Everything With Nothing

Definition One: The classics are books about which you usually hear people say: ‘I’m rereading…’, never ‘I’m reading…’

Calvino makes the note that this does not apply to the young (and I would like to know what age that caps out at to him) as they do not yet have the life experience to glean as much as they can from the presented text. There is a distinct marker between reading something for the first time and having read something for the first time. Even though the classic, by this definition, is one that you are ‘rereading’ for that to be true, one must have read it for the first time at least once. This is the marked moment or journey between the discovery of a classic that you know you will love while actively reading it to knowing a classic more intimately after you have finished.

He also makes the effort to say that it is ok to not have read every classic as there is no sensical reason that that expectation be placed upon you. This is supported by the second definition.

Definition Two: the classics are those books which constitute a treasured experience for those who have read and loved them; but they remain just as rich an experience for those who reserve the chance to read them for when they are in the best condition to enjoy them.

I want to highlight the portions of this definition that make it true to me:

• Treasured experience: it is that hard breath of excitement that fills the lungs and the buzzing in your body when you are reading something profound.
• Read and loved them: Calvino goes on later to discuss ‘your classics’ those that are important to you, and these are the books that you have read and loved as there will be no separation between the two actions.
• Reserve: the choice to wait to read something despite perceived outside influence.
• The best condition to enjoy them: knowing the right moment, season, emotion, or mindset in which to choose to read a particular work shows a profound self-awareness and literary prowess.

Calvino states that just because youth equates to the lack of experience to fully appreciate a classic, it is still a useful didactic by which the young can use, rather consciously or subconsciously, to guide themselves has they gain the life experiences need for the appreciation gained from rereading as an adult.

Definition Three: the classics are books which exercise a particular influence, both when they imprint themselves on our imagination as unforgettable, and when they hide in the layers of memory disguised as the individual’s or the collective unconscious.

The exercise of a particular influence links back to definition two as ‘our’ classics will only be so because they hold a particular meaning, lesson, or influence for us in a unique way. That is not to say that two people cannot have the same feelings about the same work but that even if they share a certain connection this way, they cannot be exact in every sense.

Calvino makes the remark that the classic is both unforgettable and disguised in the mind, as it is imprinted in our personal consciousness and that of the collect who have read it. It is both a personal and shared experience, perhaps the only chance that those two things could exist at once. They imprint on us as we change, the more we reread them as they too change in “the light of an altered historical perspective” (5).  Meaning, the book changes just as we change.

Definition Four: a classic is a book which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading.

 This is a feeling that can only be achieved once during the first reading. As discussed in Definition Six, you can discover new parts or make new connections during rereads but the words will never be virgin to you again.

Definition Five: a classic is a book which even when we read it for the first time gives the sense of rereading something we have read before.

This connotation is indicative of what our subconscious is seeking to discover about itself and feel a sense of belonging to a stream of consciousness felt by another human being.

Definition Six: a classic is a book which has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers.

This directly correlates with the previous definition in that there are always new discoveries to be made with each passing through of the text. There is a desire to revisit as we experience new points in life; to reread with a different lens.

Definition Seven: the classics are those books which come to us bearing the aura of previous interpretations, and trailing behind them the traces they have left in the culture or cultures (or just in the languages and customs) through which they have passed.

To me this is the idea that a classic becomes a part of a history outside of the physical creation of the book, in that they are recalled and remembered in a similar way despite degree of truth in them. This idea of the classics is in how the characters “reincarnate” themselves into applicable archetypes during the changing times of our lives (5). Calvino also make the statement that “no book which discusses another book can ever say more than the original book under discussion,” meaning that each classic in its ‘un-summarized’ or ‘un-quoted’ broken form is the truest it will ever be. One may paraphrase the book but one may never replace what the original has already stated.

Definition Eight: a classic is a work which constantly generates a pulviscular cloud of critical discourse around it, but which always shakes the particles off.

For starters, pulviscular in this case just means ‘dust.’ Second, Calvino is telling us that a classic will teach us something and a classic will be used to teach us something. Learning from a classic on your own will have a different (not specifically better or worse) atmosphere than when being taught about it. This could divulge into the psychology behind a classroom setting and the filter biases of teachers, but you get the idea. In either setting, surprising discoveries and connection are often made as it all seems so familiar before and regardless of how it is being read.

Definition Nine: classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them when we actually read them.

You may think you know a particular story through all the talk and mentions of it across different types of media and various exposures to it, but you will never get a raw impression until you read it yourself. When we are reading through and discovering one of ‘our classics’ it is important to only read them if you love them and if you must read them for requisite, do it with an open mind. Take what anybody else states you are to glean from the text and come to your own conclusions first. Calvino does present the caveat that “it is only during unenforced reading that you will come across the book which will become ‘your’ book” in that despite which ever definitions of what is a classic you resonate most with, you will have a unique list of books that are ‘your classics’ (6).

Definition Ten: a classic is the term given to any book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on a par with ancient talisman.

Certainly, the most poetic of all the definitions thus far, but what I think Calvino is nudging at is that a classic will be, to some degree, universally relatable and applicable. It needs not to be the most agreeable book to us, but one that stands out in the sense that, even though it will take the well-worth work to uncover, we will endlessly discover new things about it and ourselves through rereading.

Definition Eleven: ‘your’ classic is a book to which you cannot remain indifferent, and which helps you define yourself in relation or even in opposition to it.

Again, like the last definition gave light to, your classics will fall into only a dichotomy of profound relation to and profound obstination to. It is among these opposites that you will find your likeness categorized on through agreeance or abhorrence. A classic has no direct correlation to antiquity as the importance we draw from it “has its own place in a cultural continuum” (7).

Definition Twelve: a classic is a work that comes before other classics; but those who have read other classics first immediately recognize its place in the genealogy of classic works.

This definition is a bit funky to me. The ‘explanation’ Calvino gives is about how lovely it would be to be able to only read text that makes such a profound mark upon our lives but that that is simply impossible with realistic life. What I take from this definition is that when reading a classic, we will be able to identify it as such, while also acknowledging that it is ok to read ‘non-classics’ as well. This realism goes into the thirteenth definition.

Definition Thirteen: a classic is a work which regulates the noise of the present to a background hum, which at the same time the classic cannot exist without.

While classics set a dichotomy of self-identity in one sense, it breaks another in that you cannot have a classic work without the non-classic work. If we have nothing to compare a great work to than it would not be a great work, but just another piece of literature. This is like the old esoteric notion that you cannot see the light without the dark.

Definition Fourteen: a classic is a work which persists as background noise even when a present that is totally incompatible with it holds sway.

The idea that you will never stop thinking about and rediscovering your classics nor will you ever stop from discovering new ones. Calvino urges us to hold whatever space we can make for the reading of our classics and to “invent our own ideal library” made up of them (9). He also notes that in this ideal library, to hold the necessary dichotomy outlined in Definition Eleven, that we must have a healthy mix of our classics, non-classics, and book in which we hold space for the possibility and opportunity for them to move into the prior category.

Calvino wraps up this exploration into why, and subsequently how, to read classic works of literature by citing Cioran as follows:

While the hemlock was being prepared, Socrates was learning a melody on the flute. “What use will that be to you?” he was asked. “At least I will learn this melody before I die.”

From this, we can take to heart that whether we have ample of constrained time for reading in general, it is better to read a classic than not, to do so with an open mind, and to know that you will have at least learned that particular story that stands out to you as ‘your classic’ before you die.