Before this year, getting a tooth pulled seemed more enjoyable than reading a classic. As a high school student, my English classes exposed me to so many different genres and time periods of classics, a few of which I enjoyed, but the majority going completely over my head. I felt drowned in the prose, the wordy and unexplained phrases puzzling and discouraging me. Even so, I began a small collection of classics from authors like Jane Austen and George Orwell, telling myself with mantra-like dedication, “I will read this some day!”
That day never came. The classics section of my shelf must be adorned with a layer of dust by now due to its neglect of my attention. The concept of reading classics has always appealed to me, but actually dedicating an extra few days to a book in order to comprehend its more complicated prose is what always drove me away. I loved romanticizing the notion of readingGreat Expectations while sitting by a fireplace in fuzzy socks with a mug of tea, but the reality was that I could barely get a page into rereading A Tale of Two Cities before I grew bored and exhausted. This was also the case for every single other classic on my shelf.
Since then, I’ve grown to appreciate the oldies. Although they do take more of my time, I like the difference of style between our postmodern books and ones written centuries ago. It’s exciting to me to read works from Shakespeare and still feel moved by a character that other readers from several centuries have also adored. College classes have helped me appreciate classics beyond their pretty writing or witty main character. I guess after so many essays analyzing the themes of certain works, I have grown to love uncovering the hidden messages of classics.
However, my current fear about reading classics outside of class is just that: the absence of a teacher or professor. S/he would typically provide me with essential details about the time period and author’s motivation in writing the book, details that I would later find impertinent to understanding the work completely. Sometimes a reader is lucky to have a foreword that prescribes these things, but the majority of the time, I am thrust into a world that I may only half-comprehend due to an ill-preparedness in acquainting myself with the storyline or author’s background. Even reading books like Persuasion and Frankenstein for my British Literature class, I often caught myself thinking, “Wow, I really wouldn’t have gotten the point of that if my professor hadn’t mentioned it!”
The solution seems obvious: just put in a little extra research before you crack that spine. The problem is, I have a severe fear of Googling a book before I read it, sprung from the Internet’s tendency to post spoilers in the same section that you learn about certain characters or themes. How am I supposed to get through the first page of Hamlet SparkNotes when I am immediately informed of the king dying? If I see a plot summary anywhere on the Internet of a book that I’m interested in reading, I automatically run.
My most recent example would be when I read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath at the beginning of April, 2016. This was the first classic that I picked up and read completely on my own with no outside motivation other than having picked it out of my TBR (to-be-read) jar. And I enjoyed it. I thought the writing was pretty, I liked Esther’s inner monologue about feeling estranged from other college students, and it had a spectacular commentary on society and feminism. However, I felt as if I only half-read this book. I felt as if I only understood it at the surface level, and I could have deciphered a much more groundbreaking theme than the ones that I guessed at.
As soon as I finished the book, I felt confused. Confused about what had just happened, how we got there, and why it ended the way that it did. What is the significance of Esther’s actions? What impact did this book have on the generation that it was published? Most importantly, how much important, underlying information did I miss because I had no professor teaching me it?
My experience with The Bell Jar is one that haunts me and distracts me from reading classics in the future. Although I feel inspired to pick more classics up, since I often have enough time and patience to deal with them now that I’m in college, it’s my fear of only half-comprehending the text that holds me back. What classic will I despise because I missed one of its most fundamental themes? Can I now only enjoy classics if I am given them to read for a class? Furthermore, are selections like short stories and poems only enjoyable to me when they are read out loud with a commentary on its meaning?
If I wasn’t told about the allegory beforehand, I would have assumed Animal Farm was just a children’s book about some rowdy pigs.
