The future of classics

[blazeofglory]

It is snobbery to think that by reading books of classics we become superior. People in the name of art, classicality write trashy things. That is why of late my domains of interests shifted from arduous pedantic books to simple and telling books. I have tried to read some of the books of James Joyce, Virginia Wolf and ended up in despair. Few readers understand them and fewer enjoy them though some claim they have understood but in reality they have understood little.
We read novels or books of literature with two ends in mind: first we want to entertain ourselves and secondly we want to learn something new about life, about the world we live in, about the values and norms of human conditions and socials.
These days I read short stories, light novels and essays. I have wasted too much time on the classics and I do not think I learned the way I had anticipated.
Today most read literature, I mean serious literature not out of interest, but out of conceit or vanity. Having said this I do not mean classical literature is inconsequential. Of course they have values, but I am talking about some which are popular and overrated just because they have an art and are full of big words. I enjoy Tolstoy, Chekov, Dostoevsky, and Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.
Let us read literature to enjoy it and learn others view that broadens our perspectives, not out of vanity and pride.
Today’ generations have lots of choice and few turn to read classical nonsenses, racking their minds and exhausting their energies. They have the Internet that annexes them with the rest of the world. Who will simply choose to talk to the dead when they have the company of the living?

[Pierre Menard]

It is snobbery to think that by reading books of classics we become superior. People in the name of art, classicality write trashy things. That is why of late my domains of interests shifted from arduous pedantic books to simple and telling books. I have tried to read some of the books of James Joyce, Virginia Wolf and ended up in despair. Few readers understand them and fewer enjoy them though some claim they have understood but in reality they have understood little.

How would you know? Stop speaking for other people and stop assuming that your reaction to a book is the same as all people's reaction to a book.



We read novels or books of literature with two ends in mind: first we want to entertain ourselves and secondly we want to learn something new about life, about the world we live in, about the values and norms of human conditions and socials.

Again with the 'we'. You aren't we. You are you. What you read books for is not necessarily what others read books for. Furthermore, there are various different types of 'entertainment'. Some are entertained by linguistic puzzles, or by things that make them think hard and require effort to understand; some are entertained by beautiful prose, some by wit, others by pure storytelling, some by poetry, others by character studies. Etc, etc, etc.



These days I read short stories, light novels and essays. I have wasted too much time on the classics and I do not think I learned the way I had anticipated.

Sounds like the flaw was with your anticipations. Also, not all art is there to 'teach' you something.



Today most read literature, I mean serious literature not out of interest, but out of conceit or vanity.

A wild assumption based on absolutely nothing. You're the one that is coming across as smug, snobbish and vain. Take a look at yourself.



Having said this I do not mean classical literature is inconsequential. Of course they have values, but I am talking about some which are popular and overrated just because they have an art and are full of big words.


Yada, yada, yada, in other words, you struggled with some books therefore they're no good and anyone who likes them is mostly pretending to because you totally know how those people actually feel about the books...right?

Your post is ridiculous and really, I'm getting pretty tired of the 'no one actually likes these books' nonsense.

[mal4mac]

Today most read literature, I mean serious literature not out of interest, but out of conceit or vanity.


I disagree. Most people will not pander to their conceit by spending many hours reading a novel they do not like - to appear "big" they simply need to pretend they have read it!


I enjoy Tolstoy, Chekov, Dostoevsky, and Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

Great choices. Have you read Tolstoy's "What is Art?" You seem to be arguing his case.

[cacian]

It is snobbery to think that by reading books of classics we become superior. People in the name of art, classicality write trashy things. That is why of late my domains of interests shifted from arduous pedantic books to simple and telling books. I have tried to read some of the books of James Joyce, Virginia Wolf and ended up in despair. Few readers understand them and fewer enjoy them though some claim they have understood but in reality they have understood little.
We read novels or books of literature with two ends in mind: first we want to entertain ourselves and secondly we want to learn something new about life, about the world we live in, about the values and norms of human conditions and socials.
These days I read short stories, light novels and essays. I have wasted too much time on the classics and I do not think I learned the way I had anticipated.
Today most read literature, I mean serious literature not out of interest, but out of conceit or vanity. Having said this I do not mean classical literature is inconsequential. Of course they have values, but I am talking about some which are popular and overrated just because they have an art and are full of big words. I enjoy Tolstoy, Chekov, Dostoevsky, and Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.
Let us read literature to enjoy it and learn others view that broadens our perspectives, not out of vanity and pride.
Today’ generations have lots of choice and few turn to read classical nonsenses, racking their minds and exhausting their energies. They have the Internet that annexes them with the rest of the world. Who will simply choose to talk to the dead when they have the company of the living?

I blazeofglory I personaly think it is a myth that one thinks one can learn everything from a book.
My primary reason to read a book is to enjoy for its simplicity humour and inspirations to write one myself.
I consider spending hours on end trying to outguess the writer futile. I would either read it for what it is and enjoy or go and find something I would call easy. Every writer writes in the way they feel and therefore to think that we must and are all going to understand what each one of us write is pointless. The reason being that one must differ from another in order that one grows to appreciate one another.
Acceptance of each others differences in the way we handle literary thinking is important.
There are certain readers who like the complex dark and intricate and others who like fun and easy.
If we decide we want to understand something more then we want then so be it we have a brain we can use.
We do not write the same and we are not supposed to. We are suppose to live with each other but we are to speak think and behave differently from each other if we are to succed in living together. Sameness smothers and borders on boredom and pointlessness. All converstions are the same and so there is nothing to talk about.
I think humans spend far too much time pondering about the universe and books they do not understand and spend less and less time understanding each other.
On one hand we have achieved academia books trips to the moon and technology and yet we have failed understanding who we are each other and what we are about.
The fact that the world is in turmoil is an indication alone that we have not progressed intellectually as people. We have not managed world peace and yet we can talk of space explorations books and robots.
Psychologically we as human beings have failed monumentally in securing happiness human relationships and prosprerity.
We cannot even live with our families without falling out let alone managing a marriage and ensuring a divorce does not happen.
We are up to our necks with depressions diseases and wars. Destructions is only a matter of time.

[mal4mac]

... stop assuming that your reaction to a book is the same as all people's reaction to a book.

Blaze didn't say this! He was talking about *most* people's reaction to most modernists. Given that the sales of Ulysses are not high, and many readers & critics complain about it, his point is well made.




Blaze: Today most read literature, I mean serious literature not out of interest, but out of conceit or vanity.
Pierre: A wild assumption based on absolutely nothing. You're the one that is coming across as smug, snobbish...[more insults deleted]...


It's certainly based on something! The conceited character who pretends to knowledge he doesn't have is a commonplace of modern culture. Think of the many preachers in America and the UK who pretend to Biblical knowledge, and knowledge of men's souls... Blaze's statement is a bit strong for me, but it's an argument worth engaging with. Why accuse Blaze of snobbish rather than engaging with the topic?

[cafolini]

I took a speed-reading course and read war and peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. ~ Woody Allen

[mal4mac]

What easy books do you like reading Cacian? And which of these can make us more human? Of the top of my head, I like Dickens and the Dalai Lama. Not sure they get me very far in me personally making the world a better place, though. Too many obstacles...

