How to read old books

Old books, including classics and canon literature, can be tricky. It’s not a matter of education or reading skills. It’s simply the way they’re written - long descriptions of nothing interesting, endless conversations about politics, questionable representations of women (especially), and so on. D.H. Lawrence’s ‘The Plumed Serpent’ is exactly one of those, so I thought I’d share 3 tips for reading old books.

1. It’s okay to skip paragraphs - I know nothing about the socio-political history of Mexico and, frankly, I’m not too interested in the details at the moment, therefore I simply skip through all the parts that are solely focused on this. You can get the bigger picture by skimming through them.
   

2. You don’t have to understand everything - Some of the words are strange and you may not know them as long as you understand what’s going on, you don’t need to stop and look it up. Also, most of those words are part of the aforementioned skippable paragraphs.
   

3. Things have changed, especially attitudes, behaviours, or mentalities - you can expect some of these books to be racist, sexist, etc. but you have to understand that it was simply the norm at the time. No, that doesn’t mean it’s okay, but it’s your chance to see how things have changed for the better and start an interesting conversation.