It was summer, stinking hot in a small town and I was fifteen and bored. The town librarian had been giving me grief since I was eleven and in the sixth grade, when she issued her first decree that I wasn't "old enough" to check out what became the first of a long line of books I had to fight to read. It was also the first of many times when one or both of my parents trudged down to the library to insist equally firmly that she had no right to restrict my choices as I had their permission to read whatever I wanted.
The summer of my thirtieth year was especially difficult for this poor beleaguered woman. Her worst day came when I insisted on checking out all of Proust, every one of Thomas Wolfe's novels, and while I was at it, Joyce's Ulysses as well. After all, I reasoned, I had two weeks to keep these books and I was a fast reader.
So I took them home, to the old iron glider under the grape arbor, and I propped myself up on a bunch of pillows and dug in with the same glee most people reserve for hot fudge sundaes. I fanned the pages and decided to read Look Homeward, Angel first because I like the way all those words leapfrogged over each other on every single page. Wow! The exuberant rush and gush of all those words! The torrent was overwhelming, the words blurred, I was losing the meaning. I knew I had to slow the pace somehow before I would have to admit that the librarian was probably right and perhaps I really wasn't "old enough" to make sense of it.
And so I turned to Proust, finding relief within his exquisitely nuanced precision and pacing. My love of all things French was born with Proust, as I marveled at his privileged people and their luminous lives. Who were they really, I wondered, and was all of Paris like this, and if so, how soon could I get there? For the next two weeks, I cut back and forth between that unlikely duo, Wolfe and Proust, sweating from July's heat and the emotional impact of Brother Ben's death (best read when one is fifteen), then cooling off with the soothingly elegant rituals of Monsieur Swann and company.
	"It mattered that education was changing me. It never ceased to matter. My brother and sisters would giggle at our mother’s mispronounced words. They’d correct her gently. My mother laughed girlishly one night, trying not to pronounce sheep as ship. From a distance I listened sullenly. From that distance, pretending not to notice on another occasion, I saw my father looking at the title pages of my library books. That was the scene on my mind when I walked home with a fourth-grade companion and heard him say that his parents read to him every night. (A strange sounding book-Winnie the Pooh.) Immediately, I wanted to know, what is it like?" My companion, however, thought I wanted to know about the plot of the book. Another day, my mother surprised me by asking for a "nice" book to read. "Something not too hard you think I might like." Carefully I chose one, Willa Cather’s My ‘Antonia. But when, several weeks later, I happened to see it next to her bed unread except for the first few pages, I was furious and suddenly wanted to cry. I grabbed up the book and took it back to my room and placed it in its place, alphabetically on my shelf." (p.626-627)
Finally at the end of my escape to "Bookland" (as dumb as it may sound), I decided to go back out to my parents. My mom called my dad, who, unbeknownst to me at that time, was at the car getting our family’s jackets. She told him that she was going to take me down the boardwalk further, and browse more stores. After she hung up, we headed down the long line of shops and restaurants, pausing occasionally to walk inside the quaint, snugly side-by-side stores and browse their individual items on sale. Eventually, my mom got tired, so we found a bench to sit on and patiently waited for my dad.
As the era of literature slowly declines, the expert critiques and praise for literature are lost. Previously, novels were bursting at the seams with metaphors, symbolism, and themes. In current times, “novels” are simply short stories that have been elaborated on with basic plot elements that attempt to make the story more interesting. Instead of having expert critical analysis written about them, they will, most likely, never see that, as recent novels have nothing to analyze. Even books are beginning to collect dust, hidden away and forgotten, attributing to the rise of companies such as Spark Notes. An author deserves to have his work praised, no matter how meager and the masses should have the right to embrace it or to reject it. As much of this has already been considered, concerning Les Misérables, the purpose of this paper is to compare, contrast, and evaluate Victor Hugo’s use of themes and characterization in his novel, Les Misérables.
High school students in many American schools first read this book in an English class, which has been a staple for many schools. A required reading assignment exposes many more people to the book. Even though the book is considered to be a children’s book by many, it is still enjoyed by people of all ages.
Baym, Nina et al, eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1995.
Greenblatt, Stephen, and M. H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. A. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print
Richard Wright, in his essay “Discovering Books,” explains how reading books changed his outlook on life and eventually his life itself. The first book that widened his horizons was an overtly controversial book by H. L. Mencken. I have a story not so dissimilar from his.
No one could ever comprehend the hatred I had for reading- no one. Reading to me was just like being deathly ill, stuck inside, watching the neighbors play and know you couldn't join. On Monday morning I sat down in my teacher Mrs. Daniels class. I had a strange feeling reading would be an assignment coming up soon. I was dreading what I knew she was going to say next. “Class you will have 4 weeks to complete this book.” As I heard these words come out of her mouth I lowered myself into my seat like a turtle slowly going into its shell. I felt as if I was drowning and no one could save me until my life was over. Not only did I hate reading but I hated it even more when I was forced to. I thought in my head, “Why. Why make us read a dumb book that will do nothing but take away my social life.” Never did I know the book I was about to read would have such an impact
I also decided to use a wooden block to keep hold of the wire, because
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
This isn't technically a book that I read when I was in the properly defined age
longer it will take electrons to get to the end of the wire. This is
Baym, Franklin, Gottesman, Holland, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 4th ed. New York: Norton, 1994.
Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way, Vol. 1. Trans. C. K. Scott-Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin. Ed. D. J. Enright. New York: The Modern Library, 2003. Print.
...ry, it seemed as though the myriad of books that lined the shelves were waiting and expectant, listening, almost, for her first words to the little girl. So much education, so much life remained ahead of the little girl, and she could garner so much experience through reading. The library was replete with more knowledge than anyone could ever gain in one lifetime, and the old woman smiled secretly to herself as she read the title aloud to the little girl.