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On pretending to have read books

thecritic.co.uk

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Re: On pretending to have read books

#61

Post by bsder »

robocat wrote: post #50
quercusa wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wish I could go back and tell my knucklehead past self to just read them, as they are actually very good. I doubt it would have done any good. There's so much in those great books that teenagers won't appreciate. You might read Moby Dick at that age and think it's a just story about a guy chasing a whale, with a lot of digressions.

> teenagers won’t appreciate I’m middle-aged, read a lot, but Moby Duck is just about chasing a whale to me. I just don’t recognise the metaphors and deeper meanings, unless somebody with a word rotator mind explains it (or I read the Cliff’s notes - which I didn’t get either).

Oh, great. Now I'm picturing Daffy Duck saying: "I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing."

I'm not going to be able to get that image out of my head all day long.

Re: On pretending to have read books

#62

Post by Nasrudith »

Izkata wrote: post #44

> Tellingly the first download was The Complete Works of Shakespeare — the next, one of the original bluffer’s guides, by Charles Lamb. His abridgments were good enough for James Joyce, who based Ulysses on Lamb’s filleting of Homer. Would the masterpiece of modernism have been any better, more highly esteemed — or more readable — if he’d actually read The Odyssey first, instead of just getting the gist? I doubt it.…

That approach sounds like a good post digestion by public model. It gets the archetype more and what gets emphasized or de-emphasized. Like how Oedipus is known the most for sex with his own mother.

Re: On pretending to have read books

#63

Post by tpoacher »

quesera wrote: post #34
tapanjk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last one is when you read the book, then think about it, then read it again, then read about it, then keep reading it over and over for the rest of your life. Agree. Would love to see examples from people of books that fall in this category. I assume it is a short list for most people.

I'd also love to see a list of the most common books people claim to have read, but have not. There's some obvious stuff: - Proust - Tolstoy, Dostoevsky - Joyce (although to be fair, how can you tell?) - Probably David Foster Wallace - Knuth :)

Bible is probably on that list for a lot of people who claim they've read it but haven't (religious or otherwise!)

Re: On pretending to have read books

#64

Post by lttlrck »

v4dok wrote: post #38

My mother used to read a lot of books when I was young so I picked it up as a hobby. I have to say that after the internet came into my life, reading books has become much harder. The effort is much bigger because my brain was wired to faster reward cycles. I continue pushing thought but I have to admit it's still hard. Especially because books that worth it are hard. They are not something you mindlessly consume lik…

I think, for me, there is a parallel with video games. The common denominator is time and emotional investment.

I used to read books (voraciously)/play games when I was younger (until lates 20s, getting married), but then I found it hard to invest time/emotions into a book/game that could be dreadful. It's a significant time sink, especially as I tend to be a completionist.

I'm slowly getting into games again, mainly because I realized it's a better use of my time that's passive activities like television, so perhaps there is still hope for books in my life.

Re: On pretending to have read books

#65

Post by yarg »

sneak wrote: post #30
tapanjk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last one is when you read the book, then think about it, then read it again, then read about it, then keep reading it over and over for the rest of your life. Agree. Would love to see examples from people of books that fall in this category. I assume it is a short list for most people.

Mine (predictably): 1984 Stranger In A Strange Land The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress Time Enough For Love Friday The Crying Of Lot 49 Seveneves Neuromancer I’ve read all of these at least 4 times, with reading-about-them in between. I usually pick one up to re-read just a part of it, then I get sucked in and before I know it I’ve re-read the whole thing.

I'm not sure if it's true, but QI claimed that most people who claim to have read 1984 are lying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y83UkvHpYk

Why would you pretend to have read a ~300 page book, just read the bloody thing.

