Which commonly studied writers or thinkers do you absolutely hate?

[DontHate]

Well it's not like there's a southern studies board for you to post on.

[toasterazzi]

I just don't like Melville or Hawthorne's writing styles. Hawthorne drags on too long for me, and Melville's never ending sentences are bothersome. I'm fairly meh on the content of their stories. I think I could've liked The Scarlet Letter if it was written differently, and I actually do like the story of Bartleby well enough. I'm just not into the writing.

Edited January 15, 2013 by reluctantmidwesterner

[NowMoreSerious]

As a 19th century Americanist you all inflict great violence on my heart. At least maybe this reflects well on my future job prospects.

I actually don't hate any writers or theorists. Harold Bloom bores the hell out of me, though. A lot of my friends flat out hate him. I can't even muster that emotion towards him. I find nothing he says compelling, though I appreciate his writing style.

[rems]

I haven't read any of these books except Moby Dick which I though was good but not life changing. Does that reflect poorly upon me as an English major? 

[sebastiansteddy]

I haven't read any of these books except Moby Dick which I though was good but not life changing. Does that reflect poorly upon me as an English major? 

 

I read Moby-Dick twice. The first time I didn't really care for it. The second time, however, it felt life-changing to me. I am not an Americanist, I am not into that time period, etc... but I love it. It really did change my life. I just had to be in the right place in my life to appreciate it. Other life-changing books for me have been: Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, Ulysses, To the Lighthouse, Pale Fire, Blood and Guts in High School and VAS: an Opera in Flatland. 

 

I have a new question: What books are you most ashamed to admit you've never read? I'm ashamed to admit I've never read Heart of Darkness. 

[bluecheese]

"VAS: an Opera in Flatland" looks amazing. I just ordered a copy.

 

sebastiansteddy: you might want to check out "A Whaler's Dictionary" by DBQ, it is an amazing reflection on Moby Dick.

[rems]

I have a new question: What books are you most ashamed to admit you've never read? I'm ashamed to admit I've never read Heart of Darkness. 

 

Oh good question! Mine would Paradise Lost. Because these forums are anonymous I feel that I can admit I was supposed to read it for a Romanticism course in grad school, and I just sparknoted it. Now, when someone talks about it, I act like I've read it. For shame me, for shame! 

 

And I think I've been required to read Heart of Darkness, like, six times. I'm even teaching it this semester. I'm actually impressed that you haven't read it (not sarcastic). 

[bluecheese]

Proust and Wuthering Heights are currently eating at me as things I need to read.

 

Also, I have never made it past the first 100 pages of War and Peace (I hear it gets good at around page 200... I've tried like 5 times and I just end up stopping).

 

I also really want to read Hopscotch, and while I don't feel guilty for not having read it... people should probably feel guilty for not having read it... myself included.

 

My poetry self also says Dante! & Zukofsky's A.

 

Also, I think the whole rhetoric of these kind of things bothers me... like we're supposed to feel some sort of guilt over canonical materials... I definitely suffer from some of that guilt, but I'm also really skeptical of it. I have massive numbers of things that I want to read (/need to read) and most of them are too marginal to fit into any of the typical structures of guilt/shame.

Edited January 15, 2013 by bluecheese

[rems]

Proust and Wuthering Heights are currently eating at me as things I need to read.

 

Also, I have never made it past the first 100 pages of War and Peace (I hear it gets good at around page 200... I've tried like 5 times and I just end up stopping).

 

I also really want to read Hopscotch, and while I don't feel guilty for not having read it... people should probably feel guilty for not having read it... myself included.

 

My poetry self also says Dante! & Zukofsky's A.

 

Also, I think the whole rhetoric of these kind of things bothers me... like we're supposed to feel some sort of guilt over canonical materials... I definitely suffer from some of that guilt, but I'm also really skeptical of it. I have massive numbers of things that I want to read (/need to read) and most of them are too marginal to fit into any of the typical structures of guilt/shame.

 

I think you're taking this a little too seriously. It's not like I go to confession guilt ridden over not having read a book. These posts are hyperbolic at best, and just supposed to be funny and lighthearted. I apologize if words like "shame" or "guilt" thrown around in a forum are offensive/uncomfortable for you, but they aren't for me. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that anyone should feel guilt and/or shame over not having read a book. 

[sebastiansteddy]

I don't mean to spark any guilt. I've never been assigned Heart of Darkness. I just read Secret Agent though. I feel like I know Heart of Darkness though, because it is so iconic, and it came up a lot in postcolonialism courses I took as an undergrad. 

 

Bluecheese - Wuthering Heights.... eh. I'm not a big fan of any of the Brontes. It's certainly better than Jane Eyre though. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is my favorite Bronte novel, if I had to pick one. And VAS is amazing. I will look into "A Whaler's Dictionary." Thanks for the suggestion!

 

Rems - Though I avoid poetry as much as I can, and although I usually prefer works from the 20th C on, Paradise Lost could be worth a read - maybe at least the first chapter? It is very beautiful.

Edited January 15, 2013 by sebastiansteddy

[bluecheese]

I wasn't being that serious. I was just pointing out that there is something about the rhetoric of such discussions that bothers me (it is a kind of shame, but not that serious of one.... but it is ultimately tied to discourse on what is and isn't canonical, etc.).

