November 20, 2008

Well, my classics group has not been such a success either. After My Antonia we chose Dr. Zhivago with high hopes, which were completely dashed in short order. I think one of the four of us made it through. Our conclusion: heavy on philosophy and light on plot, and dull at that. Where was the story of Dr. Zhivago and his two women? Only in the movie version, which we watched at our meeting. Onward and upward then to something completely different – Kidnapped by Robert Lewis Stevenson. Ahhh, finally, a rousing pick. A rollicking, swaggering, pirating, outlaw-being-hunted-through-the-mountains-and-moors-of-Scotland adventure. I love Stevenson’s writing: sophisticated, vivid, and readable. And half of the fun was reading some of the accent-laden sentences out loud–all the sudden I found myself speaking in a Scottish brogue!  I (and the other members) enjoyed this book and Kidnapped proved that classics need not be DULL.