Here’s to Moby Dick, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield and all that Dickensian crap we had to read in school while Sinclair Lewis, Hemingway, and John Dos Passos languished unheard-of. It’s a wonder any of us read voluntarily again.
I read Moby Dick so long ago I’m not sure I remember much of it. Just the basic story line.
One of my high school teachers, a Mrs Allen, has us read “The Scarlet Letter” and do a book report on it. Great teacher, everybody limed her really well. Short black lady with a sense of humor and a personality you had to like. Even if you didn’t like her.
Anyway I read the first chapter, or tried to, wen tin the next day and told her it was the most boring hour I ever spent, pracically begged her to let me read something else and do a book report on that. She let me in the end, I never finished the first chapter of scarlet Letter and never had any interest whatsoever in “the classics” from that day forward.
I tried reading a couple others, similar results. Did read Huckleberry Finn but I think I was no more than 7 or 8 and barely remember any of it. I was reading 4 or 5 books a week...when I wasn’t driving everyone crazy trying to learn guitar...which I finally did...still gigging today at 60. Had to stop reading though, my eyes get so blurry after 30 minutes I can’t read a thing for several hours. It was weird not picking up a book for a few weeks...it’s bad enough staring at a computer for a while...I’m glad I don’t have to have perfect vision to play guitar...