It’s a question which has plagued… Well, probably no one very much, actually, but it is one certainly on my mind a great deal recently. This question of what makes a ‘classic novel‘? What defines it and makes it of the good and great? What causes a ‘classic’ to be the bane of school-children everywhere (along with those who should really know better), from the ages of eleven to mid-twenties?

I would like to make it clear at this point that this isn’t merely blind belligerence aimed at those long-dead who can’t defend themselves, it is merely an examination of, what I take to be, literary laziness. On the assumption that the writers under discussion are fairly obvious - think English (though the Americans are just as bad, and they tried to tell us Harper Lee was the first one to speak out against racism in the South) and the Edwardian/Victorian age - I feel moved to say that a great deal of these writers are mediocre and uninspiring: not entirely awful, but hardly fabulous enough to warrant hundreds of years worth of adoration and reverence. This is not to say that they are pointless, or that their entire genre is misguided - often it’s vaguely entertaining and a fairly good read - merely that the entire categorising of ‘classics’ appears to be based on these such characteristics.

In the traditional style, the novels are long and laborious, repeating and stressing every single point so it is impossible to miss any of the subtleties. They often deal with an arcane England, full of top hats and decent folk, where minor social misdemeanours are the most significant events within six or seven chapters. They have a great tendency to be petty and infuriatingly intricate with it, and the mindless poor-but-good/rich-but-evil single-dimension to be found in almost all of them has resulted in many of my own copies of classics being flung across the room and connecting solidly with the wall.

The argument is often made that they are ‘classics’ down to being the produce of defining writers of their time. Which leads me to ask if that’s really important, in the grand scheme of things. Surely they must be good writers in the first place to warrant such attention? If Jeffrey Archer had been around two hundred years ago, had ponced about in a crinoline dress being wistful and written a thinly-veiled account of his own life, would that be enough to merit a classic? Actually, I suppose it would, but probably not for any of the reasons under discussion here. Will Helen Fielding be lauded in such a manner, one hundred years from now, for essentially writing a diary? Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters, in particular, are guilty of the exact same thing as the creator of the hated ‘Bridget Jones’: they became famous after their deaths for essentially inserting themselves as characters into the context of the day, or a very near future. Do we really want ‘Bridget Jones’ as our ‘Jude the Obscure’? Our ‘Jane Eyre’, or our ‘Emma’?

Perhaps it’s just a matter of personal preference, but I find them frustrating to deal with. I do, however, know that I am not alone in this. One only has to hear the groan in classrooms everywhere when the fateful announcement comes (‘we shall be dealing with Hardy this term’, ‘if we could all open Silas Marner to page one hundred and fourty-seven’, ‘why do you think Heathcliff wanted Catherine?’) to understand the effect this blind acceptance of classics has. If that is a classic, why bother struggling to read any of the lesser stuff? If this is the best of the best - if this is the total height of English Literature - I’m never going to read another book in my entire life. Exaggeration, certainly, but with a basis in fact: there is a general apathy regarding books in the past thirty years or so, noted as a phenomena of modern life, often blamed on the advance of technology, as usual. People are reading less, they tell us, and they wonder why.

Possibly if they spent a little more time trying to seek out the best and the brightest writers within a grand and near-unbelievable history of literary talent, and a little less time thrusting the so-called classics on us without bothering to think, they might see a little improvement. They'd probably stop seeing so many dents in the walls student accomodation across the country, either way.

'As blind as a bat' is an expression which has always troubled me. Possibly due to a misunderstanding on my part when I was younger, which inevitably led to my being exposed for the idiot I am. Still, I maintain that my version is correct: wood can't see, can it? Whether in bat-form or otherwise, my way makes sense. But I'm assured it's the flying mammal and not the hard, organic substance which is the source of the phrase.

Either way, I understand the true meaning of the phrase now that I have lost my own glasses. Due to exceedingly poor eyesight, I wear my specs all the time, no matter what the occaision. Vague TV watching, sweaty gigs, overheated cinemas, thoughtful reading.. Always approached with two thick discs of glass between me and the actuality. So, to suddenly find myself grasping out towards my desk when I woke up and not have my sturdy, reliable spectacles there waiting for me was uncomfortable at first. Then - only after turning my entire flat upside-down in search for them - nigh on unbearable. To make matters worse, this whole thing happened very first thing in the morning, meaning my efforts to carry on as normal were further impeded by yawning every minute or so. Of course, every time I yawned, my eyes watered and I automatically shivered: my body taking liberties with my misfortune. I literally could not see a single thing for the first couple of hours this morning, and there was a distinct blurriness to my life that followed. And I can't begin to tell you what a jolting experience it is.

Being almost totally sightless makes you feel vulnerable in a way that only the blind might understand. Having almost been declared partially-sighted once upon a time, I have decided that I am allowed to say such a thing, even though political-correctness and good taste would indicate otherwise. Perhaps it's the human survival instinct - the need to note, unconsciously or otherwise, any and all possible dangers around oneself. Or perhaps it's the very English compuction to assess a situation fully before one speaks or takes action of any kind, for fear of causing offence or tripping over something, belying a lack of elegance it would be most unfitting to reveal. All I can say is that I have felt very much like the mole in the bucket, today, and I don't much like it.

