I was talking to a friend about comedic / farcical literature the other day, and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller came up. That made me remember - I first read this book when I was about 15 years old. Or rather I read about 80% of it, didn’t quite finish it that time. I forced myself through it because I had heard it was subversive and intelligent and challenging, and I got nothing out of it. I didn’t see the humor, I didn’t get any political commentary, it was just a series of absurd things happening to absurd characters with no rhyme or reason.
I reread that book two years ago and damn near pissed myself laughing on every other page, but then the ending rolled around and it hit so hard. That sudden switch from absurdist comedy to heavy, bleak, depressing, and then he gives you just this glimmer of hope at the end anyway. I found it absolutely brilliant, and yet I kept thinking back to how none of this connected with me when I first read it.
Do you have books like that? Books that just plain went over your head, that you didn’t have the maturity to appreciate, that were too difficult in style or subject matter, and that you’ve come to appreciate years later?
95% of the stuff they made us read in middle school.
I understand that they wanted to expose us to the greats, but we did not have the life experience to even vaguely understand what we were reading most of the time.
And in addition to that, the majority of it was dreadfully boring to a kid. So it served to also make so many of us think we hated reading.
Thank goodness I already knew I liked reading way before I hit 6-9th grade. But my mom, who is in her 60s… thought she hated reading until THIS year.