Re: On pretending to have read books

#66

Post by skydhash »

lttlrck wrote: post #64
v4dok wrote: post #38

My mother used to read a lot of books when I was young so I picked it up as a hobby. I have to say that after the internet came into my life, reading books has become much harder. The effort is much bigger because my brain was wired to faster reward cycles. I continue pushing thought but I have to admit it's still hard. Especially because books that worth it are hard. They are not something you mindlessly consume lik…

I think, for me, there is a parallel with video games. The common denominator is time and emotional investment. I used to read books (voraciously)/play games when I was younger (until lates 20s, getting married), but then I found it hard to invest time/emotions into a book/game that could be dreadful. It's a significant time sink, especially as I tend to be a completionist. I'm slowly getting into games again, mainly…

For me, what helps, is the fact that I have a vivid imagination. Thus games and movies always feels shallows unless they have an interesting plot. Or the mechanism are so hard you have to focus too master them. But I’ll always take a book over a movie.

The visualization of scenes in a book also push me away from drama and horror book, because it’s so realistic in my head. It’s feel like I watching some private scenes or in a nightmare.

Re: On pretending to have read books

#67

Post by hither_shores »

robocat wrote: post #50
quercusa wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wish I could go back and tell my knucklehead past self to just read them, as they are actually very good. I doubt it would have done any good. There's so much in those great books that teenagers won't appreciate. You might read Moby Dick at that age and think it's a just story about a guy chasing a whale, with a lot of digressions.

> teenagers won’t appreciate I’m middle-aged, read a lot, but Moby Duck is just about chasing a whale to me. I just don’t recognise the metaphors and deeper meanings, unless somebody with a word rotator mind explains it (or I read the Cliff’s notes - which I didn’t get either).

Moby Dick is what it looks like: the whalers are whalers, the ship is a ship, the whale is a whale. "Deeper meanings" are not as characteristic of literary fiction as your high school English teacher might like you to believe. But whereas stories on the pulpier end of the spectrum create characters to meet the demands of the plot, Moby Dick's plot is a delivery mechanism for its characters.

Ahab, for instance, is exactly what he appears to be: a person obsessed with getting revenge on a whale. But Melville's portrayal of Ahab is psychologically rich enough to contain many elements which are common to questionably-attainable obsessions in general, and this is what people are usually talking about when they talk about literary symbolism. Ahab's relationship with the whale isn't a metaphor for man's search for meaning any more than it's a metaphor for my struggle to get my coworkers to stop throwing denormalized garbage in the schema - but it resembles both of them, and many other things besides.

Re: On pretending to have read books

#68

Post by quercusa »

hither_shores wrote: post #67
robocat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> teenagers won’t appreciate I’m middle-aged, read a lot, but Moby Duck is just about chasing a whale to me. I just don’t recognise the metaphors and deeper meanings, unless somebody with a word rotator mind explains it (or I read the Cliff’s notes - which I didn’t get either).

Moby Dick is what it looks like: the whalers are whalers, the ship is a ship, the whale is a whale. "Deeper meanings" are not as characteristic of literary fiction as your high school English teacher might like you to believe. But whereas stories on the pulpier end of the spectrum create characters to meet the demands of the plot, Moby Dick's plot is a delivery mechanism for its characters. Ahab, for instance, is exa…

The Try-Works must feel like a very bad day at the office:

https://melville.electroniclibrary.org/editions/versions-of-...

Re: On pretending to have read books

#69

Post by rytill »

mightybyte wrote: post #43

> Now, over ten trillion new titles hit the shelves every month in Young Adult fiction alone. Say what? Ten trillion ? That doesn't strike me as plausible. Which raises the question...what is the correct number? Ten billion new titles per month doesn't sound plausible either. Ten thousand sounds more reasonable. Maybe ten million but that seems like stretching it.

I took that as an "obvious exaggeration", but it felt pretty out-of-place.

Re: On pretending to have read books

#70

Post by novok »

yarg wrote: post #65
sneak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine (predictably): 1984 Stranger In A Strange Land The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress Time Enough For Love Friday The Crying Of Lot 49 Seveneves Neuromancer I’ve read all of these at least 4 times, with reading-about-them in between. I usually pick one up to re-read just a part of it, then I get sucked in and before I know it I’ve re-read the whole thing.

I'm not sure if it's true, but QI claimed that most people who claim to have read 1984 are lying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y83UkvHpYk Why would you pretend to have read a ~300 page book, just read the bloody thing.

It's a bit boring and depressing, I stopped reading midway through. But it illustrates an important point.
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