Which commonly studied writers or thinkers do you absolutely hate?

[practical cat]

Jane Austen is so f'ing hilarious! I find her super entertaining. She's like an olden-timey Seinfeld or something. It's a shame that you guys don't get that from her the way I do.

Eh, I think she's more like a mean girl than a comic but still damn amusing. Super snide.

[practical cat]

This "debate" feels very gendered.

Ugh. This is why I think talking about Jane Austen in the abstract is boring. Like, I get that there's such a Thing about her because people attach a gendered narrative to her but oh my god let's actually talk about anything else.

[slvitale]

I'm so sorry modernists, but my vote is for Joyce. I do not mean to say that his work is unworthy of study (e.g. the stream-of-consciousness innovation, ect); I just find its almost determined obscurity to be pretentious.

[asleepawake]

Seinfeld is pretty snide!

[waparys]

I'm so sorry modernists, but my vote is for Joyce. I do not mean to say that his work is unworthy of study (e.g. the stream-of-consciousness innovation, ect); I just find its almost determined obscurity to be pretentious.

But that's what makes it so funny!

[slvitale]

But that's what makes it so funny!

 

Get this: I just sat down at our local library and what was laying on the table? Dubliners! I think Joyce is mocking me from the grave.

[toasterazzi]

Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter is probably my least favorite book of all time and Young Goodman Brown wasn't much

better.

Also, Melville. Never had to deal with Moby Dick, but Benito Cereno, Billy Budd, and Bartleby made me want to run my head into a wall.

[bluecheese]

<3 Melville so much. I like ramming my head into walls.

[jmcgee]

Jane Austen is so f'ing hilarious! I find her super entertaining. She's like an olden-timey Seinfeld or something. It's a shame that you guys don't get that from her the way I do.

 

Agreed!  And if she's a mean girl, I would be her Gretchen Weiner in a second.  I also just enjoy her super-precise sentences. 

 

Also agree about Gertrude Stein, or at least Three Lives: "Melanctha, Melanctha, Melanctha..."

 

150 pages of Moby Dick were beautiful; the other 400 read to me like a nonfiction pamphlet on the whaling industry, and not even the juicy stuff: a chapter on the particular type of twine used to make the rope that attaches to the harpoon, a chapter on the particular type of steel from which a harpoon is made, a chapter on the various home goods that can be made from blubber...  And it drove me crazy that he prefaced most of these chapters with a caveat like, "Before we get to the real story, it's important that you know..." It wasn't important!  It wasn't!  

 

Finally, I can't come to any conclusions about Faulkner having only read S and F, but I found that one pretty painful. 

 

Actually, if anyone has any Melville or Faulkner recommendations, I'd appreciate it; I'm not ready to give up on them as of yet. 

Edited January 14, 2013 by jmcgee

[DontHate]

I feel like Melville just needed a good editor who understood him

Agreed! And if she's a mean girl, I would be her Gretchen Weiner in a second. I also just enjoy her super-precise sentences.

Also agree about Gertrude Stein, or at least Three Lives: "Melanctha, Melanctha, Melanctha..."

150 pages of Moby Dick were beautiful; the other 400 read to me like a nonfiction pamphlet on the whaling industry, and not even the juicy stuff: a chapter on the particular type of twine used to make the rope that attaches to the harpoon, a chapter on the particular type of steel from which a harpoon is made, a chapter on the various home goods that can be made from blubber... And it drove me crazy that he prefaced most of these chapters with a caveat like, "Before we get to the real story, it's important that you know..." It wasn't important! It wasn't!

Finally, I can't come to any conclusions about Faulkner having only read The S and F, but I found that one pretty painful.

Actually, if anyone has any Melville or Faulkner recommendations, I'd appreciate it; I'm not ready to give up on them as of yet.

[Datatape]

Actually, if anyone has any Melville or Faulkner recommendations, I'd appreciate it; I'm not ready to give up on them as of yet. 