[rems]

I wasn't being that serious. I was just pointing out that there is something about the rhetoric of such discussions that bothers me (it is a kind of shame, but not that serious of one.... but it is ultimately tied to discourse on what is and isn't canonical, etc.).

 

Gotcha -- I agree, actually.

[waparys]

I love Heart of Darkness! But then again I'm obsessed with turn-of-the-century lit

Anyway, as for something I should have read but haven't...

I've never read any Dickens.

Oh no, I can see the pitchforks and torches from here...!!!

[1Q84]

Oh good question! Mine would Paradise Lost. Because these forums are anonymous I feel that I can admit I was supposed to read it for a Romanticism course in grad school, and I just sparknoted it. Now, when someone talks about it, I act like I've read it. For shame me, for shame! 

 

Ack!

 

[dazedandbemused]

 Wuthering Heights.... eh. I'm not a big fan of any of the Brontes. It's certainly better than Jane Eyre though. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is my favorite Bronte novel, if I had to pick one.

 

Finally, something we can agree on! I'm a huge fan of the Tenant of Wildfell Hall as well, but the Brontes just don't do it for me. Wuthering Heights, in particular, is just a little too much crazy in one place for me. As for things that I haven't read...I'm gonna go with The Scarlet Letter. It was assigned in one of my Sophomore seminars and I just could not roll with that writing, so I fell back on Sparknotes. I think I read one out of every 4 chapters.

[asleepawake]

I've never seen or read Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. I know at least Harry Potter doesn't count for this game, but it definitely loses me a million pop culture points.

 

As far as the really canonical stuff that I've skipped, I know almost nothing about The Canterbury Tales. This was really helpful on the subject GRE. I need to just take a Chaucer class already! I also have not read any Oscar Wilde and I've only read one little James Joyce story. Blah!

Edited January 15, 2013 by asleepawake

[sebastiansteddy]

I've never seen or read Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. I know at least Harry Potter doesn't count for this game, but it definitely loses me a million pop culture points.

 

As far as the really canonical stuff that I've skipped, I know almost nothing about The Canterbury Tales. This was really helpful on the subject GRE. I need to just take a Chaucer class already! I also have not read any Oscar Wilde and I've only read one little James Joyce story. Blah!

 

You need to read some Wilde!!! The Importance and Picture of Dorian are both amazing!!! The Canterbury Tales can actually be really funny if you can get into it. I've also never read LOTR, and fall asleep instantly any time I've tried to watch the movies. More importantly, you need to carve a week out of your schedule and devote it to doing nothing else but reading Ulysses. AMAZING novel. Many many people agree it is the best novel ever written. 

 

Dazed - I read the Scarlet Letter in high school, and actually enjoyed it. I also liked House of the Seven...

 

 

To add another - I know almost nothing about the Divine Comedy. Also, I don't think I've ever read any Christopher Marlowe.

[rems]

I've never seen or read Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. I know at least Harry Potter doesn't count for this game, but it definitely loses me a million pop culture points.

 

As far as the really canonical stuff that I've skipped, I know almost nothing about The Canterbury Tales. This was really helpful on the subject GRE. I need to just take a Chaucer class already! I also have not read any Oscar Wilde and I've only read one little James Joyce story. Blah!

 

UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Harry Potter definitely counts. 

[asleepawake]

Okay, okay, I lose again. It came out at a time when I was still a kind but ~too cool for wizards~ because I was into Hanson. After that, it just never happened. It feels like too big of a project. A friend of mine works at Universal, and he had to take a Harry Potter class. True story.

[bluecheese]

One of the reading groups at my school just put together a Harry Potter panel as a half-joke/celebration-thing for halloween. The papers were actually kind of serious/interesting (I mean, if nothing else Harry Potter is a highly interesting pop cultural phenomenon, and has sparked a complete overhaul of the YA genre).

 

Also, I have a friends who study children's literature. It's sad that it isn't taken more seriously. Anyway, it was a cool pseudo-conference (not that it couldn't have been a real conference). And Harry Potter totally counts (even though I actually don't like them very much... despite the paragraph I just wrote... heh). 

[Deadinthewater]

I have read Mrs. Dalloway, but for some reason everyone at my institution would mention every one of Virginia Woolf's texts as if I (and everyone) had already been through all of them. I always feel a little ashamed when people talk about Woolf.

 

I am more ashamed of the books that I have read but seriously do not remember a thing about (The Great Gatsby, twice. Crime and Punishment, twice. Most Russian novels, now that I think about it. Everything I read in high school: The Scarlet Letter, The Iliad, Huckleyberry Finn, etc. Wow. This is depressing. Where has my life gone, unremembered?). Or the mind-boggling number of books that I have read through the halfway point, but never finished.

[DontHate]

This is truly a terrible confession: I've never read all of Don Quijote

[rems]

This is truly a terrible confession: I've never read all of Don Quijote

 

Ditto. 

[dazedandbemused]

This is truly a terrible confession: I've never read all of Don Quijote

 

Does watching the Wishbone version count?

[practical cat]

Does watching the Wishbone version count?

I think so. Also all of the references from season 1 of The Newsroom?