Monday, August 01, 2005

Adulterous Russian snakes!

coworker C: I need a book to read. A classic.
me: Well, i'm reading Anna Karenina ...
C: Is that about snakes?
me: *howling with laughter*
C: It's not like Sense and Sensibility right? I hate that shit ...
me: *still laughing*
C: *protesting* Well, maybe you have a funny accent and it sounded like "anacondra!"

Speaking of which, I am enjoying the book, which is not at all like Sense and Sensibility. Some mental block keeps me from "classics," generally. At least the Russian ones. I assume that the hordes of people over the centuries who have enjoyed these books have been masochists; that the people who labeled them "classics" in the first place were stern, humorless English professors who read everything, even magazines, with pens in hand.

Or quills.

But see, then I start reading one, like Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, and LOVE it. Read passages aloud to friends. Laugh when remembering bits and pieces. Then, when the next stout little paperback with the familiar name rolls around, I regard it with distrust all over again. Someday, perhaps a year from now!, I'll learn.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

....when you hae finished with "Anna", may I suggest "Me and Orson Welles"? I think you will enjoy the subject matter,,.it"s fun...written by Robert Kaplow..surely you remember him form NPR...look forward to your next one.....A..

Drew said...

I DARE you to watch the movie Tom Jones though. It has to be the worst Best Picture winner of all time...

Rebecca said...

yo, moby dick rocks my classics-fearing world. you probly read it in high school like everyone else, or with the cool kids in melville&pynchon, but still it's fab.

edinburgh is too.

Anonymous said...

I just finished "Anna" last weekend and was also more than appropriately pleased with my progress in the Russian classics department (she's my first). Sometimes Tolstoy is all melodrama, but sometimes he's really right in a way that just makes you feel shameful for ever doubting him.