SPARKNOTES.COM

See this guy?? Ever see him before? Clue: He's pretty damn famous. As in Russian Literature Famous. As in Anna Karenina Famous. Give up??

This is Leo Tolstoy, the author of that famous Russian novel... a book that is one of my all time favorites. I read it once as a young woman, and then I re-read it again, as an old woman... about three years ago. What a story. Kind of a complicated story, too, given that not only is it a translation from a crazy ass language, but also, Leo apparently is into like 300 main characters, all of whom have names one can hardly roll off their tongue, given they each have like 15 syllables. Check out the list of characters one day and tell me if YOU can pronounce them!

In the meantime, I came across a web site the other day... SparkNotes. It's like a cheater's Cliff Notes/study guide type deal. You can study for a test on this book, get an A, all without ever once picking up the book and actually READING it! Man, what a concept! And, SparkNotes is way more detailed than I ever remember Cliff Notes being. Best of all... ITS FREE. You can download it straight from the net. Thus, to test the site, that's exactly what I did with Anna Karenina. Want to hear something bizarre??

Apparently I'M AN IDIOT!! I swear. I read all the notes, summaries, plots, etc. from this story and guess what? It turned out to be NOTHING like the book I read! I mean... I read the book, alright. And I loved the book immensely. But it seems as if I HAD NO IDEA OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED in the book. According to the SparkNotes, I missed way more than half the story!! As I said, it's a complicated story, but I had no clue there were so many levels to it. And so many sub-plots. And so many nuances. Etc. etc. Man, I was SHOCKED.

Had I followed the teacher's instructions let's say, and read the book, studied it, and then taken the test on it, I would have FAILED with flying colors! Remembering all the locations alone, of what takes place where in the story, was, according to the SparkNotes, WAY over my head. It absolutely stuns me that I so loved this book, thought I digested this book, but in reality, lost out on so MUCH of this book. Talk about feeling like a dunce. It's like there were 15 different levels in processing the story line and me? I uh... processed about the first half of the first level.

I dare not even IMAGINE I could pass a test on WAR AND PEACE. Which I did read, lonnnng ago. And, which Tolstoy also wrote, by the way. But, believe you me, should I ever sign up for a Literature course, I would SO never read the books. I'd head over to the cheater's web site lickety split, for SURE. Or...stick to books along the lines of NANCY DREW, THE BOBBSEY TWINS or THE HARDY BOYS. My comprehension of THESE is way closer to my reading level. I think.