In a good lit crit class, not one of those people would be telling you what to think. They'd be listening to what you think, and what twelve other people thought, and sharing their own thoughts. It's a learning conversation, not the Spanish Inquisition.

The best seminars were always marked by the feeling that you'd managed to find the easter eggs in the text. Person A would say, "Hey, did you catch X?" and you'd say, "Whoa, no, and check out how it relates to Y!" then you'd just riff on the whole thing until your brain wanted to just curl up and have a cigarette.

Jen, that presupposes that I have a huge interest in sharing what I think about a book, or a painting, or a piece of music. I don't. That's kind of my point; of the 100% I get from other peoples' creativity, about 99.5% of that has nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with cranial activity. The only time my mind gets more play than my body does on those subjects is when I'm part of a work in progress.

If you looked back over this thread, you'd find that pretty much the only time I come back with a thought-out opinion is when someone has either demanded it, or thrown down a gauntlet, by stating an absolute. That's pretty much my only trigger. I only check in here to see if people with similar tastes to my own are reccing something I might trust to like. I don't do it for a round-robin discussion.

Deb, if you really think that's what criticism is, then I feel sorry for you. Because you've missed some really great, mind-altering reads.

That's sweet, but I'm afraid the pity's wasted. In half a century, avoiding decon and general crit like the Black Death, I've somehow found a way to read, and write, rather a lot of stuff. I manage to enjoy myself, somehow. And I expect to keep doing so.

Jen, that presupposes that I have a huge interest in sharing what I think about a book, or a painting, or a piece of music. I don't.

I'm confused. All I'm saying is that you have a purely sensualist way of appreciating literature, and more than that, you've said that any attempt at intellectualizing that appreciation has ruined the work of art for you. In that specific context (the only one about which I'm speaking) you're anti-intellectual.

I don't understand the connection you're making with sharing thoughts about a book or a painting.

Jeez, Ple, I can't fathom you having intellectual insecurity any more than I can grasp that Fay is suprised that some man thinks she's the bees knees. I don't always agree with your take on things, but they're always well thought out, coherent, nuanced and above all really interesting and provocative.

I suspect steam escapes from Hec's ears when people get too character oriented, and a couple of his remarks led me to wonder if he thought that identification mandated a lack of ability to discuss or analyse.

No steam whatsoever. Didn't you see me babbling about Ahab? Character can be one of the most fascinating elements in a narrative. I've got my own issues with identification (maybe I should say over-identification) with characters - sort of along the lines that Misha articulated. That it can be an end-stop to getting more out of the book. I'm not that dogmatic about it, though, and it is one of the pleasures of reading. I certainly don't think it would prevent you from a deeper read of the book.

I want to clarify one thing - some people seem to have the notion that when I say "critical reading" I'm sitting down with a protractor and graph paper and parsing out the Stuff Of The Book without submitting to (what John Gardner called) the continuous awake-dream experience of reading. It's not like that. It's an integrated response. I am in the book, reading it, absorbed in it, moved by it and at the same time my brain is conscious that the author is making specific choices, teasing out recurring images, playing with the language, structurally mirroring certain things. Like that. I'd guess it's sort of how Jessica watches a movie, both simply viewing it and simultaneously being conscious of the editing choices. I've been trained to read like that.

It's interesting to see Ple note how the tone of my posts and Hayden's riled feathers. I'm not sure if people here understand that Hayden and I weren't coming down on anybody here because they weren't "reading things right." We weren't motivated out of some high mandarin sensibility that we needed to correct people. We were offended - personally, emotionally - by the disparagement of literature that is dear to us. And the casual dismissal that it's even valuable to discuss things thoughtfully and in depth. It was upsetting.

When Aimee said let us have our talk and quit shitting on us, I had a weird bizarro land feeling of "Dude, we are the insulted parties. What are you talking about?" Which is not claiming that's the truth of the conversation or what happened - I just don't know if people really understand what was happening on our end.

Why am I still awake? I couldn't sleep because I was troubled by this whole discussion.

