that are good for you, but not all that much fun.  So it's not surprising that people, especially young people, are suspicious when someone tells them that a book that's required reading in school is actually enjoyable.
But it happens to be true.
To explain why it's true, it might be helpful to explain how a book becomes a 'classic' in the first place.  There's a very simple answer.  People keep reading it.  People just like you.  It's like a popularity contest, or a public opinion poll, except that it goes on year after year, generation after generation.  A book that people are still reading a hundred and fifty years after it was first published has to have something going for it to keep people interested.
Another reason books become classics is that they are genuinely entertaining.  People who take time to read the classics are usually pleasantly surprised to discover just how interesting they really.....
Imagine what it would be like to be a child, abandoned in the jungles of India, facing certain death from the deadly predators that prowl its paths.  Suddenly, when you're certain you can't survive another day, you are rescued by a she-wolf who brings you home to her pack, raises you a one of her own, and teaches you the languages of the forest animals.  That's just one of the stories of Rudyard Kipling tells in his Jungle book.
What if you were a brilliant scientist who had discovered a secret serum that unlocked the wildest passions of the human soul? Would you take the risk of testing it on yourself, knowing that it might transform you into a hideous, violent monster?  That's one of the questions Robert Louis Stevenson answers in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
What would you do if a lucky punch from a local bully knocked you all the way back to the time of Merlin the Magician? Would you dare to challenge the awesome power of his dark sorcery with stage magic and modern-day science? That's what happens to the hero of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
How would you survive if you found yourself trapped in a deadly, prehistoric world in a hidden cavern at the Earth's core, menaced by deadly creatures and warlike giants?  That's the problem a band of explorers faces in Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth.
These stories don't sound boring, do they?
One proof that classics contain really exciting stories is that contemporary writers 'borrow' ideas from classic works all the time when they are creating new ones.  When you see a killer-dinosaur book like Jurassic Park, you can bet that the author, Michael Crichton, read, and loved Sire Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World when he was a boy.The 'Back to the Future; movies might never have been made if filmmaker Bob Zemekis hadn't enjoyed H. G. Wells' The Time Machine.  Danielle Steel probably wouldn't be writing the kind of romances that can hug at your heartstrings if she hadn't read, and cried over, books like Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights when she was younger.  And you can be sure that Stephan King learned much of what he knows about terrifying people from the stories of Edgar Allen Poe which scared him when he  was a boy.
Another mark of a classic, then, is that it can inspire an entire branch of literature, like Westerns of romances.  The mystery novel as we know it wouldn't exist if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle hadn't created his master detective Sherlock Holmes.  All of those books in the science fiction section might not be there today if it weren't for the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.
If the classics only offered engrossing entertainment, they'd be well worth your time.  But they have a lot more to offer.
To begin with, classics are better written  than most other books.  This may seem obvious, but it's worth mentioning.  One of the qualities that causes a book to endure decade after decade is that the author put extra care into choosing each word, into creating real, believable characters, into giving them genuine human emotions and challenging problems to solve.
You can sense this special attention to the language the minute you begin reading a classic like Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer or Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables.  The worlds you're reading about is suddenly vivid and compelling and real, as real as the world you live in every day - and sometimes more so.
It's the difference between a musician who goes through the emotions and one who really knows his stuff, the difference between fast food and cuisine.  If you're a serious reader, you can very quickly grow tired of sloppy writing, predictable plots, and cheap literary storytelling.  The classics guarantee great prose as well as great storytelling.
If you've ever thought of becoming a writer yourself, as a hobby or as a profession, you can't find a better place to study writing techniques than in the classics.  No writer has describe the bone-chilling cold of an Artic night more effectively than Jack London.  No one brings the perilous life of the sea or the exotic locales of the Far East to life more vividly than Rudyard Kipling.
You can think of the classics as time machines that instantly transport you to faraway times and places at the turn of a page.  You can travel with Robert Louis Stevenson about the pirate ships of the Caribbean in Kidnapped.  Race around the world with a daring gambler in Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days.  Witness London devastated by a ruthless Martian invasion in H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.
There's one other reason that the classics have endured as long as they have.  In fact, it's the most important reason of all.
Books become classics, and stay classic, because they tell us something about ourselves.  The authors whose works are represented in this series understand the human heart better than most of the writers working today.  They might not have experienced the events they're writing about first hand, but they have the ability to put themselves in someone else's place, and somehow convey what that sort of a person is feeling.
Stephan Crane was never a soldier himself.  But in The Red Badge of Courage, he used his knowledge of human emotions to convey what it was like to be a green recruit facing enemy guns in a bloody war, praying he'd be strong enough not to turn and run when the battle began, not to disgrace himself in the eyes of his peers.
Although Mary Mapes Dodge was never a world-famous ice skater, she was able to express in Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates how it felt to be a gifted athlete for whom sport mattered more than anything in the world.  She understood what it was like to be facing cutthroat competition, to force yourself to go on when your body was crying out for rest.
In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain used his writer's gift to make the reader feel what it was like to have a cruel and hurtful father, as Huck did, and to want to escape from a harsh existence.  And he was able to convey what it was like for Huck's friend Jim, a runaway slave, to be hated and punished just because he was different from other people.
In Little Women, Louisa May Alcott was able to express what it was like to be a young woman in the last century, fighting for a place in a world dominated by men.  She understood what it was like to have a dream so strong you would risk anything to try to make it come true, as Jo Marsh did when she decided to become a journalist.
Then the world grows too difficult to bear, it's sometimes helpful to get a bit of perspective, to see how people dealt with life's problems, and its opportunities, in other times and places.  The classics offer fresh viewpoints on the human condition, showing how other people dealt with heartbreak and shame, greed and ambition, anger and terror.  While you're wrapped up in the dreams and fears of a pauper on the streets of sixteenth century London, or an awkward schoolteacher in eighteenth century New York State, you may find a solution to your own worries and problems.  Or, if not, you may at least find an escape from them that gives you time to take a breather and gather the strength to go on.
So next time you see a book labeled a 'classic' whether it comes from this publisher or another one, you might benefit from taking a second look at it before passing on to the latest packaged series or television spin off.  The world you'll find inside the pages of that book is likely to be richer, deeper, and more moving than anything else in the bookstore.
The important thing to remember is that it's your choice, not anyone else's.  By choosing this book, you've become part of the process that makes books classics.  If this story works for you, as it has for previous generations of readers, if you enjoy it and recommend it to your friends - maybe even your kids someday - you'll be part of the chain that caused it to be here for you.
And if it turns out that it's not to your liking, you may recommend some newer book that does work for you, a work that stays in print and goes on to become one of the classics of the next century.  It's up to you to decide.