Books & Shit

Can you believe it? I was cleaning out some of my stuff and what should I pull out but Del-Del by Victor Kelleher. Yessir, the very copy I was loaned in year nine (or was it eight?) for our novel study. Still in that equally heinous, stained, yellowing condition. I feel so rebellious and strangely filthy right now. Mayhaps I should return it for the lols?

In other news, I can't stop listening to "Man Down." It seems to me to be Rihanna's equivalant of Taylor Swift's "Mean." I really enjoy it. Reading reviews about "Man Down" I kept coming upon the phrase "Barbadian patois" which is a phrase I adore about as much as I adore the sound of the song... as in her accent. It's so great.

Sad to be leaving rainy weather to be greated by stinky humidity.

But onto more pressing conversation. I actually finally got around to reading Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, two books I tried to read when I was 15 and failed miserably. In fact, I pretty much really cannot tolerate books older than 100 years. The only books yonder that I might have actually enjoyed would be Little Women and North & South pretty much purely because I'd watched the movie and TV series respectively of those and found great enjoyment from both of them.
Reading Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre back in the day was like hell. It was like plowing through unplowable snow now that I would really know as I've never plowed snow. I hated how every second word was at least 15 letters long and everyone spoke so stupidly. I would skim every line to try and find an interesting line... but never getting there because every paragraph was infinitely more boring and tiresome.

Rereading it over the last few days however has proved more fruitful. Not to say they are my favourite books or anything of the sort. But I took care to read every line carefully and actually found it wasn't so boring and did have an interesting storyline of sorts. However, I still stand by my belief that all those long words are unnecessary. When I was really into writing though, I read at least a thousand times how one should try and keep writing simple and agreeable. And that massive words were unnecessary when one could replace them with simpler words or leave them out altogether.

But I guess, like I said, people spoke like that at that time. I have to say I really really enjoy modern writing far more. It's so much easier to read which I suppose people could turn against us and instead say we are lazy readers. Sure, I'm admittedly lazy and don't like having to slave over convoluted words. But who does? If I wanted to do that I would do that in school and read a history book or Frankenstein (which sure, was good but would I rather have read Boy Meets Girl? Yes, yes I would have and I can't help but think that most would agree?).

I compare these books to stale bread. I think bread is always delicious but would you rather stale, stiff and less tasty bread or fresh and crusty? I, for one, would prefer fresh and crusty over stale and stiff any day.

This all being said, I'm opinionating from a modern perspective and I'm sure that Wuthering Heights was probably the Boy Meets Girl of its day.

I'm bored. To watch Gilmore Girls or read Del-Del? Har har.

J