People Who Believe Books are a Waste of Time and Money

I'd like to think that no such people exist. I cannot, however, and am more inclined to believe that we all know these people.

How do you deal with them? Avoid them? Argue? Ignore?

And a more personal question: if it is a closely related family member, does that make it more complicated?

Christ, what a provocative title for a thread--especially with this bunch.

I don't associate with people who don't read so it's not really fair for me to respond. I view non-readers with absolute disdain--it's a form of mental retardation that can rarely be cured with therapy, drugs, electric cattle prods...so I avoid those folks like plague victims. Leave them to their TV's and GameBoys...

Can't wait to see what Karl has to say. Tune in tomorrow...

hey is anyone there i am new here and need help plz

hello
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ok so i read this book from peg kehret and it is called cages well does anyone have it with them

>2 CliffBurns: - Provocative indeed.

I disdain those who don't read, but I also disdain those who do, depending on what they read (though that is not the sole basis of my opinions of them). I avoid when possible, ignore when necessary, and endure in silence when all else fails.

My personal reason for starting this discussion is a direct family member; thus, it's a little hard to avoid him. He does read, but only on the following subjects: religion, conspiracies, and technical stuff (mathematical, scientific, what have you). All of my fiction books he views as, well, a waste of time and money. Most of my nonfiction, too, I imagine. I think he thinks that everything he does is great and worthwhile, and everything I (and some other family members) do is the opposite. I'm honestly not sure how to respond besides with righteous indignation. Very righteous.

twochicky - Not the right discussion for you to request help. If you need help for something specific, start another discussion. If you are looking for other people who have read that specific book, start a discussion with the book's title involved.

"I disdain those who don't read, but I also disdain those who do..."

Magnificent!

I have a few family members who don't read - and most of the rest of us are avid, voracious readers. One of these is my brother - he's kind of a psychopath, so I don't worry about this issue as much as I worry about leaving my credit cards out when he's around. The other is my aunt - and I am very close to her, she played a big part in my growing up. I love her a lot - so it's a bit different from your situation, it sounds like: we mostly handle it by agreeing to avoid the subject. I'll talk about other things I am interested in and thinking about, or I'll talk about things I'm thinking about without mentioning they're in a new book; she doesn't make book talk when I'm nearby.

This guy sounds like a real obnoxious person, the kind it would be hard to reach detente with. And sometimes, it's impossible to avoid reacting. My first thought would be to handle it like I handle my mother in laws demands that I produce grandchildren immediately - I smile, nod, and change the subject. Repeatedly. (This has caused me to wear down my teeth through grinding; but I haven't killed her yet, so I figure it's a win.) I find indignation feeds the monster in that case, and polite, repeated dismissal of the topic I don't want to broach at least keeps her foiled at the initial comment, instead of proceeding to debate. I'm not debating her - I refuse to acknowledge her viewpoint that much. I just smile, nod, and have a look on my face like it's clear I think she's full of it, and change the subject. That turns the frustration and anger back on her end.

Hope that's helpful at least in part?

>7 inaudible: - Hey, it's true! (I disdain most people, actually, but I thought that saying so outright wouldn't encourage responses so much. Respect is earned, not given. In my case, at least.)

Thanks for the compliment!

>8 freddlerabbit: - I don't know my extended family well at all, but it doesn't appear that we would have much in common. I really only know my immediate family. I get along with 2/3 of said immediate family, and not at all with the remaining 1/3, i.e. the guy I mentioned in previous post. Sadly, he has a great say in things for me, whether I like it or not. And I don't like it.

Yes, he is obnoxious, but he doesn't even realize it. I would love to be able to come to the sort of agreement you came to with your aunt, but we aren't on good terms. Just a few days ago he yelled at me over my not remembering a small detail of my day. I actually managed to hold my temper, mostly because I was angrier with myself for not foreseeing it. I can't be mad at him, since I never expected anything better from him.

If I do something he doesn't like, he basically declares that there 'must be something wrong with' me. Makes the whole situation very hard to deal with on my end. Otherwise, I probably would like (or love... or relish) turning the anger and frustration back on him. Despite my indignation, I tolerate him and his idiocy. I keep my anger away from him because I know from experience how it would backfire.

It's very helpful, freddlerabbit. Thank you. I just wish he would keep to himself so I could keep to myself; those are the only times I don't mind him. I managed to keep my mind somewhat calm for a while, despite some incredibly insulting things he said and did, but I lost that calm when I found out he had commented on the number of books I have, saying he was 'concerned,' as well as saying something that made it clear he thought all of them a waste. I then proceeded to throw a cussing party in my mind. If he had only not criticised my books, I wouldn't have become so furious.

I'm sure it is now quite plain why I started this discussion. I'm angry, certainly not completely calm. I remind myself that no matter what I need to act like I'm okay with him for the sake of my growing library. It's... infuriating.

P.S. Sorry if I was ranting too much.

Good advice from freddlerabbit. Just thought I'd add that if this annoying figure is a parental unit, I'd think that, "I'm a precocious 14-year-old who is reading Boethius and Anthony Powell when I could otherwise be drinking or getting pregnant--count your blessings. Besides, the more I read and the smarter I get, the less you'll pay for my university education" would be a reasonable defense. :) If a sibling unit, well, he'll mature eventually. Just wait him out.

(Saw you in the Folio thread--never would've guessed your age, of course.)

What kind of loony teen reads Anthony Powell? Shouldn't he be reading Henry Miller or the interviews in Playboy? There are dinguses who don't read, but there are also pretentious asshats who flaunt their reading, even when it is far above their heads.

Bill Hicks. Waffle House waitress joke. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Here's something frightening: I teach high school English--at a private school with very talented students--and only 3 of the teachers in my department (out of 15) actively read. The rest rent movies and watch a lot of TV.

I've paid special attention to this since I published a novel two years ago. Everyone congratulated me, but only one person in the department even pretended to read it.

It's my unfortunate experience, both within and without my department, that a lot of "educated" people either read crap or don't read at all. But ENGLISH TEACHERS?!

I had a similar conversation with a LIBRARIAN, who had the decency to admit it was probably wrong for someone in her line of work not to be a big reader.

But it's mind-blowing, innit?

Maybe they're just watching the Wire and drinking Merlot. You know, like the rest of us blue collar slobs.

The one's who make me choke on my Monsoon Mysore Malabar are the ones who say, "Why do you keep all these books? You've read them, you know what happens."

I could forgive the much loved, elderly great-aunt who left school at 12, but the graduate cousin?

Ralph Waldo Emerson thought that fiction was something of a waste of time. He wanted somebody, maybe Hawthorne or Melville, to give it up to write transcendentally enlightening non-fiction. He's my hero, but all my heroes have some clay parts. Also he had a lot of authority, even if it was inconclusive, for his judgment.

Robert

>10 Medellia: - Yes, the annoying figure is a parental unit. He is very unreasonable, and as such, coming at him with a reasonable defense is fruitless. I have thought of saying things along the same lines myself, but it would just get him fired up to argue and yell.

I was wondering how many people were members of both Literary Snobs and Folio Society devotees. Definitely more than 1, though. (I myself am convinced that there are plenty more. I'm just too lazy to check profiles.)

>11 kswolff: - I have Henry Miller, too. I didn't add most of my library to LibraryThing, and probably won't. I don't have Playboy, likely because I'm female and porn is free anyway. I don't think that adding something to a LibraryThing list is flaunting what I read, nor does it make me pretentious. As far as I know, I have not gone around bragging about what I read, above my head or no. Besides, I realize that I am not able to appreciate many aspects of the things I read. That isn't a reason not to read them.

>12 GeoffWyss: - I knew a teaching assistant who told me that 'their' was spelled 'thier'.

#11 - one whose parents have Powell's books about the house. i hope you were being sarcastic. Really, what one reads at home, while growing up, is largely a function of what's available. My sibs and i didn't talk about our reading w/ friends in hs, but that doesn't mean we didn't read just about everything in the house, from Rex Stout to both Durrells to Nabakov to AA Milne and back to Ngaio Marsh(sic) As mentioned a while back my mother urged us to read one flew over the cuckoo's nest, and then several years later, blamed the faux hippie lifestyle i aspired to on ken kesey. wtf.

Sci-fi my sister and i picked up on our own - that's what the jr & senior hs libraries were for.

#17: Besides, I realize that I am not able to appreciate many aspects of the things I read. That isn't a reason not to read them.
The perfect attitude for readers ages 2 to 122. I'm keeping that in mind as I read Proust. (Look out--I'm flaunting. ;)

>19 Medellia: - Haha, yes, if I didn't maintain that attitude I wouldn't be able to read at all. Even children's books have depth (not always); just look at Dr. Seuss!

Yeah, there's a lot of that about, and it's unfortunate when it happens. A particular problem for the feminine half of this account (that is to say, the future Mrs. Sollocks). She's considered QUITE the oddball by her very large immediate family, and this comes out in delightfully passive-aggressive ways. For example, during the most recent Christmas exchange, she was literally the only one who received no books, which were all she asked for. One sibling is nearly illiterate; still got a book. She asks her mother if they can spend more time together, and gets the response "what would we DO? Just sit around and READ?" Charming.

All you can do is be yourself. Most teenagers think they are smarter than their parents...it sounds like you actually are. Congratulations! It's too bad that you are forced to put up with this, but remember that this too shall pass. You're well on your way to becoming a far more interesting person than it sounds like your Parental Unit is or has ever been.

Your instincts to bite your tongue when you get furious are right on: don't rock the boat, and hopefully all your books won't fall out.

>21 sollocks: - That certainly sounds pleasant. Poor Mrs. Sollocks. Being treated differently would be one thing, but that just seems nasty.

Thank you for the compliment; I don't consider myself smarter altogether, just in certain areas. My other parent is intelligent and pleasant to be around, for the most part, so it makes me less inclined to feel superior.

I'm awaiting the day this passes, but he's like a volcano in the way he stays dormant for a while, leaving me alone, and then taking too much interest. He's like that in other things, too. No consistency.

When I was younger, I couldn't hold my temper well at all. Made elementary school miserable. Experience is a very good teacher, if highly unpleasant. I'm still not great at it, though. I try not to rock the boat. Sometimes that doesn't do any good, but so far, no books have fallen.

#12 GeoffWyss: Your post rang a very loud bell in my head. My father-in-law used to be a primary school headmaster but seems to regard anyone who reads as a waste of space. He hates clever people or anyone with a degree (he entered teaching immediately after WW2 when entry restrictions in UK were close to zero). He does read thrillers and the like in bed, but in the 20+ years I have known him he has never as far as I know entered a bookshop or discussed a book. I used to be a teacher of Physics until 1999 and coming to Scotland after many years overseas was a very dispiriting experience as many of my colleagues seemed to despise any sort of learning. My brother-in-law, an economics teacher, was hoping to get council support for a visit to Japan. I lent him one of my books written by a young man who had been on a study visit to Japan but he said it was "heavy" which I translate as "too hard". Why the hell should I as a taxpayer pay someone to visit Japan when they can't even be bothered to read a book by someone who went in similar circumstances? The book by the way was Pictures in the Water Trade: an Englishman in Japan which shouldn't be "hard" for a teacher.

