It’s really sad to hear people talk about how they “grew up with The Jungle Book” and realize they’re talking about an animated (or, perhaps an earlier live action) movie they recall from their childhood, NOT the book (or the sequel). The best of the movies were derived from just three Mowgli stories taken from the book. All the rest of the riches the book offers? Lost to these folks. Sad. New “Jungle Book” movie is being produced by one of these “Cliff Notes” kids. (But I’m almost certain I slander Cliff Notes summations, since I’m sure Cliff Notes dealt with the whole book.)
A Tale of Two Cities? I’m sure however many folks still relate to Dicken’s tale, most have never read the book, and most of those either read a Cliff Notes (or, if they’re old enough, a Classics Illustrated comic version) summary or sat through the late 50s movie with Dirk Bogarde that featured a Reader’s Digest version of the book. LOADS missing.
And so it goes. If it’s not a recent crappy Hollyweird movie, chances are it’s terra incognita/ignota to most folks. That’s just sad.
I will confess to scanning a Cliff Notes study guide, in a bookstore. Not impressed, since I’d read the book it was supposedly a guide to.
To be honest, I’ve never read the book. I do remember watching Disney’s animated movie in my youth. I’ve also never read A Tale of Two Cities. I’ll have to add them both to my reading list.
I do recall the Classics Illustrated comics. That was my introduction to Ivanhoe, and that led me to the movie (the 1982 version with James Mason, Anthony Andrews, and Sam Neal). I don’t think that I ever read that either. Another for the list.
I seem to remember a few other Classics Illustrated titles that I eventually did go back and read the actual books for though. I know I read The Illiad and The Odyssey after reading the comic versions.
On the other hand, I can’t recall ever reading Cliff Notes.
Classics Illustrated were great for grade school kids. When I was in fourth grade, there was an extensive collection of CIs in the classroom, and they pretty much formed my reading list for library jaunts. Yes, I’d read them to find stories I was interested in, then head to the library with my mom’s library card. (It was too far to walk, city streets, but still, so Mother usually drove me. Those were “our” lil outings my sibs weren’t interested in.)
I didn’t run into the Iliad and the Odyssey until sixth grade. I was kinda slow. *heh*
Those were years of freewheeling exploration of The Stacks. If only I’d had a snap brim fedora and a bull whip. . .
Gutenberg.org: MAJOR blessing! I’m in the process of slowly duplicating the classics in my library and adding books I had not yet added to my “dead tree” collection.
Still, I doubt I’ll ever be as literate as my grandparents. My paternal grandfather (farmer, postal worker, carpenter), for example, once gifted me with his collection of 19th Century English poetry. He didn’t actually need it, since he had the books in memory. (He once gave me the treat of most of Scott’s volume, recited with feeling.)
The impetus for this post was a combo of hearing whatsisname–the guy working on the new “Jungle Book” movie–talk about his inspiration for the movie being the animated thing he saw as a kid. OTOH, I grew up on Kipling’s books and poetry, and to this day I still consider him to be one of the true greats of the 20th (and, OK, late 19th) Century. And for sheer competence with the English language, perhaps only P.G. Wodehouse was more adept. (No, Wodehouse did not write “great literature.” He wrote good–exceedingly, superlatively excellent–fluff. Just good stories that always leave me with a lighter step, and a brighter outlook. Still, just fluff. Fluff that was better, on the main, than any of the 20th Century’s “great literature.”
Downloaded from Project Gutenberg and in the queue.