[SFG75]

It is snobbery to think that by reading books of classics we become superior.

I would agree with the qualification that it is NOT snobbery to view certain writing as being superior to others. Virginia Woolf and Danielle Steele are not equals in their writing.




We read novels or books of literature with two ends in mind: first we want to entertain ourselves and secondly we want to learn something new about life, about the world we live in, about the values and norms of human conditions and socials.

I can agree with that.


Let us read literature to enjoy it and learn others view that broadens our perspectives, not out of vanity and pride.

I do some of the former on occasion. My professional life at times is very stressful and that is when I'll enjoy some Robert B. Parker or John Grisham. At the same time, I am under no delusion that they are equal to Dostoyevsky. They just provide a brief respite at a given time.


Today’ generations have lots of choice and few turn to read classical nonsenses, racking their minds and exhausting their energies. They have the Internet that annexes them with the rest of the world. Who will simply choose to talk to the dead when they have the company of the living?

"The dead" wrote about universal themes of life, meaning, betrayal, and the overall human condition. Turgenev's Fathers and Sons is a great example of this. Yes, it is difficult for people to understand the mannerisms and unspoken actions of late 19th century characters in their time period. At the same time, that is the time period that I just love to read about. I would argue that intrinsic interest helps a young reader overcome any difficulty presented by time and context issues that at first, presents road blocks.

[blazeofglory]

This mixed response is something I really enjoy reading. Every viewer is right from his or her personal standpoint. But ll suffer their own limitations. So do I. However the truth is few dare to write the way James Joyce did and nor any book written in that spirit can catch on in today's readership.

I do not get upset the way a few of the critics did here. It is the poverty of our attitude or the paucity of our knowledge that make one incapable of penetrate into others' feelings and ideas.

Today we have lots of things to enjoy. While writing this post I am doing multitasking: watching TV serials, listening to Bob Dylan from one end and overhearing some whisper in the air coming from the next room.

Most of what we label classic were composed during an era when writers have little to do with the world they lived in. Technologically they had fewer gadgets and today we have lots of things to buy with our money. Yet some of us old-fashioned readers or writers have to do with the classics- stuff.

I do not read Shakespeare or Pope, Milton or any other "greats". Those living around me do not do either. Maybe those who are too critical of my post do and that is why they sound enraged.

But their rage is not seedless.

When I say "we" it does not include all of those who choose to disagree and we can encompass a large audience outside your circle too. Two persons can be "we" and that excludes you.

Myself and my people live in a world where reading classics is something loners do save those reading for their exams.

Notwithstanding what I wrote here this polemical thought has some worth the endeavor. It has a price.

[mal4mac]

I would agree with the qualification that it is NOT snobbery to view certain writing as being superior to others. Virginia Woolf and Danielle Steele are not equals in their writing.


This is snobbery, unless you are taking "...in my opinion" for granted. There is no objective standpoint from which you can say, "Virginia Woolf and Danielle Steele are not equals in their writing." You can only say that in your opinion Woolf is superior to Steele in some respects, that you admire, and then back that up with your reasonings. Some people might accept your argument; others will not.

I haven't read any Steele, but I'd guess she's much easier to read than Woolf. Making oneself easier to read is a mark of superiority in a writer, in my opinion. So I think it entirely possible that I might find Steele superior. I certainly find George Eliot superior to Woolf in this respect, and in most other respects. But that's only my opinion, I'd never dream of saying 'George Eliot is, beyond any reasonable person's doubt superior to Virginia Woolf', at least not seriously, that would be snobbish.


This mixed response is something I really enjoy reading. Every viewer is right from his or her personal standpoint. But ll suffer their own limitations. So do I. However the truth is few dare to write the way James Joyce did and nor any book written in that spirit can catch on in today's readership.

Will Self's latest is supposed to be in that "ball park" and it's on the Booker short list. I did read his first novel and that was almost as bemusing as Joyce... (I doubt I'll be reading him again...)

[namenlose]

Today’ generations have lots of choice and few turn to read classical nonsenses, racking their minds and exhausting their energies. They have the Internet that annexes them with the rest of the world. Who will simply choose to talk to the dead when they have the company of the living?

And which books would your concept of "classical nonsense" comprehend? Also, people talked to the living in all the previous centuries of human history. It does not make the perspectives of the dead — or of living authors — less significative to our lives. Why should the fact one author is alive or dead matter when judging the value of his work, after all?

[Phocion]

We read novels or books of literature with two ends in mind: first we want to entertain ourselves and secondly we want to learn something new about life, about the world we live in, about the values and norms of human conditions and socials.
These days I read short stories, light novels and essays. I have wasted too much time on the classics and I do not think I learned the way I had anticipated.
And some people like to read writers that challenge, and consequently develop their understanding of language: the idea is of testing yourself against better and better writers. Your point is meaningless anyway because your definition of 'classics' is completely arbitrary and pointless. Please don't confuse yourself with everyone else, it is incredibly narrow-minded.

[ralfyman]

The issue isn't becoming superior to others but understanding the human condition through works that have passed the test of time. There may be contemporary works that allow for the same but we wouldn't be sure until we see that they are read decades or centuries from now, which is not a logical point as we'd be long gone by then.

[cacian]

What easy books do you like reading Cacian? And which of these can make us more human? Of the top of my head, I like Dickens and the Dalai Lama. Not sure they get me very far in me personally making the world a better place, though. Too many obstacles...

I like to read books that are tells me something about life and people. I like humour and sense stories without double entendre innuendos twist and corruptions. I need to feel safe when I read a book. I don't want to read about others exploits of the dark twisted mines. I am only interested in perfection of the soul not the deep end of it.
I like logical books that read like the palm of my hand. Books that speak volume of my reality but for the better.
I make a world a better place when I start contributing books that speak of better places until then sufferance carries on is like it is told in books. Humans cannot have it both ways. A corruptible books is a reflection on a corruptible life. There is no way around it.
Show me how to read and I will show how to realm. Make read gore and I will show you gore. Life is what comes around goes around and a book is no different.


The issue isn't becoming superior to others but understanding the human condition through works that have passed the test of time. There may be contemporary works that allow for the same but we wouldn't be sure until we see that they are read decades or centuries from now, which is not a logical point as we'd be long gone by then.

A book is a human sufferance because it gorges in death blood deception marital affairs murders and peadophilia.
A book that uses human sufferance as a reference to literature and writing is as doomed as we are.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

How would you know? Stop speaking for other people and stop assuming that your reaction to a book is the same as all people's reaction to a book.



Again with the 'we'. You aren't we. You are you. What you read books for is not necessarily what others read books for. Furthermore, there are various different types of 'entertainment'. Some are entertained by linguistic puzzles, or by things that make them think hard and require effort to understand; some are entertained by beautiful prose, some by wit, others by pure storytelling, some by poetry, others by character studies. Etc, etc, etc.



Sounds like the flaw was with your anticipations. Also, not all art is there to 'teach' you something.



A wild assumption based on absolutely nothing. You're the one that is coming across as smug, snobbish and vain. Take a look at yourself.



Yada, yada, yada, in other words, you struggled with some books therefore they're no good and anyone who likes them is mostly pretending to because you totally know how those people actually feel about the books...right?

