December 11th - MeMe

[alexisjane]

11th Dec: matchboximpala - What book do you think you should read, but likely never will?

This one is kinda hard. Imma ramble : )

I'm looking at a wall (literally. I have bookshelves to divide up my room) of books that I haven't read yet. I used to think I could read everything but I realised a few years back that even if I read a book a day (my record is three in one day, they were tiny though) I don't have enough days left to read everything I really want to, so I was going to have to resign myself to leaving things unread...which I hate.

I have and do read literature. Nabokov, Kafka, Austen, Bronte, Lawrence, McEwan, Provost, Conrad are all looking smugly at me right now. Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Melville, Steinbeck, de Bernieres, amongst others, have all been launguishing on my shelves forever though. I'm determined to read them. I am. My nemesis though is Dumas. I love the story of The Count of Monte Cristo. I've seen all the screen adaptions and looove them so I bought the book. It's fat. I expected it to be fat but the sheer horror when I opened it and saw the teeny tiny text...fuck me, it's going to take me forever to read it! But even that I can't let go of. I feel like if I can tackle that, I can do anything : )

Mostly, I read trash. Except it's not trash. It's Stephen King and Gladys Mitchell and Jim Butcher and Agatha Christie. Stuff like that. But even then I tend to read the same ones over and over. I have almost all the Stephen King stories but have only read a handful coz I end up reading The Stand for the umpteenth time instead. And I feel guilty. Why am I reading about wizards in Chicago fighting werewolves when James Joyce is sitting on my shelf? But I like them and am determined to keep going til I've read them all. I love the world building and the characters and I love series, and if David Suchet can film every Poirot story I can sure has hell read them all.

I guess really it's going to be something like the works of Freud, or Mien Kampf or The Koran, things that I'm kinda interested in from a sociological standpoint, things that have affected our culture and generated debate, but that I feel I'd like to form my own opinion of to participate fully in an informed discussion...but then I remember that actually life is so fucking short and I really don't care enough to spend the time to do it. My opinion, informed or not, isn't going to affect anything or anyone and I gave up on the idea that my development as an intellectual pleased anyone a long time ago.

Last night I couldn't sleep so I read 55k of Sterek coffeeshop AU fluff. I could of read Nietsche...I just don't think it would make me happy : ) x

Comments

[siennavie.livejournal.com]

I have gotten through very few classics. The Count of Monte Cristo was one of the exceptions; I remember getting caught up in the tale and loving it. The funny thing is I only picked up that book because of Dumas and my love for the Musketeer movies and mythos...but I really disliked The Musketeer books!

In other words, I hope you do make time for Monte Cristo! I recommend it :)

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

Oh that's kinda interesting...that you didn't like The Musketeers..I haven't read that either but I always find it interesting how different adaptions change a story. Like how the Bourne movies are awesome but apparently the books are universally considered deathly boring.

I will get round to it eventually! Maybe next summer : ) xx

[jj1564.livejournal.com]

"Why am I reading about wizards in Chicago fighting werewolves when James Joyce is sitting on my shelf? "

I have an image in my head of a little Irish man perched on your shelf, ha ha!

I like your honest answer - I think literature is like life and variety spices it up!

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

He's reeling from side to side with a jar in his hand : )

I figure reading, as with most things, should be for pleasure and I should just stop torturing myself : ) x

[fufaraw]

I had the same realization--that I'd never read everything--and guiltily gave up on comfort reading, which for me is re-reading something I loved. I discovered that a lot of times it wasn't the book I was re-reading, as much as it was where I was, either geographically or in my life, the first time I read it. And re-reading helped me recapture that atmosphere. But sometimes, it's the comfort of reading something you already know ends happily, and you just need that stability and reassurance at that moment. And after a period of denying myself that comfort in the effort to read more of *everything*, I admitted the effort was still futile. Further, denial was making me unhappy, so I went back to re-reading a favorite whenever I felt that need.

