Answer for question 4460.

[jackwabbit]

[Error: unknown template qotd]I tried to read Gone With the Wind. I couldn't do it. I got, oh, I don't know, a hundred pages in? I kept waiting for it to get good. It didn't. I was big into the Civil War for a while, but... nope.

The only book in school that I was supposed to read that I didn't was Jane Eyre. I think I read, maybe five pages. As soon as it was clear to me that this was more Bronte (I did struggle through Wuthering Heights, probably the most boring book I've ever read - it was like chewing sandpaper bad), I got the Cliff Notes and faked my way through assignments on that one. Got perfectly good marks, but damn. No Bronte.

Sometimes I think I should go back and try Jane Eyre again, because supposedly it's good? But no. Wuthering Heights was so bad that I just can't.

Comments

[lolmac]

Jane Eyre is a great book if you like 19th century prose. It's a major landmark work, if you're interested in tracing the ancestry of the novel as a storytelling format.

If neither of these is a true source of squee for you, don't bother. It would be like watching the Indy 500 when you have no interest in cars, speed, racing, endurance, or oval shapes: pointless, lengthy and miserable.

[jackwabbit.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I'll give it a miss. ;)

[archersangel.livejournal.com]

i used to plow though books just to finish them. sometimes i even skipped/skimmed pages to get to the end to see how it ended. but i've been quitting more books lately. it might be because i joined booksfree.com (like netflix for books) & just want to get done as fast as possible & get the next shipment.

[shadow2serenity.livejournal.com]

Don't waste your time on Jane Eyre-head - I have a hunch that it's part of the reason I became so slow on the uptake in my early 20's, because so many perfectly good brain cells had been burnt to oblivion by books like that one. :P

[jackwabbit.livejournal.com]

I don't really plan on it. :)

[lemonpiefirefly.livejournal.com]

I gave it a miss and it was part of my year's Academic ... Um, Decathlon? Octathlon? One of those. Anyway, the 'Notes did me fine that year. I was mostly on the Team to rock the Science anyway ;)
I was fairly dutiful when it came to books I was supposed to read for school or, in that case, school-adjacent, but I honestly rarely enjoyed them. That era, yes same deal for me- had to get through Wuthering first and disliked it so much I Just Couldn't with JE.
The only book that I recall reading in gradeschool that just lit (no pun intended) my ass on fire was The Count of Monte Cristo. I wasn't far in when I decided I needed to go back to the bookstore and read the Unabridged. And I do not know which of us reads more slowly; I know you have said you do so, but I also read very, very slowly, but I wanted to PILE ON THE PAGES on that book.
I think the main reason I read slowly is that I read out loud in my head. I basically read at regular talking speed, I think. Tangentially, I find it is a real fucking bear while trying to learn Irish (I *know* - no reason in the world to, except that I have wanted to for a couple decades) - but so far the sentence structure is weird and idiomatic, so direct translation is really not helpful, and there are minimally 3 conflicting accepted pronunciations for every word out there (and Jaysus in such a tiny country COMEON) and to read the comments the Duolingo chick uses none of them. Too Many Silent Vowels AUGHGU!!!!

[jackwabbit.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed lots of books in school, but not those ones.