 

"A Rose for Emily" is sublime.

[practical cat]

Seinfeld is pretty snide!

Yes. But he/the show project an image of the comic and I don't think Austen does. I also think she's painfully unfunny. Amusing, but not funny.

[dazedandbemused]

I just feel like if Jane Austen and I lived in the same time, we'd spend the majority of our time talking about how stupid the majority of our acquaintances are. I mean, the sarcasm running through her books is just inspiring. Most people I know who don't like her usually have a difficult time looking past her sometimes overlong prose at the wit beneath.

[asleepawake]

Finally, I can't come to any conclusions about Faulkner having only read The S and F, but I found that one pretty painful. 

 

I think everyone has to love As I Lay Dying. Right?

[asleepawake]

Ok, not everyone.

 

I love Amazon reviews...

 

[jmcgee]

 

To go completely off topic, where do people learn the "Excited to be here is something I am not" and "At the edge of my seat is somewhere that movie didn't have me" construction?  No offense to Sarah, but I feel like I see it surprisingly often in the work of less experienced writers.  It weirds me out. 

 

Thanks for the recommendation, Datatape.

[sebastiansteddy]

Ok, not everyone.

 

I love Amazon reviews...

 

 

Bahahaha that is great! I am a HUGE Faulkner fan.

[sebastiansteddy]

"A Rose for Emily" is sublime.

 

I believe that The Sound and the Fury is the best novel I have ever read in my life. I've read it 4 or 5 times now, and it gets amazingly better every single time. Pure genius.

[DontHate]

“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.” 
― Jane Austen

[DontHate]

Another point in Austen's favor: she wrote Pride & Prejudice when she was 21. I can't even... I'm a loser.

[thestage]

I feel like I would sacrifice myself for the good of humanity if there existed a genie able to take my life in exchange for removing the word pretentious from the English language

 

Just think about why the whaling industry stuff is in Moby Dick

 

how do you hate the sound and the fury.  the first time I read it it was so good that I felt sad that other people had read it, like it had been improperly used.  yes, this is how I operate.

 

Absalom, Absalom! is probably better than The Sound and the Fury, but you won't want to have sex with it as much.  and you absolutely should not read it if you didn't like S&F.  and you absolutely should not read it before you read S&F

Edited January 15, 2013 by thestage

[thestage]

Another point in Austen's favor: she wrote Pride & Prejudice when she was 21. I can't even... I'm a loser.

 

Arthur Rimbaud gave up poetry at age 21.  almost everything he ever wrote was in his teens.  lets kill ourselves.

[jmcgee]

I feel like I would sacrifice myself for the good of humanity if there existed a genie able to take my life in exchange for removing the word pretentious from the English language

 

Just think about why the whaling industry stuff is in Moby Dick

 

how do you hate the sound and the fury.  the first time I read it it was so good that I felt sad that other people had read it, like it had been improperly used.  yes, this is how I operate.

 

Believe it or not, I didn't read 550 pages of Moby Dick without thinking about it.  Like I said, I found a good chunk of it stunning, as in it had me bawling in sorrow and joy.  No, I did not understand the significance of the minutiae of the whaling industry; I would be happy to have it explained to me.  Super slowly, preferably.

Edited January 15, 2013 by jmcgee

[DontHate]

But suicide is so cliché. There must be a better solution. Like maybe insane jealousy?

[Riotbeard]

I personally find Melville to be understood.  I didn't love Moby Dick (Ok, I didn't like it), but Bartelby is great, and Battle Pieces is some pretty darn good poetry.

 

I think the same could be said for Hawthorne.  Mediocre novelist (or at least not to my taste), but one of the best writers of short stories.  Check out "The Birth Mark" and "The Minister's Black Veil."  Two great super weird short stories that aren't long to make you mad about Hawthorne's prose.  Sorry, the english major and student of cultural history in me loves interloping on the lit kids' boards.