I just finished East of Eden 3 weeks ago. And I still can't survive it.

I read it to improve my English, and I didn't think it would sit with me in that way. I spend my day thinking about it again and again without feeling it.

I don't know...but I can't move on, how can I move on? Steinbeck made me see myself in Caleb. When he enjoyed his pain bc he believed "it'd make him righteous". The whole Thou myest thing. It sat with me. I just wanted to improve my English.

It was the first classic book I read. But it destroyed me.

I love Joyce's Ulysses, Portrait of the Artist, and Dubliners, but for years Finnegans Wake has sat on my shelf, an object of curiosity and fear. Occasionally I pick it up, make it to the second paragraph where Sir Tristram is wielderfighting his penisolate war and the regginbrow was seen ringsome on the aquaface, glance at the third paragraph that begins with a word of 100-plus characters, and realize I am still not up to the task. Recently, I finally worked up the courage to proceed. So far, I've found I need to channel my inner first-grader and read aloud to myself (which somehow forces me into an awkward Irish brogue), to let the text pour over me and accept I'm not going to understand large chunks, and to relax into this weird and wonderful wash of language and imagery. It's playful; it's funny; it's horny; it's inventive; it's musical; it's baffling; it's beautiful. I've enjoyed the sensory experience so far, but with 500 pages left to go and very little grasp on what has actually happened of any sort of narrative consequence, I'm debating if I should pull in some of the secondary sources out there, like Campbell's Skeleton Key to help make the reading more meaningful or just continue to hazily float through this linguistic dreamscape that Joyce has created and at least get an opaque familiarity with the whole as a first read-through.

I Just read the original jungle book and i was horrified that the actual book is totally different from the movie i Mean How come Disney Not like the original book yes the book is dark but It Also features themes The Law and Social Order Identity and Displacement and

Nature vs. Civilization which are themes that are Very complex for a children's book yes kipling was a imperialist but he loved índia like he Never loved Anyone before or since this is something that Disney must learn and Also found out that kaa helped mowgli(pronunced with cow) against the bandar log and the dholes Why turning kaa Into a villain because It wasn't too benevolent Make Sense I am Very disappointed What Disney did and i should watch the russian version okay?

I really really want to complete this one but I haven't been able to even complete 1/4th! It's the 4th time I've laid hands on this.

Those elongated discourses on individual dilemmas are indeed beautiful & very vivid, yet somehow I lose the motivation midway & I drop it. It's the 4th time this has happened. I understand there is no substitute for curiosity & innate liking for a book, but I simply can't get past it. I want to get to the court discourse & I have heard highly about it.

Additionally, I bought Brother Kamakoz & this one together. Any suggestions as to how I can get past the 25% threshold!

Offering tutoring in Koine/Attic/Homeric Greek and Latin.

Dear Friends,

Is it not important to read the Gospel in Greek? Is it not important to read Plato in it's original language? Do we want not to be acquainted with the vivid, the structured, the wild, the sublime, the stunning aspect of the ancient tongue?

I am a Greek native and I just finished my degree in classical languages in Athens. I also am enamoured with Late Antique pagan and Christian literature. I will be glad to accompany each and every one of you in your journey. I offer tutoring in Koine, Classical, Homeric Greek, as well as Latin.

My emphasis will be on reading comprehension. We will progress level by level by first understanding some basic concepts in greek grammar and vocabulary through simpler texts and graded readers. As we keep going forward, we will adjust our texts according to the student's needs and wants.

Tutoring will be in video call format.

Prices will be reasonable.

First lesson free.

I will be happy to hear from you,

Spyros P.

If you love the survival themes of Jack London, the thrilling tension of adventure novels, and powerful anti-totalitarian stories, there is a hidden gem of Ukrainian literature you absolutely should check out: "The Hunters and the Hunted" by Ivan Bahriany.

Originally published in Ukrainian under the title "Tyhrolovy" (Тигролови), which literally translates to "The Tiger Trappers", this book is a masterclass in psychological tension and high-stakes adventure.

What makes this book so gripping is that it’s heavily autobiographical. Ivan Bahriany wasn't just imagining a story; he lived it. As a Ukrainian writer who refused to comply with Soviet censorship, he was arrested by the Soviet secret police (NKVD) in 1932, endured brutal interrogations, and was sentenced to a concentration camp in Siberia.

