Saturday, April 20, 2013

Book Shame.

1. I hate Shakespeare. Even if my kid's performing in it. 2. When people say "Dickensian" I don't really get what they mean. 3. I read two pages of Middlemarch and said, 'meh.' 4. Yes, I threw The English Patient across a hotel room, upending a $10 bottle of Voss water. 5. When grad students read my first novel for their class, they asked me questions I didn't understand. 6. I never cracked open a spine by James Joyce. I don't deserve to be an author! 7. The Great Gatsby may be my favorite novel because it has small words. It's possible. 8. Footnotes make me want to kill someone. 9. It took me six months to read Bring Up The Bodies because I didn't get who was talking. Huh? What? 10.Told my husband that reading Harry Potter to the kids would cement their relationship. When in fact, I just didn't wanna do it myself.

2 comments:

Anmiryam said...

1. Bad Shakespeare is awful. I have seen some amazing productions though and they bring the words and emotions to life in a way that is astonishing. I am glad there is only one more HS production of Shakespeare that I will be forced to attend. 2. I get Dickensian, but can understand why he would turn you off. 3. I loved 'Middlemarch' when I was 20, but I was pretty pretentious back then and I doubt I understood it. Haven't tried it since then, but probably wouldn't have the patience. 4. Have been dreading 'The English Patient' for years -- couldn't finish watching the movie. 5. No one can understand English graduate students, not even other English graduate students. 6. Try reading 'The Dead' from 'Dubliners', it's a moving story and utterly accessible. After that it's all for show, though I've promised myself that I'm going to read 'Ulysses' this spring. Not a rational aspiration, but hey. 7. Great book that I never valued as a teen, but I love it now. 8. Footnotes are only good when they're funny. 9. 'Wolf Hall' was an even tougher read. I got through and loved both volumes once I mentally substituted Cromwell for 'he'. 9. Loved Harry Potter, but if someone tries to make me read 'Catcher in the Rye' again I think I'll pull my fingernails out instead.

Kelly Simmons said...

Ha, great response! Totally with you on Catcher in the Rye, btw. And many others that don't hold up.