It's actually a wonder I haven't read it already, because the book is practically on every high school required reading list. (I exaggerate, I know.) And I was quite the nerd in high school and took all the Advanced Placement courses, even AP Art Studio. Except during junior year, when all my equally studious friends took AP English, I took regular English and missed out on many memorable literary moments (or so I've been told).
(In high school, I disliked English with a passion; biology was more my forte. Now with my BA in Art History in hand, I can truly say, what a change!)
Nowadays, I find it difficult to get through a book. Just check out my "All Consuming" profile to see the ambition fall short. A running list of my abortive efforts by how far I've gotten (farthest along at the top):
- Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal, trans. Harold Augenbraum
- A Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
- Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
- Dubliners by James Joyce
- Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
- The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman
- A Happy Death by Albert Camus
- Harry Potter und der Stein des Weisen by J.K. Rowling, trans. Klaus Fritz
Gravity's Rainbow is my absolute Everest. Around 230-ish of 700+ pages I've nailed down... in around 4 years or so. (And to think, someone [lovingly] illustrated every page of the book [1]. Presumably, they've read it cover to cover and understood decent amount.) A graph to illustrate my progress, courtesy of MSPaint:
Nevertheless - I am going to read John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Just not tonight.
[1]http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/zak_smith/title.htm
