I'm going to kill you, Charles Dickens

I swear, if he weren't already dead...

I took the practice test for the GRE Literature this weekend. My results were sort of disappointing (although better than the person who owned the book before me). I mean, I'm not going to be stuck going to BFE U., but I'm not getting into Cornell, either.

Here is the problem that I have: I'm actually a very poorly read English major. (I think I've posted about this before, but I'm too lazy to go look for it.) I read a lot, but I read a lot of crap. I read children's books and random stuff in German and romance novels and whatever's on the NY Times Bestseller List. I mean, reading Vernon God Little and The Lovely Bones isn't bad for me, but it isn't helping me get into grad school, either.

A list of things I'm ashamed to admit I've never read:

The Odyssey and The Illiad I was supposed to read them both at various points in my educational career and just never did. I bought The Odyssey a few months ago, determined to read it. It's gathering dust on my shelf.

Anything by Henry James.

Or Edith Wharton.

Or really any American author who wrote before 1960. That includes Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald (but not Steinbeck).

Tess of the D'Ubervilles. This wouldn't be a particular tragedy except it keeps popping up at odd moments in my life and I have to be all, "Uh, yeah. Never got around to it."

Joyce's Ulysses. I tried when I was in Dr. Doody's Engl. 364, but after about 100 pages I was so annoyed by frickin' Bloom that I put it down. I got an A on the paper about it that I faked my way through, though.

Othello. Obvious.

I'm sure there are other things that will occur to me after I post this, because every time I see a list of great books I have to cringe and admit that I haven't read nearly as many as I should have.