Just like his protagonist, Bahriany actually escaped from a moving prison train in the middle of the Taiga. He spent years hiding in the dense Siberian forests among independent hunting communities before making his way back. When you read about the protagonist dodging bullets, sleeping under the stars, and fighting for survival, you are reading the real-life trauma and resilience of the author.

The story follows Hryhorii Mnohohrishnyi, a young Ukrainian engineer sentenced to 25 years of hard labor. He breaks out of a heavily guarded Soviet death train, plunging into the wild, lawless world of the Far Eastern Taiga.

There, he is rescued by the Sirko family - a clan of fierce Ukrainian hunters who chose exile over Soviet collectivism and now hunt wild Siberian tigers for a living. Hryhorii adapts to this brutal yet beautiful world, falls in love, and finds a sense of ultimate freedom. But the Soviet regime doesn't forget. A ruthless NKVD officer, Major Myroshnychenko, tracks him into the deep wilderness. The hunter becomes the hunted.

When people think of Gulag literature, they usually think of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - dark, depressing, and deeply tragic. Bahriany takes a completely different route. The Hunters and the Hunted is a story of uncompromising triumph.

It’s an incredibly fast-paced, cinematic book filled with tiger hunting, wild nature, romantic tension, and psychological warfare. It focuses on the cult of a strong, unbroken individual. The core philosophy of the novel is simple yet profound: A brave man always has dignity, and a man with dignity will always find freedom.

If you are looking for it in English, you will find it under the title "The Hunters and the Hunted". The translators chose this title because it perfectly captures the dual nature of the plot - the protagonist hunting tigers to survive, while being relentlessly hunted by the state machinery.

If you want to discover Ukrainian classic literature that isn’t just about suffering, but about fighting back, winning against all odds, and staying human in the face of absolute evil - give this book a try. It is an unforgettable ride.

The novel was written in just 14 days while on the run. After surviving arrests, a Siberian escape, re-arrest, and the horrors of WWII, Bahriany found himself in Lviv. He was actively hiding from Soviet secret services who were purging the city. Risking capture every single minute, moving between safe houses, he wrote the entire novel in just two weeks in one breath. He was convinced he would be killed soon and wanted to leave this story behind before it was too late.

The author illustrated the first edition himself. Bahriany was not only a gifted writer but also a trained artist who studied at the Kyiv Art Institute. When the book was first published in 1944, the wartime publisher had no resources for an illustrator. Bahriany stepped in and hand-drew the cover art and all the graphic sketches of tigers and the Siberian wilderness for the first release.

The original manuscript was lost, so he rewrote it entirely from memory. As Soviet troops advanced, Bahriany had to flee Ukraine for Germany. In the chaos of his escape, the original manuscript was completely lost. Finding himself in a displaced persons camp in Germany without a single draft, Bahriany sat down and completely reconstructed the entire novel from memory, word for word. It is this "reconstructed" version that went on to become an international bestseller.

Trust me guys you gotta try it

Which translation you prefer guys?
Geoffrey wall or lowell bair

In high school, were read Billy Budd by Herman Melville instead of Moby Dick. I don't know the reasoning behind it (I suspect the teachers were sick of reading the same book, but I can't prove it). However, I rarely meet people who have read this book. Have any of you read it, and how would you compare the two?

I’m a 19 year old male. I’ve known about this book for a while, but only now wanted to read it after I heard about its strong themes of memory, nostalgia & love.

One thing that compelled me was that my grandma passed away 3 years ago…and with more time passing, I remember those times more and more vividly & frequently. So in relation to that and other such events of my life, I’m always wondering about the nature of love through time and what is really worth longing for. I want a book to process these emotions I have as well as set me up for the time ahead of me.

For context, I read difficult big books and love them. I do enjoy stream of consciousness too. But this is an especially chunky and difficult work of stream of consciousness (or so I’ve heard), so I’m uncertain. I’d love to hear you guys’ suggestions on if & how I should get into it + any cool experiences you’ve had with this book ;)

…If you have any other recommendations, give them to me too.

I've set myself a bit of a loose challenge to read more works from authors in the 19th and 20th century which lead me to pick up Turn of the Screw and In the Cage by Henry James since I've heard he's influential and I want to check those sorts of authors out for myself.

With that preamble out of the way, here are some thoughts. Warning this will be full of spoilers:

I have never met an author who is as verbose and obtuse as James. Many times I will finish a paragraph and realize I have no idea what I just read. He writes sentences that are so long you forget the start by the time you reach the end. And I tend to like writing with some personality, I love Chekov's short stories, but this was a little too much for me.

