The Reading Gap

via The Millions:
What is the biggest, most glaring gap in your lifetime of reading?

Most people who responded had a complete list, and as much as I want to follow their lead it would be more challenging to find one single gap and leave it at that. So I've been thinking about this for something like a week, and have finally decided that if I were told that I could only ever read one neglected part of my reading for the rest of my life, I would have to start concentrating on world myths, legends, and religious histories. My biblical education is painfully lacking. I went through the Catholic system, and was a confirmed Methodist, but I really don't have the christian myths down pat. And this doesn't just include biblical stories, but the epics that sprung from them, including Arthur and his holy grail.

Don't even get me started on anything outside of the Christian cannon. For a period of time I was obsessed with the Egyptians and Greeks, and managed to pick up quite a bit of their mythology, but I was more interested in using their civilizations as backdrops for my own imaginings than I was in remembering faithfully what I was learning. Same with Norse mythology. My Japanese fan phase got me acquainted with quite a bit of far eastern mythology, but when it comes to China or Taiwan I'm still very much in the dark. And if you say Russia or Africa or the Middle East I say forget about it.

Last semester I managed to pick up a ton of Campbell's mythology books during a library sale. The hope is that once I've finished with them this particular hole will be plugged and I can go work on the next one, contemporary fiction.