The Journey Begins

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Is that how it goes? Or was it, “It was the best and the worst of times.” I can’t remember. Where is that even from? A Tale of Two Cities? Couldn’t even tell you who wrote that, let alone what “times” he is talking about. Is this a problem? I hope by the end of the page I can answer that question for you and for myself as well.

As a kid, I loved to read. Most children despise the act, but I found nothing more satisfying than seeing the stack of small chapter books get bigger and bigger as I finished one after the other. As far as I can remember, my first love was Mary Pope Osborn’s “Magic Tree House” books. One Christmas, for some very strange unknown, I was given a flashlight that wraps around your head to explore caves and whatnot; well, seven year old me used that every night to follow Jack and Annie as they explored their own adventures. This passion continued as I jumped and “matured” into Calvin and Hobbes comics, Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, the Hunger Games, and Alex Rider kid spy. All of a sudden, as I neared 8th grade graduation, I discovered that reading was no longer cool. The same kids I used to compete with over the speed of finishing a new book simply stopped. It didn’t take too much time after for that passion to die out in me as well.

In high school, I discovered SparkNotes and “dude there’s another site called “Shmoop” that’s way better.” Slowly, the mentality of reading to pass a weekly quiz was instilled in me. I tried reading “For Whom the Bell Tolls” I promise! But Ernest Hemingway? Really? There was no demi-god hero; Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth certainly were not being casted for Maria and Robert Jordan. So there began a pattern repeated for three years as I tried reading curriculum based books. From Freshman year to Junior year, I did not pick up a personal book to read– me, the kid who couldn’t put a book down now had no desire to pick a new one up.

That core curriculum consisted of the classics with the likes of Mark Twain, Mary Shelley, Harper Lee, and don’t even get me started on John Steinbeck and Joseph Conrad. At one point I made a video of “advice for juniors next year” which included me denouncing “Heart of Darkness” wishing to not have even attempted reading the book. So where does this affiliation with classic American and British literature and students’ hatred stem from? Are the “classics” simply not good? If these books turned someone like me off reading, what could they do to someone else that never gave reading a try in the first place? Is that person doomed to never flip another page outside of a classroom? Furthermore, why are 14 year old teenagers the ones who read these classics, or is this the only way to preserve this hallowed collection of literature?

Years later, I am yet to meet someone who has read any classic novel or has gone to a bookstore to purchase one for the purpose of personal reading. Why is this? They have to be classics for a reason, right? Someone at some time must have thought them worthwhile.

In the spirit of my childhood self, I have now recently began picking up personal books to fill my free time. No, these aren’t filled with the same pictures in between every page from my youth, although Kurt Vonnegut isn’t the worst illustrator. This time around, I have set out to discover what is so important about classic books and why we should or should not simply forget them and move on. This past Christmas I was gifted an intimidating stack of what Barnes and Nobles considers “Classic books you need to read before you die.” Somewhat of an equally intimidating statement.

I hope to discover whether they truly are worth reading; whether or not it is important to know that it was the best of times, it was the worst of times for Charles Dickens during the French Civil War. I hope to provide whoever reads this column, blog, whatever you wish to call it, with my insight on the classics that I set out to conquer and whether or not you should read them as well.