Classic case of being put off by classics

The other day, out of sheer boredom I picked up Persuasion by Jane Austen. Being an ambitious reader following the rules laid down by previous generations of bookdevouring folks, I should have read most of the classics by now. I should have been able to pompously declare that I’m familiar with Catherine and Heathcliff, David Copperfield and Moby Dick too, but wait a minute, though I can rattle off the characters and situations and I know most of the stories, to tell you the truth, I’ve never read them completely in their unabridged form.

So here I was, on a dull and dreary day, with added ennui resulting from yet another strike called by our easily outraged Indian brethren, their sensibilities prone to getting miffed at the drop of a hat, that I decided to make right the unspoken wrong I was guilty of all these years and read through Persuasion, in its unedited form. During the course of four hours, I visited the early Victorian times, learned about the penchant of the titled and well-bred for hunting with foxes and hounds, taking tea at all hours, their obsession with arranged marriages, their countryside abounding with fortune hunters and of course the extremely feudal setup where breeding plays a huge role in allowing entry to aristocratic circles.

Now will it be a sacrilege if I am absolutely honest?

I’m certain no bandh call is going to be announced if I admit that I wasn’t too taken in by this novel and the rest of its ilk. It was a sweet story surely, with some suspense and humour thrown in but somehow the stiff prose and slow pace is daunting.

I read Tom Sawyer in its original format and almost started tripping on my own English! Just what was going on? The entire book has conversations and dialogue where almost every word is hyphenated, unpronounceable and incomprehensible. At one point, my husband walked in, astonished to hear me reading the sentences aloud so as to decipher the meaning. In fact, I had a sudden urge to search out for my grandfather’s mofussil dictionary. I doubt reading it is going to improve anyone’s knowledge of the English language. It can surely put them off reading forever if you ask me! It made me hastily tuck away Huckleberry Finn in an unreachable nook of my library.

So when people declare grandly that they love the classics, I look at them in askance, guessing that either they have done their masters in English literature and have had to painfully read those books as a part of the syllabi or it’s a chance that they are attempting to impress their audience.

I can usually read just about anything written between the pages of a book but somehow these old classics have been unable to hold my attention and I end up abandoning them midway, always.

Do I hear angry shouts outside my door or receive hate mail now, remains to be seen!

WHEN PEOPLE DECLARE GRANDLY THAT THEY LOVE THE CLASSICS, I LOOK AT THEM IN ASKANCE, GUESSING EITHER THEY’VE DONE MASTERS IN ENGLISH OR ARE TRYING TO IMPRESS OTHERS