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[spikepipsqueak]

Hah! Don't worry that I'm stalking you. Just looking at the threads I looked at last time was here.

I don't hate Moby Dick but you don't have to fight me. I'm not American but have read quite a few books that probably capture the American soul better than that one.

I would probably come to fisticuffs over Vanity Fair, though. Look at it from the viewpoint of wry humour and it might appeal more. Thackeray is downright sarcastic and his people are real with human foibles that he probes almost surgically and then we forgive them because we understand, to some extent.

In a related issue (and I'm pleased to see it wasn't on the list) A Confederacy Of Dunces seems to divide the world. I have friends who rave about it, but I want returned the time I spent persevering with it.

Can you, or anyone, explain the attraction?

[bounty]

I remember being in 10th grade spike, and that probably being our first exposure to Shakespeare, almost totally lost and heavily dependent on the teacher being able to tell us what the heck it was we were reading.

in one particular class in grad school we had to read a pretty heady work by kant. I was at least a little out of my element so I cant speak for my peers here, but the writing was very difficult, and I was amazed at the prof's ability to say in plainer English what the heck we were reading.

if Thackeray's writing was indeed full of wry humor and sarcasm, id have to be reading it under the auspices of someone lots more insightful than me to tell me and show me what the heck it is I am reading!

I have dunces but I haven't read it yet. I just last night started a big fat elvis Presley biography but I don't like to just read non-fiction. i'm going to be finished soon with gone with the wind and will be looking for something else to read.

[spikepipsqueak]

I'm in 2 minds.

I would like the opinion of someone I respect on that book, but pure friendship and just human consideration says I should advise you to Run! and burn the book.

[bounty]

laughs...okay, I'll go, at least temporarily, with your latter position.