I’m a firm believer that every person should at least TRY to read some classic literature. You don’t have to be successful, but in this case, it’s the effort that counts.
That being said, just because you should read it doesn’t mean you should like it.
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
I know that as a human being with a vagina, I’m supposed to fall madly in love with Rochester and see myself reflected in the strong and moral Jane. This is so far from the truth that I might as well be stoned to death. Jane is ANNOYING. She is literally so good she is boring. The whole time, I wanted her to do something even remotely bad. Steal a candlestick! Kiss a boy! Go to the bathroom and don’t wash your hands! Replace “my goodness!” with “dag nabit!” or, my personal favorite swear, “Bob Saget".
Rochester is a WHINER. Ohmygod, just divorce your crazy wife and ship her off to an asylum. Problem solved. But then he wouldn’t have a mysterious secret to brood over and he couldn’t give Jane that smoldering stare that gets her bloomers and corsets and chemise in a twist.
I know that there are Jane/Rochester shippers out there that will probably want to stab my eyes out, boil them in a soup and slurp it up while sitting in a drafty ancient abbey on the windy moors, but seriously – if Jane has a fault, I need someone to point it out to me. Her character development went like this:
I know that there are Jane/Rochester shippers out there that will probably want to stab my eyes out, boil them in a soup and slurp it up while sitting in a drafty ancient abbey on the windy moors, but seriously – if Jane has a fault, I need someone to point it out to me. Her character development went like this:
Strong ---- > Stronger ---- > Strongest
Sad ---- > Happy
Unfortunate ---- > Fortunate
Sad ---- > Happy
Unfortunate ---- > Fortunate
Rochester, he had so many faults I couldn’t see what was good about him. He kept his crazy wife locked in the attic. He wanted to keep Jane as his mistress. He was grouchy. At the end, he was hardly redeemed – the only reason anything worked out is because his wife was burned to death. Jane was like, “Yay, now the crazy bitch is out of the way and we can live in morally superior bliss, with my blind one-handed pissy hubby by my side for all eternity.”
Now we all know why Charlotte Bronte hated Jane Austen – Northanger Abbey pokes fun at this melodramatic smorgasbord of depressing, boring people staring into each others’ eyes and hating life.
At least Emma and Knightley were funny, even if they didn’t actually do anything besides talk.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Disclaimer: I’ve never actually read the books, besides the first half of The Hobbit. My disdain for the series is based almost solely on the fact that I have seen all three movies and have yet to make it through one without falling asleep or ending up on Facebook.
Being a fanatic maniac about Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia, everyone just assumes that I want to sleep with Aragorn and have Hobbit feet. Not so. I have absolutely no clue what happened in the movies. I only retained enough to recognize when someone makes a reference to a Ring or the Fires of Mordor or Elvish. The movies—all three of them—were agonizing. Now, there will be people who say, “The book is so much better than the movie!”; however, I feel like a movie should make you want to read the books (such as, for instance, with Harry Potter – I never read the books until I saw the first movie in theaters because I thought it looked mildly interesting. Look at me now.)
Tolkien’s own friends probably thought the book was insufferable. I mean, the fact that I can’t even remember the basic plot line to ANY of the movies, which as a rule should be simpler than the plot line of the corresponding book, says something to me. And that something is, “Stick to witches and wizards and magical feasts, goblins and ghosts and magical beasts” (A Very Potter Musical, 2009, University of Michigan Theater Department.)
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Two words: What. Happened?
Single biggest waste of two weeks in my literature class. I read 2/3 of it before saying, “F*ck it, even if I read it, I will have no clue what’s going on, so SparkNotes it is.” Even SparkNotes seemed to just make stuff up. Apparently it was a major advancement in the modernist, stream-of-consciousness, absolutely retarded writing movement. But I pulled a large chunk of my hair out while reading it so I file this one under the heading of “Failure”. I guess I'm supposed to love her because of her progressive views on feminism and the way she spoke out about the repression of women. First and foremost, I'm not really a feminist in the bra-burning man-hating sense, and the vast majority of those people bother me because they just perpetuate the stereotype that women are over-emotional and unstable. But I digress. Woolf could have found more entertaining ways to provide social commentary. Possible Virginia Woolf novel titles: "Mrs. Dalloway, Warrior Queen." "To the Slaughterhouse." "A Room of One's Own Shared With a Hot Prince I Beat into Submission."
THAT'S FEMINISM.
