I REALLY ONLY READ THE CLASSICS.

• Author: Griffin, Elle
• Position: Editorial

Two years ago I read The Count of Monte Cristo. From there I read Les Miserables, then Anna Karenina, followed by The Arabian Nights, then The Nun, Manon Lescaut, Madame Bovary, and most recently Crime and Punishment. What started as an adoration of European literature has proliferated into an all out love affair.

However, my love affair with the classics has ruined modern literature for me--if you can even call it such. I've had to abandon all book club pursuits because I can no longer get past poorly written opening paragraphs, and the demonstrative need for modern novels to reach a theatrical climax and an even more theatrical resolution. It's far too much drama.

Old novels aren't like that. There is no climax or resolution. You simply read about Provincialism, Imperial Russian Society, or life during The French Revolution as the characters are experiencing it. There is no big event--no climax the book is building toward, and there is no ending--happy or otherwise. It is simply a portrait of a life.

I relate so much more to that. Because life does not end once the love interest proposes, the antagonist is apprehended, or...