Your post is ridiculous and really, I'm getting pretty tired of the 'no one actually likes these books' nonsense.

This.


Blaze didn't say this!

Yes he did.

[stlukesguild]

We are up to our necks with depressions diseases and wars. Destructions is only a matter of time.

Yes... clearly the "end times." We never had depression, poverty, war, and disease in the past. It must be a sign the end is near.:nod:

This is just one more of Blaze' rants concerning any literature... especially Modernism... that he has personally found difficult. If you find Joyce, Proust, Eliot, Wolfe, Faulkner, Shakespeare, Donne, etc... too difficult... then don't read it. Stick with Dan Brown and Sponge Bob reruns for all I care. But don't make these wild assumptions that the fact that you and your friends/acquaintances (the vague "we") are representative of the reading audience as a whole... let alone the assumptions that those of us who do read the classics that don't resonate with you and enjoy them are somehow lying in order to impress others.

[JBI]

This is just one more of Blaze' rants concerning any literature... especially Modernism... that he has personally found difficult. If you find Joyce, Proust, Eliot, Wolfe, Faulkner, Shakespeare, Donne, etc... too difficult... then don't read it. Stick with Dan Brown and Sponge Bob reruns for all I care. But don't make these wild assumptions that the fact that you and your friends/acquaintances (the vague "we") are representative of the reading audience as a whole... let alone the assumptions that those of us who do read the classics that don't resonate with you and enjoy them are somehow lying in order to impress others.

Many people are missing the good in this kind of question: if something is so obscure and hard to read that it is no longer enjoyable, why should we pretend like we love it?

I tend to agree. Ulysses is fun as a study, but for people who are not English majors, the text is probably not much fun. Dubliners is better, as is Portrait of the Artist. Ulysses is fine in place, annoying in others. To truly understand it, you need years and years - sheets and graphs and maps. It is not something to read for enjoyment in the conventional sense. It is something to be studied with a very think volume of annotations and diagrams and charts. It is not accessible, and therefore, even for the not-so-common common-reader, it is unsuitable.

That being said, I do not dismiss the book, only I wish to point out that there is a level of pretentiousness surrounding it. Everyone knows this - there are tons of people to claim to know more than they know, and everyone probably was guilty of it at one point. Young people, (even me when I was young included, hehe), want to fit into a literary culture to the point of adhering to their idea of its logic and opinion. The culture of the literary world - what I will call the culture of the common-reader - is like a community, and most people are afraid to go against it. Most people want to be a part of it, and people will lie to get in, and pretend to be "worthy" by overly pretending to love books they actually either didn't like or didn't understand - some go as far as to convince themselves they actually liked the book, or understood it.

This is common, everyone wants to belong to the club, keep in mind. That is not to say these books are not in themselves good, but they are impossible for the common-reader to digest. When the common reader has been ignored, we basically have moved from step a to c without the middle. Basically, Joyce's Finnegans Wake, or even Ulysses, is a book to be studied, not read by the common reader. Some authors have put their books forward in the same tradition - ignore the reader, focus on the academy. Some get distinction, but they are missing the point that while Joyce was writing for an academy, he also was inventing and making way for common readers (one can read much of the book without much difficulty, for instance, the famous last chapter).


That being said, I would hope artists could find a balance. Umberto Eco did, in the sense that his books contain much in cryptic clues and allusions, but also much in commonly enjoyable prose. You do not need to catch every reference in The Name of the Rose - or hold a map of the library - to enjoy the book, but specialists and semioticians may take joy in certain jokes and lip service he is playing to them.

That is what I would call a good balance - not everyone can do it, but one must never really ignore the common reader, for if only the academy can read the book, I would say the book is highly flawed.

[SilvanDitties]

I don't think Ulysses is just there to be studied. It has a lot of very beautiful prose, even for ones who aren't prone to reading books like that.

[mal4mac]

Yes he did.

No he didn't - it was a subtle mistake, but it was mistake. Blaze was talking about "some" people, while the responder took him as saying "all" at one point in the argument. I was just talking about that one point in the argument, not the whole of the argument, which you quoted. If you still disagree with me, and can be bothered, then please spell out where I am wrong by quoting sentence by sentence.


Many people are missing the good in this kind of question: if something is so obscure and hard to read that it is no longer enjoyable, why should we pretend like we love it?


I entirely agree! It's far better to engage with the gist of the argument than flame on Blaze...



Ulysses is fun as a study, but for people who are not English majors, the text is probably not much fun. Dubliners is better, as is Portrait of the Artist. Ulysses is fine in place, annoying in others. To truly understand it, you need years and years - sheets and graphs and maps. It is not something to read for enjoyment in the conventional sense. It is something to be studied with a very think volume of annotations and diagrams and charts. It is not accessible, and therefore, even for the not-so-common common-reader, it is unsuitable.


Not according to Desolation... but I'll leave him to argue his case. Maybe I'll try making graphs next time :) I do like to tackle books outside my field "as a study", now and again, and made it through Kant's first critique in hard study mode. But Ulysses is a far harder. Kids should be warned... don't do English because you think it's easier than philosophy or physics!

[mona amon]

That being said, I would hope artists could find a balance. Umberto Eco did, in the sense that his books contain much in cryptic clues and allusions, but also much in commonly enjoyable prose. You do not need to catch every reference in The Name of the Rose - or hold a map of the library - to enjoy the book, but specialists and semioticians may take joy in certain jokes and lip service he is playing to them.

That is what I would call a good balance - not everyone can do it, but one must never really ignore the common reader, for if only the academy can read the book, I would say the book is highly flawed.

I haven't read Umberto Eco, but I really think what you said above about Name of the Rose applies very well to Ulysses. I guess I'm a common reader - no literature background and I only read for entertainment. When I first read Ulysses I knew nothing about the book except that it was "written in stream of consciousness". No notes except that someone had scribbled in the chapter names in pencil - Telemachus, Nestor etc (they helped, LOL, or I doubt whether I'd have been able to make any connections to the Odyssey), anyway I read through at quite a pace, loving every minute. There's a lot there that only an academic will understand, but there's also a whole lot of wonderful stuff for the common reader in this laugh out loud funny book.

So, there really aren't any rules - you never know who will like what. I agree with you that some books can be understood and appreciated at many different levels, but I feel that Ulysses is also such a book.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

No he didn't - it was a subtle mistake, but it was mistake. Blaze was talking about "some" people, while the responder took him as saying "all" at one point in the argument. I was just talking about that one point in the argument, not the whole of the argument, which you quoted. If you still disagree with me, and can be bothered, then please spell out where I am wrong by quoting sentence by sentence.

He said, "Few readers understand them and fewer enjoy them though some claim they have understood but in reality they have understood little."

The sentence is actually poorly constructed to begin with. He first says, "few readers understand them" and then redundantly says, "some claim they have understood but in reality they have understood little." So, he contradicts himself, first claiming only some enjoy it and understand it, and then saying the ones who claim to understand it actually don't.

Still, whatever the case, whether he was talking about all readers or just most readers, it's a false statement, and definitely not a point well made (neither textually nor content-wise), despite "many readers" complaining about the book (another vague quantity) or sales being low, the latter of which I can't figure out the relevance at all.

