I don’t really like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing. And I don’t like Ernest Hemingway or Gerard Manley Hopkins that much either. I’m not saying that their writing is bad; I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be considered “literature” — I’m simply saying that I don’t enjoy reading it.
And there’s nothing wrong about thinking that, or even admitting it.
Before coming to college and declaring English as my major, I had no problems proclaiming my likes and dislikes when it came to literature. I did so loudly and often. I loved “King Lear.” I hated “Tess of the D’Urbervilles.” I adored Emily Dickinson. I mildly disdained William Carlos Williams.
Then I became an English major. I read more, and I learned more — most notably, how to reflect upona text instead of mindlessly absorbing it. My professors and the readings that they assigned challenged my assumptions. My tastes developed and my opinions changed. Again and again, I found myself actively enjoying literature that I had previously disliked (including Williams).
But I still didn’t like Hawthorne. Or Hopkins. Or Hemingway. I really wanted to, I felt obliged to, given the impact their words had on my professors and classmates. But I just didn’t. Even when I found myself appreciating particular turns of phrase or specific plot devices, I still felt that I was missing something vitally important. And I was.
It’s good to challenge yourself, and it’s good to read outside of your comfort zone. You might discover something you really love that way, or you might just develop yourself as a reader and learn things you can apply to other texts. But literature is also supposed to be enjoyable.
I became an English major because I loved to read, but there were definitely moments when I lost sight of that. There were many other moments in which I fell in love with a particular text and every phone call home basically turned into a rant about why Virginia Woolf/ Restoration-Era revisions of Shakespeare’s plays/Anglo-Saxon Biblical narratives were, in fact, more important than sleep or sustenance.
Those “AH-HA!” moments have made every less-enjoyable assignment required by my major well worth it. But its taken me four years to realize I don’t have to feel that strongly about every book I’ve read for an English class.
If you don’t like the pacing of some authors’ plots, or their sentence structures, or even their choices of imagery, that doesn’t mean you’re somehow defective. It just means you don’t like them. And you don’t have to! There’s so much out there to read. So, if you want to dive into “The Blithedale Romance” — by all means, go ahead. I’ve got my own reading to do.