Random and Disconnected Thoughts about Reading

A couple of weeks ago I read the classic book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Unfortunately, I already knew how it was going to end due to an Alvin and the Chipmunks Halloween special I saw when I was 7. Other than that, I enjoyed the story immensely. Just my type of tale. It had terrific suspense and I felt genuinely horrified and rather sick when I read the macabre ending. The good part was that the whole double-personality story could be explained away “scientifically”. If mysteries can’t be explained away, then I don’t sleep at night. Not because I’m trying to figure the mysteries out, but because I’m scared silly that a psychopath is going to crawl out from under the bed and murder me. I still don’t know why I read mysteries.

This year, my literature is fantastic. I have several fantasy books, a few mysteries, quite a few classics, and some modern books that I’ve never even heard of before. During my first week of school I got to read a collection of Father Brown short stories, some of which I had never tried before. That was a major highlight. Right now, Dad and Christian and I are reading aloud a good old silly fantasy story called “The Gammage Cup”, and I have been reading a collection of George McDonald’s fairy tales to myself. Of course there’s deeper reading than that. I have a couple of Dickens books and two Shakespeares in my 9th grade library. But even though I always end up liking the classics, I only start reading them because I HAVE too. It sort of takes me a while to get used to the author of a book and his or her style of writing. For example, when I tried a Father Brown mystery after months and months of reading nothing but Agatha Christie, I could hardly bring myself to finish the book. It was too complicated and ‘boring’. Same with the transition from Nancy Drew to Hercule Poirot. Or even from Poirot to Miss Marple.

I think I’m done now. I’ll try to come up with a different subject than books or reading next time.