“I haven’t any right to criticise books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.
Mark Twain- Letter to Joseph Twichell, 13 September 1898 “
Oh thank God. God bless Mr. Twain. I’m waiting to be lambasted on here for my lack of taste in fine literature. For the record, I made it to page 131 of “Moby Dick.”
Lol, you’ve gotta love Twain!
I believe Mark Twain also remarked that any library might be improved by the omission of Jane Austen’s works, and that even if it had no other books in it, “It would be a tolerably good library by virtue of that one omission alone.”
Of course, we had P&P assigned in HS English, and from what I read of it, I thought it was very good, but it was too long for me! I never finished anything in those days.
I finally did read Moby Dick one year at the beach, in my 40’s I think, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I had the constant thought, “How could anybody expect kids to read this stuff?”
So I would have to say that perhaps SLC was over stating his aversion just a tad.