Comment on Open thread, 23-29 June 2014

Mon, 30 Jun 2014 19:48:24 GMT

The OP may have assumed that the book being famous would therefore also be unusually enjoyable. This might be a bad assumption, or it might be a good assumption, but the book is only unusually enjoyable for people who are properly prepared to read the book with particular bits of historical and/or literary knowledge in place.

That the OP persists in trying to wrest enjoyment from a book which is clearly not giving enjoyment to them suggests that the OP would be best served understanding more about why she thought to pick up this book in the first place. Whether the extra knowledge allows her to enjoy the book, or whether the extra knowledge makes it clearer to her why she will not enjoy the book, given what I know about reading books or seeing movies 50 or 100 years after they are produced, that learning the context will be revealing and valuable in many ways.

So even if the goal is enjoying the book, their best shot is to learn the history, learn why the people who rate this book so highly do so.

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