Classics Shmassics

I am a voracious reader. I love to read. I will read as the world crumbles around my ears. That being said, and as much as it pains me to admit it, I simply do not care for most classic literature. I never finished Pilgrim's Progress. I struggled through Anna Karenina and immediately forgot most of it. I hated the vast majority of what I was forced to read in British and American literature classes. I adore Jane Austen, but I can take or leave the Brontë girls. I very much like Jane Eyre, but not so much Wuthering Heights. (Sorry, Anne, I never read you.) Right now, I'm halfway through The Satanic Verses with not much hope of ever finishing it. I think TSV is not technically classic literature, but it sure reads that way to me. I keep taking breaks from it and reading other books--this is a bad sign. I guess I just find the classical style, well, a little dull.

I so want to like these books. I feel like I should. I really enjoyed Mr. Rushdie's cameo in the Bridget Jones movie. But I am not enjoying Chamcha and Saladin. My apologies. But here's the thing--I read for pleasure. And this is not pleasurable. So I need to stop feeling guilty and inadequate and suck it up and return this book to the library. It doesn't mean I've failed as a reader. It just means I don't like the book.

At least I did better than I did with The Aeneid. I only got through one page of that. Sorry, Virgil. (By the way, why do we call him Virgil when his name was Publius Vergilius Maro? But that's another post.)