[JCamilo]

Many people are missing the good in this kind of question: if something is so obscure and hard to read that it is no longer enjoyable, why should we pretend like we love it?

Because one of the most famous form of Entertainment is the solutions of enigmas. Puzzles. Etc. You certainly had no idea what you were doing when you learnt your first chinese words, what would be if there isnt something obscure and hard for you to learn ahead? A Miserable life? Not everyone would like trekking, climbing the Everest then... but guess if the guys who do it do not feel like the greatest emotion of their life? The metaphor of Ulysses being the everest of readers is a spanked muppet, but heck, it is a very good one. And frankly, Ulysses is hardly the most difficulty text of all time. Dante's Comedy still more difficulty (ever more with the lack of readers that enjoy poetic narrative), biblical texts, etc. can top Ulysses. The thing is Ulysses is somehow fairly simple, you can actually scratch the surface of the work with a first reading. Like most works.


I tend to agree. Ulysses is fun as a study, but for people who are not English majors, the text is probably not much fun. Dubliners is better, as is Portrait of the Artist. Ulysses is fine in place, annoying in others. To truly understand it, you need years and years - sheets and graphs and maps. It is not something to read for enjoyment in the conventional sense. It is something to be studied with a very think volume of annotations and diagrams and charts. It is not accessible, and therefore, even for the not-so-common common-reader, it is unsuitable.

I am not an english Major. Ulysses is actually funny. Joyce is very funny, much better in english. (First time I read Ulysses I didn't knew english, it was a portuguese translation). For someone who learnt english reading, someone who writes prose as a oral expression, it is a great experience. We can actually laugh off of the text. Ulysses is not for everyone, granted, but so is infinitelly more obscure Moby Dick. Or Jorge Luis Borges, which shared many themes with Joyce but of course had another approach to the language. It was clear prose but not for everyone, he was more hermetic than Joyce in fact.


That being said, I do not dismiss the book, only I wish to point out that there is a level of pretentiousness surrounding it. Everyone knows this - there are tons of people to claim to know more than they know, and everyone probably was guilty of it at one point. Young people, (even me when I was young included, hehe), want to fit into a literary culture to the point of adhering to their idea of its logic and opinion. The culture of the literary world - what I will call the culture of the common-reader - is like a community, and most people are afraid to go against it. Most people want to be a part of it, and people will lie to get in, and pretend to be "worthy" by overly pretending to love books they actually either didn't like or didn't understand - some go as far as to convince themselves they actually liked the book, or understood it.

Yes, but yuo noticed in that recently Harry Potter thread, there was accusations that you (and me and probally others) knew less than we claimed. There is people who receite Baudelaire as if they understand it. There is people (you see in the forum) who claim to know this or that about several authors. And heck, yuo just said in the snob thread a specialist in literature would spot a pretentious individual claiming a knowledge he does not have. Imagine for Ulysses. Paulo Coelho did it. He claimed Ulysses was pretentious and gibblerish and could reduce to a tweet. Of course, he also claims to know and read Borges (and since, he does wrong references to Borges, I can tell he is being pretentious). So, what? This make the enjoyment of someone who reads ulysses for what it is (the pretention to be succed a literary masterwork? Will you claim the same about Dante?) less true?


This is common, everyone wants to belong to the club, keep in mind. That is not to say these books are not in themselves good, but they are impossible for the common-reader to digest. When the common reader has been ignored, we basically have moved from step a to c without the middle. Basically, Joyce's Finnegans Wake, or even Ulysses, is a book to be studied, not read by the common reader. Some authors have put their books forward in the same tradition - ignore the reader, focus on the academy. Some get distinction, but they are missing the point that while Joyce was writing for an academy, he also was inventing and making way for common readers (one can read much of the book without much difficulty, for instance, the famous last chapter).

You are being strange, JBI. You said there is no such unity in the academy. Heck, the academic is a specialist reader, meaning, a commun reader that read too much a kind of text. There is no, at least from the point of view of a writer, a way to split the audience. And there is no surprise, complexity does not exclude the commun reader, never did. Guys like Joyce can aim both, it is not like you really need to understand a work to enjoy it.



That being said, I would hope artists could find a balance. Umberto Eco did, in the sense that his books contain much in cryptic clues and allusions, but also much in commonly enjoyable prose. You do not need to catch every reference in The Name of the Rose - or hold a map of the library - to enjoy the book, but specialists and semioticians may take joy in certain jokes and lip service he is playing to them.

Frankly, I find Eco a bad Joyce that wanted to be Borges. His academic texts are better than his novels. The Movie kind of showed it, cleaning all the excess and still have a detective story. Italo Calvino is a better example.


That is what I would call a good balance - not everyone can do it, but one must never really ignore the common reader, for if only the academy can read the book, I would say the book is highly flawed.

There is not a single writer that can please all kinds of readers of his own time, imagine how impossible this advice is.

[cacian]

[QUOTE=stlukesguild;1182316]We are up to our necks with depressions diseases and wars. Destructions is only a matter of time.

Yes... clearly the "end times." We never had depression, poverty, war, and disease in the past. It must be a sign the end is near.:nod:
Exactly. Isn't that telling you something?

[Scheherazade]

~

R e m i n d e r

Please do not personlise your arguments.

Off-topic and/or inflammatory posts will be removed wihtout further notice.

~

[FenwickS]

The issue isn't becoming superior to others but understanding the human condition through works that have passed the test of time. There may be contemporary works that allow for the same but we wouldn't be sure until we see that they are read decades or centuries from now, which is not a logical point as we'd be long gone by then.

*agreeing*

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Exactly. Isn't that telling you something?

Wait . . . so, do you think stlukes was being serious with his comment?

[stlukesguild]

I guess I should have included a slew of emoticons... like a certain someone we all know.:frown2::nod:

[JBI]

Oh come on. For all your puzzles and human experience rhetoric how many here actually claim to have finished Ulysses, and enjoyed it thoroughly because of its puzzles.

Now, take another step, who finished Finnegans wake, and who enjoyed it, or understood it. There is a point. A headache book may be fun as a puzzle, but it is hardly something the common reader will enjoy. Opaque prose is only good when it serves a point. I would say Eliot's allusions work but Pounds cantos do not. Someone like Pynchon works, but others do not. This isnt a hard concept to get. I remember hearing one lecturer say of a poet, "I wish she would just put her dictionary down for once." such comments make sense. Distancing in style should serve a purpose.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I never argued that hard texts like Ulysses would be read and enjoyed by most people, just that they are indeed read and enjoyed, and this idea that anyone who reads one of those texts and claims to have liked it is just lying to look smart.

[JBI]

I never argued that hard texts like Ulysses would be read and enjoyed by most people, just that they are indeed read and enjoyed, and this idea that anyone who reads one of those texts and claims to have liked it is just lying to look smart.

Not all but a great many. Many people pretend to know and love books they have not read and are afraid to criticize will established books. Others are dismissive without ground.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Many people pretend to know and love books they have not read and are afraid to criticize will established books. Others are dismissive without ground.

Meh, maybe. I just don't think that many people pretend to like books they haven't read. I can't remember the last time I've heard questionable claims from someone about what they've read (outside of this forum, that is), even among fellow academics.

