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

And this thread is dominated by people saying "Gee, I tried Madame Bovary because it was supposed to be so great, but I hate it."

It's not "I can't be bothered reading classics", it's "I tried reading this classic, and I didn't like it." People have been happily popping in with classics they loved as well. (Note the My Àntonia digression.)

I have never once curled up at someone's knee, having been drawn there by "Once upon a time..." and tried comparing the story to someone else's, or tried to wrap my intellect around it.

Oh, I have. I recently read a version of Beauty and the Beast, and suddenly recognized that I was reading a story of Stockholm Syndrome. I mean, it made my enjoyment go down to ZERO, but I was glad that the story hadn't managed to pull the wool over my eyes. Alternately, Pamela Dean's Tam Lin is sort of WTF and pointless unless you know it's based on a ballad of the same name. (Which is reprinted at the end.)

Anyway, canon exists because literate people generally agree that those particular works represent the best of literature.

I don't agree. There are works that are called canon, about which people cannot agree (especially as to quality) that are in canon anyway, because they matter, because they influenced other things. I'll cry if I have to read The Jungle again, because it was AWFUL prose and stupid plotting, but even being awful, it managed to completely change public opinion and revolutionize a mode of writing (also, politics) in the US.

I do agree that canon is primarily useful for people to speak a common cultural language, but I don't agree it's based primarily on quality.

Also, I read hard books because they're rewarding; but I sometimes put down hard books because they're not. I've been 200 pages into Middlemarch for years, and despite reading Daniel Deronda, I can't sit myself down to finish Eliot's most famous novel. Maybe someday.

I love Willa Cather. And Melville for that matter.

Hec (and Lilty), I'm sorry, but My Antonia was, for me, the dumbest dumb that ever dumbed. All summary, no scene, not compelling at all. I was expecting so much more.

Moby Dick, however, has its moments. "The Whiteness of the Whale" is an absolutely fascinating look at the way symbolism works in literature. I'd rather read Moby Dick again than read My Antonia.

I'm also a big Faulkner fan. The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! rock. If you can't deal with his run-ons, okay, but I think they're brilliant. Quentin Compson is my homeboy.

Ole Willie is gonna be offended.

Given Ole Willie's times and main audience, he'll just be grateful if you don't fling rotten produce at him.

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.

And then? If you still have a low opinion of Moby Dick after reading the whole thing, as I did?

I didn't bitch about Moby Dick without having read it. That *would* be patently ridiculous. But after having seen/heard/read/experienced any kind of art, can't you *then* have an opinion on it?

You love Moby Dick. I despise it. Is either one of us "right"? Am *I* the weak one because it was too "hard" to like Moby Dick? I think emphatically not.

I'll admit to being a bit knee-jerky about some of the Great 19th Century (and some early 20th) Authors. It was the big area of my department, and I just couldn't bring myself to like large swathes of it, even 'though I really liked and respected a lot of the professors. I think there's still a part of me going, "But . . . but . . . but . . . I don't see it. Why is this wonderful? Why?" Back then I'd run back to the dark corners with the Yeats prof and the guy who had a thing for the Pre-Raphaelite poet/painter movement, and the Communist prof. who taught 18th century lit. We'd huddle over bad coffee and discuss Marlowe conspiracy theories with the Renaissance lit. profs. Good times.

Quentin Compson is my homeboy.

I can't decide if you scare me deeply, or you're the coolest human alive.

discuss Marlow conspiracy theories with the Renaissance lit. profs

Sounds lovely.

Anyway, canon exists because literate people generally agree that those particular works represent the best of literature.

I disagree. And the further back you're going, the more I disagree. A certain set of people "generally agree" about those works, but not everyone. Not all English speakers. Not all college-educated English speakers. The "canon" is like "history" -- it is developed by the people in charge. It is not objective fact.

The canon is big. Very big. Nobody, even Harold Bloom, loves all of it.

Many of us, me included, grew up with Great Books, which you had to read, and Good Books, which you wanted to read.

Then we became free agents and started to read anything we wanted. And we discovered that some of the Great Books were actually Good Books, and we said "Wow! Look at that Dickens! What a page-turner!" And some of us said "Good heavens, James Joyce speaks to my innter soul!" And others of us said "what IS with this Madame Bovary person, and can I have five minutes with her and a tire iron?"

That's not anti-intellectual. That's exploring the canon, and it's a good thing.

I can't imagine that I'll ever read Pilgrim's Progress again. It's part of the Canon. It doesn't speak to my condition. I'm off to find something that does. That hardly makes me a non-reader or a non-intellectual.