An irreverent guide to the classics, from Homer to Faulkner - e-book
Read from 10th to 27th of
September 2019
My rating:
My, my, this Sandra Newman, what a cheeky, irreverent
hussy, to pleonastically put it! Daring to desecrate the Cathedral of
Literature by entering it with an impertinent whistle only to deliver her Western
Lit Survival Kit with no respect whatsoever for the holy names inside. How
all its saints must have shuddered, including the Shakespeare God. Obviously,
nothing is sacred anymore. Think of all those authors you have always tiptoed
around, whose oeuvres you did not run the risk to open out of awe and/ or fear
of not being the ideal reader they expected you to be, becoming the
laughingstock of this brazen, sparkling American who sanctions mercilessly all
books that don’t provide enough fun in reading.
Moreover, forcing me to take a walk down memory lane,
to remember myself from the age of seven, from that moment when I took a book
in my hand and discovered I could read in my mind, since then not to let one
single day pass without reading at least ten pages, but usually much, much more.
Why? Obviously, because I was having fun. When has this changed? I suppose when
I decided to build a career on them books, by studying Letters. In a moment, to
read what I liked irreversibly changed into reading what I had to. This habit is so ingrained now, that when I like a book
too much, I look at it suspiciously, subconsciously considering its
accessibility a fault. It took Sandra Newman’s essay to figure out that I am nothing
more than a literary snob. And to finally admit that, yes, people, reading should be having fun. Even if it is
about masterpieces, especially if it is about masterpieces. And this essay is a
funny, although never superficial guide into oeuvres so great everybody knows about,
but nobody reads anymore because they are not credited with fun. And many of
them have it in loads. If you know where to look, that is.
