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Can Classics Go Too Far?

© Sarah White

I was rereading "Beloved" by Toni Morrison recently. It's a wonderful, really, really sad book about a woman who would do anything for her children, life after slavery, ghosts, love and redemption. Definately a classic by anyone's measure, it combines great, memorable characters with vivid writing, an impeccable sence of history and a story that stays with you long after you've put the book down.

I first read this book a few years ago when I was in college. I took this wonderful, four-semester course in world history, which combined the study of history, literature, art and architecture to give students a survey of world culture "from Memphis to Memphis" (it began in ancient Egypt and ended just after Elvis).

It was a wonderful class, I learned a lot (wish I remembered a lot more of it) and I think all students, particularly liberal arts majors, should have to take a course like this. It makes you see connections between cultures, ideas and historical events on a worldwide scale.

It also forced students to read a lot of good books that we hadn't been exposed to before. Many of them don't fit the range of this section (from "The Tale of Genji," one of the first novels ever written, to "Things Fall Apart").

At any rate, toward the end of the class we read "Beloved." We looked at it in comparison to books about the Holocaust, talked about the symbolism of everything from the dedication to the images of life, death, birth and rebirth, and even watched the movie starring Oprah. We left almost nothing untouched in our analysis.

I'd forgotten about a lot of the specifics of those discussions, but when I started reading the book again, I found myself stymied thinking about those lectures and discussions of several years ago.

I couldn't help but think about the importance of water (and bowel movements), the significance of color, the meaning of sex (How do you sleep with a ghost, anyway?)

All of this thought, frankly, got in the way of my reading. I hate to admit it. I consider myself pretty well educated and I like to understand the deeper meaning of things I read, but in this case it was all too much. I couldn't enjoy rereading this book because I kept stoping to think about it and couldn't get swept up in the story.

This article, then, is part story and part question for my loyal readers. Have you ever had this experience? Do you find you can know too much about a story, or get too caught up in academics that you can't enjoy a good read as a good read? Or is it just me?

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