I was digging around on Amazon.com and came across this listmania guide: So You'd Like to... Discern a non-reader in your midst.what a snide, pretensious piece of work this author is.
Let's say you're having a discussion with someone, and the topic of favorite books comes up. You cite a mixed list that might include a Pulitzer Prize-winner or two, an obscure Nobel Prize-winning novelist, and a list of lesser known French and Russian writers, as well as a few other odd choices. It takes you awhile to summon up this list, and in the time it takes, your supposed "literary peer" has already read off their entire list of favorites. The list includes Joyce's 'Ulysses (Vintage International)', Orwell's '1984' and 'Animal Farm', Heller's 'Catch 22', Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby', Nabokov's 'Lolita (Vintage International)', Kerouac's 'On the Road', and many other commonly cited favorites. You, naturally, have read the majority of these books, as many of them are required reading in highschool, and also ventured to read other novels by the same authors. Naturally, you ask if he's read 'TENDER IS THE NIGHT', 'Pnin (Vintage International)', 'SOMETHING HAPPENED', and 'Finnegans Wake (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)'. He gives you a blank stare, and then says he has never heard of those novels.
Oh, but of course you have read them because you are "SuperIntellectual Person", actually I don't know where the author went to high school but the only book on that list that i remember on a reading list in my high school is 1984 and that was for a protest literature class. In other words an elective class.
"But, if Fitzgerald is one of your favorite writers, you can't tell me you didn't read 'The Beautiful and Damned' and Tender is the Night! And Lolita is only ONE of Vladimir Nabokov's works. You surely read others if he is an author you enjoy so much!" you exclaim in a bit of disbelief. He gives you another blank stare, then says, "Oh, I forgot! I also like Kafka, Faulkner, Camus, Sartre, and..." You feel yourself slowly beginning to understand this literary pretender's game, and slyly ask, "How did you find 'Amerika' and 'The Castle'? And the 'Snopes : The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion (Modern Library)' Trilogy? And did you only read Camus's 'The Stranger (Vintage International)' and Sartre's 'No Exit and Three Other Plays (Vintage International)'?" He seems surprised at your question, then slowly admits he did not read anymore Camus or Sartre, and has not heard about those other novels. "But if you like their works so much, why wouldn't you read more by them?" you ask, and they obviously have no answer.
Why should this be unbelievable. There are lots of authors who have written a book I enjoy, but when I try and read their other works they just don't catch for me. Just because an author is prolific doesn't mean all his works are good.
You have just had a run-in with the non-reading pseudo-intellectual, an individual who claims to read, and yet only has read a single book by their supposed "favorite writers". What are they exactly? Oh, individuals of the most superficial sense of the word who read only what they have to in school, and simply bluff their way in concerns with other classics. Why are they dangerous? Because they don't read, and yet feel they deserve to be considered literary people. Now don't get me wrong, many of the titles they claim to love are great literature, and no one can fault them from loving it. But do they really love them??? How come they read The Great Gatsby, then stopped reading Fitzgerald altogether? How come they read Catch-22, but no other Heller? And just one novel by Salinger and Bradbury on that list? 'Lord of the Flies' is there, but where is 'Darkness Visible'? The fact of the matter is, these people claim to enjoy great authors, but then don't read any other titles by them except what they were made to read in school. They are the notorious non-readers, and hopefully my guide will help one discern them from true readers, who have varying tastes that are no where near as predictable as those of the non-reader.
Who is the author of this piece to judge my reading habits? The authors apparent goal is to embarrass non-readers/ non-literary people, while at the same time building themselves up. In my mind that is the greater of the two sins. I read a lot, but most of it is not "great literature" does that make me a worse person. I don't think so. My current favorite book is "Voice of the Whirlwind" by Walter Jon Williams. I have read one of his other novels but not the other six(?) does that mean I can't consider "Voice of the Whirlwind" my favorite book? Am I supposed to stand there and be ridiculed or embarrased by the author of this piece if we should happen to have this discussion. I am currently working my way thru "The 25 books every college freshman should read", and "The top 20 geek novels of all time". Why? Because I feel like it. I felt like it was time to push out of my comfort zone of War, History and Science Fiction, but that isn't good enough for the author of this piece. No, that just makes me a fake in their mind. What a scrote.
I also recommend you cite lists on Amazon.com including Huxley's 'Brave New World', Sylvia Plath's 'The Bell Jar : A Novel (Perennial Classics)', 'Fahrenheit 451', Ulysses, and many of the other novels I noted above, especially 'The Catcher in the Rye'. You'll know them from real readers simply because their lists are completely identical to each other, with only few differentiations (a Palahniuk book or two, or maybe some Steinbeck). Hopefully after studying their lists and my guide, you will be prepared for college, where the pseudo-intellectual is most abundant. Good luck, fellow readers!
NOTE: For all of those who have realized that you are, in fact, a pseudo-intellectual, there is hope! Don't just read a single classic by an author, but instead explore all of their works if you enjoy them. There is so much more to Vonnegut than 'Slaughterhouse-Five', more to Nabokov than just Lolita, and how could you stop reading Kafka after 'The Metamorphosis (Bantam Classics)'?? The selected works presented in high school are intended as prepatory to the entire body of works by the author, and yet so many stop there. Don't! You have no idea what you're missing out on.
And of course the obligatory everyone is wrong but me statement. If acting like this is what is required to be an "Intellectual" then hell I'll stay a dumba**.
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