The Book Thread Book • Page 111

I usually prefer audiobooks when it comes to (relatively) old classics

 

That tweet is dumb. People should like what they like, read what they want. Making fans of high-level literature feel bad for enjoying that kind of thing is fucking stupid

 

I agree. It’s just that the other stuff you can sort of understand what they mean even if you don’t agree, but the Goethe inclusion makes no sense in any way.

 

It’s because the person who tweeted it themselves is an example of the person they’re making fun of, name-dropping a difficult text to appear intelligent- without knowing context. It’s dumb. Same reason Lolita is on that list.

 

I think they equate classical German literature with the far right, like some people equate an interest in classical antiquity with right far wing ideology now, because some of those idiots appear to like that stuff. But maybe I'm reading into it and they're really just name dropping like you said.

 

Regardless of intent, those kinds of tweets annoy me- shaving down classics and massive works of art to mean only ONE thing- that their readers are “problematic.” Sure, Ayn Rand was a massive advocate of capitalism. Yes, Lolita is told in the POV of a pedophile. Infinite Jest is massive, so is Ulysses. Yes, Goethe was the OG Holden Caulfield. But can’t readers be held to a different standard than what’s on their bookshelf? Book taste shouldn’t automatically define a person, especially since it’s fluid and can be influenced to change over the course of someone’s life—and just because you own/like a book, doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with the author who wrote it (nor does it mean you accept their authorial intent). Not everything is objective.

 

That Zadie Smith article I posted kind of relates to this

 

I remember in my freshman year of college immediately feeling dumb because I hadn't read many of the classics so I constructed a list of books I thought were essential for every English major to read, from Ulysses to Heart of Darkness and everything in between.

I got as far as Catch-22 and 1984 then said screw it, I'm reading Dune lol

 

It can definitely be rough, though in my experience the issues is often the reading lol audiobooks have been a great way for me to enjoy classics

 

I either instantly fall in love with a classic (Jane Eyre, Dorian Grey, 1984 come to mind) or instantly hate it so much that finishing it is a struggle (The Sound and The Fury, anything Austen, anything Dickens for some examples). There are very few classics that fall in between (though Steinbeck and Vonnegut are here for me).

Then you have classics like Monte Cristo where I adore the story, but my word, it’s about 500 pages too long.

My next classic I’m attempting is Don Quixote. I typically love Spanish language works so I’m hoping the audiobook I got is a good translation.

 

Massive fan of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist and his short stories. Hesitant to try Ulysses though, and Finnegan’s Wake seems impossible.

Similarly, I despise most of Hemingway but enjoy A Farewell to Arms.

Ayn Rand stood for some fucked up things, but I remember The Fountainhead having some cool prose when I first read it- the way she conveys an architect’s POV in the imagery.

There are plenty of classics that I like and hate aspects of, and it’s good to have a nuanced understanding/opinion of things.

 

Nuance, hah

 

I think Ayn Rand is a super stultifying writer, ideology aside

we're reading Lolita in one of my classes this semester and it's definitely sparked some discussion

 

Just a soft reminder that it's totally OK if you don't like, read, or finish a "classic." A lot of that noise is just effective marketing, really.

 

I think as a rule of thumb, classics are called that for a reason. But I agree with the first part.

 

For me personally, I’ve read as many classics as I have more so to understand how literature and writing has changed over all these years. Like, I “get” why certain writers and books over the last 5-25 years have made the impact or had some amount of buzz based just on a ‘new’ writing style vs what was written or how it was written 50-75-100+ years ago.

I do the same with music and movies and tv shows to try to appreciate, or just understand, why something gets people buzzing, outside of simply enjoying what I’m listening or hearing.

but it does depend on the story of the classic. I won’t read it just because it’s a classic, I have to find it interesting to get started. If it isn’t appealing then it gets avoided like anything else.

 

There are probably so many great books and authors, especially women and people of color, that readers like us today don’t even know about, because publishers and critics and academia never labeled them “classics.”

Like, my HS curriculum was a ton of classics, but only 2 were written by women. And none by anyone who wasn’t white. I think that tweet mocking men’s bookshelves was subtlety getting at that.

 

I think you’re reading a lot more into that tweet than what is actually there

 

Lolita is a very good book. You are not supposed to like Humbert lol. I thought one of the rare mistakes Kubrick made in the film adaptation was making Lolita like 4 years older and having little moments that that humanized him. He was just a monster in the book and had no empathy for Lolita.

 

I can’t recommend this enough. I had no idea how topical it was going to become when I posted it a few days abo.

 

trying to explain this to English graduate students melted my brain

 

@Donnie Ruth it's been a while man, what you been reading lately??

Hope you're doing well!

 

Hey I hope all is well! I’ve been SO busy with work, a new kitten, etc that I’ve been really bad at reading. Actually every day for about a month I’ve said “I NEED to start reading again” lol. I’m going up to the White mountains this weekend and gonna bring a book called Touch the Night by Mac Booth III.

There’s so many new ones from authors we’ve read I still need to get around to such as Riley Sager, Ruth Ware coming, Shari Lapena etc. hoping to pick it back up for the fall. How’s it been going for you??

 

Currently Reading: Chaos Rising (Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy, #1) by Timothy Zahn

 

Getting to the end of Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky and it lives up to what I heard. In that it's good at times but also kind of boring and eventually you just want it to be over.

Up next is The Whisper Man by Alex North.