Something in this conversation reminds me of a story I know I've told on LT before, but I'm going to tell it again anyway. On the first day of school in tenth grade, we were doing the usual BS of "let's get to know each other" - even though we'd known each other for years. Whatever. (As a teacher, I never do this.) We were supposed to say our name and something we liked to do. I said my name and that I liked to read. My teacher answered back, "Surely a pretty girl like you has something better to do than read." WTF?! Like the football team, perhaps? What is it that pretty girls should be doing?

Pretty girls should be looking for a husband and in the kitchen baking pies. Well, at least that's what Phyllis Schaftly would want. We don't need no Communist lesbian ERA amendment to the Constitution.

Or something.

>24 emaestra: - Wow. I'm not even sure what to say about that story, but... wow.

I had always thought pretty girls could do more than look pretty (and bake, and mate, etc.), but if a teacher says otherwise...

#24 - just out of curiosity - was the teacher male or female? I'd guess male, but one never knows how far perverse socialization has gone. Either gender is equally plausible.

> 24 - For some weird reason, that reminds me of that old NRBQ tune:

Well, I like to play baseball
I like to go swimmin’
We like to watch movies
With pretty women
We like to eat pizza
Play ping-pong too
But we don’t like to mow the lawn
Rake the leaves
Do you?
We like to have lots of fun
And sing these songs for you

We like to play records
And ride in a limo
We like to go bowlin’
With fine young women
We like to watch "CHiPs"
With Poncherello
But we don’t like to paint the house
Scrub the floor
Do you?
We like to have lots of fun
And sing these songs for you

We like to turn on
Right out of this world
We like short dresses
When they’re on girls
We like to skip school
Break all the rules
But we don’t like to study much
Arithmetic
Makes us sick
We like to have lots of fun
And sing these songs for you

We like to have parties
All night and all day
We like Joe Franklin
And Bob & Ray
We like to get crazy
Right out of our heads
We don’t like to watch the news
Shine our shoes
Do you?
We like to have lots of fun
And sing these songs for you

The teacher from my story in #24 was female - but she was a home ec/child development teacher. And she was old. Since I was fifteen, that probably means she was like forty. You know, practically dead.

Then you haven't seen Vanessa Williams these days? Or Ellen Barkin in Oceans 13?

when yr 15 -- 40 seemed way out of ones conceptual frame of practical reference. Hell, when i was 21 i chickened out of a relationship w/ an "ancient" 35 yr old woman who was most defn. gorgeous and an interesting artist to boot.

Cue theme music from "Summer of '42".

Bob, love ya, baby...but what a dope!

yeah - it was dopey on my part, but i was even more clueless then than now. & i've been known for a lifetime of inadvertent cluelessness. But even now the women i find (hypothetically) "romantically" attractive are around my age (55-65) - never got the young trophy wife thing, all the attempts at socio-biological explanations notwithstanding.

I've seen studies (or the popularized results of said studies) that say "old" is sixteen years older than you are.

>34 geneg: - What if you're the world's oldest person alive? Does the world become a garden of youth? That would be odd. Interesting, though.

34: Gene, yeah, I would say that's true. There's a certain appeal of "women of a certain age." I find Vanessa Williams sexy, not Jessica Tandy (not that she wouldn't be fun to have around for mixed drinks). That's probably why Harold and Maude is so funny.

A realtor who sold us a house dropped by to visit after we had moved in. He noticed our bookshelves, surveyed the contents, said "My goodness, I've never heard of any of these books!" ~~~ Just for fun now: how many of mine do you share?

and of course hopeless crushes - ie a lifelong crush on Martina Navratilova

I have another stunner to add to useless professionals who don't read. I'm a translator by trade and manage a team of several. I feel reading (of all nature) is a basic requirement for this job. When one of my staff (not very good, need I specify?) told me she didn't like to read, I was at a loss for words. I had no remorse when I was able to fire her a few months later...

#37 - only own 12 - defn. agree w/ your 5 star rating/review of Sarah, Plain and Tall.

#37, we share 45 of your 633 cataloged, and a nice mixture of recent and old. Perhaps we're not so weird, or just weird in similar ways. Perhaps we should all keep a shelf of Tom Clancy and Danielle Steele out for company so they won't feel so lost.

#37 -- We share 44 books. For me, it's all about bizarro juxtapositions. Put some Clancy next to Foucault and French erotica next to sacred Christian lit, with George Bataille somewhere in the middle. I have my Evelyn Waugh next to my Proust. Can't get more snobbish than those two. I also have my Henry Adams next to Italo Calvino.

>37 Esta1923: - I have no idea, since I haven't cataloged many of my books. We have some in common, though.

Actually, I'm a bit surprised by how hard it is to find other people who read in my age group (I'm a college student, so nyah, go figure). I suppose I just assumed that everyone read at least a little, but I was surprised by how hard it was to find people to share my love for books with, especially when I got to college. (My college is pretty competitive, so I don't know, I expected the lamer people to be weeded out a little?)

I also work part-time at a videogame store, and I often suggest the Pokemon games to people with young kids because they involve a lot of reading, and I think that's a great way to encourage kids to learn. It's actually startling how many parents have been absolutely appalled at that fact. At first this confused me, but it's actually quite common.

I also met a girl my senior year of High School who was aspiring to be an author. We shared a lot of similar interests, so I tried to talk to her about some pretty popular authors I loved (Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, K.A. Applegate, etc.), and she hadn't heard of any of them. I attempted to talk to her about comics, but she seemed even more oblivious in that department. It turned out that reading wasn't even one of her hobbies! She preferred videogames and cartoons, and the only reason she had even heard of one series I asked her about was because there was a TV show. (Both of which I DO appreciate as an art student, but...you want to be an author? I'd expect you to do MORE reading than me.)

Gah, that turned into a mini-rant, sorry bout that.

44: K.A. Applegate! Man, now that you've sent me down memory way I need to pull out my box of Animorphs books and start browsing. That series owned my early adolescence.

>44 TheLeMur: - No matter what college you go to, there will always be unintelligent people and people you don't like. I'm not saying that all who don't read are stupid, mind you. I just have never seen a college (or school in general) with only intelligent people. Just recently I saw an article about Stanford, where the kids were in a pool playing their musical instruments. I see no good reason to moisten perfectly good instruments. Last time I checked it was not beneficial to do so.

Are the parents foreign, then? That's the only way it would be sensible in the least, and even then, not by much. Not surprising altogether, I suppose.

I've heard of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, though I don't know a thing about the former. No idea who K.A. Applegate is. I haven't read anything by any of them.

That, however, is astonishing. I wonder why she even wanted to be an author. Amazing.

Rants are fun. And interesting.

"My teacher answered back, "Surely a pretty girl like you has something better to do than read." "

I'm suddenly and deeply depressed :-(

>41 emaestra: "Perhaps we should all keep a shelf of Tom Clancy and Danielle Steele out for company so they won't feel so lost."

That would require owning works by these folks. It's emotionally easier to not have people visit than it is to visualize paying money for such as that.

>48 geneg: - Ah, but what if we were PAID to own those books?

If only life worked that way... A nickel for every bad book; just imagine!

That tactic would seem to reward moron readers. How about a nickel for every GOOD book?

Cripes, I could retire and, y'know, spend my whole day READING...

>50 CliffBurns: - But then we wouldn't have as many nickels. Well, we, personally might, but I mean on the whole; bad books outnumbering the good, and all.

If life worked that way, then the bad books could be sold and then there would be a profit in addition to the nickels. That would be splendid...

But then there'd be inflation... Hm. Ah, well, it isn't happening anyway.

Also, to clarify my Message 49, 'own' should be 'take'.

Cliff, it is my sad experience that retirement does not bring expansive reading time although there is some additional leisure.

I had to sleep until noon today. Then I worried about doing some work for the AOAO and some work on my house that the AOAO is pestering me about (and I'm not doing either). I had to watch my cat ignore a can of catfood. I had to go to the newspaper rack twice because I didn't have quarters the first time. My Blackberry decided to upgrade its software today; that took a lot longer and more attention than I expected. I have to spend a few hours on LibraryThing. I have to go out for a steak dinner with a friend tonight. When I get home I will want to read for a couple of hours; the cat will distract me; other things will distract me.

Oh the suffering!

Robert

46: I wasn't expecting a complete absence of idiotic people, but I suppose I was under the impression that the kids in college would be a little more...sensible, perhaps, than those in high school. (Ech, sensible's not really the word I'm looking for, but I can't quite place it. Common sense? logic? something like that. (Luckily, I did meet a girl who reads even more than me, and we've become very close friends.))

As for the parents being foreign, I don't think so. I think it's more of a "videogames are supposed to be fun!"-type thing, though I remember enjoying Pokemon when I was younger, reading and all. I've also heard the argument that "they want something that's not too hard." Though I'm sure most six and seven year-olds who play Pokemon will start bragging to you about how awesome they are at the game.
Otherwise, people are weird.

(Applegate writes a lot of YA/Teen Sci-fi. Her newer series seems more like it's bordering on Fantasy, though I haven't personally read it.)

44: Animorphs! Ah, those books. *nostalgic sigh*

>53 TheLeMur: - Common sense is quite uncommon, as are logic and sense. Besides, there's a reason why 'college life' is associated with drinking, partying, and rioting without cause. Age doesn't temper stupidity, sadly.

It's good that you found someone with like interests, though.

...Wow. So all things fun must be devoid of reading. Lovely world we live in, wouldn't you agree?

I looked up Applegate just now, and I recognize the covers of her Animorphs series from elementary school. I recall that there were a lot of them, but I was never interested.

Robert, you just broke my darn heart.

Retirement doesn't mean more reading time? Boo hoo...

This brings up a lot of memories, many not so great. My parents were both readers, thank goodness, but of my four sibs, only two were/are. I had friends as a kid who would urge me to get my head out of a book and come play.

The worst in terms of comprehending this was my brother-in-law. When my sister was able to sell some books secondhand, he remarked that he was surprised that adults read, he thought books were only for schoolkids. Umm . . . I worked at the time for a major university press--what on earth did he think they were paying me to do?

I accept that I have friends and family who don't read, but I feel sorry for them. Maybe that's condescending--I just know they are missing out on something that may be the single greatest joy in my life.

But it's almost worse when someone announces that they love to read--they read every Danielle Steele that comes out!

