Want a New Year's resolution you can keep? Start reading the classics
I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions. If I wanted to improve some area of my life, I should start now instead of waiting for the calendar to turn over.
But I’m also a procrastinator, so when March 11, June 3 or Oct. 21 rolled around, I still needed to lose that 10 pounds — along with five more I gained in the meantime.
That all changed six years ago, when I finally set a goal: “In 2018, I will read five classic books.”
A few months earlier, my daughters enrolled at a Great Hearts classical academy. The reading list intimidated me.
It included Plato, Montaigne, Dostoevsky and a bunch of other fancy names I’d heard but never considered reading. That’s why God invented Wikipedia, right?
I read 'The Iliad' ... and liked it
In high school, I lounged in the back row using the assigned book to hide the Cliff’s Notes, while I read the dog-eared copy of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” on my lap.
But if my kids mastered the classics, they would be smarter than me. I couldn’t let that happen.
On Jan. 2, I cracked open “The Iliad” by Homer. Apparently the 3,000-year-old book is kind of a big deal, which is why every smart person I know has read it — or at least claimed to. As with most classics, I’d never gotten around to it.
I was expecting a painful slog; the literary equivalent of eating my vegetables when I really wanted Buffalo wings. It was slow-going at first (seems I had a dated translation), but I soon fell into the rhythm of the thrilling war epic. After a few days, I was done and sat there in shock.
I had read a classic and actually enjoyed it.
By spring, I'd read 4 literary classics
Might as well knock out the sequel, I thought, so onto “The Odyssey.” This adventure story was more readable and a lot more fun. Someone recommended Xenophon’s “Anabasis,” the first behind-enemy-lines story, and that was the best of the three.
What about Virgil’s “Aeneid?” I’m on a roll!
By spring, four classics were down, and I was eager for more.
What we lose: When schools ban books
I never wanted to be one of those people. The tweedy gasbag at the dinner party swirling a brandy snifter and talking about “fine lit-ra-turrre.” Still, the disease got worse.
Television began boring me, even those prestige shows I “had” to watch. Lost interest in most movies. I actually looked forward to turning off the screen and getting back to my stuffy old books.
Reading is an addiction. Try it
What started out of a sense of obligation turned into an addiction.
By the start of 2023, I had finished all the classics that interested me and moved toward more recent novels, biographies and histories.
As the year closes, I’m 100 titles in and have a list prepared for 2024, including “A History of the Island” by Russian novelist Eugene Vodolazkin, “The Ethics of Beauty” by Theologian Timothy G. Patitsas and “The Big Sleep” by Raymond Chandler.
Can’t remember the last TV series I watched. Haven’t been to a movie theater in years. I feel like I should miss both, but I don’t. I became one of those people against my will.
As we head into what’s sure to be a chaotic election year, consider adding a few classics to your New Year’s resolutions. When you hear of new economic failures and battles overseas, you’ll read about people who thrived under uglier circumstances for thousands of years.
You might even skip this year’s “must-see” Netflix show or miss out on Taylor Swift’s next breakup, but I doubt you’ll care. Instead, you’ll know more about people, politics and philosophies than you ever got from a smartphone.
Better yet, you’ll be filling your life with ideas that have stood for centuries.
As for me, it’s time to shop for an old tweed jacket and a new brandy snifter.
Jon Gabriel, a Mesa resident, is editor-in-chief of Ricochet.com and a contributor to The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. On Twitter: @exjon.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Read classical literature. It's a habit you'll want to keep
