There’s just no accounting for taste.
Early on in my relationship with My Better-half, we had our first fight over whether one needed to read the classics. It was a doozy.
We were attending a reading of a popular author that she liked.
“I used to be you,” the author said to an English major in the audience. “I tried to read all of the classics. It was hard. And boring.”
She paused. “Kids, you don’t have to read Anna Karenina. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”
That was the beginning of the first fight between myself and My Better-half. Some people argue about where to have dinner, leaving the toilet seat up, and whose turn it is to do the dishes. We argued over Anna Karenina all the way home.
I love Anna Karenina. And I hated that the author–in a position to influence new readers–was dismissing the need to grapple with and come to know great fiction, even if the writing is archaic by today’s standards. On the other hand, My Better-half was relieved that someone was willing to give readers license to not read the classics.
Needless to say, we’re still friends (My Better-half and I, that is). And I still love Anna Karenina.
Of course, I’m not such a fan of Jane Austin, but My Better-half loves Mansfield Park.
Sometimes, there’s just no accounting for taste.
Fortunately, there are those who are good at expressing their distaste for the classics with wit and charm. Here are a few less than creative critiques posted by enterprising minds on Amazon (first found on Huffington Post Books).
“Othello” by William Shakespeare
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