Yesterday on the train, I stood next to a woman reading David Copperfield.
"Why?" I asked her.
"It's a classic," she answered. "It's wonderful."
I wanted to tell her to stop, but who the hell am I?
There are so many books that I would burn. Sounds strange for a writer, right? But it's the truth. I can't speak for anyone else, but I can say that these books have harmed me.
These books stood between me and an understanding of what good writing is for years. Some of them are still there. Do you know how hard it is to strike Moby Dick from your memory once you've read it 20 times?
David Copperfield . . . It's a safe bet that in the last hour alone publishing houses wrote rejection letters for at least 1,000 novels that are better than David Copperfield. And yet this silliness of "the classics' persist.
And idiots like me still read them.
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3 comments:
You're off your tree. Thes ebooks are classics for a reason. What's written and published today can't even compare simply because it hasn't stood the test of time. That's why I rarely waste mine reading the living.
Seriously? Is that last post flamebait? Can you even burn an ebook? Waste time reading the living? Who's off their tree? You're probably one of those assholes who doesn't own a TV and brags about it. Besides, you obviously read the living or else you wouldn't be reading the world's best writer ever! Who's up for a book burning?
Thanks neighbor. Before your post I was considering offing myself so that Brent might read me.
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