My wife suggested a really good idea to spend the countless hours of no internet, no electric power. Why don't we revisit the classics? She said, and I, being the nerd that I am, signed the proverbial contract right away.
When I was a young lad, a new specimen of humunculi if you will, my mother saw it fit to provide me with a vast selection of books. In her view, and I think I share it now, she rather have nerdy children than hoodlums, so tempting us to stay home and read was her evil plan almost from the beginning.
Thanks to my mother's strategy, I can say, unlike many of my peers, I've read most of the classics and some a few times over. But, there's a big difference these days, and I suspect it's probably the same for most of us.
The books reads completely different now that I'm older. So much to the point, that I have no idea how I got the jokes at all. As a matter of fact, I find Moby Dick to be hilarious, my wife and I keep on laughing loudly and proudly in the darkness of these powerless nights, to the point where a neighbor came to check what we were up to.
I have to say, and I suspect this is common knowledge, and I simply don't know this to be fact, that this book is intensely religious. Not in a traditional sense, no, but more like a metaphor for the quest of faith we all seem to embark on at one time or another.
At one time or another, I've considered the possibility that back in the good ol' days life was just a little duller. I mean, the "entertainment" was milk toast, I would think, but revisiting this classic shows me how wrong those thoughts have been.
At any rate, we may be spending most of our nights like quakers, using candle light by our sides, but they won't be spent in boredom. That I know for sure.
MenO