Originally Posted by
mortalterror
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate,
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town;
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Well I did. Huckleberry Finn and Alice in Wonderland are still two of my favorite books.
I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn four times when I was a child. I enjoyed it thoroughly each time. However, it wasn't until I read it again as an adult that I realized it was supposed to be funny. I got a couple of pages in and I was laughing so hard I fell down pounding the ground with my fists, holding my sides, and crying. Those parts where Huck Finn says he'd rather go to hell than heaven, or where Jim embellishes on his lie, or the parodies of women's romance are beautiful examples of comedy.
I know you think the books are worthwhile entertainment, and as entertainment I have nothing against them. What bothers me is when teachers use them in the classroom. Quintilian was of the opinion that children should read morally instructive books when learning their grammar and practicing their reading skills. In that way they learn two valuable things at once. If our youths are not to read The Wind in the Willows, Little Women, Aesop's Fables, Tarzan of the Apes, The Jungle Book, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Treasure Island, etc, I'd rather they read History books, The Bible, or something useful to their minds in the formative years of their lives.
I think that every book is a children's book if the child knows how to read. Children crave structure, mythologies, and a coherent world philosophy in order to form a cultural identity. If we do not give it to them, they will construct one for themselves out of whatever pop culture symbols are around them. They crave art and we pawn them off with comic books and cartoons. They want music and we give them Britney Spears. We get the society we deserve.
I read both sci fi/fantasy and classics, but The Song of Ice and Fire, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and World War Z have really cut into my Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, and Tacitus this year. There's only so many hours in the day.
My mother reads between 1 and 3 books a day. She's read every crummy harlequin romance and vampire mystery novel in the world. I'm always telling her, "If I could read as fast as you, I'd put it to some use." But I read so slow that every single one has to count, or I'll die without knowing anything.
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
Books: the other gateway drug. Like yourself, I began reading with genre fiction. I seem to recall JBI having a similar story with a revelation about Eugene Onegin when he was 16 or so.