Coming clean

[gildedage]

There are new essays and arguments out about why people read 'bad books' instead of Franzen, Proloux, Hemingway, Proust, etc for pleasure. Some people think its because people don't have 'access' to good books (which I disagree with, how could you be conscious in the last 12 months and not know that The Corrections was coming out?) Some people are

Comments

[mezzogiorno]

I agree!

Books should touch you, in one way or another, whether for good or bad. I HATE Franzen. I hate every single word of The Corrections, and I won't even touch Freedom. The Corrections felt like his own self-satisfaction every step of the way, and not a story.

I do, however, love Austen...but this is perhaps just because I take something from it that some others might not. I can see how it could be boring, but I find it entrancing.

And I love Mozart and BB King and ELO :D

[gildedage]

Exactly. Lots of people love Austen! I can watch the movies, but not my cup of tea in written form!

I've never felt the need to read Franzen, because the dude was mean to Oprah. But I agree, all the advertising for Freedom is over the top, especially when they tell you the plot.

[teaberryblue]

I have never even heard of the Corrections. I just felt like I should comment to that effect.

Also, I've never heard anyone say that A Confederacy of Dunces or Ethan Frome or Breakfast of Champions or The House on Mango Street weren't literary. Those are the things that we read as Great Literature in my high school, so I'm with the sentiment that you're expressing as far as agreeing with you generally that there's a lot of great literature that isn't by dead white men and is often discounted, but I'm confused by the perspective you're expressing in terms of what books you define as great literature and what authors you think everyone is aware of.

[mezzogiorno]

I think The Corrections is at least seven years old, it was popular when I was in high school but dropped out of sight afterwards. Freedom is the new one and is apparently ALL THE RAGE. So tired of hearing about it...

I had not heard of Breakfast of Champions or The House on Mango Street until this very moment.

[gildedage]

I guess what I'm saying is that A Confederacy and Breakfast were read as 'fun books' that might be asked about on the AP Lit, but not taught. Frome and Mango Street were what the teacher's taught but not looked at on the same level as say, Turn of the Screw or Huckleberry Finn

[teaberryblue]

What I'm saying is that the things that were taught in my school as modern-day great literature (Vonnegut, Cisneros) are the things you're classifying as "not literature" and the people you're classifying as "modern literature" are things I've never even heard of. I couldn't even find Proloux in a Google search (unless you're talking about Annie Proulx, who was kind of looked down upon as being unnecessarily indulgent

[geniusinmaine]

Outside a course on mystery literature, "Great Expectations" was one of the better books I was assigned to read in high school.

[gildedage]

I didn't skim that one as much! I liked Miss Havisham though.