Ray Bradbury opens his highly political novel “Fahrenheit 451” with the evocative, stunning line, “It was a pleasure to burn.”
Many classic novels are alluring for their beautiful prose and timeless nature; however, getting into reading older literature can be a daunting task for many young adult readers. The Italian author of “Why Read the Classics” Italo Calvino describes a classic novel as “a work which persists as a background noise even when a present that is totally incompatible with it holds sway.”
Classics are for everyone, as they’ll always be influential within our society due to their longstanding messages and themes. And in a time of political unrest, referring to the classics can serve to remind younger readers what our nations have been through in the past and how to acclimate to a volatile political climate. Here are three recommendations that do just that.
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Dr. Drew Shannon, an associate professor of English at Mount St. Joseph University and a Virginia Woolf scholar, says, “The world we live in now was shaped by World War I.” This is why a novel that explores the battlefields of WWI makes our list. Remarque’s tale of the German soldier Paul Bäumer losing his innocence while engaged in brutal trench warfare is a bleak read; however, it is important to understand where much of our worldly conflicts began. “All Quiet on the Western Front” ponders the meaning of war and how to maintain empathy throughout it–an important message to consider as we find ourselves in the throes of a political divide.
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
The second recommendation is Christopher Isherwood’s “Goodbye to Berlin.” This classic is a collection of intertwined stories, making it a more approachable read for new or inexperienced readers. Its range of intricate settings hooks a reader into its plot. It tells the tale of an ex-patriot Christopher as he explores Berlin before the reign of Nazi Germany, and then watches how it all changes with the rise of fascism. Shannon believes “Goodbye to Berlin” can “tell us something about where we are at this moment” through its distinct capture of fascism as it rises in a society enraptured with decadence. But, “Goodbye to Berlin” can also teach us about the need to maintain connections and look for what is bright in the face of discrimination.
It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
This stark dystopian novel follows Doremus Jessup, a small-time editor who watches a newly elected president warp the country into a fascistic dictatorship. Its title mimics that of the novel’s Americans, who say fascism “can’t happen here” and are sorely proven wrong. The message of this novel is unmissable, and it truly embodies what a classic is: a novel that Calvino says, “has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers.” More than the first two recommendations, “It Can’t Happen “ juggles with topics that are becoming increasingly more popular to discuss in our political stratosphere, and can teach us not to doubt what power can turn into.
Shannon tells me that “people have such different reasons for reading” which makes any list of novels, let alone classics, difficult to formulate. We debated on what can be determined as the most important classics to read for political understanding, and these were the three that came up most. We could both agree, though, that there is always more to learn from classics–always more to reread, always more to dissect, and always more to relate to our ever-changing societies as the years pass.