I've actually reached the point of oversaturation, where crowded bookstores intimidate me now, shelves of books, all with their unopened reproach. But I'm okay with that and, to paraphrase Loki, "I read what I want."

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

I think there are so many "should" rules with reading that are actually kinda arbitrary and that actually reading for pleasure should be just that, pleasurable.
I think for me it's about immersion. I get totally sucked in. I know when I was reading IT a few Novembers ago, I would look up and be so surprised to see it raining and cold coz I could practically smell the hot summer air as I was reading. I think when you can have that kind of comforting experience, like yours, why struggle through something uninteresting or dull just because? I think you (and Loki) are very wise : ) xx

[septembers-coda.livejournal.com]

I am so with you-- just read what makes you happy. <3 I read almost exclusively what other people think if as trash, though I would argue with that sentiment. I got over the whole judgment-fear years ago, because I have an English degree, so I've read The Authors and The Classics. I judge them exactly as I do other books and writers, and I don't always agree with what the literati say is "great". Take modern lit, for example: not to be too harsh, but the hip new literati think Cormac McCarthy is the shit, and I think he's just shit. A talentless hack, IMO. Whereas there are genre writers, particularly in the realms of fantasy and young adult lit, with absolutely stunning talent who get no respect because of their subject matter, and who their books are marketed to.

And older, "respected" li? Man, Jane Austen (whom I love) was basically a romance novelist, and it doesn't get more overwrought, emotional sci-fi than Nathaniel Hawthorne! Writers are HUMAN, like everyone else. If what they have to express, what speaks to them of the human experience, is sparkly vampires, then that's what they should write about. And I will enjoy it as much ore more than I ever enjoyed Melville or Toni Morrison.

BUT I DIGRESS, as I will. :-)

ALSO-- Jim Butcher FTW!! He's one of my FAVORITES, and my dream is to see someone write a SPN/Dresden crossover (It would be awesome for the Winchesters to meet someone taller than Sam and snarkier than Dean). :-D So, obviously, I am all for reading about wizards fighting werewolves in Chicago.

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

I tried to read On The Road and felt like I was slowly dying and the same with Will Self, I love the guy and his use of language but when it comes to a novel, it feels so thick with vocabulary and imagery that I gave up trying to find the story. My mind is too fixed by narrative to want to deal with that : )

I've only read a couple but I love them! Also I saw an interview with him on Sword and Laser and he was just so sweet and still kinda excited about the story arc and how he has it all planned out...I really need to get to reading some more : )

Wizards!! \0/ xx

[matchboximpala.livejournal.com]

Good answer!

I have a few I KNOW I will never read: Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, anything by Ayn Rand, pretty much anything written by the Beat generation -- I could really go on and on.

A few years ago I did the math and realized that even if I never purchased another book, at the rate I was reading I would be 86 before I finished all the unread books I owned (I think it was about 800 at that point). Then I got side-tracked by fanfic.

That is why I am replacing most of my print books with e-versions. I figure if it may take me the rest of my life to read them, I don't want to shlepping them with me whenever I move.

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

I hope it wasn't too rambly : )

Fanfic has ruined my book reading! It's too easy to buzz through 50k a day of fanfic as it's right there and I don't have to put my glasses on or turn a page or get up from the computer...I'm so lazy.

My shelves are currently full and I have implemented a strict one-in-one-out policy...which means I daren't step foot in a secondhand bookshop!

My mom got a kindle in hopes of curbing her book addiction...it kinda backfired as she's spent more on ebooks since getting it than she did on physical books before! But yes, I like the idea of portability...and shelf space : ) xx

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

There are so many I think I *should* read, because they've been lorded as books to read before you die or they're just *classics* but I never will. My tastes in reading are eclectic, I read what I want not what I should, lol! xx

[alexisjane.livejournal.com]

I think it's the only way. I try to branch out and try different things but I always come back to what makes me happy. I like happiness : ) xx

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

Happiness is good, lol! Plus I use books as a comforter, so when I need s certain feel, I go for the right book :) xx