No, Heather, I wasn't disagreeing with you - I think that would be worthy of discussion, along with other ideas to get us thinking about the same books at the same time a little more often. I'd be into it, anyway.

eta: Where I think (and I'm pretty much making this up as I go along, mind) is that an undifferentiated, unstructured literary thread may be better suited for some purposes than others. So there may be other structures we want to encourage to address some of those. What, specifically, that would mean I don't know - and I haven't really been subbed to this thread for long enough to be throwing blanket diagnoses around, for that matter.

But I find this thread more useful than stimulating, I guess. Good for finding recs and jotting down titles to check out at the bookstore; not so good for the sustained debate. So maybe there's a way out there somewhere to address that.

I don't think you do find one that everyone wants to read. You find one that's good for you and people read it.

My tastes run from Princess Daisy to Godel, Escher, Bach so chances are everybody's going to love or hate something.

They then managed to ruin a couple of my favourite pieces - I can't read Kenneth Grahame anymore because they killed it - by dissecting them.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--
We murder to dissect.

(Wordsworth, "The Tables Turned")

I have a BA and what is laughingly called an ABD (all but dissertation) in English, specializing in late 19th century American. This means that I have read an appalling amount of lit crit. The best of it gives new meanings and insights into a work--something that I've found here in the discussions of the Jossverse--and the worst of it (deconstructionism, I'm looking at you) is errant nonsense. I'm not good at literary criticism, per se. My response tends to be "ooh, I liked that" or "gah, let's stake Isabel Archer to an anthill." I usually snuck around that in grad school by writing papers about themes (The sense of place in The Professor's House, scientific influences on Henry Adams).

I did come to believe that the concept of the canon is important, and it evolves through time. A good example is Moby Dick, which was certainly not appreciated in Melville's lifetime. It took an era more tolerant of non-linear storytelling and more interested in the metaphysical to appreciate what I see as it's many virtues. What the canon does is keep alive great works of literature, most of which have endured because they do illuminate something about the human condition or are just beautifully written. I don't think we have enough distance on the 20th century to know what will be 20th century canon in the 22nd century. It may well include the collected works of Joss Whedon. If I had to bet, I'd only put money on Faulkner.

I read books for different reasons, and there are months and even years in which I just can't wrap my brain around books like Moby Dick, even though I love them. I'm very happy that I have both Melville and Jennifer Cruisie, Willa Cather and Connie Willis, Mark Twain and Deborah Grabien.

Heh. P-C, I love Wordsworth, but I didn't discover him until my late teens.

In re a structured discussion/book club-ish sort of thread, that's precisely the kind of thread I'd avoid; I find this thread useful for the same reason brenda m does, but I'm on the opposite side of the field, in that I'm not looking for stimulation. I run away from it at lightspeed.

Are people thinking about two separate threads? I thought b.org was anti thread-proliferation?

(One half of pass-page readover done. I can now shower and eat and go south with a clear conscience.)

edit: (blows a kiss at Ginger)

I'm considered a "literary" writer. That's one reason my editor, who is Queen of the American Mystery Publishing world, is so happy she can call these even remotely mystery books.

Hec, do you have an issue with identification? How much is too much? And I include woobie-fication in this question too. I've seen you be snappish in Jossverse when it felt like posters were getting close to a fictional character.

I do think it's a kind of distortion, and it bugs me when it hits me as "The Reader As Mary Sue." "I was reading Catcher in the Rye and I realized, I am Holden Caulfield."

In the Jossverse examples (Spikefen, Kittens) other forces were at play. I think the Kittens identified with what Tara represented - which meant that her character (to them) could never be treated just as a character in a narrative. Spikefens (I'm carefully using this word to denote the crazy-ass end of the Spike fan spectrum) didn't identify with Spike so much as projected their wants/needs on the character. Again, he represented something like a romantic ideal/woobie (or something, I'm not sure exactly) so that any deviation from that ideal set off seismic tantrums. These are both incredibly static, reactionary ways to view a character. It puts them in amber (so to speak) and doesn't allow them to change past the point where the fans latched on to them. I think that's a problematic way to view any show/book/movie.

Do you think it's a in/less valid way to approach fiction?

Nabokov (in his Cornell lectures) ripped into identification as one of the lowest modes of reading. He was very disparaging. I'm not nearly that dogmatic about it, but I do think it's a very narrow lens to view any book.

Do you think it precludes your way?

No way! I'm right. There's no precluding.

please note dogmatic intransigence intended for comic effect

Ginger, that was a great post. Thank you.

P-C, I love Wordsworth, but I didn't discover him until my late teens.

I don't think I knew much of him until my British Romantic Poetry class...sophomore year, spring semester. I like that poem quite a bit (though I don't totally agree with it), and some of his other (shorter) stuff, but he's not really a favorite. I love Keats, Browning, Eliot, Blake, and probably specific poems of others, but those are the ones that come to mind as pleasing me greatly with multiple poems.

Aimeee, I hope you take this as the compliment that is intended - I wouldn't soft-sell things with you because I think you respect being forthright. So I was with you. (And besides, you started it.) t /petulence

So, I wouldn't have said "bullshit" to just anybody. Besides, I have some notion that there's no point in trying to...not make you angry. Sometimes you're just going to get mad and that's okay. At least, I feel okay about it. Which is not to say that I go out of my way to piss you off, nor did I intend to shit on you.

But there's identification, and there's identification, Hec. There's not an experiential POV that can't be fucked with by an idiot.

I adore Vlad Taltos. Sometimes I identify with him, or identify him with others, sometimes I don't. I don't think it breaks my ability to kick back and look structurally at the books, however.

The key is, I'd think, investment, not identification. If you're pretending to be analytical or objective (for what that can possibly be worth in fiction) I think it behooves you to not be having your point of view's babies. Whether it's that you totally are Modesty Blaise, or that you like the genre or the narrative style or .. whatever.

And if you can't be "objective", recuse yourself, or qualify up the yin yang.

Nabokov can kiss my ass. Because sometimes, to stand inside a created world and look around, you need to be inside a character. I cannot imagine a diet that precludes that mode of experience.

Are people thinking about two separate threads?

I was thinking of a seperate thread, yes. I'm not wedded to the idea. I just thought it was worthy of discussion. I have rarely had or seen book discussions in here I'm interested in, and I was thinking that a book club thread might change that for me.

Other people might feel it doesn't, not want another thread, hate the idea of book clubs or whatever
shrug
But without going as far as Hec or hayden would, I don't find a lot of the discussion in here useful to me.