Lately, I've been running into people who believe my obsession with books is a form of escapism.

Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with that.

I'd rather read than watch "American Idol" or "Dancing with the Stars" or whatever televised solyent green is fashionable nowadays. Granted I enjoy "Project Runway" as much as any self-respecting heterosexual (Tim Gunn is actually a respectable aesthete!), the rest of the time, modern TV schedules and the NYT Bestseller list make me pray for Nuclear Armageddon or at least a decent literary scandal.

The movie "They Live" sums it up nicely:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lwlx3GnLGs

Jesus, "They Live". I reviewed that one umpteen years ago in a college rag. Talk about a trip down memory lane, Karl...

It's all about John Carpenter today. Maybe I can figure out how to shoehorn a reference to "the Thing."

"I don't know what it is, but it's weird and pissed off." That and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre have got to the be the scariest movies out there.

"They Live" is extremely awesome under the right circumstances. Those circumstances involve being drunken with a bunch of your buddies.

#60 & #61

Yup...

>56 ejj1955: - Perhaps the question never occurred to your brother-in-law, and he just had not thought of it.

As long as you don't express how you feel sorry for them directly to them, I'd think it would be fine. They, in turn, may feel sorry for you because you don't share their interests.

Every single one? Good God.

>57 LheaJLove: - Everything is a form of escapism. It's rather irrelevant to think about.

>63 Irieisa: There were other things, believe me. Like the time I was exhausted from putting in 12-hour days to get a book out, and he said "you don't work," because what he did was physical labor. He was and is a great guy in a lot of ways, but there was a big chasm between us on a lot of subjects--books, school, the joys of travel.

Another instance that springs to mind is the girl in my high school class who told me once that the only book she'd ever read "all the way through" was Love Story. How did she ever get through English class?

#58

A serious message, but all I could think of was "that mullet is SO 1980s" !!

>64 ejj1955: - I see. Best to avoid those topics, then, I guess. Personally I hate traveling, but enjoy reading about the exploits of those so inclined.

So she had never completely read children's books? Hm. However, it's easier to get through English class without reading books than you might think. First, there are Spark Notes and Cliff's Notes, and second, book skimming and winging assignments isn't typically hard.

Love Story -- now there's gravitas. "Love means never having to carry a vomit bag."

Bad enough the book was complete and utter treacly crap, but then the movie cast Ali McGraw, one of the worst actresses ever to grace the silver screen. Yecch.

My favorite part of Love Story is actually in "What's Up Doc?": Barbara Streisand says the "love means never having to say you're sorry" line, to which Ryan O'Neal responds "that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

"I'll have what she's having"

;-)

>69 sollocks: Oh, yes! that's a really funny movie. His girlfriend (Madeleine Khan?) was priceless.

Ahh, RIP Madeline Kahn. SO funny in that movie. Just listen to her delivery on the simplest of lines. "I'M...COMING...IN." Three little words, inexplicably hilarious. Her first feature film.

"Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live." Gustave Flaubert

Is any comment even necessary?

Such a statement either brings an immediate frisson of recognition or most likely remains incomprehensible.

I may have to move back to Wisconsin, given my status of unemployment, but ... and it's a big but, I have 2500+ books in my apartment. The necessity of moving such a heavy horde does not bother me. Yes, they are heavy (I have a ton -- literally! -- of coffee table art books) and it takes a lot of effort. But consider the alternative?

Whenever someone tells me I need to sell some of my books, I keep thinking of that scene from Sophie's Choice (OK, I can probably dump my Tom Clancy pile I bought at Savers (kinda like Goodwill), but that's about it.) And it's not just individual books, I have sizable collections of Burgess, Waugh, Balzac, Faulkner, Stephen Jay Gould, etc. Plus it's more valuable to keep a collection together.

Reading is a positive addiction. I need to read something, even if it's some crap lit just to keep my brain busy.

"even if it's some crap lit just to keep my brain busy"

Oh, is that what they call Sh*t Lit ? LMAO

Sometimes I read crap lit to stop my brain--those little hamsters keep the wheel o'worry going full speed, and sometimes I need to slow them down by taking a vacation in fantasy land (not always literally fantasy fiction--mysteries and Regency romances work well, too).

Ah, well, that's why they call them "guilty pleasures"...

I don't feel that guilty--hey, I'm not beating anybody up. The guilt comes mostly from "I should be working instead." Very rarely do I think "I should be reading better books," though sometimes that thought comes. And is promptly dismissed. Sometimes I want Deep Thought and Great Prose, but usually I just want to lose myself in another world.

I'm 45, going on 46. Sometimes I wonder if I have time to read all the GOOD books on my list and, therefore, I find myself avoiding trashy reading. Michael Connelly and Lee Child are about as far down the food chain as I'm willing to go...

Ah, I've accepted that I will die with many good (and many more bad) books unread. C'est la vie. Or, well, la mort.

If you can't read them, you can always stare at your library shelves and swoon.

If you can't read 'em join 'em. That's what I say!

>71 ejj1955: and 72 - At the risk of digression, Madeleine Khan was a comic genius. Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Clue... I despair of there ever being a woman as funny as her again.

Would you like to come into my dwessing woom?

#67 there is a book worse than Love Story... Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. I believe they even made a film of that too.

#86 ... aww nooooooooooo. noooooooooooo. noooooooooooo.

Richard Bach is a gentle genius.

Richard Bach? Genius? Not to most of this group, I'll wager. Any more than Carlos Casteneda is a major religious figure...

What??? You don't attend the Church of the Little Smoke? The church Casteneda founded on the Way of Yaqui Knowledge based on the life of Don Juan.

Next time you see that lone Crow, you will want to keep a wary eye on it.

>81 ejj1955: - I live with someone who gets really afraid of death, and even of aging sometimes. I always have felt that these are just normal parts of life, and hadn't feared them much - until I started keeping my shelves on LT, and realized that I have limited time, and I'm never going to be able to read everything I want to! I do agree - you just have to accept it. But it's the one thing that's really gotten me down about the whole process. :)

#88

Now you're starting on Carlos Castaneda... what else from my library will you diss next I wonder?

>90 freddlerabbit: - I just remind myself that I'll be too dead to care. Makes it hard to feel very concerned.

86: Smart-alecky Bird Jesus! What's not to get?

Castenada's experiences were as real as those Holocaust memoirs Oprah keeps hawking. As real as the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

What exactly is the appeal of Jonathan Livingston Seagull? It's like the polar opposite of a Robert Jordan doorstopper: a wafer-thin, copiously illustrated, piece of New Agey-vaguely spiritual treacle.

Maybe that's how I end my economic poverty: write a stupid little religious book for gullible idiots. Worked for L. Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith Now where are my seer stones and magic crystals?

"Castenada's experiences were as real as those Holocaust memoirs Oprah keeps hawking. As real as the Invisible Pink Unicorn."

And on what evidence, precisely, do you presume to make that assertion?

@94 - yoikes, I hope this doesn't mean you find pharmaceutical-founded experiences generally to be "unreal" (although, isn't "unreal" part of the great Hippie Lexicon? That would seem appropriate for Castenada, in a way) - or I'm going to have to look at those vomit-inducing antibiotics of mine in a whole new light. . .

#95: None of this does anything for you?
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/04/12/castaneda/

>95 Tid: - a writer named Richard De Mille comprehensively discredited Castenada's work as long ago as 1976.

95: For fake Holocaust memoirs, just Google: "fake Holocaust memoirs." Shouldn't be surprising to anyone that's read a newspaper in the last year or two.

And this clip from SCTV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB6KFa7-6B4

#99

I wasn't referring to the B-side of your analogy, but to the A-side (Castaneda).

My friends Medellia and the ol' Jargoneer are quite right: Casteneda was utterly discredited and unmasked as a phony. I read the Salon article awhile back and laughed my ass off...

Please point me at that article, I've clearly not read it.

>102 Tid: - message #97 already has a link to it.

Wow, that was quite an article on Salon. It's doubly disturbing that a number of women disappeared and probably died, and that Simon and Schuster continues to publish the books as nonfiction--presumably not out of any real conviction, but simply because they're making money that way.

All the article proved to me was that Castaneda was exactly as he comes across in the books - a pretty hopeless sh*t.

It didn't bring any evidence to bear about his "apprenticeship", not one iota.

#105: Then pick up a copy of Richard de Mille's Castaneda's Journey: The Power and the Allegory.

I remember back in HS my history teacher asked us at the end of the year how many of us planned to read over the summer and only about half the class raised their hand. Worse yet, when he asked how many planned to read more than two or three books, mine was the only hand up. It really saddened me that even the smart kids didn't seem to *enjoy* reading the way I did.

(Funny story: he asked me how many books I thought I'd read and I said about a hundred. I kept count that summer, and sure enough, it was over a hundred. Several of those were re-reads though. I didn't do a lot *other* than read during the summers.)

Re: Castaneda ... makes me happy I grew up in the 1980s, when the closest thing to spiritual gurus were Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, and combover-meets-epic-douchiness Donald Trump True, there were Jerry Falwell and Jimmy "I love hookers" Swaggart, but they peddled a Junk Christianity every bit as fake as Boesky's junk bonds. In the 1980s, I realized Church and State were two sides of a highly devalued coin.

If I worship anyone, it's the ghosts of Flaubert, Ambrose Bierce, Karl Kraus, and HL Mencken -- all brilliant curmudgeons who find bourgeois life disgusting and shallow.

A list, please. I can deduce Cicero, Erasmus, and Mencken. Has any American other than Hunter Thompson written anything readable in the last 50 years?

Most of my favorite writers are Yanks--Pynchon, Colson Whitehead, James Crumley, Cormac McCarthy...

Are you thinking of a specific genre/field?

>109 snickersnee:

Squeaking in, but barely, in the timeframe you mention, what about Jack Kerouac, James Thurber, or Truman Capote? At least two of them are in your library, but that, of course, does not imply that you found them readable.

Raymond Carver, off the top of my head.

there's been an awful lot of first rate American poetry in the last half century.
Which kind of reminds me - On our commute, we've been listening to an excellent set of 48 lectures on the history of BritLit starting w/ Beowulf and ending w/ Heaney and Rushdie and Stoppard. Today was 20th C poetry and this was one instance where the teacher's biases defn. turned up. He mentioned that there were two main strains - the modernist (Eliot etc) and the lyric poets - Hardy and....about half the lecture devoted to Philip Larkin. Who's a great poet, no doubt, but leaving the "modernists" w/ 4 minutes given to Eliot seemed a bit unfair. I must say I am not wild about Hardy as a poet.

Kerouac, at least according to Truman Capote, was a very good typist.

>109 snickersnee:

"Has any American other than Hunter Thompson written anything readable in the last 50 years?"

Is there some qualification or parameter I'm missing here?

