When I read classic books, occasionally I fail to appreciate some of them. I used to wonder- what made this book so popular? I felt I needed more command on language and subtle aspects of writing to appreciate the work. Lately I realised that one can appreciate classics without mastering these complexities. Context of the book or relevance of literature might be sufficient to appreciate a classic in a non-expert way.

Recently, I came across a Literature podcast about the history of crime and punishment. Crime and Punishment is a book one can appreciate superficially also. It has a great story and drama. A newbie could appreciate Dostoevsky’s masterful dissection of a man’s thoughts. But after hearing the podcast, I learned that Dostoevsky had read such articles in newspapers where young men committed crimes because they considered themselves to be superior over others. The podcast also talked about story of Leopold and Lob who committed a murder because they believed they were Übermensch, a superhuman concept in Nietzsche’s philosophy. All of this information, gave a new perspective on Crime and Punishment’s story and ideas.

But many forewords fail to setup a proper context. Most of them end up speaking about the book as a whole and appreciate author’s writing style. In such cases, relevance of literature to one’s life or events can help you to appreciate literature. Good writers use events and characters of a story to convey an idea about human nature. When you find a character or event or a dialogue bear a great resemblance to a part of your life, that is when the book, in Kafka’s words, acts as frozen axe within the sea. I initially saw ‘Notes from Underground’ as a story of a hyper-conscious man. But when I re-read and started finding resemblances to “a man who gains happiness from tooth-ache”. Such a man is no more an abstract concept in a book, but someone whom I can find in daily life.

Feynman noted that art, unlike science, is subjective; there’s no right or wrong. So, it is a likely thing that one can get an interpretation of the story which the author didn’t intend to convey. Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury was misinterpreted by many as a book about censorship. But the author himself claims that it is not about that “I wasn’t worried about freedom, I was worried about people being turned into morons by TV. Fahrenheit’s not about censorship, it’s about the moronic influence of popular culture through local TV news, the proliferation of giant screens and the bombardment of factoids(ref)” So, how can one be sure that one’s interpretation of the book is same as what the author intended? Talking to people and reading online can diversify your opinions and check your interpretation. But that doesn’t matter, for art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable!