Smarten Up

“’She loathes me. I was plastered one night and I let slip my pet name for her, Medusa. She was quite flattered for a while. I suppose the poor girl had Medusa mixed up with Minerva or possibly Mnemosyne. It was just my bad luck to have her proudly repeat what I’d called her to someone who knew a smattering of mythology.’ He sighed and finished his drink. ‘She was most upset.’”

--from Ocean’s 11 by George Clayton Johnson and Jack Golden Russell

A year or so ago, I started to believe that I was not very well read. Although I do a good amount of reading, I really have not read many books that are considered classics. Too often, I would come across some reference to a classic novel and have absolutely no idea what it meant.

Heathcliff? Isn’t that a cat? I would think to myself. Eventually I picked up that Heathcliff was actually a famous character from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and then I was at least able to smile and nod at references to him. But I still didn’t really understand what was being said. I can also remember wondering where the country of Gatsbia was, because there were a few times when people referred to situations as Gatsbian. Later, of course, I realized that they were referring to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, though learning that fact didn’t tell me any more about what it meant to be Gatsbian.

I tried to remedy this situation on my own, for a while. I read Wuthering Heights. Although I understand references to Heathcliff now, I would almost like to go back and not understand them, as I think Wuthering Heights earns a place on the “Worst Books Ever Written” list. I read The Great Gatsby with better results. I actually enjoyed that one, and am eagerly waiting for an opportunity to use the word “Gatsbian.”

Interest renewed, I tried to think of other classic books I had heard referenced in the past. For some reason, my mind settled on Atlas Shrugged, because there was some association in my brain between that book and feminism. I’m interested in women’s issues, so I thought I would give it a try.

Lucky for me, I mentioned this quest to my sister, Laurie, as we drove home from Thanksgiving last year. Being infinitely well read herself, she informed me that Atlas Shrugged was actually the opposite of feminist. She predicted that I would hate it. I believed her.

While I still wanted to get more classic novels into my repertoire, I was not interested in reading books I would hate. Since I was batting one for three for choosing classics I would enjoy, I decided I needed some help. I asked Laurie if she would, for my Christmas gift last year, gather some classic books that she thought I would like.

Boy, did she ever deliver. While I have not actually counted them, I think it’s safe to say that she got me over a dozen books. I’ve been working my way through them since just after the holidays. Most of the quotes I’ve been using for this blog since Christmas have come from those books. When I read the quote above from Ocean’s 11, I was reminded of why I wanted to do this in the first place. I thought I’d take this chance to assess how the project is going.

My first pull from the box of books was Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim. Kudos to Laurie in the sense that I really loved this book. It was hysterical. The main character is a reluctant academian, and I think he is exactly what I would be like if I were to enter academia. He sees all the pomp and self-importance of the other lecturers as absurd. He thinks all the things that I think, but would never say out loud. So, home run on the enjoyment. However, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a reference to this book or its author, so it hasn’t made me feel much more cultured. That could change any day, though. For all I know, I’ve heard lots of references to this book and promptly forgotten them because I didn’t understand their significance.

Next up was The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. This is where I had my first, “Oh man, thank goodness for my sister because I’ve been so stupid up until now” moment. I tried to watch the recent Sherlock Holmes movie a couple of times and it simply did not hold my interest. I tried to figure out why, and eventually realized that I felt like the characters had been done before; I felt like I had already seen the movie before on dozens of episodes of House. I wrote the movie off as ripping off the characters and relationships from a popular TV show as a way to give an old story a new spin.

Then I read this book of Sherlock Holmes stories, and realized that the movie was actually an accurate depiction of how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his characters. I started to think harder about it. Hmm, I thought. Holmes, House… Watson, Wilson. Oh crap, I’m an idiot. Holmes and Watson came first! The movie was not a rip-off of the TV show. The TV show was a reinterpretation of the book characters. I’m so glad I read this book. I have a new appreciation for both Holmes and House, now.

Third out of the box was a book of short stories by Henry James. The bulk of the book was taken up by a story called “The Turn of the Screw,” but there were three other lesser-known stories included, too. None of the stories completely blew me away, but I did enjoy how they all dealt with difficult issues – defying over-controlling parents, jealousy in relationships, parents leaving their children to be raised by nannies – while staying solidly in the realm of creepy ghost stories. I don’t know how many times I’ll hear or make references to the specific stories. However, I have a solid sense of Henry James’s writing style now, which is a good thing since before this I would not have known Henry James from O. Henry.

The last book I’ve been able to make my way through is Ocean’s 11. The book’s cover proclaims it to be “a novelization of the hilarious film.” When I read the book, I had seen the modern, George Clooney / Brad Pitt version of the film, but not the Frank Sinatra / Dean Martin version on which the book was based. Still, I expected to find a familiar story. I was shocked to find the book to be a dark and brooding exploration of the relationships among the eleven men involved in the casino heist. Danny Ocean’s inner dialogue reveals him to be a self-absorbed, cowardly jerk who you have to hate. The other men agree to his plan out of misguided loyalty. And in the end, (spoiler alert!) nine of the eleven men are dead.

This was definitely not what I expected. Curious, I watched the Sinatra/Martin version of the movie to see how the book matched up. Plot-wise, the book and the original movie are almost an exact match. But the movie lacks all the brooding and complicated relationships. The story, as the movie tells it, is hilarious. Who knew the novelization would be so different?

I can’t honestly say that I expect the three versions of the story to come up in casual conversation. But if it does, I will have a leg up on all you poor fools who have only experienced one version!

All in all, I’m pleased with my forays into these literary classics. Thanks, Laurie, for smartening up your not-so-book-smart sister.