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Or they insult and criticize others for not reading enough classics, for preferring more recent fiction to books 300 years old. Anything by Dickens or Shakespeare or Milton is exalted and above reproach, anything written in a modern vernacular or involving recent technology and mores is suspect at best. If you can easily understand it it's trash, if you enjoy it you should have picked a harder book, and if you didn't learn anything (it's understood you won't learn anything unless it's one of The Greats) you wasted your time. Heaven forbid you enjoy any form of genre fiction!
I don't understand this attitude at all. Quite aside from the fact that this, combined with force-feeding tragedies to teens, is what causes people to turn away from The Classics altogether, it's not like your choice of reading material is a matter of moral judgment at all, is it? You should read what you like, and don't worry about whether it's thick and old and respected enough. Who cares?
But with that said, there is one book that's been on my "reading list" (such as it is, I mostly follow my own advice) for most of my life, that I have been putting off reading, and that's The Scarlet Pimpernel. Not because it's A Classic, but because it's talked up a lot in The Girl With The Silver Eyes (now that is a classic!), and I've always wondered what the fuss was about. In fact, not long after the tenth time I read The Girl With The Silver Eyes (and how I identified with Katie!) I located a copy of Pimpernel in our house and attempted to read it.
Yeah. I was about eight. I didn't even make it three pages. And I was a good reader, easily, but there's more to a book than just the combination of words.
This kinda irked me, because Katie loved the book, and her neighbor loved the book, and Katie was awesome, so why didn't I love this book? And every once in a while I'd think about it and go "Maybe I should try again", but I'd remember that bad experience and put it off for a while. It's not like there's any shortage of reading material in this world, however much it might feel like it at times.
Well. I've started reading it online today, and guess what? I get what the fuss was about! Even if I'd persevered, I would not have enjoyed it at that young age, that's clear to me, but I do now. (You guys need to read this book. Seriously.)
Of course, if I'd had the book pushed on me in a "Read this unless you're a stupid smelly person with no taste or sense" fashion I doubt I'd ever have picked it up. I still don't know why people do that. That's the real waste of time.
I don't understand this attitude at all. Quite aside from the fact that this, combined with force-feeding tragedies to teens, is what causes people to turn away from The Classics altogether, it's not like your choice of reading material is a matter of moral judgment at all, is it? You should read what you like, and don't worry about whether it's thick and old and respected enough. Who cares?
But with that said, there is one book that's been on my "reading list" (such as it is, I mostly follow my own advice) for most of my life, that I have been putting off reading, and that's The Scarlet Pimpernel. Not because it's A Classic, but because it's talked up a lot in The Girl With The Silver Eyes (now that is a classic!), and I've always wondered what the fuss was about. In fact, not long after the tenth time I read The Girl With The Silver Eyes (and how I identified with Katie!) I located a copy of Pimpernel in our house and attempted to read it.
Yeah. I was about eight. I didn't even make it three pages. And I was a good reader, easily, but there's more to a book than just the combination of words.
This kinda irked me, because Katie loved the book, and her neighbor loved the book, and Katie was awesome, so why didn't I love this book? And every once in a while I'd think about it and go "Maybe I should try again", but I'd remember that bad experience and put it off for a while. It's not like there's any shortage of reading material in this world, however much it might feel like it at times.
Well. I've started reading it online today, and guess what? I get what the fuss was about! Even if I'd persevered, I would not have enjoyed it at that young age, that's clear to me, but I do now. (You guys need to read this book. Seriously.)
Of course, if I'd had the book pushed on me in a "Read this unless you're a stupid smelly person with no taste or sense" fashion I doubt I'd ever have picked it up. I still don't know why people do that. That's the real waste of time.
