Looking through my old notes on the Lord Peter Wimsey series makes me supremely happy. Mainly because before I had a book blog, I didn't even try to look at something's "literary merits" (yes, this blog is in fact me trying that). Instead it was all:
"Greensleeves will never be the same again. She's SO FLIRTING WITH HIM."
"HARRIET LOVES PETER AND HE BOUGHT HER CHESSMEN AHHH."
"She's so just waiting for him to make a move. COME ON, PETER! SHE CRIED ON YOUR SHOULDER."
And my first note on the book I was reading concurrently with the Wimsey series:
"Twilight's fairly stupid."
Seeing what you thought of books five years ago -- or heaven preserve us, ten years ago -- makes you appreciate how much of an idiot you were back then. And there is a certain kind of comfort knowing that ten years from now, your thoughts on something like Finnegans Wake will be seen by FutureYou as so much piddle. I'm fairly confident there are not many readers who, as they go on, regress in their literary tastes. "I used to be a Faulkner man, but Charlaine Harris just speaks to me now."
So knowing that FutureYou will be at best condescending to and at worst disgusted by CurrentYou should provide a form of relief. "Ah, I shall get better. That scene in Gatsby when Daisy cries over Gatsby's shirts may have been frustratingly nebulous in its meaning when I was 15, but now I am all over that shit. And someday I will perhaps find Woolf stupid-easy and not be agonizing over paragraphs in Mrs. Dalloway going 'I know the clouds mean something BUT WHAT WHAT DO THEY MEAN WHY IS SHE TALKING ABOUT THEM DAMN YOU WOOLF.'"
I, for one, am greatly comforted by the thought of FutureMe thinking back to CurrentMe as a complete moron.
And for those of you for some reason think your brain has always been as fantastic as it currently is, I ask that you look back to papers written in high school, for there you will find something along the lines of: ""Poor Fantine! I mean, I don't want to sound stupid, but this book's sad! :)"
Think well on these things.
"Greensleeves will never be the same again. She's SO FLIRTING WITH HIM."
"HARRIET LOVES PETER AND HE BOUGHT HER CHESSMEN AHHH."
"She's so just waiting for him to make a move. COME ON, PETER! SHE CRIED ON YOUR SHOULDER."
And my first note on the book I was reading concurrently with the Wimsey series:
"Twilight's fairly stupid."
Seeing what you thought of books five years ago -- or heaven preserve us, ten years ago -- makes you appreciate how much of an idiot you were back then. And there is a certain kind of comfort knowing that ten years from now, your thoughts on something like Finnegans Wake will be seen by FutureYou as so much piddle. I'm fairly confident there are not many readers who, as they go on, regress in their literary tastes. "I used to be a Faulkner man, but Charlaine Harris just speaks to me now."
So knowing that FutureYou will be at best condescending to and at worst disgusted by CurrentYou should provide a form of relief. "Ah, I shall get better. That scene in Gatsby when Daisy cries over Gatsby's shirts may have been frustratingly nebulous in its meaning when I was 15, but now I am all over that shit. And someday I will perhaps find Woolf stupid-easy and not be agonizing over paragraphs in Mrs. Dalloway going 'I know the clouds mean something BUT WHAT WHAT DO THEY MEAN WHY IS SHE TALKING ABOUT THEM DAMN YOU WOOLF.'"
I, for one, am greatly comforted by the thought of FutureMe thinking back to CurrentMe as a complete moron.
And for those of you for some reason think your brain has always been as fantastic as it currently is, I ask that you look back to papers written in high school, for there you will find something along the lines of: ""Poor Fantine! I mean, I don't want to sound stupid, but this book's sad! :)"
Think well on these things.
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