Which commonly studied writers or thinkers do you absolutely hate?

[rems]

While we're all here, I'm developing a syllabus for a world lit survey class, and I'm including Heart of Darkness. I can't think of what to call it -- my course calendar lists what the "theme" for the week is, e.g. Contemporary Indian Lit or Russian Realism. What would you list Heart of Darkness as? I'm pretty sure Conrad is Polish, but he lived in Britain so he's one of those weird inbetweeners like Eliot. Any suggestions? I could just call it Modernism, Early Modernism, or Postcolonial Lit (I'm thinking that one might be it), or maybe, "What Happens When White People Go To Africa." Ideas? Thoughts? Comments? 

[waparys]

While we're all here, I'm developing a syllabus for a world lit survey class, and I'm including Heart of Darkness. I can't think of what to call it -- my course calendar lists what the "theme" for the week is, e.g. Contemporary Indian Lit or Russian Realism. What would you list Heart of Darkness as? I'm pretty sure Conrad is Polish, but he lived in Britain so he's one of those weird inbetweeners like Eliot. Any suggestions? I could just call it Modernism, Early Modernism, or Postcolonial Lit (I'm thinking that one might be it), or maybe, "What Happens When White People Go To Africa." Ideas? Thoughts? Comments? 

I would say post-colonial/modernism. Yay HoD! Great text.

[bluecheese]

Are you teaching it in conjunction with Things Fall Apart and Achebe's essay on racism in the text? 

[rems]

Are you teaching it in conjunction with Things Fall Apart and Achebe's essay on racism in the text? 

 

Yup -- but everything else on the calendar is split into a "region" or place or whatever bc it is WORLD lit. So I thought it was a little weird to all of a sudden have a text that didn't have a location. I suppose I could call it British, but I don't really think that's accurate. Or I could call it, "tsk tsk, white people." Or "White Perceptions" might be a little more pc. I suppose I could just not call it anything, or call it "Postcolonialism Cont." and not worry about it. But I like categories. 

[lisajay]

Yup -- but everything else on the calendar is split into a "region" or place or whatever bc it is WORLD lit. So I thought it was a little weird to all of a sudden have a text that didn't have a location. I suppose I could call it British, but I don't really think that's accurate. Or I could call it, "tsk tsk, white people." Or "White Perceptions" might be a little more pc. I suppose I could just not call it anything, or call it "Postcolonialism Cont." and not worry about it. But I like categories. 

 

polish diaspora on the thames & the congo? [i kid, i kid]

[bluecheese]

I mean, it will make sense when they read it.

[waparys]

Conrad has very little to do with Poland, artistically...I would say 20th-C. Brit. Lit.

[asleepawake]

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. 

 

Of course these are all things that I want to read! I will get to them, adcoms & those who love these authors and works, I will!

 

I also suspect that I have a latent Medievalist bent hiding in me just WAITING for me to read Chaucer. We'll see!

Edited January 15, 2013 by asleepawake

[asleepawake]

Does watching the Wishbone version count?

 

No, but YES.

Wishbone is the best children's TV show. Children need to get watching that again. I played through an entire Wishbone computer game version of The Odyssey as a kid (google informs me that apparently in 1997 I was *too cool* for wizards but in 1996 I was playing Wishbone video games - gosh, childhood is quick).

 

Also, Wishbone remains my entire frame of reference for Cyrano de Bergerac and The Prince and the Pauper.

[practical cat]

No, but YES.

Wishbone is the best children's TV show. Children need to get watching that again. I played through an entire Wishbone computer game version of The Odyssey as a kid (google informs me that apparently in 1997 I was *too cool* for wizards but in 1996 I was playing Wishbone video games - gosh, childhood is quick).

 

Also, Wishbone remains my entire frame of reference for Cyrano de Bergerac and The Prince and the Pauper.

I don't think I have yet fully wrapped my head around the part where Cyrano is not actually a literal dog.

[dazedandbemused]

I don't think I have yet fully wrapped my head around the part where Cyrano is not actually a literal dog.

 

I'm with you; Jim Hawkins will always be a Jack Russell Terrier to me.

[Datatape]

Wishbone.  Oh, my God.  NOW I know what was missing from my Statement of Purpose.

[DontHate]

Do you think it will help my chances that Wishbone wrote one of my reference letters? 

[bluecheese]

Do you think it will help my chances that Wishbone wrote one of my reference letters? 

 

obviously!

[Two Espressos]

I apologize in advance for this mega-long post...

 

So Dickens is a cheap sentamentalist, psychoanalysis is "unimpressive," Freud's no good because of the ways in which he has been "egregiously abused," Stein is unimportant, and Austen and Conrad are just plain boring.

 

Pretty much.  Lots of eye-rolling sentimentality in Dickens, though I think he's okay overall.  I stand behind my comments about Freud, Lacan, and psychoanalysis.

 

The fact that Jeffrey Eugenides, for example, wins a Pulitzer because (primarily) he is able to slip between genders in his characterization is extremely annoying and frustrating.

 

I haven't read Middlesex (which I'm assuming you're referring to here), but I did read The Marriage Plot last summer, and I didn't much care for it.  All the philosophical/theoretical jokes were pretty superficial and lame.

 

I think graphic novels are better literature than Jane Austen. 

 

I'm not even that crazy about Jane Austen, but

 

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.

 

 

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

 

Absolutely!  One of my favorite novels.  I haven't read it in a very long time, but it made a huge impression on me.  I like it better than The Sound and the Fury, but I'm willing to concede that the latter is a better novel overall.

 

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.

 

I wouldn't say it's the best novel I've ever read, but it's certainly in my top 10 (20?) or so.  It's so powerful.

 

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

 

Yeah, "pretentious" is terribly overused by just about everyone.  It gets annoying.  Most people misuse it, which only makes it worse.