[manuscript]

an academic friend of mine, celebrated within the establishment, claims to have read Ulysses but in conversation with me seemed unaware that Bloom had a son called Rudy who died in infancy. she also confessed to me that she included American Psycho on a "further relevant readings" list without actually having read it herself. but that is just one example, maybe it depends on the particular person, haha.

[blazeofglory]

Arrogance is one of the human faculties, and in fact this is a syndrome that drives people to write something of the Ulysses style, full of puzzles and enigmas to startle and stupefy even university professors who live devotedly in a world of literary genres. It is not unusual if we not of the literary professionals who do not live by teaching to be unable to comprehend this strenuous text. I do not want to be pretentious as at times people choose to be so to outsmart his fellow beings. I have to no avail started reading 3 times and left unfinished though I used lots references and notes.

As a novel this book does not appeal to the majority who love books except to those who read driven by a dream of reading something most have not succeeded.
It is not just Ulysses there are many others which can be compared with an onion – keep on peeling off all you will have arrive at at the end of the day is zilch

[Summer M]

JBI got it right this time. Those who claim that they've read Ulysses "for fun" and "got it" without much effort are either geniuses or full of pretense. We'd have to take it on a case-by-case basis. There's nothing easier than to lean against that imposing edifice known as The Western Canon and say, "these works have withstood the test of time, so who are you to question them?!"

Difficult writing is not necessarily good or profound or anything. Sometimes, it's just bad writing, or unnecessarily difficult. I'm a Henry James fanatic, but I don't think there are many people who would take The Jolly Corner to be anything but trash if it weren't written by James. I once read a James expert who wrote that some of James's later works were "essentially unreadable", but if I said that, I'm quite sure someone here would reply with the obligatory "maybe it was unreadable to you,..."

[manuscript]

i do believe that Joyce intended to puzzle his readers, perhaps even especially those who live in these rarefied literary worlds, and believe themselves to possess perfect understandings of different genres. Ulysses was very difficult reading for me and i understood perhaps 1/2 - 2/3 of its content. it is so filled with dense philosophical content and the historical situation of that time that i will need to read it several times with the aid of as many or more commentaries in order to grasp its significance properly. but it seemed very meaningful to me that as a postcolonial novel it constructed itself in terms of the most Pure English, ie. uncompromised language and style, as a text originating outside of the imperial center. in this way the difficulties it presents are fundamentally rebellious, against all arrogance, prescription, those who would like to pronounce upon what language is or who owns it or has the right to use it in certain ways. i think that apart from all of the things i did not understand, that this is a good enough reason for this novel to have been composed, and to stand as a monument to human equality. i would never have known about this if i had not read the novel, and i dont think anyone would ever have explained it to me, so that i now have a new perspective or idea on literary concerns to take to my future reading.

[mal4mac]

i do believe that Joyce intended to puzzle his readers, perhaps even especially those who live in these rarefied literary worlds, and believe themselves to possess perfect understandings of different genres.

Yes there's a famous quote where Joyce says, laughingly, something like, "this will keep the scholars bemused for a hundred years." Ellman's excellent biography looks at some of these "Joyce plays with the scholars" aspects. But Joyce himself thought he had gone too far when the "scholars" totally misinterpreted the book, and he collaborated with a friend to explain some of the more obvious bits at book length (forget the title for the moment... but I think it's still published... though scholars have criticised it for vagueness :)



Ulysses was very difficult reading for me and i understood perhaps 1/2 - 2/3 of its content. it is so filled with dense philosophical content and the historical situation of that time that i will need to read it several times with the aid of as many or more commentaries in order to grasp its significance properly. but it seemed very meaningful to me that as a postcolonial novel it constructed itself in terms of the most Pure English, ie. uncompromised language and style, as a text originating outside of the imperial center. in this way the difficulties it presents are fundamentally rebellious, against all arrogance, prescription, those who would like to pronounce upon what language is or who owns it or has the right to use it in certain ways.


So maybe he didn't want the arrogant English scholars to understand it? Perhaps he wants them to implode by trying to understand obscure references to Dublin, Irish politics, and Irish twists in the English language that only his fellow pub goers could ever hope to understand. But where does that leave the general English reader, the working class hero who admires Joyce's rebellious streak and ant-colonialism? The English Bloom? Only in two places, I feel, giving up with a laugh at his Irish blarney, just as he would laugh appreciatively at a heated argument between demonstrative Spanish lovers when he doesn't understand a word... or not giving up, like Desolation and manuscript, and enjoying what he can...



...this is a good enough reason for this novel to have been composed, and to stand as a monument to human equality. i would never have known about this if i had not read the novel, and i dont think anyone would ever have explained it to me, so that i now have a new perspective or idea on literary concerns to take to my future reading.


This seems a valid take on Ulysses, from what I've read, but I do "know about this" without having read much of the novel. I'm glad some people are reading it because of these anti-colonial, "everyman" qualities, but I'm glad I don't have to read it. Gandhi is a much easier read...

[mal4mac]

JBI got it right this time. Those who claim that they've read Ulysses "for fun" and "got it" without much effort are either geniuses or full of pretense. We'd have to take it on a case-by-case basis. There's nothing easier than to lean against that imposing edifice known as The Western Canon and say, "these works have withstood the test of time, so who are you to question them?!"

Difficult writing is not necessarily good or profound or anything. Sometimes, it's just bad writing, or unnecessarily difficult. I'm a Henry James fanatic, but I don't think there are many people who would take The Jolly Corner to be anything but trash if it weren't written by James. I once read a James expert who wrote that some of James's later works were "essentially unreadable", but if I said that, I'm quite sure someone here would reply with the obligatory "maybe it was unreadable to you,..."

I tried late James and found him unreadable. I was quite amused to at last find another classic author who was as unreadable as late Joyce!

[JCamilo]

Oh come on. For all your puzzles and human experience rhetoric how many here actually claim to have finished Ulysses, and enjoyed it thoroughly because of its puzzles.

That is one element of Ulysses. It is like asking, how many people would say they liked Don Quixote only for the comedy, specially the mundane comedy of punches, beating, etc. Ulysses is certainly not reduce to puzzles (You are just repeating Paulo Coelho). The point is being a puzzle does not make it less enjoyable.


Now, take another step, who finished Finnegans wake, and who enjoyed it, or understood it. There is a point. A headache book may be fun as a puzzle, but it is hardly something the common reader will enjoy. Opaque prose is only good when it serves a point. I would say Eliot's allusions work but Pounds cantos do not. Someone like Pynchon works, but others do not. This isnt a hard concept to get. I remember hearing one lecturer say of a poet, "I wish she would just put her dictionary down for once." such comments make sense. Distancing in style should serve a purpose.

I enjoyed Finnegans Wake. I like it more than Ulysses. Understood all of it? Nope. Not a chance. But then, I do not understand all of Dante, Virgil, Kafka, etc. And I enjoy them. I hardly can scratch the surface and explain everything Michelangelo did. I enjoy it a lot. You are just imposing your own form of thrill - studying a text - as all forms of reading. And you have enough theory information to know a reader will produce their own understanding anyways, having their own background as basis, not the writer background. Those people expecting Joyce to be clear crystal should be questioning why someone writes in one way and not another. Why Kafka used parables - one of most simple forms of text - to express.. wait, what exactly was Kafka expressing?

