One passage which captures my attention is "The interactive prefix 're' in front of the verb 'read' can present a small act of hypocrisy on the part of people ashamed to admit they have not read a famous book" (Calvino 3). I thought that this was funny because there are too many "famous" books to be able to read all of them. Other passages which stood out were all of the definitions which Italo Calvino gave to the word "classics". It was amazing to see that someone could give that many meanings to a single word. In addition, "Of course this happens when...it establishes a personal relationship with the reader. If there is no spark, the exercise is pointless: it is no use reading classics out of a sense of duty or respect, we should only read them for love" (Calvino 6). This passage captured my attention because I have read several books which I did not really care for and I agree with Calvino: reading books solely out of a sense of duty will not do the reader any good. Finally, and other passage that seemed interesting was "All that can be done is for each one of us to invent our own ideal library of our classics; and I would say that one half of it should consist of books we have read and that have meant something for us, and the other half of books which we intend to read and which we suppose might mean something to us. We should also leave a section of empty spaces for surprises and chance discoveries" (Calvino 9). This caught my attention because it seems like good advice and I would like to try it someday.
Calvino, Italo. Why Read the Classics. New York: Vintage, 1991. Web. July-Aug. 2011.
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