 

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!

 

I highly recommend Paradise Lost.  Some parts of it are kinda boring, if I can be so frank, but overall, it's wonderful.  I'm very glad to have read it.

 

I've never read any Dickens.

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

 

The inner traditionalist in me is seething.  I'll keep the pitchforks and torches at home this time, though.

 

To add another - I know almost nothing about the Divine Comedy.

 

Same, sadly.  I need to read it.

 

You're not applying to Buffalo, are you? 

 

I am applying to Buffalo, actually.  I know they're really into psychoanalytic theory and stuff up there, but there are other aspects of the program that I quite like, so I'd definitely like to attend if offered a spot.  Plus, being the iconoclast in the department might be fun.

Edited January 16, 2013 by Two Espressos

[bluecheese]

I haven't read Middlesex (which I'm assuming you're referring to here), but I did read The Marriage Plot last summer, and I didn't much care for it.  All the philosophical/theoretical jokes were pretty superficial and lame.

 

Yeah, Middlesex. My partner read The Marriage Plot and thought it was like candy. Not good, but candy-like.

[toasterazzi]

No, but YES.

Wishbone is the best children's TV show. Children need to get watching that again. I played through an entire Wishbone computer game version of The Odyssey as a kid (google informs me that apparently in 1997 I was *too cool* for wizards but in 1996 I was playing Wishbone video games - gosh, childhood is quick).

 

Also, Wishbone remains my entire frame of reference for Cyrano de Bergerac and The Prince and the Pauper.

Wishbone is my frame of reference for several stories. When I finally do get around to reading them, I still picture the Wishbone episodes in my head hehe.

[TripWillis]

Good thread. It took me a while to think of it, but I got it.

For one, I agree with two espressos on psychoanalytic theory: blerg! I'm not big on the subject of interiority.

That said, I better get my Oedipal (or I guess Elektra) complex out of the way and say bell hooks. Technically, we play for the same team; we both have the same goals. I find many of the things she says generally agreeable. But I think she's so concerned with writing crossover criticism that she overpolemicizes and turns what could be very interesting and well-founded social theory into sensationalistic provocation. Often she goes for those winning one-liner proclamations about "black people" and "white people" that can make or break critical race theory and falls flat on her face (you have to be a really strong writer to pull those off and I'm not sure she has the tact). That and I'm suspicious of her consistency in writing off all African-American literature (i.e. literature produced with the formal codes and subject matter that makes it Af-Am lit) produced by white authors: Quentin Tarantino, Behn Zeitlin, Jennie Livingston (I'm unaware if she's critiqued Carl Van Vechten)... she spares no one. Potentially, this could be a good thing. I like interrogations of much beloved cultural figures. However, at this point it definitely seems more like a grudge or a part of her brand than an honest engagement with their work. Finally, her investment in the uplift narrative drives me crazy. She seems to have no awareness of the historical violence it takes to produce an uplift narrative, which is really surprising seeing as how she's a feminist.

Although it was tempting to pick an easy one and say Harold Fucking Bloom. But I doubt it would be news to anyone, based on my interests, that I can't stand his work... you know... the work that isn't probably ghostwritten in a giant cashgrab scheme. (Also, Dwight A. McBride's "Can the Queen Speak?" pointed out a lot of flaws in her pieces on queers of color, including her apologizing for homophobia or sexism in bizarre instances)

When it comes to authors of literature qua literature, I have always had a ton of trouble getting into Gilbert Sorrentino. Many people praise him for sending up the pretentiousness of the NY literary community, but I don't think he wrote with enough awareness of his own self-important style. It's like his satire only served to bolster what he was ostensibly making fun of.

Whew. That felt good to get off of my chest.

Edited January 16, 2013 by TripWillis

[blakeblake]

I'm going to have to second (or third or fourth) David Foster Wallace.  Not so much because I hate him (he's competent, though the way that he dwells on his own very special brand of oddness is irritating), but because he inspired so many legions of fourth-rate Wallace knockoff writers.  I can't pick up an "avant-garde" novel or journal without wondering why, if this author is going to imitate someone else, can't it at least be a more talented someone else than DFW?

[Imogene]

i am so late to this party (nice thread, y'all!), but i just wanted to add:

Joyce would have been so much better with an editor

Austen wins me with her wit

I tried reading Harry Potter but could not get past the terrible, terrible, terrible writing

I want to like Henry James for so many reasons, but his sentence structure annoys me -- it's like he's translating from the French, and not very well

I'm not really that ashamed but have to admit that I haven't read much contemporary lit, period

George Steiner immediately comes to mind as a critic I have a negative emotional reaction to when reading

I also remember feeling personally offended by Lawrence Sterne when I had to read Tristram Shandy-- like he was mocking me, specifically, as a reader. Later I totally admired him for being able to evoke that.

Sebastiansteddy: you really need to read HoD

Edited January 17, 2013 by Imogene

[sebastiansteddy]

Sebastiansteddy: you really need to read HoD

 

I know. I REALLY need to get on that. It's one of those books that EVERYONE has read, and everyone brings it up as if everyone really has. So I feel like I know it better than any other book I've never read. But I really do need to actually read it. I thought The Secret Agent was just so-so, though I could really appreciate what he was doing with it.

[practical cat]

Does anyone else have commonly studied writers/thinkers that they're kind of embarrassed to like? Joyce, for me. The criticisms are valid.

[DontHate]

I love cheesy American poetry. Billy Collins, ee cummings, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, even Emily Dickinson. Even Robert Frost! I seriously love that stuff. But I don't study it, I just read it for pleasure. Such pleasure.

[lisajay]

i once wrote a seminar paper on "the emperor of ice cream"

[thestage]

wallace stevens isn't cheesy