Some of y'all are obviously insulted. I apologize if I've hurt your feelings. "Anti-intellectualism" must be too loaded a word to ever use in semi-polite company. I was trying to draw attention to a response I perceived whenever truly culturally significant books come up in discussion. Lord knows that I've tried to engage people here about those books many times over the last few years, mostly to stony silence or the aforementioned verbal shrugs coupled with the "what's the point?" attitude.

So, I don't have a substitute word for my meaning, but I wish I did. Maybe someone else has a suggestion. "Anti-intellectualism" obviously carries some heavy baggage, though. I notice that some of y'all have attributed points of view to me that I've never stated here. Several times today when I was responding to something, I had to stop and edit the argument because I was being backed into a corner that wasn't mine. Juliana's probably right about the smartness and context issue. I insulted people who read "anti-intellectualism" as "dumb", although (like I said) my intention was to raise awareness about a certain digging in of the heels.

I guess this gets under my skin (and I recognize that everytime I try to explain I make things worse, but what the hey, it's worth another try) because I do think that there's a culture war of sorts going on where the Good Books (n.b. this is not a definitive list, but a qualitative one) are being taught so incompetently and discussed so flippantly that smart people (and I mean you, the Buffistae, among many others) see them as stuffy, boring, and out of reach. Why bother reading them (or so I guess the argument goes) when you have to be a professor to understand them? Why not stick to the literature that makes you feel good? Is there that much difference between Raymond Chandler and, say, Scott Turow? A culturally illiterate man, a man who proudly doesn't read, a man about whom the papers can only conjure the word "incurious", a man like this can be the freakin' President. I (again, I'm projecting, and perhaps and probably incompetently) am smarter than he. I like some highbrow things; why do I have to hear about the rest, especially when someone tried to shove it down my throat in high school or early college?

This, to me, is cutting yourself short.

Again, I'm fighting a strawman here, because I know that none of you fully or reasonably embraces this position. I guess it evens out because I'm (to some extent) being treated like a strawman, not that I like it at all.

Anyway, that's the two pennies that I hope will let me sleep. Goodnight.

Jen, sorry, I missed this earlier:

It would seem so, although solely in the context of how you see yourself and how you experience literature. You pride yourself on being a sensualist and (if I'm understanding you correctly) saying that the intellectual has no place in your appreciation of literature.

Very little place, no. That, however, makes me un-intellectual, rather than anti-intellectual, in the way I absorb creativity, surely? I'm not opposed to everyone else in the world doing it, and will defend to the death their right to do it any way they choose. I just don't do it myself. So, un rather than anti, I think.

I do understand, honestly, that you don't begrudge others the intellectual in their appreciation of literature, so I wouldn't call you "anti-intellectual" as it pertains to other people, or in any other context than this discussion.

Well, I'm glad to know everyone understands that I don't begrudge others. That's right; I don't. But I do rather get the feeling that others begrudge me, which is rather a pity.

See, I don't for one nanosecond feel that my way somehow less than yours, or hayden's, or Michele's, or Hec's. Do you feel your experience is somehow richer than mine, because you've parsed 99.5% with your grey cells, rather than 99.5% with your soul or heart or groin or other amorphous non-cranial bit? That because I'm constructed to use my grey cells in a slightly different, unique-to-me fashion that I do not dream of judging others for not doing, it's somehow a lesser thing?

Because that, my dears, is the vibe I got, and am still getting. And that being the case? With no ill will in the world?

I am utterly and completely out of this thread.

edit: fast posting.

I don't understand the connection you're making with sharing thoughts about a book or a painting.

Just that any group of 14 people talking about a book makes me nuts. It becomes "blahblahblahAHABblahblahblah". I don't do group discussions.

So me outta here. I be clearly in the wrong thread.

We were offended - personally, emotionally - by the disparagement of literature that is dear to us. And the casual dismissal that it's even valuable to discuss things thoughtfully and in depth. It was upsetting.

This is true, to a t. But somehow other people were insisting that we were the oppressors rather than the oppressed. Who knows? That's when I started wondering if there was an underlying gender issue. Maybe that's the way it was. I know my wife pointed out that all of the Great Books she'd been forced to read in college were by dead white guys. I told her that The Awakening and The Yellow Wallpaper had been on the table at some point, but she seemed unconvinced.

So, un rather than anti, I think.

Yeah, I can see why that's a better way to put it.

