When you weren't ready to read it...

tomwhite56 · Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:12 pm

I remember when I was still young picking up both "The Fountainhead" and "Ulysses" and, reading the first couple of paragraphs, had the feeling that these were books I was destined to read, although I didn't pursue them then because, I think, I knew they were over my head. There have been a number of times over the years when I started to read a book, got bored with it or just couldn't get into it and then, years later, it was a revelation to me -- it was like I had never read any of it before. In the case of the book I'm reading now, it was certainly a combination of youth (although I was really persistent) and the translation. In other cases, I know it was just me. I was wondering if anyone else had similar experiences and what they were.

bleachededen · Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:23 pm

I definitely understand what you mean, and have had some similar experiences. I tried to read The Picture of Dorian Gray in high school and just couldn't make it through Wilde's witty and seemingly cryptic writing, but when I read it for a British Literature class my third year of college, it made perfect sense and I actually liked it far more than I think I could have as a teenager. The same goes for MacBeth. I read it far too quickly as a senior in high school, and as I learned much later, Shakespeare is much better heard than read, and after watching the modern adaptation Scotland, PA, I found a new depth in MacBeth that I hadn't found in it before.

I also know that I am destined to one day finish reading Les Miserables, but even as of this year, the time has not yet come. I first tried when I was 12 (ambitious little nit, wasn't I? :-P

) but Hugo was far too verbose for me. I still think his writing is too verbose, but I can at least understand it more than I could when I was 12, but I still have yet to find the hook factor that has driven me through all of my other favorite novels.

tomwhite56 · Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:30 pm


	bleachededen wrote: The same goes for MacBeth. I read it far too quickly as a senior in high school, and as I learned much later, Shakespeare is much better heard than read, and after watching the modern adaptation Scotland, PA, I found a new depth in MacBeth that I hadn't found in it before. I also know that I am destined to one day finish reading Les Miserables, but even as of this year, the time has not yet come. I first tried when I was 12 (ambitious little nit, wasn't I? ) but Hugo was far too verbose for me. I still think his writing is too verbose, but I can at least understand it more than I could when I was 12, but I still have yet to find the hook factor that has driven me through all of my other favorite novels.

Scotland, PA, eh? Thanks a lot. Something else to add to my constantly growing Netflix queue.

What translation of Les Miserables? I liked the Julie Rose translation best, read it last year. It's not easy to settle into Hugo, but the whole thing is worth it in the long run.

bleachededen · Tue Mar 09, 2010 12:14 am


	tomwhite56 wrote: Scotland, PA, eh? Thanks a lot. Something else to add to my constantly growing Netflix queue. What translation of Les Miserables? I liked the Julie Rose translation best, read it last year. It's not easy to settle into Hugo, but the whole thing is worth it in the long run.

My Netflix queue is huge, too, something like 400+ movies/TV series. At one point I had so many I wasn't allowed to add anymore. 500 seems like a decent cut-off point until you realize there are over 500 films you want to watch someday.

I'm not sure of the translation at the moment. I'm also not sure if it helps or hurts that I know the musical adaptation inside and out, which is what prompted me to want to read it so badly when I was so young. I know there will be differences I'm just not sure how big those differences will be. I swear I will get to it one day, or else my last thoughts on my deathbed will be "damn it, I never finished Les Miserables." :-P

hmrush · Tue Mar 09, 2010 11:19 am

The first time I tried The Fountainhead I got about 70 pages in and gave up, my father (English Professor) has always told me that you have to give a book at least 70 pages before giving up on it. I picked the book back up nearly a year later and now I read it twice a year! I had similar experiences with some Russian Lit as well, and even now if I pick up a book I haven't read in quite some time I will often get an entirely different experience out of it just because of how much my views and life have changed. I think re-reading books is great, and when you aren't ready to read a book you shouldn't as long as it doesn't discourage you from reading it later. I wasn't ready for Dickens the first time I tried, or Tolstoy, etc. Now I love them all for different reasons. I used to be embarrassed because I thought I couldn't finish a book unless I put it down for a month or more. Now, I think of it as letting my brain process the information or as a good reason to mature a little more.

You are not alone! haha

nova · Tue Mar 09, 2010 12:05 pm

Yes. I am old now and I still am not ready for the Russians. I want to be. I try. It just does not work out well. Except for the Gulag and Red Wheel series. Some of the 1940's era Russian writers are a lot better -- yet still difficult.

Then again I am finally figuring out what they were singing about in songs I have been listening to for 35 years.

hmrush · Tue Mar 09, 2010 12:17 pm

I think it has a lot to do with the translation and having a love for history, although they are a bit wordy and Tolstoy and Doestevsky both have a tendency to derail people with the political babble. I'd say give Anna Karenina a try or look into Nemirovskys work, she wrote beautifully. The Fire in the Blood is my favorite!

rainbells · Tue Mar 09, 2010 6:00 pm

Then again I am finally figuring out what they were singing about in songs I have been listening to for 35 years.[/quote]

lol, then can you tell me what that line from "You're So Vain" that goes, "I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee" means? I have been wondering about that since 1973.

bleachededen · Tue Mar 09, 2010 9:04 pm


	rainbells wrote: lol, then can you tell me what that line from "You're So Vain" that goes, "I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee" means? I have been wondering about that since 1973.

That's all I can say, really. Just laughter.

Sometimes there are no explanation for song lyrics...at least, not for the mass listeners. I'm sure Carly Simon knew what it meant. But then again, maybe not...

caseyjo · Tue Mar 09, 2010 10:35 pm

I've definitely read some books when I wasn't ready to read them. Problem was, I didn't put them down. I read "The Mists of Avalon" in elementary school, and didn't realize how much I hadn't picked up on until I re-read it in college. I think I would appreciate "Crime and Punishment" a lot more now, same with "The Jungle." I absolutely hated both of those books when I read them in high school.

wilde · Tue Mar 09, 2010 10:54 pm

My aunt gave me a box of books when I was 11, and I remember I didn't keep any of them, except for "The Grapes of Wrath." I started reading it right away, but I thought it was boring. I read it again last year for a class and now it's one of my favorite books.

bleachededen · Wed Mar 10, 2010 12:39 am

I could never really get into Steinbeck, and although my tastes have matured somewhat, I still don't think I'd be able to handle his style. It's too dry for me, bores me to tears. The dictionary is more interesting, in my opinion. I appreciate that other people love his work, but I just can't do it.

rainbells · Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:41 am

For me, it was Little Women. My mother gave me her copy when I was about nine or ten, and I don't think I understood that the girls lived in a different time in history than I did. I made it to about page fifteen, then gave up in confusion. When I was about twelve or thirteen, and had studied the Civil War a little in school, I picked it up again, and loved it. I went on to Little Men, and liked that one just as much.

rainbells · Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:45 am

Now that I am thinking about it, The Diary of Anne Frank was the same for me. Age 10 I tried it out, and was clueless about what was happening. Once I studied WWII, in high school, I tried it again, and it broke my heart.

hmrush · Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:28 am

I agree with the Steinbeck comment, not the boring part because I really appreciate him as an author (sort of like Dickens, not my thing, but I understand that his writing is unique) I was definitely not ready for Grapes of Wrath the first time I tried it, but now have come to really like the book.

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