To start: Marilynne Robinson, Cynthia Ozick,

I'm trying really hard not to turn into a raving patriotic nut, but I'm wondering what kind of response I would have gotten had I posted a similar comment about British, Canadian, or Australian authors. I think I would have been roundly (and deservedly) criticized as an ignorant provincial US-centric idiot.

Whoa, there hoss! Between US, the Brits, the Canucks and the Aussies which sits on the top of the heap? We Americans are provincial US-centric idiots for good reasons.

"Between US, the Brits, the Canucks and the Aussies which sits on the top of the heap"

In terms of quality of literature? Careful...

I'm British (Scottish) and would put the US top of the heap. The sheer size of the US means it produces more of everything ergo more quality literature. That's not to say that the other three countries don't also have excellent writers.

Ah, but in Britain we have no Iowa

;-)

On the other hand, we do have East Anglia ...

The British have been at it for much longer, though. As the saying goes, an Englishman thinks 100 miles is a long distance, while an American thinks 100 years is a long time.

A close-run thing - as Wellington said - but on balance I think we Brits have it. Most of my favourite non-genre writers are British.

# 109 - Wow

One could argue that if you can't find anything readable written in a country as big as the US in the last 50 years you were never really looking to begin with.

Canadian fiction is rubbish.

American fiction, thanks to its sheer diversity, the breadth of themes and approaches, is far better.

Aussie fiction...hmm, well, I've read some Peter Carey and liked it but haven't read enough to provide a general impression so I'll leave that one alone.

Brit writing is technically superior, though often a tad chilly for my tastes...

shucks, I'm partial to rubbish by Ondaatje, Kinsella, Davies, Anne Carson and sometimes Atwood, Brian Moore and even Leonard Cohen

American fiction, thanks to its diversity is far better . . . and far worse

yeah, there is no Aussie fiction; the country can't write

the Brits apparent technical superiority is just the tasty look of the extra vowels

Ondaatje writes like a girl.

Heheh. I love saying stuff like that, just to raise hackles.

As for Davies, Atwood...ah...(be polite, Cliff, be polite)...do they use a single action verb in their prose?

Does ANYONE read Kinsella any more?

Regarding Australian fiction, Nick Cave wrote a Southern Gothic novel. Not having read it yet I can't comment on its quality, but I just find that idea incredibly cool. And his script for The Proposition was good.

hard to raise hackles with complements (hey - lots of people publish girls)

good writers don't need action verbs or car chases or testosterone

yup, I still read Kinsella

;)

Patrick White did win a Nobel Prize for literature.

Perhaps I was too restrictive. Has any great book been written in the last 50 years? By anyone?

#129 That one I won't touch. I'm STUNNED by the great fiction of the past fifty years.

#128 Ondaatje, Atwood, Davies specialize in the kind of effete, passive prose that Canada has celebrated for far too long. Place and race are given prominence by our editors and publishing poobahs to the extent that many of our presses need government handouts to survive. The average reader has turned away from the bone-dry dull prose that passes for Canadiana. I've said it before, there are exceptions (Mordecai Richler, Timothy Findley and, more recently, Joseph Boyden and Elizabeth McClung) but they DON'T disprove the general rule...

> 129 there have been absolutely NO classics written in the last 50 years.

Then again, it takes at least 50 years for a great book to become a classic

;-)

>129 snickersnee:

That is the kind of question that deserves its own thread. I can only imagine the fierce debate that will surround any candidates put forth.

And do we first define our terms--what makes a book great? Is it ideas, characters, writing, influence?

No classics since 1959?

This point just seems too silly to debate. We could, each of us, probably submit a list of books as long as a giant squid's arm.

Classic: great book of lasting, redeeming value.

Mischief: clever bugger trying to provoke...

Fifty years is a pretty long time in the publishing world.

Has there been a Ulysses, War and Peace, Heart of Darkness Middlemarch, Vanity Fair, Tom Jones,
Don Quixote or anything up to that standard been written in the last 50 years? I doubt it.

Cliff -

Give us the titles of three good books written in the last 50 years. I'd like to read them.

- ss.

Good Lord.

EARTHLY POWERS by Anthony Burgess
THE INTUITIONIST by Colson Whitehead
UNDERWORLD by Don DeLillo
OUTERBRIDGE REACH by Robert Stone

Fuck, that's four.

See what I mean?

Didn't Burgess come up with 99 examples? At least those written in English.

Also
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Remains of the Day
If On a Winter's Night a Traveler

I don't think Davies and Atwood have similar styles at all, Cliff. Have not read Ondaatje so couldn't say about that one, but in general you are really painting with a very broad brush there. I get you don't like Canadian fiction much but these authors cannot exactly be mistaken for each other by style/tone.

In terms of their passive prose and dull, listless characters, I believe they can be lumped together. I love writers who give you those WOW moments and that doesn't mean writing that draws attention to itself, I mean the right word in exactly the right place. Here's an example from Ron Hansen's collection NEBRASKA:

Describing the effects of the monstrous blizzard of 1888, Hansen writes:

"The onslaught also killed prairie dogs, jackrabbits and crows, and the coyotes that relied upon them for food got so hungry that skulks of them would loiter like juveniles in the yards at night and yearn for scraps and castaways in old songs of agony that were always misunderstood."

Atwood and Davies never wrote anything approaching that easy, unassuming elegance.

But, of course, to each his/her own and all that.

Anna: re: Canadian vs. American fiction--

I had one editor at a major Canadian publishing house turn down one of my manuscripts because the book seemed "um, terribly American" to her. That was also the same woman who told me "it's too bad you're not an East Indian writer, they're really hot right now".

Canadian editors are, needless to say, morons. Which is why our fiction is in such lousy shape.

i imagine Saul Bellow, maybe Malamud, maybe Michael Chabon, maybe Cliff's fave, Paul Auster, will stand up well - just thinking of Jewish-American writers. And Phillip Roth, although i don't care for his stuff my ownself. Obviously not every book by each of these will be judged equally - but i suspect some will represent well. Hanna Arendt's work - tho non-fiction - will certainly stay with us. I'll have to let others decide about writers like Doctorow (pere), Norman Mailer - though one could say his classics are just over 50yrs old now, and of course, our perennial favorite Aynnie Randy.(just kidding. really..............). But because i don't like writers hardly disqualifies them from classicdom.

I think Tim O'Brien's & Steven Wright's & Michael Herr's Vietnam fictions and/or semi-fictions are classics. Not an American VN book, but Graham Greene's the quiet american is probably the very best of them all. 54 yrs old though. sigh, snickersnee will rule it out on a technicality. I forget - are we talking all fiction in the last 50 yrs or just American novels?

Outside of genre stuff, i've tended to read more poetry than novels (though that's changing) - and though it's not all that widely read, at least in the US, poetry - both American and foreign - has had one of its glory epochs over the last 50 yrs. In English language poetry the "great eras" can be roughly broken down into the Elizabethans, the metaphysical poets, the Augustan, the 19th C lyric/romantic, and then, from WWI on, really, this has been a great century of English and (finally) American poetry. (I know, Whitman was great and Melville wrote some gorgeous poetry - but 19thC American poetry was, generally, less than stellar).

W/in genre - there has been a boom in really good SF and fantasy coming out of Australia recently - but i can't speak to more "conventional" Aussie novels. Lots of good movies though~!

One of my sorrows is my total suckiness @ foreign languages so i have to read foreign poetry in translation.

When I think of American fiction, I imagine Alex from Clockwork Orange beating that lady to death with that dildo sculpture. Akin to our foreign policy for the last 8 years.

He was an expatriate most of his life, but James Baldwin wrote most of his big stuff in the 60s.

If we're speaking of nonfiction, I'd agree with Arendt (though she's not American) and Baldwin and would add Joan Didion and maybe Tom Wolfe.

Cliff--Ron Hansen! Knew I'd read something of his, but couldn't quite place the name. "Wickedness," is a wonderul short story, of course, he chose a great subject. Read it in an anthology. I should pick up Nebraska.

NEBRASKA is brilliant--nary a weak story in the collection.

I also picked up a copy of MARIETTE IN ECSTASY as a Christmas gift for my wife, though she hasn't had a chance to read it yet. I may sneak it out of her pile unless she hurries...

well, Hannah Arendt fled Germany to the US during the Nazi era, went back to Germany, but lived much of her post WWll life teaching in the US - and is buried in the USA. We gotta claim those quality immigrants whenever possible!

If she stopped for so much as a pee break in Canada, I'd claim her for the Great White North--our culture could use an intellect and conscience of that quality.

Bob and Cliff--Then American she is!

Snickersee, you remind me of my son. He does the same thing when he makes up his mind about something ahead of time. I doubt that reciting authors from the last 50 years and trying to debate who is quality and who is not is a little beyond the point. It's subjective and everyone is going to have different authors. The point is that if you can't find ANYTHING written in the last 50 years that you would consider great... well, I don't think you really want to find anything.

But either way, it's sad. Personally, I love digging up new treasures.

#137. That was since 1939, not 1959.

i haven't checked if the US has officially "recognized" Arendt by issuing a stamp in her name. I know the US is down the tubes as for the last decade we've been producing these gorgeous stamps, more or less like Burkana-Faso did when i collected stamps as a kid.

147> She's buried in Redhook, NY, where some of my family live. My brother recently took a picture of her grave for me.

#150 - In a friendly way I might point out that both your son and I are able to, metaphorically, so to speak, twist your tit. My only purpose was to stimulate discussion (and find books worth reading).

From the responding posts we've got about ten potentially great books written in the last 50 years. I wholeheartedly agree with A Clockwork Orange. I was surprised no one mentioned Pale Fire. (Lolita, is over 50, poor dear).

That all boils down to one possibly great book per five years. Considering the number of books published each year, that seems a feeble ratio.

Blame a combination of stupid editors, greedy agents and an increasingly moronic readership. If you think classic books are in decline, wait for the NEXT ten years.

Soon books will be released printed in CRAYON.

One other thing which bothered me: no books of science, art, religion, history, biography, or sport were nominated as "great." Why?

Personally, I thought you were referring to fiction. I'm sure our members could supply ample titles in all those categories from 1959-2009...

Just in the last twenty years? Liquidation Imre Kertész. Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson. The Savage Detectives by Bolaño. I could go on...

As far as history et all goes... Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord, How it All Began by Bommi Baumann, The Chelsea Whistle by Michelle Tea, various works by Agamben and Derrida, Scholem's histories and memoirs, and so many more.

Neuromancer by William Gibson and Flood by Andrew Vachss are magnificent genre works. Ancient Evenings and Harlot's Ghost are both great Late Period Mailer.

