PROMPT: What is a Famous Book You’ve NEVER Read and Why?

My goal, as a child, was to read all of the books in the library, at one point. I did learn to read at three and haven’t stopped since! However, there was ONE genre that I was NOT interested in reading AT ALL: anything Russian Literature.

You’re probably thinking: Why punish the Russians? Well, nothing personally against that country, but my Mother adored Russian literature with all it’s melancholy and suffering. I just knew it had to boring. You see, I was named for the main female character in the LOOOOOOOOOONG movie, Dr. Zhivago. It was a movie that my Mother loved and she and my Dad had seen it while they were dating. She loved the name, Lara, but not the spelling. Let me tell you, I made the mistake of watching it as a child and was bored within the first 10 minutes of that 3 hour movie. Loved the Lara’s Theme song, but that was about it. I asked my Dad how the heck he endured it and he stated that he loved her, so he tolerated the movie. I feel like he should get some sort of endurance award or something, but I digress.

So, after seeing that movie, I had absolutely NO intention of reading Russian literature. I love American and British literatures, so I just decided to stick with that. It was safe. There was plenty of intrigue in that! Yay, sarcastic humor and hubris!

However, when I started my senior year in high school, they published the Summer reading list for AP English. I had to read Anna Karenina against my will, but I did read it in it’s entirety. It was okay. I didn’t die. Vivien Leigh definitely helped me out, when I saw the movie after reading it, so it would sink into my brain crevices. All I can say is “UGH.” AP English was trying to expose us to being Internationally savvy, I understand. Thankfully, it was only one. I enjoyed Henrik Ibsen SOOOOOOO much more, although I saw too many parallels between his and Leo Tolstoy’s women characters. I guess that was the male opinion of women of the day: women are impulsive, petty creatures. I say, “Nay, we are women and can change our minds if we wish, and change them back again.”

I have come to the conclusion I would have been a HORRIBLE Victorian woman. Maybe more like the ones in Penny Dreadful? I make no apologies for my darkness. I lived in it for so long, it is a part of me, but not who I am. I just go there for random visits.