Do you feel your experience is somehow richer than mine, because you've parsed 99.5% with your grey cells, rather than 99.5% with your soul or heart or groin or other amorphous non-cranial bit?

Even if this were true, I'd say no, I don't feel that my experience is richer than yours. I'm glad I read my way and not yours, but if your way makes you truly happy and gives you the most pleasure, more power to you.

That said, I think this conversation has drawn too severe a line between the head and the heart. It is possible to use both, and I'd like to think that I do. David's description of his process of reading, and his analogy to how Jessica might watch a movie, is accurate for me, too, and he wasn't talking about 99.5% grey matter. The beauty of language can make me gasp out loud and raise goosebumps on my skin while I'm unpacking the metaphors and dissecting the craft.

I love when my outside life intersects with a conversation here.

I was just reading an article today that was looking to create a taxonomy of instrinsic values in reading that would differentiate the avid reader from the aliterate one. The researchers did a content analysis of current text and research articles written by specialists in literature and literacy instruction.

Happiness (that is pleasure, delight, joy... or in terms of the conversation here, perhaps, identification with characters, or the appeal to one's soul as Deb poetically puts it) has the highest ranking of intrinsic value, followed by self-knowledge (using transactional theory, that is saying looking for how reading helps us understand ourselves, and begin to consider other alternatives for our lives).

Language Awareness (which includes looking at how language in literature works, to an awareness of prosody, style, themes etc. ... the building blocks of lit crit in other words) ranked with a relatively low intrinsic value.

In other words, not wanting to engage in lit crit, is neither surprising nor an indicator of un-intellectual pursuits (that is an intentional use) and in fact lit crit is only one of 9 reasons (as part of the taxonomy) or values that people look for in reading. Moreover, in terms of what motivates people to read, it's much lower than happiness, self knowledge, world knowledge, success (reading necessary for success in academic, social or professional roles), imagination (verbal appeal to the senses) or inclusion (reading as a social event).

I'm a big fan of the canon. I enjoy reading plenty of poetry, some books and some plays that are considered part of it by folks like Harold Bloom. I love to discuss it. I don't always love to, in a paraphrase of the current poet laureate, tie it to a chair to beat a meaning out of it.

But frankly, so what? And honestly, as a teacher, I'm pretty anti-lit crit because being told I had to beat the meaning out of things made me hate to read for a while. I try not to go that route with my own students because fundamentally what matters most is to foster a love of reading, with an ability to parse it if asked to do so, but without killing the love of The Book with a constant look at literary devices or symbolism.

I would argue that specific books of the canon don't get discussed here because it's hard to have a discussion of any single book, especially in depth discussion, of any kind.

There's a lot of reccing of books. But if you don't read within a specific genre or set of genres or even authors then it's harder.

It's too general, in some ways, to have those conversations. Instead, lots of what happens is "Have you read X? I loved blah blah blah." followed by "Haven't read X, but have you read Y?" followed by "Hated X, but loved Y."

It's hard to have that meaty discussion across several books all being recced.

I don't think it's anti-intellectual, so much as taste.

And I hate being told I should read things because they are good for me. I'm an adult with the power (usually) over what I choose to spend my time reading. If that's Shakespeare (and let me tell you, a reread of Merchant of Venice gives me chills becuase I can't figure out how he did it.. how he can tap into something that is still relevant 500 years later) or Stendahl or Kent Haruf or Jennifer Cruisie, then it is my choice and not a signal that I'm pro-intellectualism or anti-intellectualism.

Books aren't always broccoli nor are they always molasses cookies.

This is true, to a t. But somehow other people were insisting that we were the oppressors rather than the oppressed. Who knows? That's when I started wondering if there was an underlying gender issue. Maybe that's the way it was. I know my wife pointed out that all of the Great Books she'd been forced to read in college were by dead white guys.

There is perhaps some of that.

Our year for IB HL was, IIRC, writing on women. Which meant that the core syllabus revolved around that subject. Of the books Geneva listed, none of them were *by* women. They were, to a number 19th Century Male Authors writing novels and plays about women. I found it rather odd, truth be told, and puzzled over it for months. Surely, if we were studying books about women, one token female would not have been too much to ask?

It could have replaced Madame Bovine.