So, I finished this book last night at the Ezras. It was crappin’ good. That’s right. That’s a serious amount of good. As is typical of me and a large percentage of books I read, I cried at the end.
Ezras dad loves that I read so much and is always asking me questions about my reading. Last night he asked me what my favorite book was and what was my favorite book that starts with the letter A and what books I’ve read that I don’t like. And then he hit me with “what is your favorite orange book?” A tricksy question that I still haven’t answered. He was also mentioning some classics that I haven’t read. A Tale of Two Cities. Crime and Punishment. The thing with the classics is that I had a bad experience with a classic in college and since then have been a little hesitant to read anything with that title.
The Scarlet Letter is what put me into this anti-classic frame of mind. Junior year of high school we had an english teacher, Mrs. Robbins, who talked non-stop about the glory that is the Scarlet Letter. She raved about the symbolism and the plot and the wonders of this fantastic piece of literature. Strangely, while she talked about it all of the time, she never made us read it. This should have been my first clue. Alas, I went ahead and read it in college and hated it. Are we kidding? Is the “shocking” discovery really supposed to have shocked us? How stupid did Nathaniel Hawthorne think people were? And how much detail does one possibly need about bushes and trees? NOT SO MUCH, NATHANIEL! So, I was bored and not shocked and pissed I took the time to read it. So, after the Scarlet Letter debacle, I have avoided all classics.
The point of this story is to tell you that I’ve decided to take on Crime and Punishment. I started it last night and am pretty excited. It’s interesting in the first 11pages which is as far as I got before Ezra woke up. I would like to say that I probably won’t be reading this at my normal pace. I am going to take my time and try to enjoy it and not make it a daunting task that needs to be done quickly. I’ll let you know how it works out.
