On Books

Ahem, make that "literature" in place of "books" so we can be as snooty as possible.

I don't consider myself badly read. I had parents who indulged my affection for books by purchasing a couple sets of classics for me when I was pretty young. I was a big fan of Great Expectations (Dickens), for example, before I was in 6th grade. When we had to read A Tale of Two Cities (also Dickens) in 9th grade English, I already knew it from having read it several times and didn't understand why some of my classmates were so lost.

My classics favored male authors and male characters. I had nice hardback copies of Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) and Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte), but could never really get into them--I never did finish Jane Eyre, but seem to remember not totally hating Wuthering Heights eventually. I read somewhere that the Bronte sisters were snobbish about Jane Austen, which if true I find interesting considering my enjoyment of Jane's work. However, I didn't even try Jane Austen until the last few years. Helen Fielding must take the credit for awakening that interest.

Anyway, I was familiar with Twain, Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexandre Dumas, and even Jules Verne before I entered junior high. Don't get me wrong, I didn't have a pretentious bookshelf. Laura Ingalls Wilder and Judy Blume and Trixie Belden (Julie Campbell) and Sweet Valley High (Francine Pascal) and Stephen King all figured prominently during my school years.

I can go through a list of "Classics" and not feel too uncultured. But there are some books that just seem like ones I should have read and haven't. Trying to correct this deficiency isn't a new undertaking...it is a work in progress for many years now. I'm just lucky enough to have a little more free time on my hands at this moment than I've had in the past.

Posted by Jenelle at May 27, 2006 03:04 PM | TrackBack