SOFS by Debord is fantastic. Good read alongside McLuhan and Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus, since it covers parallel histories of Punk Rock, the Situationist Movement, and the Cathar Heresy.

i'd assumed fiction too. Richard Rhodes, John McPhee, Laurie Garrett, Tim Egan's the worst hard times..to pick the first few that came to mind w/in 10 seconds.

Lipstick Traces is a horrible history of the SI. Someone needs to write a real history of them in the spirit of Nadeau's History of Surrealism.

Back in fiction, Catch-22 and Beloved were both written in the last 50.

>163 Medellia: - I think Beloved is terrible, in addition to being terribly illogical. With all the 'symbolism' it feels like the author is trying to shove it down my throat, it is so forced. A lot of the events seemed to be there simply for shock value. I also dislike the writing style, but I would be willing to excuse that if everything else was okay. That, however, is simply not the case. This is one of the few books I dislike with a passion, right up there with Anthem (also very forced 'symbolism') and Cry, the Beloved Country (is it really English I'm seeing written in this book?). If anyone can make a good argument for it, I'm listening.

Catch-22 is great, though.

A relevant list for this discussion:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/stupid-vs-stupid-27-ridiculous-yet-entertaining-p...

I could barely force my way through Beloved. I'm just not a Toni Morrison fan. I did kind of like the setting and the feel of The Bluest Eye. It reminded me of my coal-mining roots in WVa.

Gene: I'm wi' you on Morrison. Not my cup of tea.

And I would KILL to see you suited up and sooty, a la your forebears. Pick in hand, lamp on helmet, the whole kaboodle...

I'm not sure I'll ever pick up another Morrison book; you'd have to force me, and I'd like to think you have better things to be doing... Beloved will be the only one unless others are required reading.

Also, to add to the list of authors I dislike with a passion: Gail Tsukiyama. I dislike Amy Tan, as well, but not with a passion, mostly because I haven't had the misfortune of reading all the way through a book of hers, I'd guess. With both of them, the words SOUND (feel, etc.) Asian. I don't care what race you are, but if you're writing in English, I don't want to hear the words in an Asian accent in my head. With Gail Tsukiyama, the inaccuracies in her writing are glaring and show she really didn't care.

Snickersnee, I think you brought up a great point. I guess I have been searching for books of that magnitude myself...

LOL at Irieisa! Sorry for the bad experiences with Morrison. If you do give it a go, try Song of Solomon. Then again, if you don't like her writing style (which I love)... there may be no hope. Her writing style is extremely consistent...

Didn't realise Catch-22 was written in last 50, good call.

I do need to read the Intuitionist... on my to be read list...

Iriesa -- please elaborate "if you're writing in English, I don't want to hear the words in an Asian accent in my head" If anything, I love that feeling! I love when African writers through in Ibo words, or Middle Eastern writers toss in Arabic words... Please explain.

How about the Gulag Archipelago?

Where are all the Asian books? And Africa? And South America?

Gulag Archipelago is an amazing read. A precursor to the practice of "oral history," like a Soviet version of Studs Terkel's Working, since it builds stories upon the experiences of real people.

>169 LheaJLove: - Though I dislike Morrison's style, I would be willing to overlook that given redeeming factors...

Sorry about that. I thought I wasn't being very clear, it's just hard for me to explain. They don't use Asian words (or if they did, I didn't notice because I already know the terms. It's been a while); that isn't the problem. All the prose just feels stilted, like it was written by a foreigner, and when I read it I feel like an Asian person is saying it aloud in a very halting, awkward voice. Almost like a baby bird trying to fly... kind of reminds me of elementary school, where the kids would have to stand up and read passages from books. It doesn't seem natural to me.

Foreign terms bug me not at all, though. I agree they make books more interesting so long as they aren't overwhelming; in which case, a little research would solve the problem.

>170 snickersnee: - If you asked me to name a book, good or bad, from Africa, I'd come up with a blank. I've got nothing.

Edit: This was before I remembered that I do not know where all of the authors/books come from. I knew Things Fall Apart, but wasn't sure of the country of origin. Sigh...

i thought you were restricting your survey to American fictional lit in the past 50 years. Amitav Ghosh the glass palace, Achebe things fall apart - though close to 50 yrs now - Nadeem Aslam the wasted vigil for India, Nigeria and Pakistan. For my 5 second gameshow question.

"Has any American other than Hunter Thompson...."

(on the other hand i rather dislike Bolano).

Well, if we open it up to other countries then what about Life and Fate? It was written in '59 even if it wasn't published until 1980.

Bob, Ken, Ian, and everyone whose names I've forgotten:

A list, please, of modern books which you think will still be in print 50 or 100 years hence. Those, would be the classics or "great books" of our era.

And there's Rushdie.

for books still in print in 50-100 years I'd say:
Life of Pi
Cats Cradle
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Alchemist
Invitation to a Beheading
Pale Fire
Lolita
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The whole Harry Potter series.

And books that hopefully won't be in print 50 - 100 years hence:

The Bridges of Madison County
The Prayer of Jabez
A Charge to Keep
Twilight
Cross
The Secret
LA Candy

Can you imagine the carbon footprint these sub-literate scribbling cause? For the health of this planet, stop printing these books!

Put another way, these books will kill your brain cells and destroy the planet!

Throw THE SHACK on there too. Pseudo-religious tripe that's been on the Canadian bestseller lists for about 47 weeks. Take a blowtorch to that author's fingers, he must never be allowed near a keyboard again.

#175 Not an easy task - I'm sure there are books I dislike, or think are crap, which will still be in print 50 years from now. But here are some I'd like to see still in print:

The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles
The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy, Olivia Manning
The History Man, Malcom Bradbury (actually, this might all ready be out of print)
Berlin Noir, Philip Kerr
Nice Work, David Lodge
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
The Crow Road, Iain Banks
Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess (although I suspect A Clockwork Orange will stay in print longer)
The Innocent, Ian McEwan (his best book)
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Possession, AS Byatt
The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
The Raj Quartet, Paul Scott

>169 LheaJLove:--I am puzzled why you are so bothered about the "voice" of some of these books. I think it takes a lot of talent and ear for spoken word to be able to make me hear in the writing something of where the narrator and characters come from. I would be curious to hear what you think about Kazuo Ishiguro, whose style, I think, is very heavily influenced by the Japanese voice.

>172 Irieisa:--If you are looking for African authors, you could look at South Africans J.M. Coetzee (Disgrace and Elizabeth Costello come to mind) and Nadine Gordimer (I haven't read much but liked The Pickup). Whether they make your list or not, they definitely are focused on telling African stories. (I realise both come from an anglo tradition, unlike, for example, Things Fall Apart, but I also expect that both of them call themselves African writers.)

>175 snickersnee: (et seq), Just to throw out a bit of a googly/curveball/boomerang, I wonder what the value of these lists are. Books stay in print for a lot of reasons other than being "good" (a painfully subjective term, even if we could all agree on a baseline below which writing must not fall). We can all, I am sure, list at least one book that we had to read in school from the 19th century or earlier that we think is rubbish. (For me, Billy Budd by Herman Melville is my great bug bear.) But the books stay with us because they speak to the time they were written in and the society that read them, as much as because they are masterpieces. I doubt we have enough historical perspective on the last 50 years or enough understanding about how the world is changing now to know what will be in print....

I tend to agree with SarahAbroad--in the right hands, a foreign "voice" strikes me as very effective. On the subject of African lit, The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola is a great novel written (quite intentionally) in pidgin English. Sort of a fairy tale. No one's life is complete until s/he has read the parable of The Skull As Complete Gentleman. Other works with more standard English: The Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o (a doorstopper of a satire that I highly recommend to everyone--funny, entertaining, touching, smart); The Famished Road by Ben Okri (if you like magic realism); and Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto (also magic realism).

Extremely well-wrought prose (but with a voice) can be found in the novels of Kojo Laing. I've not gotten around to Wole Soyinka yet, but he's another acclaimed African author--maybe Death and the King's Horseman. Chimamanda Adichie's much-ballyhooed Half of a Yellow Sun might be one to try, too, though it didn't impress me too much.

>181 SarahAbroad:,182 - I really wasn't clear enough. When a foreign "voice" bothers me it is because it feels stilted and forced, like someone who doesn't know English well reading from a book. A halting, awkward, unpleasant thing to listen to. A foreign flavor CAN be good; it simply is not in the ones I dislike (I know you'll disagree there, but it's all opinion here anyway).

I haven't read Kazuo Ishiguro. I'll take a look now.

...

It's fine with me. Doesn't feel stilted, flows well.

Also, to SarahAbroad, I can't think of any book from the nineteenth century or earlier that I disliked. Kind of odd, though I doubt that will last long... Also, another reason why I dislike Gail Tsukiyama and Toni Morrison is that despite the time periods their books were supposed to be about, I got no sense of it. Felt modern simply because it couldn't achieve a historic setting. I've asked some people whom I respect, and they have agreed, so it's not just me.

It's possible that few or none of these books will be in print in 50 years, but many will be available for 99 cents per hundred for the Kindle or the 2059 equivalent.

and, of course, copyrights ran out long ago on those classics of yore so whether they really are any good or not, or just classics because they're on some list, they are very cheap to reprint (or rekindle). You can get virtually all, i think, on google books or the other sites which have been making the world's non-copyrighted library available on line.

Personally, i have a hard time w/ the 19thC (and earlier) English novels - the form was being developed and, unlike poetry or drama, effective structural conventions hadn't been worked out. I think it was Henry James (wearing his critic's hat) who complained about the great "baggy", unstructured 19thC English novel. While I've very much enjoyed movies made from 19thC novels, reading many of them is quite different, and tiring for me. For me, Austen's wit lies in her dialogue, not in (what seems to me) fragmented and coincidence driven plots. By the latter half of the century, writers had gotten a better grasp of the form, i think, and i find Dickens and Twain much more readable than their predecessors. But this is my problem.

>185 bobmcconnaughey: - I find the nineteenth century writing pretty easy to read, i.e. M. Shelley and J. Austen. I actually end up reading through them faster than more modern books, I think, but not on purpose. It just flows along for me, especially with the long-as-hell sentences.

I agree, Irieisa. I enjoy the nineteenth century novel much more than anything I've read in the latter half of the 20th to present. I find the first half of the 20th interesting and filled with great reads, as well. I think the style of the early 20th century novel is more closely related to the latter half of the 19th than the second half of the 20th. The late 20th century all seems toneless to me. the writing is facile, quick, and ultimately bland.

Another element with regard to the two time frames, I am an incurable romantic and the late 20th century just does not have any romance about it. It's all Brooks Brothers suits and Armani ties, phrases just slide off one another, carrying action with little useful interior reflection, either by the characters or the narrator. Lives are dull and dreary making for dull and dreary books. I want a novel that makes me think. Much of the latter 20th century that I've read, just leaves me cold.

