What haven’t you read?
By Marjorie Kehe | 07.24.08
This week British newspaper The Telegraph made a 3-minute video of contemporary writers confessing to the books they have never read. Their picks include few surprises (Proust, Joyce, “Midnight’s Children”) but do suggest an astonishingly high level of fakery.
British historian and writer Simon Sebag Montefiore, for instance, did a major academic project on “Wuthering Heights” and yet had never actually read the book. (His excuse was that his parents had loved it so much that they’d been telling him all his life how wonderful it was and so he didn’t really feel the need to actually read it.)
Other writers confess to have gushed over and critiqued books they’ve never read – and never intend to read – for the better part of their lives.
It’s rather entertaining snip of video and then of course there are reader comments confessing to never having read Hamlet, “Don Quixote,” and so on.
I think, though, that a braver and more interesting set of confessions could be provoked by a different question: What work of literature did you read and secretly not enjoy? (Secretly, of course, because everyone else assured you that it was brilliant.)
I’ll start with my own list of three: (1) I was told that Ralph Ellison’s “The Invisible Man” would permanently alter the way I see the world. It didn’t. (2) I was promised that despite its length I would be enthralled by Robert Musil’s “Man Without Qualities.” Instead, I quit two-thirds of the way through. (3) And it was predicted that the minute I finished Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children” I would want to pick it up again. I never have.
How about you?
Comments
2. Aaron Sanchez | 07.25.08
People have told me the Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country loving book. They all said the you will definitely feel a new-found compassion towards Africa after reading the book, but I didn’t get it. The book to me was so boring; there’s no vivacity in the characters. The flow of the novel lacks emotion and the lyrical themes I’ve expected from it. Moreover, the book’s short. I believe if you’re gonna describe and lay out Africa’s affluence and pathos, your work should have a lot of sentimental points and mesmerizing symbolisms.
3. Ben C | 07.25.08
When I read Catcher in the Rye during high school, my teacher and brother kept reassuring me that it was a wonderful book about “coming-of-age”–and very monumental. I had a difficult time getting through it because the characters kept getting on my nerves; who ever said you had to use cursing to make a book “classic”?
5. Damian | 07.31.08
Absolutely, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Granted, I read it a few years ago when I was in my early twenties, so I might just appreciate it if I was to read it today. I don’t think so, however. Rushdie has always seemed vastly overrated.
Other than that? I didn’t like The Adventures of Augie March very much, but I have loved every single other novel by Saul Bellow. Perhaps the picaresque genre is not for me - and yet I like Don Quixote. I’m uncertain what went wrong there, but knowing Bellow’s talent, I am probably at fault.
Lastly, Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evenings. I bought it purely from the comment on the back comparing it, in magnitude, scope and impact, to Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. I read it and very quickly became sick of posterior-obsessed ancient Egyptians. Since then, pretty much all the Mailer I have read, I have disliked.
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1. Pat Padden, Franklin, NJ | 07.24.08
I always thought that Jane Eyre needed a good swift kick in the bustle, myself. So sanctimonious. Such a misplaced sense of unacknowledged entitlement. In short, the girl was a moanjob, and I always wanted to tell her, “Shut up and get in line, sweet cheeks. Do you have any idea where most orphan girls your age end up without an aunt to take them in and send them off to boarding school?