I find Pynchon more artificial than Joyce, for example. Joyce do (why you call it prose? It is like calling Mallarmé prose) seems to understan the words better, all his "chaos" seems to be closer to a descontruction of language, while Pynchon is not doing the same (the narrative was destroyed already by Joyce, Faulkner, Woolf,eetc when Pynchon starts).

And frankly, Alice is read by children, loved, the book is one puzzle after another. They do not understand it. There is even some jokes who have no solution (like the raven and the writing desk). They do not care about footnotes, etc. It should be more than an argument that some accusations against Joyce does not hold water.

[JBI]

Look, JCamilo, I am not a hater on Joyce, but I am sure we can both agree that the common reader will not enjoy Finnegans Wake - even the Joyce fans are divided about it.

Ulysses is a good book, but hardly suitable for a wide audience. Basically it is the novel you read when novels get boring. Finnegans Wake is fun for a few minutes but then becomes a headache. The problem with this thread seems to be that MortalTerror is not here to comment.

Proust, at least in English, is not that difficult. Not a patch on the difficulty of some other authors, though he is philosophical and dense. I would think Genji, with its cryptic mannerisms and poetic flavors is a harder text than Proust (the same are very similar in content), yet both are quite worth the read, even for the common reader. Some books are not suitable however, to people who are not particularly interested in a specific example of a specific concept. Pound is a specific concept, especially his Cantos, which, though we have a few tidbits that are more accessible and enjoyable, for the most part are cryptic allusions and a mix of insanity. Not suitable to someone who doesn't want to devote their life to the work, which ranges on brilliant, and complete garbage.

We need to realize many people though will go along with the flow instead of begin to develop a confidence in personal judgment. I saw that when I was studying Shakespeare and my classmates were all afraid to criticize individual sonnets because the bard hat written them, when, in all honesty, many of them are just boring, or stupid. We need to realize that we are allowed to hate books, even if they are good, and that all books shouldn't be read by the common reader. Ulysses, or at least part of it, probably should, but Finnegans Wake should probably not be encouraged as "suitable" for the common reader. We should not encourage people to be afraid of discussing their dislike for it.

Pretentiousness is quite common, especially on the internet, we all are guilty of it at one time or another. I got into reading classics because I wanted to put people in their place. We all love to think our idea of critical judgment is right, but in truth, many books we like are not suitable for most people, and many people are well founded in their dislike. It's when we lose track of the idea of a readership beyond the self that everything gets crazy - this book is loved, therefore I should love it, or, I disliked it, therefore it is crap - both are equally guilty of misunderstanding what reading is all about. Both are also highly prevalent, but one is dealing with self-criticism, the other dealing with criticizing other.

[JCamilo]

I am not arguing you hate Joyce, I know you do not. I am not arguing either that Joyce will be popular or not. You asked: if something is so obscure and hard to read that it is no longer enjoyable, why should we pretend like we love it? which is quite different from questioning why should Joyce be imposed upon the "common reader" or not, right?

Anyways, I invite you to use the same critical deconstruction you show elsewhere on this concept. Common reader. Just like the term "academics" is a fictional generalization, so is this term. When Woolf used the term, she was already transforming it from Dr.Johnson use. She says:
“The common reader, as Dr. Johnson implies, differs from the critic and the scholar. He is worse educated, and nature has not gifted him so generously. He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others. Above all, he is guided by an instinct to create for himself, out of whatever odds and ends he can come by, some kind of whole — a portrait of a man, a sketch of an age, a theory of the art of writing. He never ceases, as he reads, to run up some rickety and ramshackle fabric which shall give him the temporary satisfaction of looking sufficiently like the real object to allow of affection, laughter, and argument. Hasty, inaccurate, and superficial, snatching now this poem, now that scrap of old furniture, without caring where he finds it or of what nature it may be so long as it serves his purpose and rounds his structure, his deficiencies as a critic are too obvious to be pointed out; but if he has, as Dr. Johnson maintained, some say in the final distribution of poetical honours, then, perhaps, it may be worth while to write down a few of the ideas and opinions which, insignificant in themselves, yet contribute to so mighty a result.”
Of course, Joyce book is an experience to take more pleasure for people who can have a background of vast reading and also for someone who still have ears for poetry, even if in prose.
But really, today? You are not the common reader. I suppose I am not (albeit I did not cared about any footnote reference, usually I don’t when I first read a book). But then, you get, you saw it in the Harry Potter thread, people who go trying to find literary devices, critical analyses on their loved books. Call it fanboyism, but I say, the common reader is an inexistent audience, a generalization. Something that lose the aim as much as claiming “academics are snobs” ,etc.
Mortal even ,a good example. He enjoys texts as Virgil, or all the classical culture, which must give him a lot of work. He is not a common reader. Yet, he dislikes Joyce. I doubt he dislikes Joyce because the obscurity gives him work while reading.
Stlukes? He is not a fan of Joyce, keeping a respectful distance. Yet, among his favorite authors are Borges, which is a master of obscurity. I dare to say, it is as hard to decipher Borges – despite his short works – as Joyce. The “common reader” usually avoid Borges, despite his language. Even some more trained reader even fall to localize his characters. How many times I heard “there is no character” but ideas.
Yes, I think most readers today appeal to easier reading. The popularity (or lack of it) of poetry shows it. But anything you say about the future of Joyce – as obscure or harder to be read by the majority now – can be said about several classics. And this attest, Virgil was writing for the nobility. Dante for a few. Moby Dick missed completely the market. What you are saying works for every classic who was never popular, yet, became a classic because a few keep reading them.
They are not ignoring the readers. They are aiming and hitting quite well.

[OrphanPip]

I only ever read Dubliners, personally Joyce poses little interest to me. I don't work with modernists texts, and I feel quite happy having only a superficial knowledge of Joyce's writing. I don't know if it's a difficulty thing, I've read Stein and her dadaism creates similar difficulties of language, but Joyce just never appealed to me as a writer I was interested in trying to read.

[cacian]

Wait . . . so, do you think stlukes was being serious with his comment?

What makes you say that?


On the other hand one could say a classic is already established as future so it would not make sense to question over it.
I would perhaps ask what is the meaning of a true classic as oppose to any classic.

[Seasider]

I would be interested to read a "stupid" Shakespearean Sonnet.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

[QUOTE=cacian;1182923]What makes you say that?[quote\]

Uh, because he was obviously being sarcastic, and you acted if his comment was serious.

[Pierre Menard]

Stlukes? He is not a fan of Joyce, keeping a respectful distance. Yet, among his favorite authors are Borges, which is a master of obscurity. I dare to say, it is as hard to decipher Borges – despite his short works – as oyce. The “common reader” usually avoid Borges, despite his language. Even some more trained reader even fall to localize his characters. How many times I heard “there is no character” but ideas.
l.

This occurred to me last night as well. I was re-reading 'The Library of Babel' and I was thinking that for the common reader, a fair bit of Borges would be hard to grasp, despite the overall simplicity of his style. Borges is my favourite author but there are still stories that I feel I have to read over and over again to gleam certain insights out of. I also don't pretend to understand every concept he weaves in, yet I get great pleasure from thinking about them, working them out, etc. I guess a lot of great writes offer up their own individual challenges, and some naturally respond better to some challenges than they do others.

