'War Stories'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Wow, that was a monumentally stupid article. IMO, the worse line of the whole thing was:
I'm sorry you were born too late for J.K. Rowling, but you had your C.S. Lewis and E.B. White and J.R.R. Tolkien. Isn't it a clue that you should be ashamed of reading these books past puberty when the adults who write them are hiding their first names?
Ummm....yeah. Better go clear those children's books like The Elements of Style and Till We Have Faces off my shelves right now.
t rolls eyes forever
Yeah, you should be totally ashamed of reading The Great Gatsby.
Not to mention T.S. Eliot, E.L. Doctrow, W.H. Auden, etc.
I'm also not sure what makes it a strictly children's book. Because the main character is younger?
It was printed alongside this rebuttal.
He does know that E.B. White and C.S. Lewis wrote lots of stuff for adults as well, doesn't he? Or is he really that stupid?
Nice rebuttal. Thanks for posting the link, Heather. I'm reminded of something C.S. Lewis once wrote about how after talking to certain academics and other self-professed scholarly types, he would have had no idea that Jane Austen's books were supposed to be funny.
On edit: Why is it that some critics seem to assume that "popular" = "bad"? Or that something has to be complex to be of artistic merit?
He also suggested Sesame Street and Teletubbies were only for rich white kids, so I'm guessing yeah, he's that stupid.
He does know that E.B. White and C.S. Lewis wrote lots of stuff for adults as well, doesn't he? Or is he really that stupid?
I think he's that stupid. Plus, with the possible exception of The Hobbit, would you really call Tolkien's books children's books? I wouldn't. But what do I know? I just read what I like and don't stress over the ages of the characters or what section of the bookstore it's found in.
Joel Stein is a humorist. Also, having seen him on TV, he looks like an enormous dork.
Basically, I wouldn't worry about the opinion of someone who has wet dreams about being Dave Barry.
Re Austen -- Sense and Sensibility especially is a scream the second time around, when you realize how completely wrong certain characters get it.
And for Austen fans, if you get a chance, you might want to check out a '30s movie called Quality Street. It's set during the Austen era, featuring Katharine Hepburn as a 30YO woman who pretends to be her niece to get male attention -- very successfully, I might add. (I haven't seen the end of it yet, but the first half or so is recommendable.)