A friend recently chided me for being unwilling to read anything unless it was written by a "stuffy old dead guy."
I smugly replied that Jane Austen and George Eliot are among my favorite authors.
Obviously I was avoiding the issue, so I'll address it here and invite other perspectives.
In defense of my reading habits, I simply happen to agree with Harold Bloom that the sheer volume of literature which has accumulated through the ages forces a mere mortal like myself to be selective.
My reading habits are similar to yours. Although, I do try to throw in a contemporary writer from time to time. I think C.S. Lewis once said something about trying to alternate between old and new in his reading habits. . . .
Anyway, my contemporary reading is mostly comics and graphic novels, which are not only a pleasurable change-of-pace, but, being image-driven, they are a different sort of reading experience all together.
But to your point: There is nothing wrong at all with reading stuff by "old dead guys", even if some of those old dead guys are old dead chicks.Hell, my last two reads were Seneca and Aristophanes. I'm currently reading a short novel by Tennessee Williams and my "bathroom read" is The Divine Comedy. All written beautifully by old dead guys.
“Oh crap”
-- Hellboy
If you enjoy reading the stuffy old dead guys, then read them. I think it's as simple as that.
Isn't it uncanny how relevant some of the stuffy old dead guys and gals are with respect to the present day state of things?Originally Posted by The Comedian
This.
I feel the same way currently reading Montaigne. Some aspects of humanity just do not change, no matter what era.
Vladimir: (sententious.) To every man his little cross. (He sighs.) Till he dies. (Afterthought.) And is forgotten.
I actually do just that. I used to alternate every other book--a contemporary book (usually something like sci-fi or fantasy) with a "classic," though I use the term loosely (I'm counting Roth, Delilo, and Franzen--whom I've yet to read--in that category). Still, I find myself reading classics more than non-classics, now.
I mainly gravitate towards the classics. If I'm not reading something "classic", I'm reading pulpy literature for teens.
my "bathroom read" is great short stories of 2010, maybe you should add more fiber to your diet?
seriously, there's a reason the classics are the classics. Even many passages from Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden are amazingly applicable to todays standards.
read what you want, life is too short to read something because others think it should be read.
I get plenty o' fiber.my "bathroom read" is great short stories of 2010, maybe you should add more fiber to your diet?I have a wife and two daughters -- the bathroom is one of the few places I can go to escape all the insanity and have a relaxing, yet literary, read!
Last edited by The Comedian; 05-23-2012 at 03:15 PM.
“Oh crap”
-- Hellboy
hmmm, bathroom read, maybe I'll give that one a go...
I always get scolded by my hubby that I read to impress. Well, if he's impressed, that's great, but I always tell him that I just like it. Most of the old stuffy guy's writings are indeed still applicable. You see through people in one second.
For once, Bloom and I seem to agree (wow!) that there is not enough time in life to spend on possible crap, so you might as well stick to the good stuff.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Like you, I stuck exclusively to the classics. My bookshelf for awhile was entirely Barnes and Noble Classics (strange considering I'm Canadian but oh well....)
It was not until m senior year of high school that I made it to the early 20th century American lit.....Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway &c.
For the past few years I have been all over the place. I still love and absorb the classics, but have made a more conscious effort to discover the new stuff. I get involved with the hype of book award seasons and have discovered some great authors this way.
The stuff old dead guys are great, and there is a wealth there that can keep you busy for a lifetime - but not everything published after 1964 (random year) is terrible.
I wrote a poem on a leaf and it blew away...
I think that how old it is what you are reading is not a problem. The problem might occur in thinking you are getting what you are not out of it. You might be dumb enough to read a 2000-year-old piece and think it applies to today instead of being a strictly historical piece.
Some people would argue against what I'm saying in circles of futility. But the fame of an old writer can hardly compensate to make his points of view apply to this day.
Let me deconstruct this post of yours.
"I'll address it here and invite other perspectives". This means you are looking for other perspectives. What can be other perspectives? And why are you looking for new perspectives? One other perspective is that there is something in contemporary literature that you are missing out on. You are looking for another perspective so that it can arouse your interest in contemporary literature.
"I smugly replied that Jane ..." This shows you are not open to exploring the other perspectives even as you want them. You could have asked your friend to elaborate what he/she meant. But you did not. Admitting that your response "Jane Austen and George Eliot are among my favorite authors" was smug you express dissatisfaction with your current reading habits.
You do not need to be defensive here but you say "In defense of my reading habits..." In the next sentence you use the word 'simply' to emphasize your reading habits and the reason you provide. You are creating defenses around your reading habits. This shows anxiety about your current reading practices that you are not totally confident about them.
