people complaining about great literature because it's hard

Oh, please. I don't think there's anyone in this thread who would go all Barbie-doll, twist their hair around their finger and coo, "Oh, it's just too much for my little mind." I believe the words were "boring" and "impenetrable", not "hard." Just because something doesn't make sense doesn't mean it's good. Politicians and preachers have been using that fallacy for years.

I don't think you have to be anti-intellectual to dislike Melville. I think his prose is tiresome. Not hard to read, just rarely worth the bother. I'd read the collected works of Henry James six times over before reading Moby Dick once, because James, while hardly writing concise prose, writes prose that I feel rewards my reading time. Wilde once said about poetry (and though I disagree about Pope, I like the way he said it, which I think he'd approve of), "There are two ways to dislike poetry. One is to dislike it. The other is to read Pope." I'd say there are two ways to dislike novels. One is, of course, to dislike novels. The other is to read Melville. If you want to yearn for the days of pre-literacy, read Faulkner.

You do every difficult thing that comes your way, or do you pick and choose?

It's funny, but if I've heard about how great something is from people I respect, generally I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Just because something doesn't make sense doesn't mean it's good. Politicians and preachers have been using that fallacy for years.

I think hayden was reacting to the opposite of this which is just because it's not simple, doesn't mean it's overrrated.

I've heard about how great something is from people I respect, generally I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

See, if this REALLY worked, I'd have a lot more of my friends coming to krav.

Nah, I'm good with the idea that people I respect really like things I dislike, and vice versa. My life, as of last count, is still too short.

Maybe I'd have read it and enjoyed it. I'll read something else and enjoy it, though. I'll be good.

And what's with the anti-intellectual bent in this thread? This is the second time in less than a month that I've found people complaining about great literature because it's hard.

I think that's more than a bit of an overstatement. I've heard people singling out individual works or authors they don't care for, sure. And for a variety of reasons - but when I say something bores me or doesn't seem worth it or I don't like the style, please don't equate that with it's too hard.

Just because something doesn't make sense doesn't mean it's good. Politicians and preachers have been using that fallacy for years.

One is, of course, to dislike novels. The other is to read Melville. If you want to yearn for the days of pre-literacy, read Faulkner.

That's great. Really, really great.

No other reason, and usually no ulterior motives.

You might try telling that the entire generation of college students who believed, and insisted, and i>made my life fucking miserable, that if you didn't "appreciate" their literate choice of authors - in the late sixties, that was Heinlein, Hesse, Tolkein and Gibran - that you were an ignoramus.

Um, wrong, boyos. I am, trust me, not even remotely an ignoramus. I'm not a lit snob, either, and I read, and look at art, and listen to music, from a specific place.

I'm not dissing crit; I'm saying I don't live there, is all. I am, however, dissing the critics who try to destroy my pleasure in it, and who try to demean the way I absorb it, by deconstructing it to me when I ask them not to.

In short? I don't give a shit whether the perspective of da Vinci's "La Vierge de la Roche" is why my toes melt whenever I walk into the Louvre. I don't care if the cunning use of the occasional tritone is why early plainsongs make my spine tighten up.

I just know I love them, I'd like to be given the same room to love them without being sneered at by those who can't or won't feel it the way I do, and, well, that's all, really.

Art is sometimes unamusing, too, and some music is kind of off-putting. I guess that means we should just give up and only surround ourselves with things that comfort us.

Unamusing art and off-putting music. Why, exactly, should I subject myself to these things, when there is beautiful art and music that slips straight into my soul? Life is too short to waste my time on unappealing art of any type just because there seems to be some virtue in reading something you can't stand.

Now. I do think that people should challenge their taste, push their familiar boundaries, when it comes to art, literature, music.

But it's not an intellectual failure to read all of Moby Dick and not like it. It's personal taste. It's not intellectually weak to cringe at fusion jazz. It's personal taste.

I'll try them, you betcha. If I eschew them, it's not because they're too hard for my poor widdle brain, you DAMN betcha.

My dislike for Shakespere is NOT because it's "hard"; I can get it, I did get it when I had to read it (and in my humanities class of 200+, I got the highest mark on the term paper for "Hamlet"). I just don't like it and there is plenty out there that I do like that I won't be able to read in my lifetime so I don't see the need to be well versed in what other people say is "lit-ra-chure" if I don't enjoy it. (other people being professors and whatnot - not Buffistas)

Life is too short to read shit ya don't enjoy.

Now a lot of people enjoy the cerebral tickle, they enjoy putting a book down and saying "Hmmm..." and then going into a deep think about something. Sometimes, I do too. But mostly, I like reading for the enjoyment of reading and being someone else in another world. I love the soul tickling and being able to think, "Yeah! That's how I felt/did that/effed that up". I can't relate to Shakespere. So why should I read it if I don't enjoy it? I certainly don't think Ole Willie is gonna be offended.