Who owns 'Reading' and 'Literature' ?

[spotty]

I read recently on these forums someone say something to the effect of
"You don't like such-and-such a book, which is a 'classic', why are you on this forum, you should be hanging out at strarbucks reading Stephen King"

First of all I totally disagree. This is incredibly elitist.
The best analogy I can come up with is music. I play harpsichord and listen to baroque music 98% of the time. Sometimes though I will listen to Motorhead playing 'Ace of Spades' and totally 'rock out'.
I also think very little of Brahms and Schubert, they bore me.

So what.

I like certain kinds of music- period, and I don't like other kinds - period.

Same goes for books. I won't be ashamed to like certain books and dislike others. If someone loves Harry Potter or Stephen King, I say more power to them. They are reading instead of playing video games. That in itself I think is laudable.
I frequently alternate between 'deeper' challenging literature, and lighter entertaining action fiction.

No one 'owns' reading. No one has the right to judge someone as 'worthy' for these boards based on their taste in books, do they?
Do we really want someone to walk into a bookstore and be ashamed to buy a Stephen King book?
When you yourself as a reader choose a novel to read, should your first thought be 'what will others think of me for choosing this book, or liking this book?
Heck, when I watch TV or movies, sometimes I want to see 'When Animals Explode' on Fox, and sometimes I want to see a documentary on the fall of the Roman empire.


Bottom line, isn't it ALL reading? Or are these boards only for certain kinds of literature?

[Paulclem]

I agree. Looking at some of the postings, I wonder if there are certain books considered worthy of discussion and reading, and others not. The Harry Potter question is a case in point.

[Barbarous]

I read recently on these forums someone say something to the effect of
"You don't like such-and-such a book, which is a 'classic', why are you on this forum, you should be hanging out at strarbucks reading Stephen King"

First of all I totally disagree. This is incredibly elitist.

I can envision this happening numerous times

Some users here are such...elitists, as you said, and will jump all over you at the slightest backwards move, it's ridiculous.

But on topic, I certainly agree and music is a great analogy. It's perfectly fine to listen to The Ramones and Thelonious Monk, or read Carrie then Madame Bovary. It'd be interesting to see what these elitists say in this thread hehe

[Mathor]

Though I thoroughly agree with you in more ways than one, I think you must understand that many on this forum dedicate most of their lives to reading classic texts and not just reading them but MASTERING them. To them it seems almost an insult when their favorite threads are being replaced with threads analyzing Harry Potter and Twilight. I hope that both sides can learn a bit of eachother, that much wisdom can come from just a pure and unbounded love for literature, no matter the text.


EDIT: And I believe that this forum is very open and accepting, though some of us can get just a little bit carried away in our debates. Most of the persons in said Harry Potter thread, I'm sure, do not hold your difference in opinion against you. They are just hoping to get their point across.

[JBI]

IT has nothing really to do with what people read, but with what people discuss on these forums. I personally, for instance, do not like many novels, often criticize many classic works, while promoting contemporary works, and generally deal a lot more with poetry than with prose. But then, there are those who take these boards as an extension of popular book clubs, and like to discuss the newest popular book out there, which really makes things a bit tedious.

I generally will criticize something based on my own opinions - I'm quite the maverick, as many will tell you, and am as likely to criticize Frankenstein as I am to criticize Atonement - but even so, for a book to truly be worth criticizing, it needs to have something worth talking about.

To discuss literature, there needs to be what to discuss - it isn't about saying how much you enjoyed it, where you read, how quickly you read, or how you didn't see that plot twist coming - those are all trivial topics - to really discuss literature, you need to go far deeper - this is for specific works, and for discussions on form, and literature as a whole - one needs to dig deeper, and, quite frankly, if I don't like what I am digging up, or if there is nothing to dig up, or if the process of digging isn't interesting, I will say as much - whether it be Shakespeare, Wordsworth or Dan Brown.

As for it "all being reading", that sort of insults certain people, because we seem to take pride in what we read, and to see reading as something far beyond that (often with spiritual dimensions) - yesterday, for instance, when posting on a thread on strong female characters, I brought up the memory of one particular character, Lucrezia from Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and automatically my mind was reabsorbed into the emotions I felt upon reading the text - I was shaken, and couldn't focus on anything else for at least an hour - that is what I'm talking about, for even a not so major character like that, to have such a strong impact - to seem so real - that's what to me reading is - the text exists, it lingers, it haunts - the poems resurface - it's fine to read, for instance, some children's poetry, but when the mind summons up something like this:

Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, 'The night is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

You cannot help but feel there is something going beyond that - a connection to the work, a force there that perhaps you don't quite understand, but is beyond the text, and breaks through to the reader on a level that something else cannot.