In his comment Harold Bloom sets human mortality against the volume of literature accumulated through ages as if he is compelled to read the entirety of literature that has ever been written. Using the opposites of human mortality and infinitude of literatures written he constructs the argument that he will be selective in his reading. Why does he exaggerate? He hides his lack of confidence in approaching literature other than his usual practices under the guise of humility. There is anxiety hidden even in this. Instead of using the word "mortal", he uses the phrase "mere mortal" which tells that he is overdoing humility here.
Nobody can force you to read anything more than what you already do; nobody, nothing except your own heart. Answer this yourself - Do you want to explore new literatures?
What I can do here is tell you what is available out there. There are thrillers and adventures that are lower grade imitations of Hemingway's tight prose. There are cheesy romantic novels whose mothers were the works of Jane Austen, Bronte sisters and George Elliot. Then there are postmodern authors who bring attention to various cultural phenomena that take place around us all the time in their books. These books mix elements of reality with elements of fantasy. One cannot tell one from the other. In doing so they bring attention to things in this world that did not exist 100 or more years back. While you see traits of human behaviour from old literatures, new literatures are something different. Old literature cannot tell you the effect of internet or advertising, rampant consumerism etc that are phenomena of last few decades.
There is no rule to be selective about reading practices and there is no rule to be expansive about them. It all depends upon what you want. Reading something new takes efforts. Sometimes it is rewarding more than expectations and sometimes it becomes disappointing. I'd feel better if you try something new. Otherwise I'll feel like a stupid fellow writing so long a post for nothing.
:-)
Being taken literally, is like being sent to hell LITERALLY.
“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde
Going on the Dead White Man hunt in Academia right now is a form of suicide in many places. We have moved onto that, besides which, comprehensive exams in all major institutions for those who study literature necessarily include the whole slew of dead white men, so there is nothing to complain about.
What people should really be yelling about is the simple fact that the canon that is marketed is prose-fiction dominated, and all in English. The real sufferer from the English academic reform of the 60s onwards were not the dead white guys, but rather the dead ancient guys.
The generation who came to prominence in the first half of the 20th century was in all ways better educated than their predecessors. Call it elitist, but some monolingual ranters who know nothing about tradition, let alone the greater world outside of their American or British novelists have contributed very little to the study of anything.
With Latin education lost, the Latin tradition of reading was lost - the tradition that formed the foundation for the study of English letters in the first place. Slowly French, Italian, and in general, all other forms of literature were culled from the obligatory background of students.
What can anybody say about English literature up until 1900 without at least engaging with another tradition? Likewise, it is fine to rant against American expansionism and jingoism in Walt Whitman, but how many doing so speak Spanish, or know anything outside of the American jingoism of Walt Whitman. The joke is on them, in that they preach for difference, yet know far less about the world than the predecessors who they so loathe.
Dead White Men should be replaced with Dead White Englishmen to be more accurate. All the real research that gets anywhere is done by people disengaged completely from the debate - those who work with more "area" groups of literature, who get none of the exposure. Michel Foucault only read French authors, keep in mind, and his English followers only read English authors.
That's probably why so many of the great texts on world literature end up coming from a German tradition, rather than an Ango-American one. The emphasis on history and internationalism is so foreign to the French inflected English academe that it offers no guidance or frame for any real inquiry into anything useful outside of itself.
So, in contrast, I would berate all of you who have never read a single poem, never picked up a French title, let alone an Italian one, or a German one, and yet post on threads like these exclaiming your superior tastes, when, quite frankly, George Elliot, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, etc. are so quintessentially English and cliche that they are far more limited than all that dead white mumbo jumbo.
Quite simply, how many literate non-white people were there in England during the period of 1000 to 1900? how many of them were female? So few, that it is ridiculous to suggest a tradition of English should be otherwise. The real ones the "Female Finding" gynocriticism targeted were French and continental authors, European presences, and basically the longer traditions of literature, who have been ignored and neglected and denied in the English academy forever, despite being the bedrock of both medieval and neo-classical periods of English literature.
So please, if someone is going to make a thread complaining about this issue, at least realize that from an international perspective, you have no right to really defend yourself as "literate" only knowing English authors in an international world. Quite simply, literature is far from restricted to the Island. I do not care if one only does read English letters, but they should at least be honest that they are not well read if they only stick to Victorian high brow snobbery.
Oh please, it is the hubris of any society that thinks itself somewhat different from societies that came before it. The same tropes are present in anything from Ancient India to contemporary Afghanistan.
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