My love of words notwithstanding, I am shamefully not very well read.
I read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings at a very young age, about 12 or 13, I believe. I have read LOTR several times since then. I have read the Harry Potter series. I have read several of the typical high school titles, and some others sprinkled in besides. If I were ever to call myself "well read" it would be in the genre of true crime. A guilty pleasure? Perhaps. But I've read the shit outta some true crime novels. Pick a serial killer. I know his parents' names. I shit you not. I've read a bit of Stephen King. And many, many nonfiction books about people who find themselves in impossible situations, i.e. Alive, 127 minutes, nonfictions by people who escaped North Korea, etc. But "the classics?" Not so much.
Maybe it was my busy-ness with motherhood or wifelyhood. Maybe it is due to the fact that when I start reading, everything else in my life suffers for it. Maybe it's due to the fact that "the classics" never caught my interest.
Well. Jake and I are about to remedy that.
We are now delving into the mysterious world of "100 books to read before you die" subjectivity. It seems everyone has different opinions on these. So, we are creating our own.
And we begin with Animal Farm. Sigh.... I know, I know. Don't say it. I've read most of the other standards. Lord of the Flies. 1984. Fahrenheit 451. To Kill A Mockingbird. But never got around to Animal Farm.
I'd love it if Andrew wanted to ride our train, but I know this isn't his gig, so I'm not going to push.
Is it a lonely old lady book club? Who cares! I am on a path, better late than never, to Renaissance womanhood. To know that which I live. To live that which I believe. To believe that which is the truth. Dude. I totally just made that up. I don't even know what it means.
Secondly.
Jake and I are doing NaNoWriMo this year. I signed up last year. And then.
So anyway. 50,000 words in 30 days. 1666 words a day. Needless to say, outlines and character sketches are totally trending around these parts. My current novel will be set aside for 30 days of raunchy, unadulterated, raw, wild, unedited word porn. And not Fifty Shades of Grey word porn. I mean word porn like... you know... as a metaphor. For.... you know.... getting off on writing a lot.
So anyway.
Here is a songaphor for the direction my sanity will take over the next 3 or 4 months.....
great song....i assumed you were a voracious reader because of your brilliance with words and structure.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I have a huge problem with the whole well read means you have to have read "the classics." I think it's BS.
ReplyDeleteI think it's cool that you guys are embarking on this quest, but here's the way I see it. Yes, there are certain writers who made significant contributions to the world of literature with their style or the subject or whatever. But I don't think you need to read their books in their entirety to see that. Examples for me include Dickens and Shakespeare. I find reading Dickens absolutely painful. And I think Shakespeare is overrated. Do I get their roles in the canon? Yes. Do I want to read everything they wrote? No.
Well-read, to me, means sort of the same thing as well-rounded... having some experience in a variety of things. I never read The DaVinci Code. I never read LOTR. But I've probably read thousands and thousands of books spanning a multitude of subjects. Does hating Dickens, Shakespeare and 18th Century British literature AS A WHOLE make me not well-read?
Anyway. Again. I think it's cool that you guys are doing it together. That sounds fun and awesome. :-)
Boy you really picked my ass with this one. In a good way :) I believe that a writer ought to know what went on before them, if for no other reason, then to save yourself from producing another Paradise Lost just to find out that it's already been published :P
ReplyDelete*comp lit prof hat on*
Anything by E.A. Poe, but most notably short stories.
Dostoevsky for a touch of psychology of madness.
The Iliad, just for the fun a blind old geezer had describing slit knees and chopped off necks in hexameter. Skip the Odyssey, it was boring.
Vonnegut, because he formulates complex ideas in deceptively easy language.
Proust for lyrical, Mann for sturdy ripe modernist prose.
Sophocles for strong female characters.
Want me to keep going?