My heart sinks a little when I read a post saying the poster doesn't like one of my favorite authors. I don't know why, and it's cool everybody's got different tastes.

I think it's perfectly natural. Usually, an author becomes a favorite because they do to you what Deb wants an author to do to her: echo in you, touch you on a personal level. And so, when someone disparages them, it's like they're disparaging you personally. I totally understand it.

PC do you have an edition/translation of Crime and Punishment you'd recommend.

I think I read the most popular translation. Hold on, let me see who it is. Constance Garnett. That's the one I read, and the one I own, I'm pretty sure.

I was pretty clearly disparaging the tendency which some people show hereabouts to write off a work of literature because it's difficult or unpleasant. Did I name names? No.

Who has ever on this thread written off a work of literature because it's too difficult? I've never seen it done, unless it was situational, along the lines, of "I just tried to read Great Work, but because of Situation X that's happening in my life right now, I set it aside and picked up Brain Candy instead."

And as for unpleasant, well, why should I read something that actively makes me unhappy? And by that I don't mean a story in which sad or shocking things happen and I feel those emotions while reading. But why read a book that makes me want to scrub my brain with bleach, or one where I actively hate all the characters, or one where the author isn't just challenging my beliefs and values but deliberately insulting and stomping upon them? What's the point?

Not really trying to change the subject, but not really caring if I do-

Barbara E(mumblecan'tspellherlastname) of Nicke and Dimed is subbing for Tom Friedman while he's away.

resentment about difficult literature

Gee, there's that word again.

(seconding Betsy's Waterston sigh.Even if I'm still mad at him for making me cry in school watching The Killing Fields...and thereby Ruining My Life for six months. In freshman years, that's a long time. But it was Waterston, Nhor, friendship, and "Imagine"...I'm only human. Sniff.) One of my Brilliant But Cancelled =I'll Fly Away. (Interested in La Tep's rant.) I loved "Women Who Run With The Wolves."

P-C it was Crime and Punishment that brought that thought up. I'm not even sure if it feels like a personal thing as much as. Oh but I like that person so much, they should like this book. It's weird.

I wouldn't. This thread has always had an anti-intellectual, anti-academic, pro-populist slant. People are actively hostile about critical reading and defensive about reading for pleasure. And it's never simply championing genre or the pleasures of reading, but there's a weird defensive/guilty/angry whipcrack of resentment about difficult literature, the way literature is taught in colleges and critical theory. And it's layered on with self-congratulation and reverse snobbery.

Couldn't that POSSIBLY be because some of us are a little tired of having our tastes slammed as unworthy by the establishment? And what the fucking FUCK is un-intellectual about loving Jane Austen?

Oh but I like that person so much, they should like this book. It's weird.

Heather, I totally understand that as well. It's like you'd already felt in your heart that they should like it, and then you discover they didn't. You almost feel betrayed, through no fault of their own.

Barbara Ehrenreich(We women with difficult German last names need to have a group or something.) Hayden, many of us are probably resentful about how we were taught English...I had some great teachers, but even they tried to do too much in a semester.(Why I need to give Fitzgerald and Hemingway another shot one day.) And I almost never read anybody black in school.(Which is better than never, but...)

This thread has always had an anti-intellectual, anti-academic, pro-populist slant. People are actively hostile about critical reading and defensive about reading for pleasure. And it's never simply championing genre or the pleasures of reading, but there's a weird defensive/guilty/angry whipcrack of resentment about difficult literature, the way literature is taught in colleges and critical theory. And it's layered on with self-congratulation and reverse snobbery.

Hec, I think this is unfair.

Is there defensiveness about genre and/or "pleasure" reading? Yes, of course there is; there's a lot of received wisdom to combat, if one is to read what one enjoys without public self-abasement.

Have people complained about how literature is taught in colleges? Yes, although I've seen (for that matter, told) a number of stories about how reading in a class can be worthwhile.

Do we dissect in detail every Great Novel that is brought up? Of course not! Harry Potter is new, and people are all reading it at the same time (much like a Buffy episode), so of course the discussion will be more intense and more thorough and involve more people than if I bring up, say, Great Expectations. Even those who have read GE aren't necessarily moved to talk about it that day, and unless a critical mass of readers are both moved and thinking deeply about that book on that day, it won't have legs as a topic.

I do recall thorough, exciting discussion of a number of books, however, some of which are ambitious in nature. I really liked the talk we all had a year or two back about His Dark Materials, when Angus got himself into COMM with "Anvils out the ass!" Fact was, a large percentage of us had read it and had strong emotions about it, so talk ensued.