Follow Friday!

Q: If you could "unread" a book, which one would it be? Is it because you want to start over and experience it again for the first time? Or because it was THAT bad?

I don't think reading is ever a bad thing. Even if you swear you'd never read a particular book or author again, at least you've gained that knowledge and learned something, even if it isn't particularly pleasant. Granted, not the funnest thing ever, but it's life, right? As a writer, I definitely learn a lot from what other authors do wrong. It's much more stimulating to learn from what they do write and try to incorporate their genius into my own writing, but again, you can't win 'em all!

Answer: Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad

Wait! Let me explain!

So my answer would be to un-read something in order to experience it again for the first time. Hmm. This could be any number of things that I loved reading the first time around, but something specific comes to mind. One of my favorite classic (a.k.a. difficult to read) novels is Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I LOVE this book. I read it at least once a year. (Easy, given it's a novella and after reading it a dozen times or so, the difficulty totally melts away). Anyway, the first time I read this was for a senior English class in high school. And I HATED it! The teacher kept forcing us to read massive amounts of pages, and then we'd run out of time in class and not discuss it. All this, during the last two weeks of school! Again, SENIOR year! We wanted to graduate, not wade through boring, difficult novels! But we were honors students (cue jeering) so we did it anyway. Bottom line, this is one of my favorite books in the world! By the time I got to the end, I loved it. By the time I'd analyzed it to death, I couldn't get enough and read it again that very summer. The way the teacher presented it to us was very unfair, though, and I wish I could get a chance to experience this timeless, fantastic book again with fresh eyes! Happy Friday everyone! Have a stupendous weekend! :D

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