The Joy of Reading

He has a point. It wasn’t until I got out of high school and started reading classics on my own that I figure out why classics are classics. They are so well-written and enjoyable to read that they are worth reading hundreds of years later. I had no idea. Had I not been bored enough while wandering around Barnes & Noble, I never would have known.

However, we did read a few novels in my classes. They still managed to pick the dreariest books by any given author possible. Huckleberry Finn? Blech, save the slavery issue for Social Studies. Roughing It is far more enjoyable and interesting. The Sound and the Fury? Still don’t get it. Would never touch Faulkner again. Great Expectations? I like all of Dickens, except Hard Times, better. Wuthering Heights? Depresshun. Couldn’t make it past the first three pages, used the Cliff Notes. Jane Eyre would have been so much better. (Yes, the Bronte sisters are all the same to me). I can’t argue with MacBeth, that was interesting. So, I did know all the answers on the tests, and I could BS my way through an essay with the best of them, but I really didn’t get it until much later.