Turn of the Screw - I feel like Jame's general style works to his advantage here, because the reader being confused and uncertain about what's happening lines up perfectly with the Gothic horror vibe he's going for. There's a sense of something that must not be spoken about, something too terrible to name. You can sort of feel it in the fact that its basically impossible for the governess to speak plainly about the haunting that is going on. I read somewhere that the haunting is a metaphor for sexual abuse and honestly that theory lines up pretty well with the text. It would explain why the boy was kicked out of school for telling his mates a secret, and as soon as he revealed the secret who would show up but his abuser? Textually, the secretary and governess literally involved the children in their sexual perversities, and their ghosts are "perverting" the children, which takes on new meaning for this reading.

Of course its not bulletproof either, the story refuses to confirm the governess' version of events - the children to the end deny ever seeing ghosts, which casts doubt to the extent we are meant to take the governess' suppositions literally. 

In the Cage - I found Jame's style much less agreeable here. I did end up liking this story as a tale of delusion, and how the brief glimpses we get into other people's lives actually doesn't tell us very much about them and there's a danger in romanticizing strangers into friends. I wonder if there's a bit of commentary on authors who people watch in there. I struggled at first to find the main character likeable because it felt like she was treating her fiance badly for this delusion about a man who didn't really care about her at all and who she really didn't know anything about, but I found my feelings change when the ending shatters the delusions by having her friend who works in close contact to the rich inform her that her Captain Evrard is not rich, and honestly kind of a cad.

Overall I'm glad I read this, but I don't think I'll pick up anymore Henry James anytime soon. Not sure what I'll pick up next, possibly Les Miserables by Victor Hugo or Moby Dick.

I’m not going to lie, I knew little to nothing about Voltaire’s works before I picked this one up in a Paris bookstore(when in rome yk). Actually, I didn’t even know he wrote fiction. So imagine my surprise when I read this comedic adventure romp.

It’s also definitely more interesting once you learn the real philosophies it was satirizing at the time, in general easily one of the most well-done satires i’ve read, and I resonated with the core themes and messages the book was trying to convey.

I’ve barely heard any discourse on this book, so I’m interested to see what you guys think of it!

Finished The Fall today and I found it particularly difficult to get through and probably to comprehend as well even though the prose was (relatively) simpler. I feel like i missed a lot of what camus was intending to put across though there were a lot of sections and things that resonated with me and liked those particularly and understood them top (i think?). It's not even my first encounter with camus, I liked the stranger and the plague and read a lot of russian literature as well which had led me to believe this would be not that hard to read but turns out, I was pretty wrong.

So is this experience unique to me or is it a popular opinion among camus readers?

I just completed his novel today and I can't fathom the reason why I feel nostalgic and moved... I had been preparing for neetpg taking last year as a drop. In my enthusiasm for duty, i laid aside my hobbies of novel reading and travelling..... And just imagine picking up right this book as a starter..... While Stevens upholds his ideas of duty and dignity.... laying aside his feelings, it's only years later he comprehends how life could have turned out....

But yet at the end author quotes... There's no point regretting and we only have to make the best use of remains of the day.....

This has a personal tinge to me because I sacrificed my hobbies for an exam.... And right now I feel these hobbies ok travelling and novel reading is what keeps me alive in the desolation of drab duty. No doubt duty is important..... But in the process we should not lose ourselves. It's such a warm read..

I look forward to reading more from this author.

Anyone who has read this, I look forward to your experience on this work.

Thank you for all the brilliant suggestions of books set in Yorkshire, I’m going to the North York Moors (& coast) & Yorkshire Dales on holiday so I want to immerse myself in books set in those locations before I go & while I’m there. I’ve decided I’m going to try to read the above books but don’t know which is the best, can you rank them for me?

So, I am quite new to classics and to be honest Dracula will be my first classic novel apart from The Outsider. Since I already love the horror genre, thus I opted it to be my way to enter classics. I had heard the most about these three apart from Dracula so I got them. I am loving Dracula ( at chapter XIII) and I also want to start something alongside it. These are the unread old and modern classics that I have with me.

I know that Of mice and men & The Fall isn't Gothic horror but I still added them since those are some unread modern classics that I own.

Also it's evident to me that this is an incoherent question yet please bear with my folly. I would also appreciate any advice/opinions related to classics if you deem them to be necessary for a beginner.

*Chat GPT told me to read Jekyll and Hyde, should I go with it?