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.)

If you're insulted, fine. I have stopped caring.

I learn a great deal from people on this board who know stuff I don't know about. All the time. This thread has now actively shut out most if not all of the people on the board who like talking about books so much they do so for a living. If that doesn't give you even the slightest bit of pause, I've got nothing more to say. For myself, when I tried to contribute meaningfully, I was accused of talking down to people. You'll pardon me if I note that doesn't weaken my sense that this thread is actively hostile to intellectual approaches to literature.

If you're insulted, fine. I have stopped caring.

Did you start?

This thread has now actively shut out most if not all of the people on the board who like talking about books so much they do so for a living.

The people who keep saying this -- could you tell me how, please? How are we shutting people out? I love talking about books. I don't do it for a living, nor do I have an advanced degree in it. But I still love talking about them.

I really would like just one example of how someone who really wanted to deeply discuss a book was actively shut out by the rest of the posters.

For myself, when I tried to contribute meaningfully, I was accused of talking down to people.

FWIW, I appreciate the meaningful contributions. I would appreciate them even more if they weren't phrased in a condescending and insulting manner.

Okay, I think it is time for a "What book you hated, and you have to convince me why" discussion. None of this "not my thing" or "I haven't gotten around to reading it" -- go into detail and depth about your loathing! We shall all read, discuss, think hard, and emerge smartastic.

First up for me: Why The Count of Monte Cristo has a mealy-mouthed, meaningless ending.

You'll pardon me if I note that doesn't weaken my sense that this thread is actively hostile to intellectual approaches to literature.

Certainly. Pardon me if I note that, despite your very clear and informative answers to my questions re: literary criticism, I still feel as if we are being looked down upon for not bowing to those who "do this for a living."

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.

As it happens, this is exactly how I was introduced to Shakespeare, in my very white suburban junior high school. Our seventh-grade English teacher handed us copies of a paperback edition of R&J/West Side Story, read us R&J I,i, and parsed out all the rude little "We're gonna get your girls and do them three ways from Sunday" jeers and the biting the thumb/flipping the bird parallel, and we were off to the races.

Dirty jokes and streetfights and teenagers lying to their parents and sneaking around and being totally crazy and all kinds of stuff that would horrify our parents, and we were getting to read this for class? We were gonna read this wild juicy subversive teens-on-a-rampage nuttiness and get credit for it? This guy was the best writer ever!

Which of course is an incredibly shallow way of reading Shakespeare, but hell, we were in the seventh grade. It was a perfect way to instill in us a reflexive Shakespeare YAY response that would serve us well at whatever future point we ran into serious professors who wanted us to dig into the meat of the work. I can't speak for the rest of the class (having not spoken to any of them in over two decades), but I know that when I first ran into a large ponderous weighty Shakespeare assignment much later on, my first thought was not God help me I can't do it, but Ooooh, fun!

Michele, I've never gotten the impression, in any argument/discussion I've seen you participate in, that you particularly worried about insulting other people. As far as I can tell, this is your conversational style. Fine. But I don't understand how you're perpetually amazed when people respond poorly. And I don't mean to turn this into a discussion of any one person's behavior. I just don't understand when we, the board, lost the ability to disagree about things without words like "snob" and "anti-intellectual" and "oppressive" being thrown around.

(And someone may wish to call me a Pollyanna, and that may very well be fair.)