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On another classic books kick. Read George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody, which is the fictional diary of a slightly pompous London clerk with an affinity for puns in late Victorian England.
It's a fascinating record of the era, and I daresay if I were a late Victorian I would find it terribly funny, but reading it from this remove it's hard to feel the humor. It depends, I think, on having met people just like this, and while there are doubtless still pompous, pun-loving, socially aspiring people, their traits don't manifest the same way as they would have back then so there isn't the shock of recognition and accompanying hilarity.
Also reading Little Lord Fauntleroy, which is by Frances Hodgson Burnett who also wrote The Secret Garden (which is everyone else's favorite) and A Little Princess (which is mine, but other people think Sara Crewe is too awesomely awesome, or something, who knows).
The titular Little Lord Fauntleroy, the bright, charming, good-looking, athletic eight-year-old Cedric, makes Sara Crewe look like a seething cauldron of faults. She at least has a temper; I believe Cedric descended fully formed from heaven. But doubtless the suffering he'll soon experience before melting the heart of his selfish grandfather will illumine new sides of his character.
It's a fascinating record of the era, and I daresay if I were a late Victorian I would find it terribly funny, but reading it from this remove it's hard to feel the humor. It depends, I think, on having met people just like this, and while there are doubtless still pompous, pun-loving, socially aspiring people, their traits don't manifest the same way as they would have back then so there isn't the shock of recognition and accompanying hilarity.
Also reading Little Lord Fauntleroy, which is by Frances Hodgson Burnett who also wrote The Secret Garden (which is everyone else's favorite) and A Little Princess (which is mine, but other people think Sara Crewe is too awesomely awesome, or something, who knows).
The titular Little Lord Fauntleroy, the bright, charming, good-looking, athletic eight-year-old Cedric, makes Sara Crewe look like a seething cauldron of faults. She at least has a temper; I believe Cedric descended fully formed from heaven. But doubtless the suffering he'll soon experience before melting the heart of his selfish grandfather will illumine new sides of his character.