I don't have a very good history with glasses. Ridiculously forgetful by nature, I misplace them; I become allergic to them; I stand on them; I slip them into coat pockets and scratch them; I bend them out of shape so they no longer fit around my bigger-than-average head. Many solutions have been offered to stop this high-turnover of optical aids. Why don't I try contact lenses? Why don't I save up for laser-eye surgery? Why don't I stop leaving the glasses in such silly places - the mantlepiece, the top of the wardrobe, the car glovebox, the sink in the downstairs toilet? Now, weak and impressionable as I was, I did attempt contact lenses, and the results were even less impressive. With little or no hand-eye co-ordination, they took twenty frustrating minutes to put in and, once there - eyes tearing up from having jabbed at them with clumsy index fingers so many times - they hurt and scraped the inside of my lid whenever I blinked, which I discovered I needed to do more than I had ever imagined. I could see, of course, but it was little consolation. Within half an hour I'd already forgotten about them and rubbed at my eye when it itched: I tried to explain this to the the helpful Tesco staff as they were on their hands and knees, sweeping the six foot radius of the speckled-white supermarket floor I'd managed to lose the tiny, clear disc which was the difference between sanity and blindness. We never did find it and within a couple of weeks I'd given up the whole sorry enterprise.

Thing is that glasses can provide ridiculous comfort. They get speckled by dust and toothpaste and milk, they constantly need cleaning and re-adjusting, they rub and irritate. But there is a certain respect you gain by wearing glasses - there are the downsides, too, of course: just how many people did you call 'speccy-four-eyes' while you were growing up with perfect twenty-twenty vision? Automatic assumptions are made by others which you have no control over, though we're all still loathe to admit it and believe we gotten past such ridiculous, impressionistic urges to catagorise. When you wear glasses, you are anything: a nerd, an intellect, a smart-arse, someone who reads a lot, a person unashamed of imperfections, an uncool person, a dork, a great mind, a geek. Anything people want to see in you is readily reflected off your glass-covered eyes, and most of the time it is easier just to go along with these assumptions than to bother correcting them. It provides great security and a sneaking sense of achievement to know that you've fooled all these people into thinking you are everything you're not, merely by the simple process of wearing spectacles. And to go from being so smug and subversive within your everyday life, to suddenly having such a naked face and eyes that can very clearly be seen into and your deepest thoughts read... Well, it's awful.

As it stands, I am once more slowly getting used to the murky colours and shapes which surround me. Already, I squint like a helpless eighty year-old hunting for the biscuits she knew she just put down somewhere. I have not had to cope with this sort of uncomfort since I was sat in the back of the assembly hall at primary school, wondering why I couldn't read the hymn on the projector and garnering a lot of harsh looks from the nuns and teachers who lined the walls as I missed verses. It makes me uneasy, and jumpy, and I've started flinching at things when they come up close in front of me. I feel unsure of myself, even on my familiar home-turf, so to stumble blindly into the kitchen to find a flatmate's mother calmly washing the dishes was all I could take. I have retreated from the scary, indistinct world to glare in unfocused irritation at the four supposedly-solid walls of my room, where I intend to stay until the rest of the world knows my pain and starts padding the corners of kitchen work-surfaces.

I bought a newspaper today.

For the first time in six months, I actively bought a newspaper. The last time I did this, it was under the instruction of an economics teacher who truly believed we'd be able to understand supply and demand if it were put in the context of modern-day global affairs, often using Africa as the example. Usually, when people ask me my opinion on global affairs, I shrug and give a great shake of my head and say: "oil". I'm not alone in this. We've all been told repeatedly that we were tricked, that the whole thing was about oil, that oil drives the whole world now... I have no idea precisely how oil figures in the continued starvation in Africa, but I've been told it does. I've been told oil is responsible for most ills in the world and so, while I think that's an awful lot of issues clustered under one cause, I'll accept that.

Current affairs - foreign, domestic, oil-related or otherwise - do not concern me. I simply don't have enough space in my head to think about why things are the way they are, or how they can be changed to make the world a better place for future generations. In this respect, I would make a great politician, but that is beside the point. My days are filled with deciding which wannabe-pseud book to read next; precisely how much coffee powder to put into the cup to make it taste perfect; playing with the idea of doing something 'wild' like running away to London to become a street-artist; constantly cutting and recutting my half-hearted attempt at a 'modern fringe' so it will stop flicking outwards in such an odd manner. Shallow, inconsequential concerns, definitely, but I'm not ashamed of them.

At least I realise the total pointlessness of all my trundlings, my reliance on fictional worlds - both written and imaginary - to get me past the total dullness of everyday business. It is this awareness that drives me out of the room whenever the news is put on, sometimes with my hands over my ears, before I hear another smugly-depressed account of a racist murder, or a tense summation of a rapist's day in court. It's what gives me the glazed look whenever people start talking about presidents any further away than Washington and Paris. It's a hideous sort of self-imposed ignorance, that should be scorned and mocked, but is instead becoming a trend all across Britain, especially among the young and 'disaffected'. But really, it's just self-preservation. If we listened, we'd go mad at the injustice of it all, and then there'd be no one to wear the suits and report the exact same news in twenty years' time. Technically, we're preserving the future by pretending it's not there.

It is probably unsuprising, then, that the only reason I bought the newspaper in question was because I got a free packet of crisps with it.