Is it possible that men are inclined to romance (not Harlequin romance, but the romance of Cervantes or Burroughs) than women, and what with the dearth of such in the modern novel that may help explain why men read more non-fiction than novels. Nearly all interesting non-fiction, to me, has a sense of the romantic. Eastern Approaches was pure romance, excitement, adventure, ordinary men accomplishing the extra-ordinary. These are all elements of the romantic. Today we have tweed jacketed professors being, depending on who is doing the writing, mean ugly people (Bellow), or angsty one way or another (Updike), or victims (Roth). Too much pointless interiority. I know mean, ugly people, I know angst-ridden people, I know victims, I don't need to read about them too. Before I retired I worked with them.

Give me a good complex novel filled with people struggling against the contingency of their lives in small but nevertheless heroic ways to a person living an ultimately pointless life, brooding over the pain of pointlessness, yet unable to move beyond it. Pullleeeezzzzzeeeee. I can think back across my own life for all that I care to see.

Henry James can paint a portrait in aspic and make it sing. John Updike wrote boring books about boring people. Another thing I like about the 19th century is the language, it was wielded by the author like a weapon. Now, the language is a servant, staying in the background, greasing the skids, being at best unnoticeable, not out front singing a song.

I'm sure there are plenty of modern authors whose language sparkles and pops, I just haven't read them. I'm too afraid to waste the money.
I hope this made sense.

Terrific post, Gene. I envy your romanticism. I'm a rotten, cynical bastard.

Your attitude, while it may be out of step with these strange and often ugly times, is healthier and holds out more promise for our species.

Tip of the hat to you, old son...

>187 geneg: - It made sense, geneg. I'll admit that I'm not much of a romantic, in that I generally don't like novels like the kind you describe. I tend to disagree with the characters, and ultimately I can't sympathize in the way I like to (though I can sympathize; that's almost always easy). Being heroic is nice and all, but most of the "heroes" I've seen aren't really heroic. This itself shouldn't make me mind, however I see people gushing over said "heroes" and their heroic-ness without taking into account the contradictions. Hypocrisy is fine, except when I'm expected to lap it up and love it.

There are exceptions to this, of course. I'm just venting my experiences. The romantic and heroic just aren't for me, I think, though I've struggled with determining whether I like the romantic, the realistic, or the surreal. I like them all, when executed accordingly, but a lot of romantic books have failed for me. I have a cynical view of things, so perhaps that is why. I can't recall any of the books, by the way, just my opinions.

186, 187 and 180:

I absolutely love reading 19th century fiction. The long sentences are always clear as can be in spite of their length. Ian's list and Iriesa/Gene's comments on 19th century fiction make me want to share this story: One of the greatest serendipitous things that happened to me was that I read Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South and then a few months later read Lodge's Nice Work - totally by chance - my boss in Egypt had everything Lodge had written and loaned them to me one by one. Nice Work references the Gaskell book extensively.

It was a wonderful experience. I do think Nice Work is the best Lodge novel though the rest are funny and entertaining. For anyone who somehow missed David Lodge, go to the library and check some out.

>190 anna_in_pdx: - Recommendation noted. First, I'll have to read Gaskell, though... Oh, so many books, so little time, not to mention the issues of memory...

>187 geneg:

I think I agree with you on most or all of this. I don't have any trouble with the 19th-century prose; I enjoy the grace and style and wit.

I've ranted at length elsewhere about the books my book club insists on choosing much of the time; the characters spend most of the novels wallowing in grief. It's tedious and adds nothing to my experience; there's plenty of grief in real life and I don't want to spend my precious reading time having that emotion shoved down my throat.

I'd much rather read about people heroically meeting adversity and overcoming it. Not "heroism" in the traditional sense (though that can be fun, too), but heroism from which we can take away hope.

...although too much redemption can be a tiresome thing too.

See: Oprah's Book Club.

>192 ejj1955: - After reading this, I realised that I do like it when people heroically meet adversity. The difference is I like it more when adversity wins. I also have little fondness for the word "hope," partially because it is so overused, but for more important reasons as well.

Oh, yes; I don't know that I was clear. I hate the books with 290 pages of angst, usually brought on by the characters being selfish self-absorbed twits, followed by 10 pages in which they've learned their lessons and all is bright for the future. Yuk.

Huzzah! Huzzah! Couldn't agree more.

>195 ejj1955: - I'm good with selfish characters, but not twits. Being self-absorbed is fine so long as you aren't a bratty little ass. Anyone with me on this?

>195 ejj1955:--I find the angst followed by learning of lessons far more characteristic of the 19th century (eg Dickens) than the 20th or 21st (eg, amongst others, Hemingway, Ian McEwan (especially Amsterdam and Atonement) (though in either case, it depends on taste). The 20th century is, to my mind, the first time that we get heroes that overcome adversity but don't learn all their lessons or have a bright future, I reckon....

197: For that reason I really hated Bret Easton Ellis (read it when only slightly older than you are).

"...a person living an ultimately pointless life, brooding over the pain of pointlessness, yet unable to move beyond it. Pullleeeezzzzzeeeee."

So Samuel Beckett is right out? I don't know... I think just about any subject matter or "type" of story can make a good book if the writing is good. And Beckett's is oh so delectable.

To paraphrase Roger Ebert, a book is not about what it is about. It is about HOW it is about it. (I'm sure there is a less cumbersome way of phrasing the idea, but of course he is a mere CRITIC...)

#180. . . Agree (since have several you mention). . . David Lodge "Small World" has been on my shelf, unread lo these many years. Now starting it (after reading 11 reviews~~ oops, make that 10 (one not in English)

200: I don't know, I'd say Beckett's writing is more than just wallowing in self-pity at how pointless things are. The novels and plays are bleak, desolate, but ultimately have some humor in them. I'd much rather hear the dire pronouncements of a tramp in Waiting for Godot than suffering through a teen vampire brood-fest.

Oh, definitely. One of the best laughs I've gotten out of a book in recent memory was the pebble-sucking sequence in Molloy. Although really, I wasn't laughing at the writing itself so much as Beckett's sheer audacity. 16 pages about rock sucking strategies? Brilliant!

Brett Easton Ellis is...disgusting. well, maybe he's lovely, but his books are detestable. Rabid generalization from N of 2 books read.

>199 anna_in_pdx: - You prompted me to search Wikipedia, and I have to say, I'm sick of disaffected youth. I'm sick of teenagers in general, with all the petty angst that they can't fricking keep to themselves... I could only like something resembling angst, not being quite the same, if the person kept it all in his head to the point of going insane. That would be fun.

By the way, is it okay to say f*ck here?

I get the feeling I would not like American Psycho. I like reading about crime investigations, looking at crime scene photos, and reading coroner reports, so it isn't because of the "graphic" content. More so, reading about the author, I'm unsure that I'd be interested. Hard to say. I think I'll stick with what I know is good for now.

>204 bobmcconnaughey: - If you don't mind doing so, could you elaborate on what makes his books disgusting and detestable? I'm curious to know whether he would ever be worth reading... At this point I rather doubt it.

All posts regarding Beckett - The first thing I've read of Beckett would be Krapp's Last Tape. I'm not sure what I should read next. Any recommendations?

Waiting for Godot is Beckett's most popular work, and is most people's entry point into his stuff. Endgame is probably the next most widely read of his plays. He has a loosely connected trilogy of novels, Molloy, Malone Dies, and the Unnamable, of which I've only read the first, so others may be able to speak more coherently about it. Mercier and Camier is a short novel that can be seen as a comedic precursor to Waiting for Godot, as it deals with a "pseudocouple" of tramps who accomplish very little, but make the best of it along the way. He also wrote numerous short stories, most of which can be found in Complete Short Prose. I really enjoyed his novella The Lost Ones, about the geography and local habits of largely featureless realm that may or may not be some kind of hell or purgatory. That one takes a bit of getting used to, as he uses some long and compound sentences, but there is absolutely not a single comma in the whole book.

As a general guideline, the earlier a Beckett piece is, the closer to "conventional" the writing style is. Over the years he gradually stripped his writing of the conventions of punctuation, layout and description, until all elements of character, setting and plot largely have to be inferred by the reader. Very rewarding to those who are willing to make the effort. His entry on wikipedia gives a very good listing of his works by type. Like I said, Waiting for Godot is what most people read first, and should give you a good idea of whether you want to continue. Hope this helps!

>206 sollocks: - I see. I guess I entered at a weird point.

I had heard that Beckett gradually stripped down his writing through the course of his career, which, admittedly, makes me nervous. I don't even like Hemingway (but I recognize that he's good). I actually liked Krapp's Last Tape more than I feared I would, despite the consistent feeling that I did not understand a bloody thing. I think it felt rather similar to inferiority... Unsurprising, of course.

Yes, it is very helpful. Thank you, sollocks. I already own a nice amount of Beckett's work, including Waiting for Godot, so I can dive in any time.

I would recommend Waiting for Godot and Beckett's trilogy (Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnameable). Then I'd press on to Endgame and his later stuff.

It should be noted that there is a collection of films based on Beckett's plays. A good exploration, since plays are not easy to read.

Q by Luther Blissett (now Wu Ming) would go on my list too, and it was published in 1999 in Italy. The English translation came out a few years later. Really, the their novel 54 is almost as good and ought to be required reading for anyone who enjoys Cary Grant films.

Irieisa, this going to sound patronizing but it is not meant to be. Please forgive me if it does.

Re hope and cynicism, when your grandchildren are your age now, hope is all you will have left.

Gene, I am that old, but I have no descendants. Is that why I am a cynic?

Robert

Isn't hope "the thing with feathers"?

Dang, my bird done been plucked.

I don't think you sound patronizing, Gene. It's far worse than that: I think you're being kind and well-meaning. Careful, such displays of overt humanity will only be tolerated ONCE.

Big fan of Beckett here: and I would vote for the collected short prose and GODOT as my starting points. I'd also read the definitive biography of Beckett, James Knowlson's DAMNED TO FAME. It will give you many good insights into a difficult and complex writer/man...and it's the only bio Beckett, a notoriously private man, actually lent his cooperation to (Knowlson was good friend).

Oh, just dive right in - read Watt. I enjoyed this the most of his novels.

For all my appreciation and enjoyment of the Romantics and the lit of the late 19th century, check out the Beckett in my library. I've read and enjoyed 'em all. Beckett is the man! In college I played Mr. Barrell, the station master in All that Fall.

And one of the reasons I'll forgive you ANYTHING, Gene...

There's hope and then there's hope . . . on the one hand, I hope I'll win the MegaMillions tonight. On the other, there's hope that perhaps I'll survive until I die, and some days will be better than others.

