A popular novelist and literary blogger answers those who claim the classics are too difficult, too problematic, and too white--and explains what we gain by reading them.
A compelling if excessively cautious defense of classic literature ... Ms. Kanakia, a novelist and the author of the newsletter Woman of Letters, is a compelling writer and a careful weaver of arguments ... At times, however, Ms. Kanakia’s caution threatens to water down the strength of her argument ... It is when she allows us to encounter her as a writer and thinker of great integrity, rather than argue us through her points in a linear fashion, that she helps us understand what a relationship to the Great Books might ultimately mean.
The proselytizing of What’s So Great About the Great Books? is not dogmatic; readers more culturally conservative than Kanakia may even feel that she lacks the full courage of her mission ... There were moments when I myself had some 'trusty nitpicks,' as Kanakia puts it. But this is not a tract on gender politics—and it’s sufficiently nuanced to come down on the right side of the Great Books ... Quirky, smart, passionate, occasionally frustrating but far more often charming.
An intimate discourse on identity and literature ... Ultimately, her appreciation culminates in a grand view of how we approach literature today—under what auspices, and for what purpose, we choose to let others’ writing enter our lives, ennobling the way in which we live while radically altering our perspectives.
