Stubbornness and Prejudice

Here, dear readers, (as Charlotte Brontë would write) are two stories. One is about stubbornness; the other about prejudice. My stubbornness is really pride, as stubbornness is, except when it is perseverance, which is different, truly, but I felt that it would be too misleading to entitle a post after a famous book and then not review it even though this is a book blog and therefore open to book spoofs.

I was thirteen years old and reading Anna Karenina. I have not read the noble work since although I intend to, after I read Les Miserables, which is featured in the second half of this post. It was not assigned for school. I have a little booklet filled with good books that are not offensive to readers of delicate moral tastes, (but are not Elsie Dinsmore types) and I was working my way through the 13-17 year old category. There is a very large difference between 13 and 17 with reading with some books and very small with others. For instance, The Great Escape is quite palatable for 13 year olds, Anna Karenina is a book I would hesitate to recommend to adults. WELL, I read it all. No one in my family thought I could do it although my parents refrained from explicitly saying so. There were parts when I was mightily bored or lost, but also parts I enjoyed greatly. The end puzzled me. I was 13.

This anecdote is to show I am not a fluff lit sort although I do read some fluff. I also read The House of 7 Gables around that time. However, I must admit that only this week I finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I enjoyed it and even discovered, unaided, some interesting literary devices. But, you see, I had a prejudice against it. I have been convinced for years that all Americans should read before age 20 the noble work. I have somewhat high expectations of youth, I admit, but schools should in the course of 12 grades have assigned it sometime. Shakespeare, on the other hand, is so much pearls before swine until at least grade 11. That’s another story.

Yes, I had a prejudice against it. I cannot explain why. I read at one time a few pages and I couldn’t stand the dialect and grammar, which I found amusing this time round. I may have been 10 or so, give maybe 2 years. I did not try it again until this summer. What would Mr. Clemens say about that? He would probably see the irony that I had a prejudice against a book about prejudice!

Now for the Les Miserables part. I have a prejudice against it. I do not believe it wholly rests in it being thick. I’ve read Northwest Passage (upward of 800 pages,) Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, House of 7 Gables, and I don’t know what all else that was of comparable length. I just don’t think I’ll like it and I DON’T KNOW WHY. I just don’t. However, a dear and estimable friend FB’ed recently that she is enjoying it greatly, so have once more resolved to read it. So what is my problem with it? Has anyone else felt similarly about a book? And please, some encouragement about Victor Hugo! The argument of his “enduring work” will not suffice. Gulliver’s Travels has endured all too well, and I HATED IT. Please, please, tantalize me into reading Hugo.