THAT'S FEMINISM.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
First, I have to say this: I admire Mary Shelley for her inventiveness, twisted mind, and pwning her husband’s sissy poetry. This does not change the fact that Frankenstein took me six months to read, and it is roughly 1/3 the size of the average Harry Potter book. The long, drawn out, dry paragraphs of unnecessary descriptions almost caused me to raise the white flag and pick up a Nicholas Sparks book (I KNOW!!!). The story is great, and Shelley makes interesting commentary about playing God, which is especially relevant nowadays with all the crazy DNA replication shit that scientists are doing.
I think that what made me dislike it is the style. The letter-writing from a narrator twice removed from the story made it slow and cumbersome. I guess it was pretty inventive, but for me that falls flat. I’ll try to read it again, because I feel like you have to like one of the Shelleys in order to be considered an educated human being (right?) and no matter what, it’s better than listening to her effeminate husband whine about all the f*cking drama in his life and write love poems to other women. “Free love” my ass.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
*snooze* *snooze* *snooze* What’s that? I was reading a book? I thought books were supposed to be entertaining, like staring at a brick wall. Or watching my great-grandma eat pudding. Or watching ants swarm over a Dorito on the sidewalk. All three of those things are more pleasant than reading Walden. Once again, I understand its literary significance. But I don’t understand why anyone would want to read a book about someone living in the woods. If you’re that transcendental, you should be living in the woods alone, not reading about someone living in the woods alone. Go farm your own food, forget to shave anything for a few years, and meditate naked in a field to be one with nature. I’ll sit on my couch watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie with my electricity-chilled pint of ice cream, thank you very much. Naked and smooth-shaven.
I manfully made it through that whole book, but don’t ask me to tell you what it’s about. Or what happened. Or what Thoreau found to smoke in those woods.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
This is another book I need to "disclaim". I actually like it, because it's dark, the characters are well-written and interesting, and the whole plot line is very multifaceted and engaging. HOWEVER, I DO NOT THINK IT IS ROMANTIC. I think Heathcliff and Catherine are disgusting, and I would never ever sit there and sigh over how their love is so tragic and doomed and OHMYGOD THE WIND ON THE MOORS blah blah blah.
No. They are terrible people (which make great characters). I can't stand the fangirls who hold the love between Heathcliff and Catherine up to the same standard as Darcy and Elizabeth, Odysseus and Penelope, or even freaking Han Solo and Princess Leia. I guess they deserve each other, but I wouldn't call obsessive, murderous lust the same has everlasting love. As individuals, I find them much more entertaining (and therefore, to me, likable) because they are so complex (unlike boring Jane Eyre and brooding Rochester -- take some tips from sis, Charlotte!). And their relationship is fascinating and compelling. But PLEASE don't place it on the same level as people who actually loved each other. It's just mean.
Any Poetry except “Howl”
Any Poetry except “Howl”
For me, poetry is a snoozefest, much like Walden and Frankenstein and To the Lighthouse. I appreciate a good metaphor as well as the next person, but I also like a story. I don't really want to read about you looking at a bowl of Cheerios and using it to represent the way you are scarred for life because you lost your cat in a house fire 20 years ago. ESPECIALLY Romantic poetry. I'd rather look at a tree than read 100 lines of words I need a dictionary for explaining how the tree looks or how the tree should make you feel.
Of course, this means I love the shit out of Allen Ginsberg. To this day he remains the only poet I have ever read, besides Shel Silverstein, that made me laugh and feel weird and think about things without having to dig far into my psyche and exhaust my already weak mental capacity. Then again, I'm just a general admirer of The Beatniks, because they were so self-indulgent and reckless and did whatever the hell they wanted to.
Can you see why my twisted mind prefers Ginsberg:
. . . who got busted in their pubic beards returning through
Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in
Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their
torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares,
alcohol and cock and endless balls,
incomparable blind;
over Coleridge:
As
some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood,
That crests its Head with
clouds, beneath the flood
Feeds its deep roots, and with the
bulging flank
Of its wide base controls the fronting bank,
(By the slant current's pressure scoop'd away
The fronting bank
becomes a foam-piled bay)
Poetry lovers, feel free to hate on me. You won't change my mind,
but you're welcome to try.
Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in
Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their
torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares,
alcohol and cock and endless balls,
incomparable blind;
over Coleridge:
As
some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood,
That crests its Head with
clouds, beneath the flood
Feeds its deep roots, and with the
bulging flank
Of its wide base controls the fronting bank,
(By the slant current's pressure scoop'd away
The fronting bank
becomes a foam-piled bay)
Poetry lovers, feel free to hate on me. You won't change my mind,
but you're welcome to try.
