What got my dander up is the fact that I never said I thought it was difficulty or that gave up on it. I read the whole thing, which is why I feel qualified to express my opinion in answer to your "What's not to love?"
Steph, I wasn't responding to you in particular, or anyone in particular when I posted my original post. However, sure, you're qualified to respond to the question. What's not to love?
Deb, you can have your visceral love of the book. I'm not negating your internal take on things. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure why you think that my position negates yours.
"I didn't like this particular intellectual book, and here's why," is not, and it seems to me that I've been seeing much more of that here than actual anti-intellectualism.
Maybe so, but the implication of "I hate this particular literary book" combined with the argument that canon is useless or malevalent certainly meets your definition of anti-intellectualism.
I like the idea of a "book club" or some sort of "all Buffistas reading one book" concept. Rather than focusing on the Western canon or the form of literary fiction that I've come to think of as "book club fiction," we could choose books that are championed by various Buffistas. For example, Susan could pick her favorite historical romance novel and help us understand what how the novel shows the main characterics of the genre and how it deviates. Of course, that would mean that I would try to convince you all to read The Education of Henry Adams.
That's been my mantra as I read the same sections over again, Hec. I resent it some but it's made me feel for the illiterates of the world. Not that's it's not interesting, just not incredibly of the sense-making.
I made no such argument.
Sheesh, Betsy. Do you deny that such an argument was occurring?
Yeah, but you did specifically argue that life's too short to read books that don't slide readily into your soul. And others said essentially the same thing. Critical reading presumes you need to read stuff that requires work, because the more complex and demanding books will be (as Typo put it) outside your weight class. You're not going to stretch unless you push yourself.
Ah, here's the disconnect. Okay, maybe this will explain my approach to literature a little better.*I* don't see complex/demanding books as mutually exclusive of books that get right into my soul. Why should they be? Some of the books I love are books that made me work the hardest.
Maybe so, but the implication of "I hate this particular literary book" combined with the argument that canon is useless or malevalent certainly meets your definition of anti-intellectualism.
But you're conflating "canon" and "intellectual" here. There are plenty of books that most people would consider part of the canon that are relatively light reads. There are also plenty of books that aren't really in the canon that I, at least, considered more taxing intellectually than many books that are.
But you're conflating "canon" and "intellectual" here.
That's not much of a reach. We were discussing the canon of Great Books. Not the canon of Great Beach Reads.
However, sure, you're qualified to respond to the question. What's not to love?
For me, personally, the encyclopedic wandering of the text was a big part of it.
I'm a bit lost as to why the opinions expressed about, for instance, Moby Dick means that the Buffistas are, of all things, anti-intellectual.
The dense discussions on the show threads I think are evidence to the contrary. The problem, of course, is that in the show threads we're all discussing the same text, and because we're here, we pretty much all agree that we like it (Allyson notwithstanding *grin*) and are interested in discussing it.
In this thread, there is no one text under discussion for most of the time, except when the latest Harry Potter comes out. That's a structural issue, but it's also a social issue: we are not here to discuss the Western Canon, or the Great Books, or Moby Dick. The lit thread, however pleasant a source of recs and light discussion, isn't the point or even a great draw for members of B.org. It's a side dish.
If this were Readerville, then maybe I'd be more inclined to agree that there were something missing in the discourse here. But it's not.
I like meaty discussion as much as anyone does, but I find myself bristling at the concept that we're anti-intellectual because our discussion doesn't fit Hecubus or Hayden's notions of what it should be. What I've learned from the Kafka/Sartre threads is that there's no way to impose your will on a discussion here, and it's very divisive to try.
You want a discussion about the value of Moby Dick? Start it. And don't get pissed off when people disagree with you about it. Work with what you have.
