Rebellion is a poor excuse to deny oneself pleasure but that’s the only thing I can come up with when I look at the list of books I ought to have read but haven’t.
I should explain that my mother is a lady with definite literary tastes that she has sought to pass on to me for as long as I can remember. Part of her determination, I suspect, stems from the fact that it has been years since my brother so much as looked at a book and, even if he did, he’d read something she’d automatically classify as degenerate. I, on the other hand, read pretty much everything that comes my way, including flyers and restaurant menus. It’s a disease.
Ma got her first good shot at me when I was eight and bedridden – I couldn’t so much as make it to the bathroom without help so visits to the bookstore were out of the question. I still scribbled the names of the books I wanted to read (I was then in my Nancy Drew phase) which my mother took without comment and then completely ignored. Instead, she bought me what she thought I should be reading – The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Count of Monte Cristo (both unabridged), six of Shakespeare’s major plays (abridged) and, by way of light relief, The School at the Chalet.
I was furious. I was in a mood to begin the Supermysteries starring Nancy and the Hardy Boys. Thanks to the power of the blurb, I was convinced these were going to be the best adventure mysteries ever known to mankind, and here was my mother forcing fuddy-duddy literature down my throat in direct opposition to my stated wishes. I threw a tantrum – and Ma coolly closed the door behind her.
After I’d cheered up by imagining the shock and everlasting grief she would suffer when she came back and found me dead of whatever life-threatening disease that stalks ignored children, I defiantly picked up a Nancy Drew I’d read a dozen times already. This was India before the advent of cable television and in any case, my parents to this date don’t believe in spoiling their children with TVs in their bedrooms, so it was read or be bored. I was bored. Giving in to the inevitable, I chose The Count of Monte Cristo (it was lying closest to hand) to prove to myself that my mother knew nothing whatsoever about books. And I fell in love.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net , which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States, and to Boston.com. Nice work!
2 - dyrkness
To read in a couple of years:"Remembrance of Things Past" by Marcel Proust- Just to brag that you've done it.
"Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole- If you want a huge laugh.
"Jude the Obscure"by Thomas Hardy- If you like Hardy.
Buy a copy of "Being and Nothingness" by Jean Paul Sartre-You'll never read it ,but your mother WILL be impressed.
3 - Rodney Welch
John Ford did not direct The Old Man and the Sea. It was directed by John Sturges, with an uncredited assist from Fred Zinnemann and Henry King.
4 - Amrita
Natalie - really? Thank you!
Thanks for the suggestions, Dyrkness, I've read two of those: Confederacy of the Dunces and Jude the Obscure. the Proust and the Sartre I will buy and put on my bookshelf for my mother to view. They can join Simone de Beauvoir, another one of Ma's favorites.
Rodney - so he did, thanks for pointing it out. Now you know just how much attention I was paying to it :)
5 - Katie McNeill
'Far From the Madding Crowd' isn't bad. It is a little hard to read because Hardy is very wordy, not Jane Austen wordy, something WAY past that. But worth the read, it's a good book.
6 - Dawn
What a great post. Despite our separation by many an ocean, your childhood experience closely matched my own.
It's a good thing you didn't go to school in states, Old Man And The Sea was required reading. Nancy Drew though, I read them all!
7 - Amrita
Katie - I think I'd like Far from the Madding Crowd. Its just that I can't make myself take that final plunge. I don't have a problem with the prose. Just the image :)
Dawn - thanks! I guess I'd have flunked it then :) You just hit upon why I love fiction in all its forms - coz a story is never completely culture specific. You can always relate.