Classic books that I haven’t read and the only guilt I feel is that I don’t feel more guilty about not having read them (although life is long so who knows):
- War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy: It’s 1,400 pages long. I would need to take a sabbatical from work to finish it in a reasonable amount of time.
- Moby-Dick or, The Whale
by Herman Melville: It’s only 720 pages but I already know what it’s about so what’s the point.
- In Search of Lost Time
by Marcel Proust: It’s 7 volumes, 7 volumes! of a Frenchman’s musings on the nature of art.
- Beowulf
: I deliberately was an English minor instead of an English major so I wouldn’t have to take the Beowulf to Chaucer class. Although maybe I should give it another try — and imagine Ray Winstone
as the hero.
- Crime and Punishment
: Do I want to read 700 pages of a relentlessly bleak Russian novel. Eh, not so much.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Melissa // Jul 16, 2008 at 7:50 am
I read Crime and Punishment - it wasn’t so bad.
2 urbanmenno // Jul 16, 2008 at 8:15 am
Hmm … maybe I’ll have to give it another try. I think it’s all those Russian names that can get me down.
3 Equa Yona // Jul 17, 2008 at 3:39 pm
May I say that you are selling these books WAAAAYYY short, even if the page numbers aren’t(maybe not Proust, never read it). I read War and Peace in about a week, and I’m a slow reader. I started Crime and Punshment about three times and put it down because the writing was so intense. I read Moby Dick for a class and was surprisingly entertained, and I even saw the movie so I knew the ending! Beowulf is a great story and some cool poetry, but be sure to read Grendel by John Gardner if you don’t do the original. It is narrated by Grendel and it is GREAT.
Hell, these are really terrific books and I am not a literary snob.
4 urbanmenno // Jul 24, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Oh, I think these probably are terrific books … and I’ve read other books by the same authors and loved them. I think for some reason I picked these up at the wrong time and just couldn’t do it. I can’t tell you how often I’ve read the first chapter of War and Peace and then just stop. Couldn’t get into them, couldn’t keep going, couldn’t even get up the energy to open them.
For some reason, these are the 5 that I just can’t hurdle.
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