[cafolini]

This occurred to me last night as well. I was re-reading 'The Library of Babel' and I was thinking that for the common reader, a fair bit of Borges would be hard to grasp, despite the overall simplicity of his style. Borges is my favourite author but there are still stories that I feel I have to read over and over again to gleam certain insights out of. I also don't pretend to understand every concept he weaves in, yet I get great pleasure from thinking about them, working them out, etc. I guess a lot of great writes offer up their own individual challenges, and some naturally respond better to some challenges than they do others.

Check out Macedonio Fernandez.

[Desolation]

Why does anyone read Tolstoy? I mean, I'm pretty sure that most people haven't REALLY read and enjoyed him, because the common reader simply does not have time or energy to carry around and read a book the size of War and Peace. They just want to look impressive and superior by reading such a famously long novel. Besides, unless you are intimately familiar with the play-by-play history of the war of 1812, there's hardly anything that you can understand. The characters development, philosophical treaties on the nature of humanity, and plot just won't make any sense if you can't spot all of Tolstoy's real-life references. Plus, the language and plot are so linear. What's the fun in that? Who wants to just read straight-forward and richly detailed accounts of what happens without any abstract language or clever turns-of-phrases to decipher? Not even a mild dose of stream of consciousness! There might be a little bit of fun in studying it academically, but for pleasure? No one can read a book like that for pleasure, it just falls apart outside of the classroom. Can't we all just acknowledge that everyone who doesn't read and enjoy books just like ME is totally doing it wrong, and are just pretentious snobby liars trying to look cool and hip?

[Clovis]

I only ever read Dubliners, personally Joyce poses little interest to me. I don't work with modernists texts, and I feel quite happy having only a superficial knowledge of Joyce's writing. I don't know if it's a difficulty thing, I've read Stein and her dadaism creates similar difficulties of language, but Joyce just never appealed to me as a writer I was interested in trying to read.

I'm not against modernism at all, simply hadn't got around to anything other than The Dubliners myself. Like you, don't really feel the need to either. The Dead was about a good a story as I can think of, modernists included. I've heard there is a near perfect film adaptation of the story, though I hadn't seen it. I saw a Munch painting which fit perfectly to the story, couldn't find it in a search though, tisk tisk...

[Alexander III]

I got into reading classics because I wanted to put people in their place.

This, actually, explains quite a lot.

[cacian]

Originally Posted by JBI
I got into reading classics because I wanted to put people in their place.
Here is a faster effective plan.
Write one up. They get to read it and be told.
Putting someone in their place is a telling of process.
A bit like a rule you write an instruction up and then get people to read and apply them.
That is putting someone in their place.

[Seasider]

Slightly off the topic, but I remember reading a book called "Changing Places" by David Lodge which was based on an exchange year he spent in an American University. I read it because I had done the same and was interested in what someone else made of it. ( I enjoyed my year immensely btw.)
Lodge describes an academic parlour game played by members of the English Literature Faculty, where players could score big points by admitting to not having read some classic or other. One chap, desperate to win, admitted he had never read "Hamlet" and won the game. Unfortunately someone mentioned it to the Head of Faculty and he was sacked. It's a very funny book.

[cacian]

Slightly off the topic, but I remember reading a book called "Changing Places" by David Lodge which was based on an exchange year he spent in an American University. I read it because I had done the same and was interested in what someone else made of it. ( I enjoyed my year immensely btw.)
Lodge describes an academic parlour game played by members of the English Literature Faculty, where players could score big points by admitting to not having read some classic or other. One chap, desperate to win, admitted he had never read "Hamlet" and won the game. Unfortunately someone mentioned it to the Head of Faculty and he was sacked. It's a very funny book.

Oh well isn't there somewhere about Macbeth about not mentioning it or something?
I guess 'Hamlet' could be classified along these same terms. You mention it in the wrong way and you get sacked. It is the twist within the twist a take on Macbeth. Theoretically speaking it is what one calls the double edge sword.

[Alexander III]

Why does anyone read Tolstoy? I mean, I'm pretty sure that most people haven't REALLY read and enjoyed him, because the common reader simply does not have time or energy to carry around and read a book the size of War and Peace. They just want to look impressive and superior by reading such a famously long novel. Besides, unless you are intimately familiar with the play-by-play history of the war of 1812, there's hardly anything that you can understand. The characters development, philosophical treaties on the nature of humanity, and plot just won't make any sense if you can't spot all of Tolstoy's real-life references. Plus, the language and plot are so linear. What's the fun in that? Who wants to just read straight-forward and richly detailed accounts of what happens without any abstract language or clever turns-of-phrases to decipher? Not even a mild dose of stream of consciousness! There might be a little bit of fun in studying it academically, but for pleasure? No one can read a book like that for pleasure, it just falls apart outside of the classroom. Can't we all just acknowledge that everyone who doesn't read and enjoy books just like ME is totally doing it wrong, and are just pretentious snobby liars trying to look cool and hip?

While I appreciate the sentiment and the attempt at satire; it doesn't really work in this instance as War and Peace is quite likely the most easily accessible classic of the 19th century.

[Seasider]

It is supposed to be unlucky to refer to "Macbeth" by its name. You should say "The Scottish Play". Don't know the reason for the superstition.

[Calidore]

I thought that was only for actors, not everybody. Although that would explain the employment prospects for English majors.

[manuscript]

why does a work of art have to reach a mass audience in order to be worthwhile? should authors refrain from creating certain works, just because some people will not understand them? - and if they do "dumb it down" for an audience, isnt there a possibility that this could compromise the integrity of what is being said within the work, or even actually insult the intelligence and reading ability of the audience? do we have to comprehend every last nuance of a work in order to benefit from consuming it and to appreciate it properly? and does the experience of a work of art have to be enjoyable in the recreational sense in order to have value in the sense of meaningful content that will reach the thoughts or emotions of its readers?

i am reminded of a librarian i knew who instructed her daughter that if she has started a book and is not enjoying it, she should put it down and not bother to pick it up again. often as i am reading a book, i find myself hating the experience of reading it - the reading of the book is just not fun, it is boring; but then after i finish the book, my attitude towards it changes completely, i see what the author was doing and i am so happy i persisted, a light turned on or a door opened in my mind. how many experiences like this did the librarian cheat her own daughter out of, just for the sake of some idea about what literature should be or what it should achieve?

[JBI]

Here is a faster effective plan.
Write one up. They get to read it and be told.
Putting someone in their place is a telling of process.
A bit like a rule you write an instruction up and then get people to read and apply them.
That is putting their places.

You misunderstood. I was a very argumentative kid (who was high off marijuana about 80% of my waking hours), so one day my mother told me if you want to keep arguing with me about the big ideas - god, etc. - you need to read more. So I did, and now we no longer argue.

It makes sense, in the sense, that literature is a sort of escape - we come from very closed spaces, especially those of us from the middle-of-nowhere (not me, but I came from a very closed community). Reading has a way of liberating - that's why there are so many weird internet atheists from middle-of-nowhere US mid-western towns.

