Tedious Reading

I have been reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness since sometime last year and I just cannot get into it. I thought that it might have something to do with it being “boy” literature. I had the same problem with Melville’s Moby Dick. I can appreciate certain works as classic and give them their due for their arching scope, but there are some books that I hate reading. I can hear the gasps.

I thought that maybe I just like “girl” literature because, well, I AM a girl and grew up reading Little House on the Prairie and Little Women, one of my absolute favorites of all time, but I love Orwell’s 1984 and Heller’s Catch 22 and Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. If those would need to be classified as well, they would be either/or if not “boy” literature. So that cannot be it.

Perhaps, it isn’t male versus female types of literature. Reading can be subjective. Not completely, however, because I am a firm believer that certain works should be read and have value whether one has the passing whim to like it or not. While one may or may not like a work, as long as they understand and can appreciate the weight of a piece, then consuming it was not for naught.

This is where I am with Conrad. Here’s hoping it starts to hit me…