I...The Great Unread
Sunday, August 17th, 2008
When I was 14 I was put into the second level English class, while several of my close friends were placed in the top set. I remember when my friends in the other class were reading Wuthering Heights and would discuss Heathcliff during our lunchbreaks, and though it all sounded interesting I didn’t bother to read the book just to be able to contribute to their discussions.
We have a copy of Wuthering Heights here that my mum received while she was in a mail-order book club years ago, and I flicked through the book but didn’t wish to spoil its hard-backed perfection by reading it, so I borrowed a copy from the library. Then I decided not to read the library copy for some reason which I can’t remember. So I still haven’t read Wuthering Heights.
When I attended a writer’s course several years ago and was asked about my favourite books, I felt like a fraud for not having read many literary classics. Since then I’ve dutifully read Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Picture of Dorian Gray, etc.
Early last year, after reading Pride and Prejudice I decided that I should read Jane Austen’s entire oeuvre. I found that WH Smith had a special offer on her books, so I ended up buying Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey. However, after reading the last-mentioned novel I’ve gone off that idea.
Sometimes when I hear about how novel x was so influential on x genre I feel like adding it to my wishlist, but no one has time to read everything, and life is too short to read something that you wouldn’t enjoy. There are so many gaps in my knowledge, but I’m beginning to realise that the most important thing in the world is to know myself.
That said, it amused me to watch this video of authors talking about the books that they’re most ashamed of not reading. Reading the comments was even more interesting; one person had received an A grade on an essay about an unread book, and another person even admitted teaching a class on a novel that he had never read…
6:34 pm on 18-Aug-08
I try to mix it up–1 book I feel I should read, then 1 book I want to read. It isn’t a waste to time, some of those “shoulds” turn out to be great reads and all of them do something to increase my understanding of my culture. But it’s important to mix in some beach-reading page-turner crap for fun.
OT: I don’t know if others are having this problem, but since you revamped the site, the formatting on the comments has been all off and often are unreadable.
1:35 am on 19-Aug-08
There are a great many literary classics I haven’t read — most of them in fact — and I don’t feel a fraud at all. I read what I enjoy. It’s a very eclectic mix. Right now I’m reading a novel about an earthquake in NYC, and also a supposedly factual book about the kinky spanking underworld in London which a very special friend sent me. After that, I’ll probably read a biography or a history book. There are enough books about without having to worry about reading stuff you don’t enjoy.
If I have to name a book I’m “ashamed” I have never read, it would be Lord of the Rings. I have tried but it is so appallingly dull!
12:18 am on 20-Aug-08
Tim: I’ve enjoyed some of the classic fiction that I’ve read, and realised why they are so admired. Some have been hell to read. Once I start reading a book I am normally compelled to finish it, so I feel that it’s important that I choose wisely.
I’ll look in the comment issue, I assume you’re using Explorer.
Nicholas: I started to read The Hobbit when I was a kid. It was my brother’s copy, and there was a squished fly near the front, which put me off. I can’t remember if I finished the book, or if I lost interest.
That kinky book sounds interesting, I always love reading sexual memoirs.
12:43 pm on 22-Aug-08
I used to make up book titles and book reports in school just to get away with it and I once had to present with a group, a seminar on, I think it was Oliver Twist. I never did finish reading it but went on and on about it until everyone fell asleep.
11:42 pm on 22-Aug-08
You have to read Wuthering Heights – we had it in school around the time Kate Bush’s song was in the charts – it made it a little easier to read (I went to an all-male rugby-playing school).
We also had to read Persuasion, 18th Century chick-lit.
Personally, I preferred Dumas, Tennyson and Cervantes, but they weren’t on the curriculum (dammit).
At the moment, I’m halfway through ‘The Once and Future King’ by T.H. White – excellent, tragic stuff…
11:45 pm on 22-Aug-08
And I’ve never read Dickens (and don’t care to)…
7:14 pm on 26-Aug-08
Dale: that must be the best way to get an A in English Lit
Capt: You’ve read some interesting books, we’ll see about Wuthering. I’d like to read one Dickens book at least, just to know what all the fuss is about.