a book meme
Apr. 28th, 2008 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksThere's been a meme going around in which people take the list of most widely unread books on LibraryThing, and mark which ones they've read.
I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go through and explain why I haven't read the ones I haven't, and I think we will all find that a great deal more entertaining. I of course have no problem with people telling me I really should read any of these, although I do not promise to do it any time soon.
A list of books I haven't read:
Anna Karenina-- When I was about nine, I ran across an undoubtedly wildly abridged version of this in the school library, and I started reading it, and it made no sense and I was very depressed by it, and then the school librarian saw that I was reading it and came and stood over me and emoted for half an hour over how wildly moving she had found the ending (which I had not yet read), specifically the bit about the train, and how she thought Anna Karenina was the best book for teenage girls ever. After she had gone I quietly slipped the book back on the shelf and snuck out, and have never been able to bring myself to touch it again.
Crime and Punishment-- I intend to, but every time I get it out of the library someone assigns me some essay by Foucault to read or proofread or something, and then I can't interact with the word 'punishment' in a serious context for another six months. Also I am deeply suspicious of a book whose mere proximity brings on Foucault.
Life of Pi : a novel-- I have never heard of this. Has anybody? Is it remotely interesting? If it were a history of the number, I would be all over that, but its being a novel gives me strange doubts.
Ulysses-- YES![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
raxvulpine I WILL EVENTUALLY READ ULYSSES YES I SAID YES I WILL YES
The Brothers Karamazov-- You know, maybe I should take a class on Russian literature or something. It's a thought.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies-- Once witnessed an extremely scarring flame war on whether this was a brilliant work that explains everything or a piece of reactionary twiddle-twaddle. Ever since my reaction to the book has been LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU, no matter what people are saying about it.
War and Peace-- No one will tell me which translation is definitive, and it actually matters to me.
Vanity Fair-- For fifteen years I regularly confused this with the magazine, and would now be perfectly willing to read it, if it ever occurred to me to do so when I was near a copy.
The Time Traveler’s Wife-- I have a deep innate annoyance at books that use the Interesting Thing Here's Wife construction. Also people keep coming up and saying this is a revolutionary and original book, but they're never science fiction people, and I do not trust non-genre claims of originality in what is clearly a genre book, especially when the genre seems to have pretty much ignored it.
The Blind Assassin-- What is this? It sounds like a classic samurai movie, which would be fine, but it could well be metaphorical, in which case it sounds like a Deist analogy gone horribly wrong.
The Kite Runner-- A lot of reviews of this used the word 'heartwarming'.
Mrs. Dalloway-- Actually I am afraid of Virginia Woolf: specifically her fiction, because while I do not usually catch the stylistic habits and word patterns of other writers, I pick up Woolf like a sponge even when I am only reading her essays. So I can't read Woolf's fiction while trying to write any myself, which I am doing basically all the time. Maybe between novels.
Great Expectations-- I didn't have them.
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius-- To whom would I complain if it wasn't? I don't have time to write a letter to the Better Business Bureau.
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books-- I am already depressive enough most of the time as it is.
Middlesex-- Parts of the intersex community were quite offended by this book, so I did not want to support it.
Quicksilver-- I went through an intense phase of reading Neal Stephenson which lasted about three weeks and carried me through about six books, and then during Cryptonomicon something snapped and I couldn't remember why I was reading Neal Stephenson and haven't been able to since.
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West-- I tried. I bounced off this so hard I think it left dents in my forehead.
The Historian : a novel-- I have never heard of this, but still uncharitably suspect that I would rather read The Novelist: a history, if it exists.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man-- Sure! Right after Ulysses, War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, the stack by my bed, the research for my novel, and... I've forgotten something else on this list, I'll get back to you.
Love in the Time of Cholera-- I read One Hundred Years of Solitude and liked it, but find the title of this one rather off-putting. I may get to it eventually.
Middlemarch-- Oh actually this was on my to-be-read list ahead of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. How convenient this meme is!
The Count of Monte Cristo-- No excuses. Seriously, none. I am very sorry. I will fix this.
The Grapes of Wrath-- Did I mention that I am a depressive?
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel-- I dunno. Should I?
Angels & Demons-- Brought to you by the author of The Da Vinci Code, which I didn't read either!
The Satanic Verses-- This has fallen victim to the thing where somehow I wind up reading only the most obscure works by a lot of major authors. That said, I really liked Haroun and the Sea of Stories, so maybe I should read some more Rushdie sometime.
The Picture of Dorian Gray-- If anyone can figure out why I haven't read this, please get back to me, as I am at a dead loss.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest-- I hated the movie. I realize this is unfair to the book, but I really hated the movie.
To the Lighthouse-- See previous Woolf note.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles-- If anyone can come up with a reason I should read this, please get back to me, as I am at a dead loss.
Oliver Twist-- My parents had the cast album of the musical. Does that count?