I'm not a big fan of novels, as anyone who has seen me post can tell you - I generally read essays and poetry, and from that I am particularly interested in Canadian literature - I have read my share of the classics, of course, but they aren't my particular interest.

But to say, for instance, that the late Robert Jordan, despite how interesting his books may be, are on a deeper level then even the simplest Housman lyric is a bit of a stretch - I think certain literature says more in far less - all of Dan Brown put together by my judgment doesn't say even a fraction of what these few lines by Keats do:

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I don't see it as all reading - I don't even see reading many classics as "real reading". Perhaps I don't own it, but certainly, I can criticize it. And quite simply, if there is nothing there to speak about, then there is nothing there to read, and to read it is to not read.

[kilted exile]

it isn't about saying how much you enjoyed it, where you read, how quickly you read, or how you didn't see that plot twist coming - those are all trivial topics

For you, however if we have members who wish to discuss these things they should go ahead & do so.

[Drkshadow03]

But then, there are those who take these boards as an extension of popular book clubs, and like to discuss the newest popular book out there, which really makes things a bit tedious.

Because naturally you're hooked up to one of those eye-lid opening machines from the Ludivigo process in A Clockwork Orange and are being forced to read every post on the forum, much less every new post about Twilight or Harry Potter . . .

[JCamilo]

Let me understand: You people are telling JBI that he should stop posting in a thread? Oh, I get, you people are the elistists! Criticism is not allowed, all is white and without spots, this thread is spot on. Go away, elistists.
For a momment I thought it was about people devoted to academics, never imagined that a dangerous elite of fans is endagering the forum. But do not worry, although the number of academics here is minimal, they can survive. Democracy, bless us!

[kilted exile]

Let me understand: You people are telling JBI that he should stop posting in a thread? Oh, I get, you people are the elistists! Criticism is not allowed, all is white and without spots, this thread is spot on. Go away, elistists.
For a momment I thought it was about people devoted to academics, never imagined that a dangerous elite of fans is endagering the forum. But do not worry, although the number of academics here is minimal, they can survive. Democracy, bless us!

no people arent saying that. but I definitely am saying that people should not be discouraged from posting about the latest popular novel or how much they enjoyed the latest Danielle Steele novel because it does not fit some members opinion of what is worthy of discussion. If you dont want to discuss the topic of a thread there is no need to read it. If the topic is trivial for you there is no need to read it. The browser has a back button so you do not need to offend your eyes

[JCamilo]

So, what exactly the problem with JBI? He is discussing the threads. He is not spamming. Apparently he was the one who got told to not discuss like he would wish too, he did not the same, did he?

[Mathor]

There is no problem with anybody, as has been said above, persons should be able to discuss whatever they choose. It is not valuable discussion for a person to come into a thread and say "this isn't worth talking about". That gets threads closed, and the person who started the thread overall didn't even get their original point addressed. The person who made the thread wanted to discuss parts of Harry Potter, but most of the forum was spamming by entering a debate on whether Harry Potter was worth talking about,reading, or discussing. I do not think that is fair to the people who wanted to talk about Harry potter in said thread.

[MANICHAEAN]

Just take your time & dip your toes in the water gently on this forum.
It must be a bit like when you join a new school & dont know anyone, especially the sixth form & the prefects.
The spectrum range of the members is considerable; from 13 year olds to those in their 70s, nearly every race, (though perhaps not having any eskimo contributors at the current juncture) & in ability stretching from those seeking knowledge in the first part of their literary journey, to savants at their peak.
Dont get intiminated or nervous. Read what you will, from: Andre Gide to Frederick Forsyth, Honore de Balzac to John Buchan, Thomas Mann to Truman Capote. Its your choice.
I've read some poems here that are sublime, others I find pure tosh. But then compliment those you like & stay mum on the others.
There are articles that really stretch you, others that would have a shelf life somewhere between the yogurt and the salami.
Dont get caught up in the debates on religion or politics unless you are prepared to take a few knocks in the sallies that inevitably ensue.

[JCamilo]

As far I see, the major discussion is about the effects of HP on formation of new readers and that is the original question. Some people jabbed about the topic being old and the existence of an early thread (of course, they should just link it) but saying they stopped the argument (which moved to an attack to JBI who apparently can not be critical, which is ironic, since this thread was obviously aimed to guys like JBI and not to protect his own freedom) is a bit too far. The thread still alive, spawned this thread here, motivated the "bumping of an old thread"...