And I'm basically happier taking the latter attitude from my reading than the feeling that I've been emotionally manipulated by some author and I'd like to throw the book against the wall. (See my rants elsewhere about Jodi Picoult, Anita Shreve, and other favorites of my book club, people I like much better than the books they choose.)

>210 geneg: - It doesn't sound patronizing to me. Not much, at least. Now this is going to sound contrary, but it is not meant to be; it is intended to be honest. It absolutely will not come across as such.

If I get married, let alone have children, let alone have grandchildren, I will not leave anything to them in my will if all I have left in regards to them is hope. I'd take everything with me, and change the will before telling them what I'm up to so that killing me would be fruitless and frustrating. I would get the last laugh.

Reminds me of a tombstone inscription: "Wanted to be buried face-down so the whole world could kiss his ass." It's a real tombstone, by the way.

If I interpreted what you said wrong, then I'll offer up an alternative response. I hope one of these hits the mark. If you meant old age or not having much left to me in life ("end of the rope," perhaps?), then I would say I may not hold out hope for anything much, given that I only honestly hope for little things in life. The larger are so infeasible. I rather prefer accepting things and laughing about them. "Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think." I like doing both; the former for things that depress, and the latter for things that outrage.

All in all, I have a feeling I have missed my mark. Shoot. At this point I'd feel it a waste to delete my response, so I'm posting it anyway.

Ellis' populates his novels w/ amoral yuppies who may well constitute a type deserving immortality in literature, but just come across as self-absorbed twits w/ a bit too much money and never enough coke. Again..i've only read a couple of his books so i might be totally off base, but coked up yuppies are tedious. At least his are.

>217 bobmcconnaughey: - That doesn't sound very nice, and I am left unsurprisingly unsurprised. Thank you, bobmcconnaughey.

People who think reading is a waste of time and money should check out my rapidly ballooning Wishlist. Damn you, LT, for appeasing my base desires.

At least now I'll know exactly what to get once I get some extra scratch.

Never liked any of those early 80's brat-packers: Easton Ellis, McInierney, Tama Janowicz. They had their moment in the sun, made their million, now they can fuck off into obscurity...

>220 CliffBurns: - I suppose I should be glad I had never heard of them, then?

Never read any McInerny, but I hated the film of Bright Lights, Big City. some of Easton Ellis's fiction I like, although I suspect they've not aged very well. Janowitz I found a bit meh.

Irieisa, you ain't missing anything by giving those twits a wide birth. There are lots and lots of terrific books out there and no need to waste your time with stuff that was little more than a novelty, flash-in-the-pan success stories. There is one very good novel from that era I recall with great fondness, Donna Tartt's SECRET HISTORY. That is one fine, riveting book...

221--I suppose I should be glad I had never heard of them, then? Decidedly, yes. Bret E.E.'s first book, Less Than Zero, was aptly titled and could be the name for the entire 80s "brat pack" style of writing.

A-men!

I always found the reviews that referred to AMERICAN PSYCHO as "satire" laughable. Satire is smart, AMERICAN PSYCHO was most decidedly NOT...

I don't know - American Psycho was a cleverer book than you give it credit for. Yes, Ellis boosted the gore in order to make the book more controversial. But how is that different to what films do these days? In that respect, you might even consider it prophetic....

Have to pass on that one, Monsieur Sales.

Agree to disagree and all that...

Yeah, well, I watch about as many modern day movies as I read Ellis or McInerney.

One final thought on hope (I hope). when I say hope is all you'll have to give your grandchildren, there comes a time in life when you realize what a mess you and your generation is leaving those coming behind and you HOPE they do better.

I read Bright lights, Big City and I give McInerney more credit than others here. I was impressed by the mood he created around his strung out characters. The book was dull, confused, looking for that next fix, just like his coked out characters. Subject and presentation matched quite well. I would recommend reading it just to get the feel of being strung out while your life dissolves all around you. There is a good lesson there.

Spy Notes On McInerney's Bright Lights,Big City / Janowitz's Slaves Of New York / Ellis's Less Than Zero And All Those Other Hip Urban Novels Of The 1980s

Touchstone is just not going to work, here's the link to Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/McInerneys-Bright-Lights-Janowitzs-Slaves/dp/0385247451/re...

Includes "several charts and a detachable "Novel-O-Matic" writing device, which ingeniously allows the reader to construct his or her own contemporary novel."

Looks like my sort of satire.

At one point I thought about calling my website "CLIFF'S NOTES" but figured I'd get sued.

Some folks have no sense of humour.

But the creators of this parody clearly do. Good on them.

Years ago, my wisdom teeth came through in four great painful hunks, so I had to undergo surgery under general anaesthesia to have 'em mined out. Once back at home recuperating, and already tired of a diet of soup and ice-cream and fast running out of reading material, a friend lent me Less Than Zero.

Yeah, cheers, mate. Like I wasn't feeling bad enough already ...

Have never quite forgiven him for that.

>231 Sophie236:

If ever a situation called for a little P. G. Wodehouse instead . . .

I'm having a little trouble processing "tired of . . . ice-cream," though!

All this talk about Brat Packers and Bret Easton Ellin and Jay McWhat's-his-name, made me think of the 1980s and inflated junk bonds. Funny how they replicated that in their trashy superficial fiction.

To everyone, i am so sorry for bringing up Ellis. 231: Yes, 232's correct - what you needed were some humorous mysteries.

Similarly, my father gave me the Shock Doctrine for Christmas last year and I think it's the most depressing present I have ever received in my life. However, unlike Less than Zero, it didn't make me want to hunt down the author, bus them into a ghetto neighborhood, tie them to a stake and leave them there.

Great invective, Anna. You belong here, all right...

>228 geneg: - Damn it, I missed the most obvious (I think) answer. Brilliant. I've already come to the point where I know that future generations are going to be left with a mess, but I don't much care, as I would hope (!) I'll be quite dead before it gets too bad. If not, well... Deal with it when the time comes. The nice thing about life is there's always an 'Exit' button. It's just a last-resort kind of thing.

And it's mighty damn hard to push.

Unless you're a suicide bomber or a pro-lifer with an itchy trigger finger. Religion renders any atrocity delicious.

#232 - you have to bear in mind that this was the early 80s in the UK, and we were not blessed with the cornucopia of yummy ice-creams that exist today. It was slightly chemical and slimy vanilla or nothing ...

I seem to recall that once I'd locked Mister Easton Ellis in the cellar (well, his book, anyway) in the end I raided my then boyfriend's stash of Kafka and John le Carre. So much cheerier!

And if I'd had the chance, I would indeed have stocked up on the sublime Wodehouse, but unfortunately I was an emergency admission and forward planning was not possible ... boo hiss.

That's what your TBR pile is for. ;)

>237 geneg: - If the situation is dire enough that you'd even think of pressing the button, then it shouldn't be that hard. Facing weeks of torture with death at the end without any chance of escape, perhaps. This is referring to pressing your own 'Exit' button. As for the buttons of others... they're damn easy to press, particularly if you include bugs as 'others'. :-)

>238 kswolff: - Very, very true.

>241 Irieisa:

If I were, for example, facing a lingering and painful march toward death from something like cancer, I'd push that button so damned fast my last movement would be a blur.

>238 kswolff: Brilliantly put. I want to embroider that on a pillow or something (only I don't embroider).

>242 ejj1955: - I rather want to see that blur, for some reason I can't put my finger on. I've heard that embroidery isn't hard, by the way.

Wow, I can't believe I pulled that off. I know next to nothing about HTML. Faking it well, eh?

I love this place!

I had a look at http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk
(Navigation is quite clumsy; I expect they'd sell more books if the site wasn't so awkward to use.)

There's a lot of Robert Graves, E.M Forster, Evelyn Waugh, D.H. Lawrence, and George Orwell. I enjoy their books. But they're all dead, and their books were first published more than 50 years ago.

Any more great book candidates?

>244 emaestra: - Wow, nice!

>246 sollocks: - One would hope so. ;-)

244: I want that on a shirt!

Wow, I was stunned by some of the discussion in this thread. I have never been around anyone who didn't either A) see the value in reading or B) be an avid reader themselves. At least most of the people I've been around could agree that reading is important. Wow, just wow.

>250 leperdbunny: - Wow indeed.

Okay, as a person who's involved in education, I can say that a lot of the time people who absolutely hate reading and think it is a waste of time probably struggle with reading themselves and never got the help they needed. I see it happening all the time with students I tutor; when they're young they are still eager to learn, but as they get older, they just start to avoid reading and they look down on readers.

Of course there are always some people who are perfectly literate but just don't understand why people would "waste their time" reading books all day. To those people I just feel pity; think of all they're missing.

It is more difficult when it is close friend or, more difficult still, a family member. You could try finding an absolutely wonderful book (the kind that just can't be put down until it's finished) in a topic they might like and suggesting it, but the recommendation would probably just be met with disdain, at least publicly. Try explaining that you are broadening your mind/continuing your education. They might be open to hearing about nonfiction materials. Otherwise, the best bet is probably to just avoid conversing on the subject of reading in general. You can still talk about things you might have read as long as you don't mention that you picked up that interesting fact in the last book you "idled" over.

Irieisa, try not to argue, but don't be disrespectful and ignore either (unless you can get away with it because he's just ranting and wouldn't notice anyway). I would try avoiding the topic as much as possible. I don't know how old you are, but you won't be living with your parents forever. One of my friends used to have a saying that kept him going in a similar situation (although the point of argument was different); he just kept telling himself "18 and out." As it ended up he got out sooner, but still try not to do anything to instigate the argument, and eventually you won't have to deal with it anymore.

You never know, things might change as you get older too. I had a horrible relationship with my dad, and then, when I went away to college, things suddenly turned around. It was like he suddenly realized that I'm his only daughter so he might as well try to make it work. I'm not saying things are perfect. Old wounds are often reopened, but it's not the constant yelling/arguing that it once was.

>252 Saieeda: - The person I have in mind isn't being an ass out of resentment. He's just that sort of person, whose traits, for the sake of remaining somewhat tasteful, I shall not list.

Sadly, any explanation, no matter how logical and sensible, is wasted on him.

Don't worry, I wouldn't argue, because, like explaining, arguing is naught but a waste. Ignoring, however, is an entirely different matter. I 'ignore' most things that he says in the sense of taking notice and subsequently discarding as rubbish. I take notice of all that I can because he is remarkably unpredictable, emotional, and flat-out foolish. Finding proper ways to react is made difficult.

I don't respect him as he hasn't earned it. He hasn't exerted any effort to earn it, either, so he can't want it much, right? ;-) Anyway, I do act somewhat pleasant towards him, and remain otherwise silent. Unless I'm forced into a situation where I have to react, of course.

I recently turned 14, and I won't be off and away at 18. I'm staying at home for college, and quite possibly beyond. That, naturally, does not diminish the point that I won't be stuck near him forever, but telling myself that doesn't seem to have any affect. I'd guess I'm calm enough already.

