I don't like reading, I'll be the first one to say it. School killed my interest in reading by forcing it upon me instead of letting in naturally come to an interest. Or at least that's what I'm gonna blame it on. I mean, I used to like reading way back in... 3rd grade or so. Back before accelerated reading. Now I hate having to read things and face every reading assignment or book with the same dread that a young child has towards his siblings' concerts, or with the same dread that the Acheans had towards Hector SEE I KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON.
Actually, that's kind of a lie. I've read about 300 pages of this, but it lost me so early on. What exactly does that mean? Well, for one, I don't look into the text at all. I don't care what it has to say, really. These concepts are hinted at or mentioned and they just pass on right past me. I don't know what to look for when I'm reading this, so I don't know what I'm missing. And that doesn't bother me. Because this book lost me. I have a very basic understanding of the plot up to book 15, but it's a bit muddled. I'll see what I can muster up. Acheans are fighting the Trojans for Helen, Agamemnon, the leader of the Acheans, is an asshole and likes fucking people over for glory. Achilles is a super-powerful butthurt little kid who lets soldiers die because he was bullied and wants an apology. Gods fuck with outcomes of the battles, people kill each other, and Hector is an unstoppable Trojan by the virtue of Zeus or whatever. Hector kills Achilles' friend and that's when it gets personal, so he kills Hector. Oh, sorry, that didn't take up the required 300 pages of text with unimportant faff. Well, it's unimportant to me!
I just don't get it. This book survived 3000 years and will most likely survive 3000 more because it made it this far, right? How is this book considered such a classic? Why do people argue over the merits of this book over something more wholesome? Actually, no, those can apply to almost any book regarded as a "classic." But that just goes be to me disposition on reading and books in general.
My biggest issue is probably that the book just likes wasting my time. And no, that's not the mean-spirited "reading is a waste of time" stance I took in the first paragraph rehashed, but rather the mean-spirited "I don't understand why most of this text is here" stance. On three occasions for the class, we were told that certain books or sections of books could be entirely bypassed. Why is that? What am I missing? Why are they there if they have no impact on the rest of the story? Why am I reading this? Make it stop, please! Make it stop! There are segments of text where page after page after page is just a guy gathering his men with their armor and ships. Why do we need to hear this? Why is this important? I don't understand how anyone could be compelled throughout such a waste.
Actually wait, more specifically to how it likes to waste my time is the notion of fighting in this. Homer (yeah it might not have actually been Homer, but fuck you the name is an easy thing to blame) took a look at battles and came to the conclusion that talking about people stabbing each other over and over is actually kind of boring. But instead of deciding to cut out the boring shit for a streamlined, and more concise, series of text, he decided it would much better to make everything needlessly detailed. Not only does EVERY SINGLE PERSON get their own confusing name for no reason, every death is explicitly mentioned in the text. Why? Because fuck you, Calvin.
Most of the conflict comes from this one unstoppable dude slaughtering everybody and I guess this is just telling that I don't know how these ancient battles were enacted. It would be impossible for a group of people to just surround this dude and dismember him, no way. Little did I know that battles were just conga lines of each military meeting head to head in the middle with continuous one on ones. It's like the card game war if every single card had a name, a family, and a short description, like the shortsighted son of the Ace of Spades, the 2 of Clubs. And then occasionally the god of cards fucks with the line-up or drops an arrow onto the couple of the cards, or floods them out, or something weird.
Bottom line, I'm just not at all invested in the story. So many people are characterized that I can't keep track of them and lose all interest in them. Their cause isn't noble at all, fighting for a girl? Yeah, this is older times and they don't interact and deal with things like we do, but that's the inherent problem. Do I care that people do these brave and over the top acts for the glory? No! Fuck those people, the people who like to have a good image by doing weird shit, sacrificing themselves, fuck em. I think they're all selfish assholes, and this book is only reassures my point.
Maybe it'll get better later on, but I don't care. I couldn't be bothered to care. Hell, if I wasn't in this class, I wouldn't have given this book the light of day. If I were to pick it up on a whim, I would have dropped it 10 pages in. I just don't care about anything that happens in this book and I just want it to disappear. But it won't. It's existed for this long. There's no reason for it to stop existing. It's a classic, Calvin, don't you see? Can't you respect it? No. No, I can't. I can't respect it for taking the short time I may have on this planet and wasting a very valuable part of it. I mean shiiiit, I could have been playing Counter Strike instead of reading this.
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