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Title: Sometimes the classics can be boring
Review: Oh well, sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you. Reading the classics can be boring as this classic illustrates. Goldsmith should have kept to poetry and left the novel alone else he would not have produced this mess in the form of a philosophical romance, a loosely constructed story held together by ideas. Rasselas (Johnson) and Candide (Voltaire) are much better and worth a look. Meanwhile why bother with a story wherein the hero moves episodically from security through trials to the discovery that happiness and what truths we may grasp lie at home and in the human breast. The ideas are quaint and silly. The writing stylized and artificial. The characters impossible. The plot preposterous. You have better things to do with your time - like sleep.
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