Over the past few years, I've been haphazardly attempting to read some literary classics that I never had to read in high school or college. (Mostly this is because I feel vaguely ashamed of reading thousands of books and yet never trying a lot of 'standard' literature.) The three Russian authors (Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Nabokov) have been fine to wonderful -- in fact, The Brothers Karamazov is now one of my favorite books ever. I love Jane Austen to pieces.

But so far James is leaving me cold.