Hec, I will, but I have to say first that my heart is breaking hard right now because Dombey and Son is my very favorite Dickens ever, and I can only attribute Consuela's hatred for it to the incompetence of whoever taught it. It has in Susan Nipper the greatest woman Dickens ever wrote (when I grow up, how I hope to be half the woman Susan Nipper is) and his greatest comic character, the sublime, ignobly majestic Mister Toots, about whom I will say nothing more because Chesterton said it far more eloquently and heartbreakingly in his appreciation of Dickens, which everyone should run out and read right now. It's very clearly a book that Mervyn Peake drew on heavily in crafting the first of the Ghormenghast novels. It contains the only child death in Dickens, and one of the only child deaths in all of literature, that makes me sob every time I read it. It's alive and rich and riotous in the old anarchic Pickwick way without flying apart the way Pickwick does, and unified and serious and meditative in the later Dickens-the-Serious-Writer way without bogging down in its own seriousness. It soars and it makes me want to weep with laughter and I sincerely and utterly hate Suela's high school experience for making her hate it, because there's so much in it that is deeply lovable.

City of Literature next.

yeah analysis is not so much my cup. I do brief stuff on my bookshelf at bookcrossing (where I list every thing I read, not only what I release), but it's really really brief and more like "I liked it", "I didn't" - occasionally I try to say why, but not often.

Actually a bookclub on lj would be a good idea actually. I am not sure I could swing two bookclubs a month, but I might could, especially if one was a mystery/suspense/thiller bookclub. Oh, I may start that up over there.

Frankly, the one thing I remember about Dombey is that I skipped 200 pages in the middle and still aced the final. Which I interpreted to mean that nothing of any importance happened in the middle. ::shrugs::

Maybe someday I'll get back to Dickens, but it's not on the short list. Right now I'm waiting for my copy of The Long Goodbye to come in.

And last night I finished House of the Scorpion, which Nutty had generously left with me. Excellent YA novel, full of thoughtful policial, social, and scientific speculation about the drug wars, and the implications of cloning and genetic manipulation. Good stuff.

Namely, that because I pretty much listen to mainstream rock music, readily available on the radio, that my opinion is flat out ignored by most people in there? I go to sleep now, and await the massive flaming I will receive whilst I'm gone.

t flames Sean massively, to a Bon Jovi beat

Any reason why we don't pop this proposal into the B'crazy thread and get this party started right?

None. Go. Do.

My mom is an absolute Dickens freak.

I remember fondly a sketch making fun of the names in Dickens' novels. ("And this is my associate, Charles Itsy-Bitsy-Teeny-Weeny-Yellow-Polka-Dot-Bikini.")

How come? I've been meaning to read it for years, having loved C & P so much.

I liked them both, though preferred C & P, and had great sympathy for James Herriot (IIRC) who kept it by his bed because he found that a single sentence with more than one character's full name in it was enough to send him to sleep. But it also gave me a drunken Alexei Sayle, hands balled into fists explaining to one guy that "'Ere -- I've got "WAR" tattooed on this 'and, "PEACE" tattooed on this 'and, and "THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV" up me spine".

Huh. Apparently all my lit crit happens in comedy sketches.

However, resentment about canonical good books, and being beaten around the head with Must Read and Must Respect has fostered a vibe in here such that poor, whiny, weak Mme. Bovary gets kicked in the teeth, and punched in the kidneys every time she wanders into this thread.

Hec, I'm sure you didn't intend to, but your post could be read to suggest that we Must Love and Respect the Canon.

How we feel about a particular work isn't always rational. To go outside the canon, I read the first Thieves' World anthology at just the wrong moment. I needed something light and fluffy. TW is very dark. And while I recognize that it was good fantasy, I didn't like it. (Tangential -- which is why I rate Mike Resnick so highly. I wanted light, he gave me dark, and I loved every word of it -- But to continue.) Vice versa, I read Chris Stasheff's The Warlock in Spite of Himself at the end of a rough period in my life -- and loved it because it was just what I needed. Great Lit? No. But it got me over my troubles for a while, and there's a virtue in that.

And often, that irrationality is triggered because of the Must Read and Must Respect catchphrases. Especially when you're 13 and getting those vibes from the teacher who can make you read it.

Maybe the answer is to recognize that something is My Issue and not a reflection on the book itself. Or simply that so much of this is subjective and interactive.

However, resentment about canonical good books, and being beaten around the head with Must Read and Must Respect has fostered a vibe in here such that poor, whiny, weak Mme. Bovary gets kicked in the teeth, and punched in the kidneys every time she wanders into this thread.

That's because she deserves it. Also, to be nuked from orbit. Irritating cow.

There is, quite regularly, a gleeful lashing out at serious fiction that people dislike. I do think there is a cumulative effect produced by people piling on - it's just a thread dynamic - but I think the effect is real.

As the main basher of the Bovine, I'd like to point out that other things I've mocked gleefully include Spider Robinson, Dan Brown, and probably other popular fiction that makes me wince at the pained and purple prose. Fiction with priaprism is not a pretty thing.

I am saying that the fact that there aren't literary discussions here comparable to the in-depth show discussions suggests that there is some pressure which prevents it.

Thousands of books, one show per thread. Occam and Soul Coughing suggest that Correlation is not Causation in this case.

If only he'd been allowed to be human, like Gwendolen, or Gwendolen's bastard of a husband, the book would have worked much better.

I think the reason I liked Daniel was his questing -- he's clearly Mister Perfect, but he's also vague and unformed and dithery about his future. If he hadn't had The Big Secret of his life, he might have ended up a wonderful dilletante. And I just absolutely fell in love with the way he could care for Gwendolen, and be kind to her, through her agony of becoming a grownup. Actually, you know, it is the relationships Daniel has that stay with me from that novel: Daniel and Mordecai; Daniel and sir Hugo; Daniel and Gwendolen.

And Gwendolen's painful growing up. Her sections were a bit dull at the beginning, but by the end, I wept for her.

It contains the only child death in Dickens, and one of the only child deaths in all of literature, that makes me sob every time I read it.

Not a tear for Jo in Bleak House?? Nothing for "Dead! Dead, my lords and gentlewomen. Dead, you Right Reverends and wrong reverends of every order, Dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in you hearts. And dying thus around us, every day." --? Oh, JZ is shunned!!

As the main basher of the Bovine

gasp You!

gasp You!

The OTHER Bovine, silly.

Yes, that is a legitimate response; double, if you come from New England.

You know, I'd never thought of the New England factor, but it makes so much sense now.

Right now I'm waiting for my copy of The Long Goodbye to come in.

I know this isn't the movie thread, but if you haven't already, 'suela, after you've read it, whether you like it or not, it would be interesting to rent the movie. If you've got a particular dislike of Altman, Elliot Gould (but really good Elliot Gould) and/or seventies cinema (not really a genre, but there is a certain distinct something to a lot of it) then ignore the advice, but it's an interesting comparison/contrast. Plus the screenplay's by Leigh Brackett who also wrote the script for the Hawks BIG SLEEP (among several other Hawks movies, and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK).