Anna Karenina

14 April, 2002 || 8:37 pm

So we have to read a "free reading book" for english, and it must be from a list of books recommended to college students. In simpler terms - it must be a classic. What always confused me about the terms "classic" is how long does it take for a book to be a "classic"?? What makes a "classic"? Have you ever heard of an old book that is not regarded as a "classic"? Or is it just that all old books are classics? Or perhaps someone decided that any old books that were not determined to be a "classic" should be burned and discarded from all human memory.

Or maybe a classic is a book that says something different from what has been said before. For example, To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic, correct? Correct. It deals with racial prejudice, etc. So maybe that's a classic. Huh. So what about all the books that were the first to say something unusual, but were crappily written? Are they then disallowed to be called a "classic"?

Or perhaps I think too much.

So, as I was saying (before I got totally and completely on the wrong (yet surprisingly right)) topic, we had to pick a "classic" to read for english. At first I thought to myself, "You lucky devil you...Just do Alice in Wonderland. You've read it a ka-zillion times, there will be literally no thinking involved..."

Right. Until I found out what the essay was going to be on. We have to do a Critical Lens, which, if you're not from NYS and in high school, which you may or may not be, is some asshole's idea of putting hard-working students through hell. We have to support a quote based on a piece of literature we have read. And the quote just so did not apply to Alice in Wonderland.

So then I decided to reread Jane Eyre because it very easily applied to the quote. However, as luck would have it, about 5 other people (I think) are doing Jane Eyre, so, for the sake of being different, I chose to not do that book.

So then, after all that, I finally picked my book. Now, if you are farmiliar with this novel at all, you will want to smack me upside the head so hard you'll knock me back into Alice in Wonderland.

I have decided to read Anna Karenina which is, if you don't know (which you may or may not), really, really long. It is, to be presice, 239 chapters long. Or if you'd rather, 853 pages long. Of quite small type.

But it is really, really, really well written. I am on pg 128 (ch 34) and I am loving every word of it. Really. I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS BOOK.

sigh.

You can go here if you so choose to read an excerpt from this lovely novel.

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