15 July 2009

We read these so you don't have to!

That seems to be the idea behind a post over here called "Fired from the Canon." It lists books that usually make "the classics" list that you can safely drop, ignore, and forget about. It is pretty funny actually, and I am glad to say I have only wasted my time with one of them, A Hundred Years of Solitude.

After posting that post about children's literature that garnered more suggestions of books to read than anyone could get through in a lifetime, forget about childhood, I thought I should link to this as a public service. Here, for example, is its final word on A Hundred Years etc.
Magical realism wasn’t much of a trick to begin with – Gabriel García Márquez riding round in circles on a smallish tricycle, cigarillo clamped between teeth, occasionally raising his panama for people to throw coins – and is now thoroughly clapped out. Also, people who like it seem to have little or no sense of humor. No one knows why, but it’s true. Instead it inspires a sort of insufferably pious stupefaction. Perhaps if you were to read Solitude, you too would be borne aloft on its miraculous wings, transported by its spellbinding portrait of a world which is part exotic paradise, part nightmare, etc., etc., etc., but I wouldn’t risk it.

So set back, relax, and try to remember the worst book you ever read after being told "it's a classic. You have to read it!' You know, the one you couldn't finish but claimed you did anyway.

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9 Comments:

At 15 July, 2009 17:29, Blogger jack perry said...

Talk about confirming some of my worst prejudices of "fuzzy minders"--er, English professors: Instead, much of what it contains — redundant, stultifyingly interior, almost eventless — is reminiscent of nothing so much as the things an English prof endures on the way to getting into a sensitive student’s pants: the gushing, the journal reading, the unedited first drafts.

Damn. Straight from the horse's mouth and all. Or however the cliche goes (I'm not an English prof, after all).

Kidding aside, I've read several so far, and I notice that they're all from the 20th century. I can dig that: nothing is so insufferable as 20th century attempts to write literature, because they finally knew what it was, and rather than write, they tried to write, and the difference between writing and trying to write is what wrecks the whole affair, if you ask me, not that anyone did ask me, but still.

 
At 15 July, 2009 17:33, Blogger jack perry said...

A Tale of Two Cities

...wait, what? That's a great book!

 
At 15 July, 2009 22:26, Anonymous maire said...

Emma, by Jane Austin. Except that I was in High School at the time, and I thought the "heroine" was a selfish, classist, marriage-obsessed twit. I've re-read some Jane Austin lately and have more sympathy for her poor (literally and figuratively) heroines who really needed husbands or they would have had no futures.

Then again, maybe it was the zombies that really made Austin bearable.

For what it's worth, though, I have always *loved* the Bronte sisters.

 
At 16 July, 2009 14:48, Blogger Clemens said...

Jack -I felt the same way about "100 Yrs of Solitude." Until I thought back on it. Actually, it was a "great book if written by anyone else" type of comment so I guess you can still keep "Tale of 2 Cities" on your shelf.

As for the English profs, I just had lunch with two new colleagues and heard some gossip you wouldn't believe about ... well... actually, you would believe it apparently.

And Maire: Didn't like Jane Austin! compared to the Brontes!!!

Just for you an Murty I went back and reviewed the Wuthering Heights video by Kate Bush. Man, that is one scary lady. Maeraed's ribbon dance was MUCH better.

 
At 16 July, 2009 16:11, Blogger jack perry said...

As for the English profs, I just had lunch with two new colleagues and heard some gossip you wouldn't believe about ... well... actually, you would believe it apparently.

I once found online a discussion of English majors talking about how sleeping with the professor helped them learn so much about English. They weren't kidding, either.

Maire won't like me for this, but: I'm really surprised they didn't include Wuthering Heights on that list. The most insufferable, pointless "classic" I've ever read. (I hadn't read any of those books from the 20th century though.)

 
At 16 July, 2009 21:27, Blogger Clemens said...

I only watched the movie of "Wuthering Heights" and thought that was enough. Carmen has explained the plot in detail to me several times and it sounds awful.

The video, either the 'red dress' versioin, or the 'white dress' version, is in a class by itself.

I'll let Maire defend its charms if she wants.

 
At 16 July, 2009 22:21, Anonymous Maire said...

I certainly won't defend the video (it's indefensible, but the song is amazing). But I still dolove the novel.

I loved, and love, the fact that the Bronte novels dared to have dangerous characters, unlikeable "heroines" and unhappy endings. Jane Austin is a wee bit more predictable, no? Zombies are the best thing to happen to an Austin novel.

 
At 17 July, 2009 11:44, Blogger Clemens said...

Yes. I see your point, but that has now been done (and done and done) in the 20th cent.

And Jack: I once knew a charming and beautiful grad student not in English but Classical Literature who said she slept with her professor once.

She said it was "the most wasted five minutes of my life."

 
At 17 July, 2009 14:37, Anonymous Maire said...

It's been done and done in the 20th century -- but who did it first Dr Historian?

 

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