continuing my literary education
Well, at least I haven't been idle in my randomness -- not that there's anything wrong with idleness!! There's loads of creativity fermenting in idleness.
Carrying on with my plan to erase my literary ignorance one book at a time, reading the classics that get referred to here and there while I just think "huh?" ... I finished The Scarlet Letter this week. It seems that Americans read this book during the course of their high school studies, but it wasn't on our Canadian curriculum, and I've always wondered about it.
And thus completes my trifecta of desperate adulterous heroines (along with Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina) who made the old-world, culture-compelled bad choices of mainly much older, ultra-conservative, and/or just plain boring husbands, and consequently either had to kill themselves or have their souls erased by society. Hester Prynne, a nonentity in too many ways for all her youth, following one burst of passion, gets to become a wise old crone for the rest of her lonely life.
Did I say "old-world, culture-compelled"? As if we have different options in our modern world. Sure we have options. So I wonder why so many of us still end up choosing the one that Anna, Emma and Hester did?
posted by squarepeg @ 10:42 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I have no excuse for not reading Madame Bovary except I've heard it's depressing but one American book I really liked (besides Hemingway ones) was 'My Antonia' by Willa Cather. It's a tragic, lovely, intimate adventure about a little girl growing up in the prairies. Check it out after you're done the hundreds of others.
I have to say, some of the best literature is indeed depressing. But that's fair, considering that much of life is, in reality, depressing. And what makes it great is how it rings so deeply true ... but of course, that would depend on the theme of the story being somehow meaningful to you, and very possibly Bovary would not be your cup of tea.
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