At least my classic lit reading habits are similar to Poppa Croc's. I made it through one page of The Scarlet Letter in high school before giving up.
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I did better with Lord Jim - about 20 pages or so. I had to do an oral book report on it, so I actually bought and studied the Cliff Notes.
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Then there's War And Peace. I only made it through one sentence. But I memorized it, so that counts for something. "Well prince, so Genoa and Lucca are just family estates of the Bonapartes." Impressive, ain't it?
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
I'm a crocodile
At least my classic lit reading habits are similar to Poppa Croc's. I made it through one page of The Scarlet Letter in high school before giving up.
.
I did better with Lord Jim - about 20 pages or so. I had to do an oral book report on it, so I actually bought and studied the Cliff Notes.
.
Then there's War And Peace. I only made it through one sentence. But I memorized it, so that counts for something. "Well prince, so Genoa and Lucca are just family estates of the Bonapartes." Impressive, ain't it?
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8 comments:
I haven't even heard of Lord Jim, but i agree the other two are awful. I managed to read The Scarlet Letter in HS but avoid Nathaniel Hawthorne like the plague now. As for War and Peace, I won't even give it a shot. Anna Karenina was enough to convince me I hate Tolstoy.
My one 'failure' in the "Books You Must Read" list is Lord of the Rings. It's a stinker. Dry, repetitive, laboured ... The sort of book that once you put it down you can't pick it up again.
Maybe it's my fault for buying the 1000+ page 'all in one' edition. I get about a third of the way through and lose the will to live. I've tried many times to complete it, but I just can't.
Yours,
Ma Rillion.
Amanda - here's everything I know about Lord Jim : written by Joseph Conrad, whoever he was. has to do with sailing. set in Singapore, or thereabouts. 100 years ago, or thereabouts.
given that he enjoyed Moby Dick, probably a book that Jason would read. and like. so i look forward to his review of it.
:-)
Ma,
you and Jason are still the only peeps who i've found who don't like Tolkien. but be happy. at least you didn't have to read garbage like The Scarlet Letter and Lord Jim.
OTOH, they probably made you read Milton's Paradise Lost. i made it a half-page through that one.
Paradise Lost? Luxury.
I had to study the lesser poems of Milton. Quite a few of them. One was enough to persuade me that Milton stole a load of mythology, mashed it up, published, made money, and destroyed the souls of anyone studying Higher English.
J. M. Evans
Just to put my opinion in, I haven't read LotR, nor do I have any desire to.
interesting. given that you like the Harry Potter series, i'd predict that you'd enjoy LOTR.
OTOH, if you've seen the movies, there's not a lot to be gained by reading the books.
I've not seen the movies. It seems very different from Harry Potter to me. It's all about other worlds and different races of creatures and such, and there is much less of that in HP. Jason says he doesn't think they're very similar. He also doesn't think I'd like them much. I'll be reading The Hobbit within the next couple months. That'll kind of give me a peek at the LotR trilogy.
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