Posted on 10/06/2019 9:09:58 PM PDT by vannrox
Wow! You must really be old to have had to read Poe. I suppose Kipling, Shakespeare, Zane Grey, and others were forced on you. O’Henry, Cooper, and such were there too. I had this kind of brutality thrown at me back then. It’s probably why I find myself comparing today’s authors coming up short to those back then. I blame it on mom, she read Hitchcock stories and Ellery Queen novels to me. It has almost ruined me to modern story telling. We can’t let the left burn books. They’ve screwed up most other things.
Yeah, it was about 7th or 8th. Cute little English teacher dedicated October to EAP. We were bathed in that and “The Devil and Daniel Webster”. And Texas ghost stories.
Usually there is a thread on here somewhere of ghost stories about this time of year......
I sought out Zane Grey and Kipling. Kipling Rocks!
3-2 ain’t bad I suppose.....
But I come from a family of readers, who believed in reading great lit to children, at very early ages ( age appropriate; such as Lamb's Shakespeare for Children, when I was around 4 and the greats of children's lit and poetry...Lear, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Kipling, The leather Stocking Tales, etc. )and so I became an avid reader too.
And yes, we did HIAWATHA in the 3rd grade and the required reading just kept on accelerating.
When I was a teen, I asked my mother why she only read non-fiction and she said:"Because I have all of the great fiction there is to read already." and she had.
Modern authors haven't been able to write a decent novel in 50 years and all of it is so derivative and/or very badly written, that it's worthless.
Yes, Halloween week is when FR usually has quite a few threads with ghost stories and the like.
We must part on opinions for what I think is the first tie Friend.
I think he is a GENIUS and king has NOWHERE NEAR the literary talent Poe has.
Poe is a genius.
king writes about 5 boys having sex with a girl to save themselves. That’s in IT.
Quite the difference.
Our teachers taught us to think~
Not to mention the fact that quite a few of King's books are just reworkings of old masterpieces ( DRACULA, for one, sort of THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS for another ) and not as good as the originals.
Yes, they did and they also made us expand our vocabularies, be able to use these wonderful words, and appreciate fine literature!
Moms are the worst influences. Mine had me reading before I was supposed too and then accelerating to older levels of books. Agatha Christie, Ed McBain, and non fiction. She, still at 87 destroys books so fast and will reread one from years ago occasionally. I listened to the whole book Moby Dick. I told mom it was to long and boring. I would rather read War and Peace and the New York phone book before Moby Dick again. Trouble with older authors is the history of the times has to be in your mind or you don’t appreciate the story so much. To be able to read and be absorbed into the story is a gift from mom, mom is a gift from God.
As a small child, I couldn't wait to be able to read myself and once I could, I was an avid and yes, voracious reader! My mother said that I could read any book in the house, so I did. I found Shirley Jackson's THE LOTTERY at quite an early age and loved it! And once I found an author I liked, I would then try to read EVERYTHING written by that author. Which usually stood me in good stead.
Since it's how I grew up, I read to my progeny from almost birth. And now the progeny dis that to theirs.
And books for Christmas and birthdays is another family tradition that is still kept!
You're correct about older authors and having to know and understand about the time each wrote during, though. Ditto MOBY DICK; though TYPEE ( which I had to read in college ) is far worse!
The Cask Of Amontillado On YouTube
With the written word the fun is never over. If you read Albert Speare’s Book Spandau take a canteen with lots of water. Give it to someone you don’t like. :)
His was not a happy life and was punctuated by the death of those he loved
I'm much more into WW I, which is a good thing, since my grandson is now studying that in his history class and I'm on hand to fill in the blanks that don't get covered.
-PJ
bump
#MeToo (Except for the Lottery.)
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