Hec, I think this is unfair.

You know I wouldn't have brought it up except my fucking heart sinks every time people do the tap-dance of "Reading is fun. Thinking about it makes my head hurt." Which is fine, except when people defensively take a crap on any discussion that veers from that.

We start having an interesting discussion about canon and how it can shape your reading and suddenly seven people feel compelled to note how they dislike critical reading, theory, and they're still pissed at their English professor. It's like the very existence of a thoughtful discussion on literature is a purposefully aimed slight directed right at them.

And Susan's response is a perfect example of that.

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.

Two tellings things about this example: (1) "a year or two back" and (2) Angus' presence.

Hmm. What about a book club thread? Where we read stuff and talk about it- because if it's that most people are reading Harry Potter because it just came out-that's always going to exclude people like me who wait forever to buy a book.

I learn more, and more deeply, from a rancorous conversation in which I must to force myself to remain engaged than from a conversation between myself and someone with whom I agree and with whom conversation blooms easily.

I find this is sometimes true of literature. (*) I don't find it often true of conversation, however. David, if your snot-outburst above was an effort to stimulate the conversation, I'm going to be very angry with you.

If it's just you being completely wrong-headed, then we can civilly disagree. Civilly, I say!

* Sometimes, the "fighting" with the book makes me obsess on an irrelevant plot point of the novel, to the detriment of my paying attention to more important developments. Other times, when the dumbass schema of a book is laid out for me like a roadmap in advance, all that energy I would otherwise spend on the plot can be used to critique (nastily) the writer's choices in getting me from Point A to Point B.

Aye caramba, Susan. I can damn well set my watch by when you're going to bristle about the Romance genre being dismissed.

And why shouldn't I bristle? Dammit, I'm a highly intelligent person, and for the time being I'm focusing the best storytelling abilities I have on writing romances. Can you blame me for getting pissed off when people say a format I'm working hard to master and trying my best to create well-written, moving works within is inherently inferior, and that anyone who writes it is a hack?

This is a tough sentence to parse. I didn't say Jane Austen was unintellectual - though what discussion I've seen here hasn't gone much beyond strong identification with Elizabeth Bennett.

Well, to me the two things that make Austen such a brilliant writer, worthy of her classic status, are the sheer smooth beauty of her prose and the vividness of her characterization. Part of which involves readers strongly identifying with her protagonists. Are you saying that's an unworthy way to read a book?

But what about the people that get knocked off the canon? Sometimes it's "political",yeah? Cause there aren't as many female Great Writers as men.(as opposed to great writers, of which I bet it's even) That's about who decides, right?

David, if your snot-outburst above was an effort to stimulate the conversation, I'm going to be very angry with you.

Which one? The first blurt, or the snipe at Susan?

The first blurt I don't take back. You know what I'm angry about? People that don't want to contribute to the discussion wanted to squash it. That's what it felt like. That's what I resent.

As for the snipe at Susan - that was rude of me and I apologize.

What if we did have somewhere to discuss those works- or the things we think are great works. I do admit that not everyone having read them or not reading them around the same time was a fair point- though I sympathise with Hec and Hayden, in that I don't read a lot of the stuff in here.

Two tellings things about this example: (1) "a year or two back" and (2) Angus' presence.

Well, #1, I can't think of a new bestseller book that has been worth my time since then (I don't tend to read bestsellers, and am not a Harry Potter fan), and #2, Angus's joke was the effective end of the conversation. Because we were arguing about subtlety, lack thereof, and its outcomes.

As for the Two Outbursts of The Manservant, I still think #1 is unfair, but I'll allow as how unfairness in the interest of blurting one's frustration is a justifiable offense. But, for the record, I was not seeing the conversation trending towards "Oh poor me, deep thinking is TOO HARD", but rather into one of those vague, woolly, "I liked or disliked X" themes.

And, you know, you can't legislate deep thought. If people aren't up to composing epic argumentations about a work, they're just not. Sometimes I am, but not always; and here, where the thread tends to be slow, is not always the best bang-for-my-buck in epic argumentation terms. Also, I don't know as how anybody else on this thread is reading Ivanhoe right now.

So, Hec, assuming there is a canon, do you really think it can be made independent of social agenda? Or is it a mistake to even try? Cause some critics get really freaked by attempts to adjust it.

You know I wouldn't have brought it up except my fucking heart sinks every time people do the tap-dance of "Reading is fun. Thinking about it makes my head hurt."

Eh, I've said my piece. I think that's bullshit; I do think people dislike being lectured about what they ought to enjoy, because someone has designated it as "great".

Listen up, please: I am now fifty years old. I've been reading anything that appealed to me since I was five, and writing - plot, character and structure - since I was fourteen. Trust me, thinking about it doesn't make my head hurt. What makes my head hurt is people telling me that I must love something because otherwise I'm a fool.

So, just repeating, I'm not a fool. And I still don't want you, or anyone else, fucking with the mechanism of what makes me happy by insisting I dissect every single fucking word down to its molecular level, under the guise of intellectualism. If that's what makes you happy, go for it. I'll stand at your back and defend to the death your right to read that way, whether I understand why you'd want to or not.

But I want the same respect I offer. And when I'm accused of stupidity or anti-intellectualism because I do not give a single flipping hell about structure or canon? The line of disrespect has been severely crossed.