(no subject)

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Anyone want to talk about "the canon" in terms of what the Marlows (to say nothing of Patrick, whom they quite clearly regard as the dangerous intellectual, in the old Russian joke sense ("Why do the KGB always send three people to make an arrest?" "One to read the charge out, one to write the accused's answer down, and the third to keep an eye on the two dangerous intellectuals")) regard as normal to have read at the ages at which they are portrayed, whether it could be regarded as in any sense normal except for an ultra-bright kid at a particular era in British educational thinking, whether the presence of "the canon" is/was objectively more daunting or exhilarating for (i) us at the time we encountered Forest (ii) a hypothetical child at the present day reading Forest for the first time?