[islandclimber]

There is no problem with anybody, as has been said above, persons should be able to discuss whatever they choose. It is not valuable discussion for a person to come into a thread and say "this isn't worth talking about". That gets threads closed, and the person who started the thread overall didn't even get their original point addressed. The person who made the thread wanted to discuss parts of Harry Potter, but most of the forum was spamming by entering a debate on whether Harry Potter was worth talking about,reading, or discussing. I do not think that is fair to the people who wanted to talk about Harry potter in said thread.

to be honest though most of the threads that have popped up on Harry Potter have been about whether it was worth reading or not.. they aren't generally about discussing a certain part of it... and they never get closed, they are probably some of the longest threads in this section of the forum... which is far beyond absurd... but regardless, if someone wants to discuss Potter is there anything wrong with providing a negative opinion.. if I disliked, some famous piece of literature, say like Whitman's "leaves of grass" I don't hesitate to say so, I even remember having a short debate with a couple posters about "leaves of grass"... so why can't we criticize Potter? is Rowling beyond criticism?

[JBI]

no people arent saying that. but I definitely am saying that people should not be discouraged from posting about the latest popular novel or how much they enjoyed the latest Danielle Steele novel because it does not fit some members opinion of what is worthy of discussion. If you dont want to discuss the topic of a thread there is no need to read it. If the topic is trivial for you there is no need to read it. The browser has a back button so you do not need to offend your eyes

You cannot really discuss personal anecdote in that form though - the topic of the thread will ultimately be derailed to something else if the original post reads something like:

I just read x book, and thought it was fantastic! I couldn't put it down!!! Has anyone else read it, what do you think?

Sooner or later that thread will get to the point where people will essentially say what they think of the book, and not all of us happen to think such works are fantastic. Eventually that turns into an argument, and then that eventually becomes a war of close reading, and then it breaks off, and the cycle repeats.

The point though is, where is the discussion really if all people are doing is saying how much they like a book, and, in return, how is that any less elitist than, for instance, someone saying they did not like a book. The arguments for aren't given free rein to always be seemed valid, whereas the arguments against always made to seem agonistic, and elitist - Mortalterror for instance, often likes to criticize James Joyce - we've gotten into quite a few arguments over him already - is he any less Elitist for criticizing Joyce, than I am for criticizing Harry Potter? What then makes my criticism elitist - the simple fact that Harry Potter has sold more copies than Ulysses? Or is Mortalterror in the wrong to, for even suggesting that Joyce was a deranged, obstructifying, self-indulgent narcissist who wrote nothing really that memorable?

I think the bulk of the novels I read happen to be, or have been best sellers - though, in Canada that means a few tens of thousands of books, so perhaps that isn't saying much, but the bulk are generally popular books. I don't see myself as elitist in that sense, in that I only read books of Bloom's appendix from the back of The Western Canon, as some people on this forum, I wager, do, but even so - I see nothing wrong with saying one doesn't like something, when someone is so adamant in saying they do like something - it's not that I think less of them, but that I enjoy the discussion, as perhaps it is stimulating, and perhaps we both, and the onlookers can learn something in the process - if I just wanted my own opinions mind you, I would probably just have a conversation with myself instead of coming here -

But to reduce literature to something that cannot be close read, to me is ridiculous - close reading is, and always will be, the real defense of literature against other mediums of communication - the closeness one can get with a book is what sets it apart from television - it is what makes the book special, and to replace that with novels that don't have that ability doesn't, to me at least, constitute reading, but instead constitutes something where you might as well wait for the movie - as 2 hours is far faster than 500 pages.

Why bother discussing literature if there really is nothing to discuss, and on that, why silence opinions because they discuss too deeply, or are "spoil sporttish".

I'm a poetry reader though - at least there we don't have much of a problem with this sort of literary/popular binary - there really is no popular poetry, all things considered. In that case then, with all the tedium removed for the most part, the poetry discussion is able to really get at the actual works, which, if they get a good post going on them, have something interesting to say.

I just had, for instance, on a random thread, a good discussion with Virgil on a piece of Eliot's Waste Land - we didn't agree, but I am happy for the conversation, without the actual tedium of "I don't like", or "I like", removed - the actual deep meaning of the poem was what we were discussing, and although we didn't agree, I think we both got something out of the other's posts - that's called discussing - "What do you think of", or "Did you enjoy" is not real discussion.