What If We Did Need to Take LeVar Burton's Word for It?

I love reading. I used to read all the time. Reading and I were good friends. Then I began to stray from reading, spending less and less time with it. I began watching TV and listening to music. There were movies and PlayStation games. Reading was just pushed away and put on a shelf. For the last 2 years I've been in college. Here I have needed to read a lot. I wouldn't say my required reading ended my multi-media affair, completely, but it did take reading off of the shelf. School reading is much different from personal reading. I read for entertainment and learning when I read on my own. I choose books that interest me and if they stop interesting me I stop reading them. School doesn't allow for that, necessarily. I'm not one to do what school always says to do, remember, this is a revolution here. I think the reason I can't really get into school reading is that it is given to me and I'm told how much to read and by what day. Also, text books are usually pretty plain. They just give you the facts and don't try to dress it up at all. I get bored with it so easily. When the book is my choice though, I can read and read, but if I do get bored with it, I put it down and pick it up some months later. I haven't read all of my assigned reading for any class this semester, not even close, but I have read 5 other books on my own. Only 2 of which had nothing to do with any of my courses of study. One of those 2 was Pride and Prejudice (Austen, 1813).

I began reading Pride and Prejudice in January, or possibly the end of December. It is now April. I read through the first 200 and some pages of the book in a week or two. Then I put the book back on the shelf. The reason I began reading this book was not to be ridiculed by Muffin Man, though I was, nor was it to improve me knowledge of 'rly 19th century proper British family life. I decided to read this book because there is a lot of buzz over it. I have always liked reading the "classics." Robinson Crusoe (Defoe, 1719), Treasure Island (Stevenson, 1883) and A Christmas Carol (Dickens, 1843) are three of my favorites. I've heard so much about Pride and Prejudice as being a classic book, though I think most of the hullabaloo I've heard has to do with the movie. It might be interesting to start asking every girl I meet if she has read the book. At any rate, I have now read the book, but have not seen the movie. I probably won't see it. The story started out fairly boring and almost strenuous to follow. For a long time I wondered at what point the status of being a classic would kick in. So far as I could tell, the story was about a terrible young woman named Elizabeth who was proud and prejudiced against people with money. I didn't think Mr. Darcy was a monster as she initially did. Right about the time she was almost able to appreciate him and take an interest I stopped reading for a few months. Finally, yesterday I picked it up and decided to finish it. It turns out that Elizabeth smartens up and appreciates Darcy. The story wraps up rather quickly at the end, and it is happy. I can only assume that this is the reason why the book is so well liked. That or the effect of cognitive dissonance. After reading 250 pages of boring observations and conversations of a bunch of English country bumpkins trying to fit in with high society, you begin to reevaluate your life. In an effort to avoid the shame that will come on from having wasted your time with this novel you begin to change your thinking about it, you decided that it really wasn't so bad and you actually enjoyed it. This may be the case with this book. I am content with allowing that the ending is actually entertaining and the closure it provides is sufficient to win fans. It did seem a little bit rushed, but all of the components were there to get you hooked. All of the components meaning a romanticized courtship, or two, and a scandal. You might ask how a 374 page book can be rushed, but Gone with the Wind (Mitchell, 1936) was 1,024 pages and it kept my interest right to the end. Speaking of rushed, I need to go to class.