Classic

When I was fifteen, my mom asked if I did one productive thing that summer, could I please read a classic novel.  She handed me Pride and Prejudice and said “just trust me; this is better than the garbage you’re reading”.  So while I was a fun-seeking teenager by night, I spent my days on my back deck plunging into the romantic and totally foreign world of my first classic novel.  Diehard romantic as I was, and am today, I liked the happy ending.  The language was fairly impossible to get through (and I thought I was wordy!!! No comparison!).  All in all.. worthwhile.  And I did feel like I’d made a switch, something I could liken to switching from my breakfast of Hostess Cupcakes to a yogurt, fruit and granola parfait.  There was just more real, more heart, more substance.  (Sidenote that I continued to eat Hostess Cupcakes for breakfast pretty much every day through high school except when I was on one of my famous “lose 10 lbs” diets – more on THOSE another day!!).  So I added to my life goal list: read as many classic works of literature as I could in a lifetime.  I put an approximate number on there of 300 – I’m yet to define the list better, but it’s on my life goal list to better define my life goal. :P  In total, I have read probably about 10.  Tragedy.

In grade twelve I remember consuming Jane Eyre and bawling with happiness over its ending.  To date, it is my absolute favourite book.  It’s the romance that does me in, every time!  In OAC I tackled D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers – loved it.  I even liked the love stories that ended sadly, like Wuthering Heights which I read my first summer living alone in Guelph – wind whipping across the lonely moors (or Kortright Rd. in my case).  So far this post seems like a blessed love story with love stories – alas, not the case.  Reading the language of classic literature is incredibly tough.  One night in bed last month I read Jeff a sentence or two out Villette, my read from Nov – Jan and he was like “um, that’s a lot of words”.  Haha.. yep.  That was my point – highly verbose, but gorgeously written and well-considered sentences make for a serious trod to get the message and get to the next point.  Classics are a brain workout.  My previous menu of reads were a stroll on a sandy shore; classics are an uphill winter hike through a forest with a blanket of snow overlying a thick sheet of ice.  Certainly more rewarding to get to the top of the latter, but strugglicious all the way through!  I actually gave up reading “other” books entirely, and snottily bragged for many years that I only read classics (all four of them that I got through in that time..). Through university, I always was known to have one on my nightstand. But because I spent about 0.03% of my undergrad career reading for fun, considering I either had my nose in a textbook or a beer for the majority of those 4 years, my trek through classics came much more slowly than 15 year old Kristyn had anticipated.  Upon entering my master’s studies (quite rightly the easy-breeziest time in my life where I could make my own schedule and had lots of delicious free time), I picked up reading again.  But exhausted from years of plodding through the classics, I rebelled! I vowed only to read easy books – chick lit with pink covers and catchy titles, by fun, fabulous authors!!  And this is how I’ve spent the past ~ 6 years.  My goodness, do Hostess Cupcakes taste good!!

I’m just kidding around about the book snobbery.  I honestly, truly, LOVED devouring the pretty books.  I found some amazing authors by opening up my eyes to the world of modern reads. I have fallen head over heels in love with Marian Keyes.  I was beyond blessed to already have an innate understanding of Irish culture and geography before I travelled there from years of reading her amazing books.  Sophie Kinsella books, while admittedly absolutely terrible (that’s the only judgy thing I feel about chick lit!), sure do make a plane ride go quickly.  Emily Giffin’s books, ESPECIALLY Babyproof (the story of my life; that I actually applied in my own life when Jeff and I made a pact to always stay together even if one of us changed our minds about not wanting to have kids), are little slices of fabulousness.  I liken these books to really, really good desserts – not cheap McCain Deep & Delicious cakes, but $7 fancy restaurant chocolate ganache on a pecan & butter crust.  The good stuff!  Maybe not the best thing for you, but sometimes exactly just what you want, and need.

I’m happy to say I have finally found balance.  I reread Jane Eyre this past year as my introduction back into classic literature, and, to what I really feel is my true self, if recently abandoned.  I continue to read pretty books, chosen based solely on the covers. :) Last year I found a great new Irish author in Maeve Binchy and have been making my way through the collection of her books, which were perfect for pre-Ireland!  My Kobo app let me download a bunch of free books, and I picked up the classic Walden Pond by Thoreau (finally) which I’m trudging my way through (holy slow start, buddy).  In the past month I’ve also read a few funny memoirs (shout out to Val Frankel, my new hero of honesty and humour), a Jodi Picoult read that I somehow missed along the way, and Villette by Charlotte Bronte.  I just finished Villette 20 mins ago in the bath, and tears streamed down my over-emoted face as the book neared its long-coming ending.  As usual, love prevailed.  The main character “got her man” (Bronte put this a bit more elegantly).  There is something so incredibly comforting about coming back to the same ending time and again – love wins.  As a hopeless romantic, this is always, certainly, my preferred ending.  In these books, they do a wonderful job leaving you guessing until the last minute: “will he come for her?!”  “will she find him again?!”.  Probably because in modern books these questions are able to be answered through texts and emails; I just never find that same satisfaction about love found that I do in these works of yore.  My tear-inducer from tonight:

“… he gathered me near his heart. I was full of faults; he took them and me all home. For the moment of utmost mutiny he reserved the one deep spell of peace. These words caressed my ear: ‘Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on earth.’”

Augh!  How could you not love the classics!?

So I’ve decided to be accountable, take inventory and keep working towards my goal.  Maybe not 300, but as many of these hearty, nutritious offerings to my brain that I can make a in a lifetime.  So here's to balance, and 1800s romance…

What I’ve Read So Far

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence

Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D. H. Lawrence

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Bronte

Mansfield Park – Jane Austen

Vanity Fair – William Thackeray (never finished! tbc..)

Daniel Deronda – George Eliot (never finished! tbc..)

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence

Villette – Charlotte Bronte

Next Up

To be determined!  I need to sharpen up my list of “must reads”, without actually reading any plot breakdowns and ruining the endings!  To me the greatest tragedy would be not knowing how it’s going to end (though I always know how it’s going to end.. :))