Trash literature?

There was a period in my life where my father was absolutely livid and frustrated about my choice of "trash" reading materials, he meant the romance novels/love stories of course. I was in my teens and he was probably afraid of what I might learn from those explicit romance novels. My explanation to him was that most everything is romantic novels. Some are just disguised as a spy novel or a horror story but they are basically about a search for love or redemption.

But one very good thing came out of it. It made me want to read Shakespeare again. Even the worst of these trashy novels mentioned Shakespeare. I've read his poems and sonnets before the trashy period but not his plays. So when I abandoned the romance novels to read Shakespeare's plays, I found out I was correct about the main theme of the world's literature, but the difference lies in how great literature made you think. Or rather how your brain works. With romance novels, one understands the sentiment, empathize or sympathize but one does not delve deeper either into the psyche or into the human heart. They do not give one more complex than one already have nor they do ease one's angst. One just cruise along when one is reading these paperback romance novels, they do not require one to think more than one should.

I still read novels but I've since learned to choose only the better kind. The ones that make one questions one's existence. The ones that paradoxically eases some of my mental burns.

My father said during this period "some novels pretend to be high brow but in the end, they do not bear deeper examination. They made reference to all sorts of theory and schools of thought, but why not read these theories and schools of thought yourself?" And this was what my father wanted me to understand. He said, "you may be enjoying that book right now but will you still enjoy that plot when you're older, more mature, have seen much of the world?" He wondered why I came to that point when I've actually had a very good start with my reading habit. My answer so far though not very convincing even to myself, is that there was a dearth of good reading materials in my hometown.

The romance novels I've been reading may have been labeled as trash by my father and probably by some people, but to others, these are all they can afford to read, literally and figuratively. It is so much better than without any interests, skills, hobbies or creative habits at all.