Thoughts on the Classics

A question came up in my mind randomly the other day: who exactly decides what is a classic? I mean we always say things like "oh, "Gone With the Wind" that's a classic!" But what does that really mean? I was thinking about it, and I realized that the books I love the most are not necessarily classics. Yes, I do really love Jane Austen and "Gone With the Wind" and several other good classics. I don't understand why "Anne of Green Gables" is such a big deal. I infinitely preferred the Emily series by the same author, L.M. Montgomery to "Anne". And one of my favorite love stories and self discovery stories is also by Montgomery. She wrote "The Blue Castle," a story about a women who has little time to live, and feels she must cram as much life into a short period of time. It's a beautiful story, and one of my favorite books. I relate to the main character on so many levels.


Many people of read, or at least, heard of "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle, but not many of heard of the "Small Rain", the most emotional book I have ever read. I cry when reading books, I cried when Dumbledore died in the Harry Potter series. But I have never cried so emotionally as I did after reading that book for the first time. After about a years time elapsed I read the book again, and I was filled with just as much emotion, though I bit different one. I was filled with anger, and not quite so many tears. It's a beautiful, yet very painful, very harsh book. The reality is hurtful. And draws up images of ones own life. It was L'Engle's first novel, and has a realness, though bleakness her others don't quite match. It is not a fairytale, or a love story, it is pain. It is a story of growing up, of pain, of dealing with hurtful people, of injustice, and severed friendships. Reading it from two different points of my life it effected me differently, but still as strongly. If I can ever evoke half as much emotion in a person as L'Engle evoked in me through that novel, I will view my life as having meant something.