I love the blending . . . er . . . no . . . thrusting together of the various geopgraphical & chronological points. I only glanced at this right now as I am not yet awake.
And, yeah, perhaps not drinking might be an idea. Drinking to excess mmre than once in a short period of time, while common, is rarely if ever a good thing, and opens the door for all kinds of woefulness. (<new word, I think ).
I'm pretty sure you've posted that picture of RFK in the Dating Sucks group before. Not that that really helps you to find it, considering how many threads are in there.
I'm not saying that Harry Potter is without value. My argument is that some books are just inherently and objectively better than others. Some books are just worth more. Would I recommend War and Peace to everyone? God no. You've got to work your way up to it. If someone dove right in to that, they'd get lost. My complaint is that there are many, many, many very common and easily accessible classics that are continuously listed in that thread. That makes me sad. Do I expect everyone to be very well read? No. Does the fact that I am give me the right to give them shit for not being so? Hell yes. It's one of the perks of being a voracious reader. Have I read every book by every major author ever? No way in hell. However, you'd be hard pressed to find a major author who I am completely in the dark about. I've read at least something by almost everyone of note.
I love the classics. I love the timeless stories. I love the books that resonate despite being centuries old. You say that you read for enjoyment, information and needing strength. That's cool. I cannot say I agree with the reasons or the order. First and foremost for me is education. If I am not being enlightened by it, it's not worth my time. I don't simply mean reading non-fiction. I mean reading things that make me more aware of the world around me or the people around me. I mean things that make me more aware about myself, who I am and who I should be. I read my fair share of non-fiction, but even then I tend to look more at how and why they say what they are saying rather than what they are saying. I think all of that is probably a combination of your last two reasons (at least as I understand them).
Entertainment is secondary to me. If the first part isn't there, I am not going to be entertained anyway. That doesn't mean I will necessarily plow through something that is gut-wrenchingly painful to read solely for personal edification (I mean, I have, but it doesn't necessarily mean that.). But I will sooner drop something that is entertaining, but not enlightening than I would something that is enlightening, but not entertaining.
By the way, Magic Mountain kicks some ass. It's slow and long and takes forever. Considering they're in a tuberculosis sanatorium in the mountains and secluded from everything, the pacing really works for it. It was the first Mann I read. I tried reading more. Apparently that's how he always writes and that type of pacing doesn't work so well with other plots/stories/characters. Death in Venice was alright, but I wasn't able to finish anything else by him.
I prefer Cannibal! The Musical to O Brother when it comes to a modern retelling of the Odyssey.
I understand the notion of it "not being someone's time" to read something. The first time I read Camus' The Plague I fucking hated it. A good friend of mine claimed it was the best book ever. I felt bad for hating it. A few years later I gave it another shot and realized what he was talking about. I don't consider it the best book ever, but it's definitely up there. If enough people with opinions that I respect tell me it's worth it, I'll usually give it another try. I'm even tempted to re-read Ulysses. I finally finished it on my fourth try and I hated it with a fiery passion. That was many years ago and I have read a ridiculous amount of books since then and it's mostly been stuff that Joyce would have read. I'm hoping all of that will help me to appreciate Ulysses more.
I got in to mythology when I was little too. The Greeks and Romans did it for me. I've been hooked since. Thankfully I also developed a love for epic poetry.....Virgil, Homer, Ovid, Hesiod...I love them all. Fast forward a bit and throw Dante, Milton and Byron into the pot as well. I realize you seem to have a bit of a hard on for Joe Campbell. I've never read him, so I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I seem to get some similar ideas from Plato and Aristotle. Like I said last night, much of my time reading non-fiction is spent paying attention to how and why they are saying something. Plato referenced Homer constantly. Back then the poems were looked on more as guidebooks for right living than they were simply stories. I suppose that's where my belief that great literature should teach comes from.
I didn't get into the Scandinavians until much later. I've still never really sat down and read their myths. It would be nice if they had something along the lines of Ovid's Metamorphoses or Hesiod's Theogony. About seven or eight years ago I was in line at school buying my books. The bastards snaked the line through the English Dept. So, I always ended up buying something I didn't need, for a class I didn't have, just because it looked interesting. I picked up a copy of Njal's Saga and made everyone I like read it after I finished it. I went on to read Egil's Saga and pick up some compilations of Warrior-Poets and other sagas and all that. I love the shit. It's been awhile since I have sat down and read any of it though.
Currently I am working my way through the complete plays of George Bernard Shaw. I am also working on Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (not an updated version, so it's slow going) and then I toss a novel in here and there, right now I am reading Virginia Woolf's The Years. Reading is what I do. That's especially true during baseball season. I love to sit and listen to games on the radio and read. I majored in philosophy and literature. It was a double major....a double helping of worthless degree. I should probably go back and do grad school at some point, but I am just sick of going to class. I'm sick of being told what to read and when. It cuts in to my personal reading. I get more read and get more out of what I read when it's me deciding the pace, timing and selection.
Another good example of it being the right time to read a book. I loved Catcher in the Rye when I was fifteen. I liked it when I was about seventeen. It was ok when I was twenty. I disliked it when I was twenty-two. I won't read it anymore. I identify with Holden less and less as the years pass. It's been almost ten years since the last time I read it. I probably will never read it again. I don't want to hate it. I cannot help but think of him as a whiny little bitch now.
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