Same for me. There was very little required reading in school, only tantalising excerpts (which of course meant I would instantly pounce on them and read them in full). But I didn't like the obsession in Norway with reading "accessible books". The last years of high school I tried to convince my English teacher we should read Ivanhoe, but she turned it down and decided on Siri Hustvedt instead. I am still bitter.




You cheated "Canon" is pretty much synonymous with "the classics", I'd say.




Hey, my original list was very short. I just panicked.



Agreed.



I haven't read the arab-sounding person. What is it? When is it? Where is it? And I have no idea who the Dutch ones are. As far as Milton goes ... I am torn. I like him in theory. his concepts (at least in Paradise Lost are interesting. But I dislike his style. Writing Latin in English just feels... stilted.



I agree. On all counts. Except I haven't read Achterberg and this Elroy Flecker person. I did not list Borges, but that was only because I got paranoid about period. I felt that if I was going to list him, I would have to list Calvino, and that would open a can of worms. It is silly. I think it is because Borges is so post-modern in outlook, while writing earlier.




I haven't read Pynchon except in minor extracts.








I like both Virgil and Dickens, but I can see how some might not. Or how you might hesitate to approach them. It is a little like the image of Tolstoy's War and Peace that is bandied about. None of them are actually what they are presented as. Dickens is cheery much of the time, and almost always end on a happy ending. Virgil does draw on Greek myth, but it really transforms it, and I think anyone interested in history will find it fascinating.