The Penguin Podcast: How to tackle reading the big Classics with Henry Eliot

In a special bonus episode taken from our Ask Penguin: Classics episode, we share author and editor Henry Eliot's tips on tackling some of Classics' biggest tomes.

Click the button below to listen or continue scrolling to explore all of the books mentioned in this episode.

Click here to read the transcript of this episode

Bonus Episode 1: Transcript

Rhianna Dhillon:

Hello, I'm Rhianna Dhillon, and this is the Penguin Podcast. Now, you might not have expected me to pop up back into your podcast feed quite so soon, but there was so much great stuff that we didn't have room for in our main shows that we wanted to share some exclusive bonus episodes that we think you'll love. We'll be back in the spring with more episodes speaking to more penguin authors and colleagues, and of course, answering all of your burning questions about all things books. But in the meantime, we've got a few little unheard moments that we wanted to share. Last series, we spent a whole episode talking about the classics and chatted with Henry Eliot, author of the Penguin Classics Book and the Penguin Modern Classics Book, alongside some fantastic reading recommendations from jazz age novels to classics in translation, Henry shared his expert view of what makes a book a classic. He revealed where the term came from and which books were in the original canon. If you've heard the episode, and if not, go back and listen, then you'll know that Henry is an avid reader who's not scared to tackle the big tomes, but how does he prepare for a new classic undertaking, and where did his love for them come from?

Henry Eliot:

So I was lucky, I think, because my father was an English teacher and a lot of our family friends were English teachers. So there were lots of recommendations coming from all over the place, and the house was full of books. So I was very lucky in that respect that I had quite a wide meadow to graze in.

Rhianna Dhillon:

What a gorgeous image as well for a kid.

Henry Eliot:

So I suppose a lot from family and friends. So I studied English literature at university and felt like I had a pretty good knowledge of literature. But then was when I left university, I realised there had been English literature, I had zero knowledge of French Russians, Spanish, South American literature, very little of American literature in fact. So I suddenly realised how little I did know, and it was when I started work as an editor at Penguin Classics that I realised I really needed to set myself a kind of, I knew I just had to read all these books and started charging into it in a more systematic way.

Rhianna Dhillon:

Who did you start with? Because people obviously, I think that's quite an intimidating, overwhelming idea when you're thinking about the classics and especially if you're thinking about world literature, who would you advise starting with?

Henry Eliot:

Well, it's tricky because everyone's got their different preferences. I mean, I felt like there were a few really big titles that I wanted to knock off my to read list, and I think they can sometimes be the most intimidating, can't they? Because they're so big, and yet there's something enticing about if they're so big and they are still in print and people still read them, there must be something amazing about them. So the way I think about those big titles is I almost, I think about it in the same way you might think about climbing a mountain. You're not going to set out to climb a mountain in the same frame of mind or with the same equipment as you would for stroll through the lowlands.

So I would recommend if you feel like taking a shot at one of those really big titles, Count of Monte Cristo, Moby Dick, Proust, maybe War and Peace. My advice is to treat it a bit like climbing a mountain, like start by mapping out the territory, get hold of the book, understand how it works, look at how many sections it's split up into, how the chapters work, how you're going to approach it. Then make a plan. How are you going to tackle this mountain? And for me, that means actually almost working out of schedule. Thinking I'm going to try and read this within six months. So that means every week I need to have read one of these sections.

A good one for doing that is Les Misérables, famously massive book, brilliant book. It has 365 chapters so you can read it over a year and read one every, I mean, some of them are two pages. They're extremely short. But you can read a chapter a day,. And then my top tip actually is if you're tackling one of these big books, do it in company. You wouldn't climb a big mountain on your own, do it with someone else either in a book club or what my wife and I do is every year we choose another big book that we're going to read together over the course of the year. And we know where we want to get to each month. We don't sit down and read it side by side. Well, sometimes we do, but we just know where we need to get to each month, and then we discuss it as we go along. It's really nice if you get stuck in a slightly slow patch. If someone's gone ahead, they're like, no, come on. They can act like a sherper and sort of pull you up the hard bit. And so in terms of going back to your question, where to start? If you want to tackle one of these big novels and you want to impress your friends, I'd really recommend War and Peace, because

Rhianna Dhillon:

I agree.

Henry Eliot:

It's so readable.

Rhianna Dhillon:

That's where I started.

Henry Eliot:

It's just a romp and it doesn't feel hard at all. And the characters are wonderful. You fall in love with them. You go on this incredible journey with them, and you get this panorama of Russia in the early 19th century. Yeah, it's great, isn't it?

Rhianna Dhillon:

I absolutely agree. My mom gave me her very mouldy books that she had read in the sixties, and I still have them. They're still very mouldy. I try and wipe them down every so often. But that, and Anna Karenina, I remember, and I remember where I was reading them, and you kind of think it's going to be a slog, but they are magnificent stories.

Henry Eliot:

Exactly. Those two books are definitely not slogs in a way that, so I've read Proust as well that I did love it, but I have to say it was quite a slog, I mean, it's seven volumes. He's clever. He sort of teaches you how to read it, but it takes a long time. I was halfway through the second volume before I kind of clicked into it, and then I was actually finding enjoyment from it.

But yeah, Tolstoy, absolutely. And I completely agree. We had one of these teacher family friends, actually, I remember being really inspired as a teenager. He read War and Peace for the first time. And I remember back in the day when selfies weren't a thing, you sort of didn't take selfies. He set up his camera and took a selfie of himself holding War in Peace on the day he finished, he felt like he had to record what he looked like on the day he finished this amazing book. I always remember that. But yeah, when you finish a huge book like that, it does feel momentous, isn't it? You've kind of...

Rhianna Dhillon:

You feel really proud of yourself.

Henry Eliot:

Yeah, it's a sense of achievement. I mean, a bit like climbing a mountain, but also it feels like you've kind of joined a club, doesn't it?

Rhianna Dhillon:

Yeah, it does.

Henry Eliot:

You've kind of entered this world of people who've read War and Peace.

Rhianna Dhillon:

What book are you reading with your wife at the moment?

Henry Eliot:

Well, we're reading Anthony Trollops, The Way We Live Now, which unintentionally, it turns out it's actually the hundred 50th anniversary of its publication this year. But that was unintentional. I hadn't read any Trollop before. And this is my first, I'm loving it. It's great. He's like a kind of gentler, slightly more politically engaged Dickens without all the theatricality of Dickens. He is great. It's brilliant.

Rhianna Dhillon:

That was Henry Elliot talking to me for our episode of Ask Penguin, all about the classics. If you haven't already listened to the full episode, then scroll back in your podcast app to find it and you can hear more of our conversation as well as all of Henry's brilliant book recommendations, as well as an insight on Jane Austin, her family, and the upcoming BBC production, Ms. Austin, with author Jill Hornby. Don't forget to follow the Penguin podcast so you never miss an episode. And we'll be back next week with another bonus app. But until then, happy reading.