Wasting Time Reading Classical Literature

Published September 1, 2026

by Merida Bass

Hot take: Reading classical literature is a waste of time. Every writer has been encouraged to read the stuff. They are books we must all learn from so that we can craft the next generation of classics. However . . . Now don’t get me wrong! I love to read these stories as much as the next person. War and Peace is one of my favorite books. I’ve read Moby Dick twice. From Twain to Shelley to Virgil, I’ve scoured “The Greatest Books of All Time” lists for decades, picking them off one by one. If you want to talk literature, I’ve got you. We can chat.

My “however” comes from the fact that while we are advised to read the greats, we are simultaneously told we cannot use the same rules in our own writing. The future classics we are working on right now have a faster pace. Each sentence branches directly from the through line. The plot cannot meander because modern readers supposedly do not want their time wasted. Don’t these new rules for writers imply that classical authors were wasting people’s time? Maybe. 

For example, the tale of Anselmo and Lothario takes up three chapters of Don Quixote’s one hundred and twenty-six. I couldn’t remember the name of this portion of the book, so I Googled “side story in don quixote that has nothing to do with the rest of the book.” Anselmo and Lothario came right up. Despite its lack of relevance to the rest of the story, I thought it was one of the most enjoyable parts of the book. 

I love Tolstoy, but we all know that a good portion of Anna Karenina isn’t at all plot=driven. I daresay The Lord of the Rings trilogy would be a single novel if the gratuitous descriptions and songs were removed. And what about our visits with Miss Bates in Jane Austen’s Emma? We’re talking about the random ramblings of a bored spinster that truly have nothing to do with the rest of the story. None of these books would be the same without all the “fluff.” And perhaps shorter versions would never have made it to classical status. But good luck getting published if you do any of this stuff in books for modern readers.

We’ve all heard the theory that Charles Dickens was paid by the word. We get a good laugh about finances fueling his excessive wordiness. The truth is that he was paid by the installment, or chapter. It’s a little less crazy than being paid by the individual word but it isn’t that different. Throwing in enough extra fluff to necessitate more chapters than were truly needed to tell a story would have been lucrative. And stop to consider the significance of the very concept of being paid for every individual chapter in a story. A publisher wouldn’t make such an offer if they weren’t financially motivated by paying customers. Imagine a world where people were so bored they wanted as much filler as possible and would pay good money to get it. Then again, the only thing that’s changed about this dynamic is the type of media people were paying for then versus now.

Back in the times before public libraries, people may only got to own one novel in their lifetime. That’s if they had access to that type of luxury item at all. Novels were treasures, treated with extreme care. The most beloved would be read over and over again until the pages were tattered and the covers had worn through. Readers weren’t slogging through the forest in The Fellowship of the Ring. They were stepping in the footsteps of the hobbits down the trail and singing along, having an enjoyable waste of time.

Modern authors are still writing treasures, but we must cater to a new breed of readers. We are supposed to make every word count because people have “shorter attention spans.” Do they? How many hours did you or your children spend watching fifteen-second videos on your phone today? People do want to waste their time on media just as much as they did during the age of the classics! Entertainment today is just a series of sprints, not an endurance race. But we still get to the end of the event changed in some way. 

Instead of wasting our time, we could have been doing something more “productive.” We have nothing physical to hold in our hands after we have been entertained for hours. Our houses aren’t cleaner, our lawns are not mowing themselves, and our infinite piles of work aren’t any shorter. Nevertheless, as artists, refilling our creativity is the most important part of our existence. And to do this, time must be wasted in ways that change our perspectives, and the very way we think.

Whether we choose to waste our time on social media or within the pages of classical literature, we cannot forget that wasting time is the epitome of luxury. It is the ultimate expression of opulence. As writers, perhaps we shouldn’t focus so much on making every word count, but rather making each line a valuable waste of time.

Merida Bass, self-proclaimed masochist, almost wasn’t an artist. Fear of criticism resulted in her teaching remedial algebra to unwilling college students. After ten years of torture, she grew a backbone and threw herself into creative work. She’s published two illustrated children’s books, and co-authors The Tapestry Tales YA sci-fi series, and the hilarious Ninja Grandparent Placement Mysteries. For fun, Merida trains for extreme endurance events. Learn more about Merida and her books on her website at: https://merida-creates.com/