[cacian]

QUOTE=JBI;1182999]You misunderstood. I was a very argumentative kid (who was high off marijuana about 80% of my waking hours), so one day my mother told me if you want to keep arguing with me about the big ideas - god, etc. - you need to read more. So I did, and now we no longer argue.

May I ask what you argued about. I believe arguments have a point a reason . I think they can be healthy if argued properly.
They also encourage communication and take it to another level.



It makes sense, in the sense, that literature is a sort of escape - we come from very closed spaces, especially those of us from the middle-of-nowhere (not me, but I came from a very closed community). Reading has a way of liberating - that's why there are so many weird internet atheists from middle-of-nowhere US mid-western towns.
Literature is an escape and also a way of unwinding. It is nice to have a book to read that understands me because most of time, with certain books, I am trying to understand it.

[Alexander III]

You misunderstood. I was a very argumentative kid (who was high off marijuana about 80% of my waking hours), so one day my mother told me if you want to keep arguing with me about the big ideas - god, etc. - you need to read more. So I did, and now we no longer argue.

It makes sense, in the sense, that literature is a sort of escape - we come from very closed spaces, especially those of us from the middle-of-nowhere (not me, but I came from a very closed community). Reading has a way of liberating - that's why there are so many weird internet atheists from middle-of-nowhere US mid-western towns.

You were the guy who always smoked but never learnt to roll and thus always smoked in groups? Just curious, I would see you like that. I neither mean this in an offensive or insensitive way. I just have this image of you, which makes sense with that image. Am I wrong? It is nice to get to know the smaller aspects of the lives of those on this forum.

[mal4mac]

I like Tolstoy, and have REALLY read and enjoyed him. I'm a common reader with the time and energy to read War and Peace. I don't want to look impressive and superior, and am not intimately familiar with the play-by-play history of the war of 1812, but I understood enough to keep me happy. The characters development, philosophical treaties on the nature of humanity, and plot make lots of sense to me without knowing much of Tolstoy's life. The language and plot *are* linear, which makes it a very straightforward read, the fun is the same kind of fun you get cycling fast in a straight line, down a hill. Not just fun, but a real rush. Reading Joyce is like cycling through an Irish bog. Abstract language or clever turns-of-phrases, to me, are deep bog holes. Reading Tolstoy is a great pleasure, the plots are deep and exciting, the characters are fascinating and real. Please add smileys if you are being ironic...

[kelby_lake]

It is supposed to be unlucky to refer to "Macbeth" by its name. You should say "The Scottish Play". Don't know the reason for the superstition.

It's only applicable amongst actors. There's a superstition that referring to Macbeth by its name will cause some sort of curse, because some people died during their performance or something.

I know of an actor playing King Lear who actually did have a mental breakdown.



i am reminded of a librarian i knew who instructed her daughter that if she has started a book and is not enjoying it, she should put it down and not bother to pick it up again.

This is probably in the hope that the daughter will want to finish the book/go back to it in order to prove the mother wrong.

[cacian]

This is probably in the hope that the daughter will want to finish the book/go back to it in order to prove the mother wrong.

Maybe or it is probably in the hope that her daughter would start her own books.
To enjoy a book is to inspire and not enjoy a book is to inspire also. It is just a matter of what we do with inspiration that separate one hopeful from another.
Do we pick up more books to read because we have enjoyed so many or de we write news one because we did not enjoy the few?
Superlative I'd say.

[JBI]

You were the guy who always smoked but never learnt to roll and thus always smoked in groups? Just curious, I would see you like that. I neither mean this in an offensive or insensitive way. I just have this image of you, which makes sense with that image. Am I wrong? It is nice to get to know the smaller aspects of the lives of those on this forum.

I can still roll like a champ, but I would rather hit my bong or pipe, both of which I still own and clean regularly (they are, of course, in Canada, where smoking pot is hardly an offense).

As for groups or whatever, I was always the person who had his own bag, and more often would smoke alone or with one other person. from basically grade 8 through grade 10 I would get up, smoke, go to class, get off class, smoke, go to the next class, get off class, smoke, eat lunch, go to class, smoke, go to class, smoke. That is, if I went to class. I ironically had one of the highest skipping averages of class out of anybody in grade 9 and 10, yet through pure prowess I could get all the math answers, and English answers relatively perfect - science was a bit of a sour spot, but I still passed decently.

In general, I just did not really fit high-school assignments - I do not believe the whole learning through creative projects suits my style. I would rather come up with my own creative way to understand physics rather than doing a diorama or some nonsense. I remember in Grade 9, a math class which I was stoned off my brain for, the teacher wanted us to solve linear graphs by plotting them on a grid - that was the worst of the lot. I could tell her all she wanted to know just by looking at the numbers, but she still insisted we need to plot them (something which I, still to this day, am too sloppy to do accurately).

Basically my idea of high school education, especially in the early years, is something like making everyone conform to these silly ideas they teach semi-educated people in teacher's college. You get the odd good teacher, someone who both knows and wants to teach, but for the most part they are people around my age now, who know nothing, yet yell at a bunch of kids how stupid they are all day.

My father didn't like my attitude (or my grades for that matter) at all, until he realized that when I started trying I was raking in both grades and esteem. Studying literature though was a sore spot for him - he didn't really start to appreciate it until I started winning awards from the department in the form of cash grants. Still, he originally wanted me to do the second-generation Canadian thing and become a Doctor or a lawyer, or at least a businessman (especially when I got 90s in all the high school level things), and got even more angry once I pulled a 90 in computer science, yet still decided I hated it and never wanted to program again.

As for me, I hit puberty before everyone, so my angst amassed itself around the age of 11-12, whereas most people go through that at 13-15. I was never an angry reader, like those teenagers who fall in love with Dostoevsky though, since I didn't start reading until later. Then I graduated a semester early, so was hit with free time to read whatever I want, and was plowing at 700+ pages a day.

[ralfyman]

A book is a human sufferance because it gorges in death blood deception marital affairs murders and peadophilia.
A book that uses human sufferance as a reference to literature and writing is as doomed as we are.

Not necessarily.

[ralfyman]

We are up to our necks with depressions diseases and wars. Destructions is only a matter of time.

Yes... clearly the "end times." We never had depression, poverty, war, and disease in the past. It must be a sign the end is near.:nod:



The current situation is different because we face a combination of three problems. The first is fallout from one trillion dollars' worth of subprime lending leading to $30 trillion vaporized worldwide and continued global crisis. And the source is only a fraction of between $600 trillion to $1.5 quadrillion in unregulated financial instruments.

The second is conventional oil production in a plateau since 2005, with more producers using non-conventional oil sources which are more expensive energy-wise, leading to high oil and food prices worldwide. Oil cannot be replaced easily due to the use of petrochemicals, among others.

The third involves the long-term effects of global warming, leading to major floods and droughts worldwide, contributing to high oil prices and disruption of businesses.

Very likely, it will not be the end of the world, but a middle class lifestyle, which includes the enjoyment of the classics, will be seriously threatened. For now, people should consider in the short term warnings of significant food price increases next year due to the drought in the U.S. coupled with a Morgan Stanley forecast of a drop in spare capacity for oil during the same time.

[Eiseabhal]

JBI sounds to me like an intelligent and sensible guy.