Reading the Classics

I never understood why I studied the classic books in school. Why do we even talk about works of old fiction as classics?

Then my friend Fredrik got me interested in reading Hemingway, and my life partner got be into Proust, and now I understand that the classics are classic for two very good reasons:

The classics capture something true about the human condition. You will get a deeper insight into what it means to be a human being, maybe not from all the classic works, but when they do reach you they reach into your soul in a profound way.

The classics created society as we know it. Cultural artefacts to now just capture our imagination, they also give us examples which we model our lifes to. Great art does this better than modern institutions or Brands, the proof of this is how long they’ve stayed relevant. The oldest laws are a few hundred years, the Iliad a few thousands.

If you are interested in reading the classics I want to give you two starting points: the poem If by Rudyard Kipling, and Hemingways last novel A Moveable Feast.