I don't think things will turn around as he treats nearly everyone like this, and even when behavioral issues of his are pointed out he either doesn't pay attention or stays in denial. We don't have constant yelling/arguing going on for the sole reason that I control myself, hold my tongue and temper, and act all right with things when I'm not and don't want to. I'd like it if he repaid the favor instead of yelling at me over very slight things, but such is life.

Also, please note that though I do indeed resent him well enough, whenever I sit down to write regarding him I am careful to be factual, not emotional (which, if I chose to be, might not come across all that different...). I don't mean to turn this into a therapy session, so if I am (or have) just let me know and I can stop.

Thank you for the detailed reply, by the way. It is appreciated.

Iriesa, I hope you don't think this sounds idiotic, but I now have a picture of you as a teenage version of Roald Dahl's Matilda. Keep reading and ignoring - you probably don't need validation anyhow, though if you did, you'd find all you need here at LT.

>254 anna_in_pdx: - Darn it, now I have yet another book I have to read. I think I recall seeing the book Matilda when I was younger, but I never read it... And idiotic? No. Humourous? Yes. ;-)

Though I may not require validation, it is very much appreciated! Thanks!

>255 Irieisa: Matilda was one of my favorite books as a child, if/when you get around to reading it, I hope you enjoy it.

>256 leperdbunny: - I'll get around to it eventually. I hope I enjoy it, too. Thanks!

Good movie, too. (Matilda). Dahl was defn. patchy, but Matilda was one of his best.

>258 bobmcconnaughey: - Too bad I'm not much for movies.

>254 anna_in_pdx:

Irieisa reminds me of Matilda, too! And that is a huge compliment, Irieisa - Matilda is awesome.

Just remember to only use your powers for good.

Aaaaannnd maybe revenge.

>260 beatlemoon: - Thanks for the compliment!

>261 sollocks: - Revenge is fun... when it can be meted out. ;-) When bottled up, it's miserable.

That's basically the second half of Matilda: she's been bottled up her whole life, and her frustration begins to emerge in startling ways.

>263 sollocks: - What fun! I shall have to read this book... right after I finish the ones I promised myself I would before school starts. Since it's a children's book, it should be an easy enough read for slightly busier times.

re: the discussion of Ellis and Mcinerney:

While I got sick of Ellis after one book, the one book of McInerney's that I read was actually quite decent and not as nihilistic/pointless as others of his ilk seem to be. Yes, cynicism, yes, rich people doing drugs and thinking the bubble they're precariously balanced on will never pop. But there seemed to be heart behind it, and some pretty decent writing. At least I thought so.

But then, I sort of enjoyed the Ellis I read as well (American Psycho), but I definitely think that if I tried to read another one of his I'd hate it.

If you want nihilism and pointlessness, read the Torah ... all that slaughter, genocide, Jehovah acting like a petulant child star, and more killing. American Psycho is a meta retelling of the Five Books of Moses. There is that Bible story about the Levite who cut his concubine into twelve pieces for some reason:

http://longwind.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/holy-horror-the-levite-and-the-concubin...

God was the Bret Easton Ellis of the Fertile Crescent.

>266 kswolff: - Well, God would have to be creative to have created all this sh*t.

Creative or negligent, depending on your point of view.

Has any one here read Anti-intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter? I wonder if it will help explain this curious phenomenon. Maybe I'll finally understand my father after reading it!

>268 kswolff: - True.

#269 we had it for a poli-sci course but i remember virtually nothing about it except a vague, positive impression. Given the era (late 60s, psychedelia) a lot of memories are pretty numb and vague ;-) But that period, too, actually, was an efflorescence of an odd stream of anti-intellectualism that didn't really suit me, no matter how much i loved the music.

I got your anti-intellectualism right here:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/anonymous-town-hall.php?page=1

Yikes!

"...so I can scream about acorn"???!!!

Senator Specter's at a townhall in PA and the most idiotic people are there. One suggested that reading the health care bill was akin to reading a "Russian novel" (funny, I wasn't aware that Russian novels were that difficult). Another (a middle school teacher) wanted Specter to encourage bills to be written at a jr. high school level. Can't we at least try for high school quality?

Wow. I guess I don't understand why bills should be written at the reading level of people too young to vote. Sure, they need to learn about the government and the way it works (at least in theory: the awful truth can wait until the tender young things are older and more cynical), but why dumb down the legislation? Simplify by elminatng pork and legalese, yes, sure. Wouldn't that be nice, now?

Ummmm...
Actually, writing bills at middle school level would, sadly, be a good idea. The average reading age of an adult American is approximately 6th grade.

How is reading age determined? Quality of vocabulary? Sophistication of thought? Whether or not one can read with understanding through the fog of cant? What exactly determines someones reading age?

When I see things like reading age my bullshit detector starts going overtime. I'm much more concerned with the writing than the reading. Good writing will make a literate adult read with understanding at age level.

Admittedly it isn't an exact thing. However, reading age is based on average reading ability one can expect from a certain age group. This is usually determined by a person's general vocabulary and their comprehension.

Is there some wiggle room in this "6th grade reading level." Yes. But one should realize that reading ages can be tested and retested using different tools and get fairly consistent results. I've rarely seen a reading age alter more than .2 between tests.

I actually heard a guy on the radio yesterday say that Obama was a socialist, just like Hitler. Apparently 6th grade history is beyond many people as well.

That's the Republicans and neocons for you. Because they're fascists and fascists have a bad reputation, they've spent many thousands of dollars trying to convince people that Hitler and Mussolini were actually socialists.

Well, wasn't Hitler the head of the National Socialist Workers Party?

yeah..back in the 30s, esp. in Europe, putting Socialist in a political party name was a commonplace for any group that wanted to appear "populist" in some way or another. "Socialist" didn't even become a dirty word in American politics till after WWII, really. Esp. in the upper mid-west. In Minnesota, the Dems still officially remain "Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party"

Is that from Humphrey's days or before? The whole William Jennings Bryan/populist party movement back in the late 1890's?

281: There was a clash between the socialist-leaning Nazis and the free enterprising Nazi Town Hall Teabagging Patriots. The Nazi socialists were people like Ernst Roehm (assassinated) and Goerbbels (temporarily); the Teabagging Patriots were people like Hitler, Goering (a faux aristocratic bounder), German industrialists (Krupp, IG Farben, Mercedes-Benz, etc.), and German CONSERVATIVES frightened by the creeping menace of socialism as embodied in the Weimar Republic.

It's a verified fact that the Nazis were anti-Communist and anti-Bolshevik. The only reason Hitler signed the Non-Aggression Pact with the USSR was to buy time to build up the German War Machine.

***

The whole reason the Right doesn't want the health care bill to pass is because that would involve the Government caring for people. No Conservative Christian worth his salt would want to be caught dead caring for another person. They're too busy getting hopped up on bloodlust, racial hatred (black or Middle Eastern, depending on their mood), and the dire possibility of the US not becoming a theocratic military dictatorship like some Handmaid's Tale wet dream. One person's dystopia is another's utopia.

Then again, it is awesome to see these bigoted conservative white people scared and powerless ... well, so long as Federal buildings and gay bars don't start exploding.

It's a cognitive dissonance fun festival of epic proportions.

>284 kswolff: Hear, hear!

I don't know. You guys get your jollies laughing at the crazies. They scare the shit out of me. I'm not frightened by any of the guff they want me to be frightened of, but there is nothing in the world more frightening to me than a pissed off frightened old white man with a gun strapped to his leg who is losing his entitlement as a "real American". After all, the greatest entitlement of them all is being free, white and twenty-one. That's the entitlement they think they are losing.

No, I agree that it's very scary. I just didn't see this level of craziness coming. I expected opposition to health care to focus on legitimate concerns, like paying for it, but it never occurred to me that opponents would just make up stuff about the provisions of the proposals in order to drum up opposition. It seems evil to me, frankly, as though the idea of helping people who need help is completely irrelevant to their course of action.

286: Whose laughing?

I use humor as a weapon of mass destruction aimed at people who deserve it. Just like Mark Twain and Jesus.

I'm not surprised that they just make stuff up and throw it out there seeing if anything will stick. This started (or at least grew to the present scope) under BushCo. It reminds me of the mushroom system of management: feed 'em bullshit and keep 'em in the dark. The problem is, I guess, there really are mushroom people.

Hate to admit it, but sometimes I think Plato was right about the excesses of democracy. Although other alternatives have not worked better yet...My kingdom for an eternal string of truly enlightened despots:)

Then North Korea is the place for you!

As long as there are people on this earth, then there are going to be problems with ANY type of government. I think I'll be sticking with democracy, though. ;-)

Oh, not just this earth. Even in a galaxy far, far away . . .

... but that was a long time ago, as I recall.

Midichlorians?

"Excesses of democracy" is certainly not inaccurate and I understand the sentiment...but I'm also reminded of that quote of Churchill's, where he talks about how bad a system of government democracy is: the only problem is, everything else is WORSE.

Yeah, Bush and Harper and Blair, etc. are a pain in the ass...but at least they ain't the fucking Taliban, n'est-ce pas?

Considering Bush's clout with the Christian Right, the only difference between those two is the beards. Remember the smooth transition from democracy to military dictatorship-style theocracy in the Handmaid's Tale The Christian Right are the beardless Taliban and wish -- deep down in their hateful, blackened bile-spewing heart-substitutes -- that they could kill gays, abortionists, single mothers, and erotic writers with automatic weapons in sports arenas. They won't admit that, but that's what they want. Read the Old Testament, that's what they want to produce: a hellish, genocidal utopia free of joy, tolerance, and diversity.

Harsh; unfortunately, I think it's accurate. But I'm a leftist who actually thinks health care for Americans is an idea whose time has come . . .

In the words of a bumper sticker or something: "Adapt or die!" Maybe we need a harsh acid bath of innovation and invention, look to Europe and Asia for how to improve their ideas -- since Japan is firmly in the 22nd century by now -- rather than just buying whatever is on sale on Wal-Mart. The United States needs to exorcise and/or amputate the primitive capitalist neocons and their ilk, because they are systematically destroying the country, the Middle East, and the planet. Communism doesn't work, but neither does capitalism, what with all the highs and lows, wealth misappropriation by those lucky of birth and station, and the general ethical schizophrenia associated with porn like the Gospel of Prosperity and the blatherings of Ayn Rand -- apparently we're a Christian county, but not Christian enough to aid those actually in need. God bless our self-anointed Pharisees and their hypocritical fandom.

Perhaps if our country truly valued education instead of merely paying it lip service democracy would work a little better. It seems that Western Europe does not suffer from this odd hatred of intellectuals. Heck, I hear teaching is a respected profession in some countries!