Yeah, no tone of superiority there.

World has my permission to hang up by their toenails any and all who dismiss a work unread

I'm not sure how far I'd go with this. It's perfectly legit not to read, say, the Harry Potter novels because of a lack of interest in fantasy. What would irk me is if such a person called the HP novels "crap" instead of "not my sort of thing."

As is Steph, who called me rude without further comment.

What further comment do you want? Here's the statement that I called rude:

I do not, as my homies say, see myself represented within the discursive community formed here, and both the self-congratulation and the reverse snobbery tend to actively repel me.

Further comment: "self-congratulation," "reverse snobbery," and "repel" are being used to describe a thread in which I participate. I find those terms to be rude, because I can't put a positive spin on those terms.

when the standard response to, say, Ulysses is, "hated it, boring, next?" then it's more than fair for someone to come in and say "this community is actively hostile to the way I read, and I don't like it."

Can someone say "hated it, boring"? Is expressing a negative opinion about a book that you want to discuss in depth automatically an attempt to hijack the thread into moving on and discussing Sidney Sheldon?

A good way to create appreciation of Shakespeare's comedies might be to begin with, "Shakespeare wrote the way people talked then. He used a lot of current slang. So if something sounds dirty, he very well may have intended it that way." Problem is, school boards aren't going to take that attitude very well.

This is exactly how my junior and senior year English teachers in high school taught it. One of my friends and I ended up flinging Shakespearean insults at each other for most of senior year. (Of course, my freshman year English teacher took the "This is the right way to interpret this story" approach. But my response was, "You're an idiot." Which I never did say to her face in exactly those words, but got pretty close a few times.)

What would irk me is if such a person called the HP novels "crap" instead of "not my sort of thing."

What would irk me is if that person said, in the middle of a Harry Potter discussion "I hate those books! Let's talk about Lemony Snicket!" Because that's a deliberate attempt to de-rail.

But, honestly. I don't want to deconstruct a book -- Great Book or otherwise -- that I didn't enjoy. I don't mind other people deconstructing it, but this isn't college, and therefore I don't *have* to discuss a book I don't like.

What would irk me is if such a person called the HP novels "crap" instead of "not my sort of thing."

So, to take that back to the discussion of canon, what makes it okay to say "No thanks, I don't like fantasy" and not okay to say "No thanks, I don't like whaling?" Why is one percieved as an expression of individual taste and the other percieved as a hostile attack on intellectualism?

(Note that I'm only using Moby Dick as an example because it's the book that started all this. I have no feelings or opinions about the book one way or another.)

One of my friends and I ended up flinging Shakespearean insults at each other for most of senior year.

When we read Hamlet senior year, our teacher had us make tee-shirts with a quote from the play, and an illustration (if we were artistically inclined), and got permission for us to wear them all day (because we wore uniforms).

The only reason we didn't get beaten up for being such geeks is because it was an all-girls' school, and they didn't go for physical violence; they merely shunned and sniped.

It's perfectly legit not to read, say, the Harry Potter novels because of a lack of interest in fantasy. What would irk me is if such a person called the HP novels "crap" instead of "not my sort of thing."

I think I will be merciful to Fred's toenails this one time. He has a point.

Then again, sometimes I love to get into detail of why I hated a book, rip it to shreds right out in the open. I harbor the secret possibility that I will convince people who theretofore liked the book to hate it too!

Also agreed that Michele is not coming across as less insulting right now.

Nutty, you're such a literary rabble-rouser.

Then again, sometimes I love to get into detail of why I hated a book, rip it to shreds right out in the open. I harbor the secret possibility that I will convince people who theretofore liked the book to hate it too!

Nutty is me. I actually think I'm more likely to have articulate-able reasons for disliking a work of art than for liking it. (Because nitpicks are about specific things, whereas a general feeling of "Yeah, that? Good stuff" is harder to break down.)