The Corrections-- Never heard of it.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay-- Obscure syndrome strikes again: Summerlands is a really great book.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time-- Bounced like a Superball.
The God of Small Things-- Any good?
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present-- Uh some of the assumptions in this title unnerve me just a tad.
Cryptonomicon-- Halfway! Then I started finding Turing boring, which is a sign of Serious Trouble.
A Confederacy of Dunces-- I have vague unplaceable memories of some Greil Marcus essay telling me to read this book, and I usually do pay attention to that, but I haven't got to it.
A Short History of Nearly Everything-- No.
Dubliners-- Right after Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man!
The Unbearable Lightness of Being-- Hm. Never occurred to me, but I guess I could. I mean, I have no strong feelings on the matter.
Oryx and Crake : a novel-- After The Handmaid's Tale I vowed never to read speculative Atwood again.
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed-- NO. Firmly.
Cloud Atlas-- What is this? Good title, at any rate.
The Confusion-- What is this? Unhelpful title, at any rate.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame-- PLEASE NO ONE TELL THRUD I WILL I SWEAR
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything-- How can you be a rogue economist? Do you get to hit people with the New York Stock Exchange scrolly boards? If not, why not?
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values-- Life is short.
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences-- Started this. Developed anxiety disorder (for unrelated reasons). Stopped.
White Teeth-- Never heard of it. In an unrelated note, truly white teeth are actually rather disturbing-looking.
David Copperfield-- I have a fairly major Dickens deficiency. I am reading Bleak House at the moment, though.
(Quickly, Books From The List That I Have Actually Read)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Catch-22, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Wuthering Heights, The Silmarillion, The Name of the Rose, Don Quixote, Moby Dick, Madame Bovary, The Odyssey, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Tale of Two Cities, The Iliad, Emma, American Gods, Atlas Shrugged, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Canterbury Tales, Brave New World, The Fountainhead, Foucault’s Pendulum, Frankenstein, Dracula, A Clockwork Orange, Anansi Boys, The Once and Future King, 1984, The Divine Comedy, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Gulliver’s Travels, Les Misérables, Dune, The Prince, The Sound and the Fury, Angela’s Ashes, Neverwhere, Beloved, Slaughterhouse-five, The Scarlet Letter, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, The Mists of Avalon, Lolita, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, The Catcher in the Rye, On the Road, The Aeneid, Watership Down, Gravity’s Rainbow, The Hobbit, Treasure Island, The Three Musketeers
I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go through and explain why I haven't read the ones I haven't, and I think we will all find that a great deal more entertaining. I of course have no problem with people telling me I really should read any of these, although I do not promise to do it any time soon.
A list of books I haven't read:
Anna Karenina-- When I was about nine, I ran across an undoubtedly wildly abridged version of this in the school library, and I started reading it, and it made no sense and I was very depressed by it, and then the school librarian saw that I was reading it and came and stood over me and emoted for half an hour over how wildly moving she had found the ending (which I had not yet read), specifically the bit about the train, and how she thought Anna Karenina was the best book for teenage girls ever. After she had gone I quietly slipped the book back on the shelf and snuck out, and have never been able to bring myself to touch it again.
Crime and Punishment-- I intend to, but every time I get it out of the library someone assigns me some essay by Foucault to read or proofread or something, and then I can't interact with the word 'punishment' in a serious context for another six months. Also I am deeply suspicious of a book whose mere proximity brings on Foucault.
Life of Pi : a novel-- I have never heard of this. Has anybody? Is it remotely interesting? If it were a history of the number, I would be all over that, but its being a novel gives me strange doubts.
Ulysses-- YES
raxvulpine I WILL EVENTUALLY READ ULYSSES YES I SAID YES I WILL YESThe Brothers Karamazov-- You know, maybe I should take a class on Russian literature or something. It's a thought.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies-- Once witnessed an extremely scarring flame war on whether this was a brilliant work that explains everything or a piece of reactionary twiddle-twaddle. Ever since my reaction to the book has been LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU, no matter what people are saying about it.
War and Peace-- No one will tell me which translation is definitive, and it actually matters to me.
Vanity Fair-- For fifteen years I regularly confused this with the magazine, and would now be perfectly willing to read it, if it ever occurred to me to do so when I was near a copy.
The Time Traveler’s Wife-- I have a deep innate annoyance at books that use the Interesting Thing Here's Wife construction. Also people keep coming up and saying this is a revolutionary and original book, but they're never science fiction people, and I do not trust non-genre claims of originality in what is clearly a genre book, especially when the genre seems to have pretty much ignored it.
The Blind Assassin-- What is this? It sounds like a classic samurai movie, which would be fine, but it could well be metaphorical, in which case it sounds like a Deist analogy gone horribly wrong.
The Kite Runner-- A lot of reviews of this used the word 'heartwarming'.
Mrs. Dalloway-- Actually I am afraid of Virginia Woolf: specifically her fiction, because while I do not usually catch the stylistic habits and word patterns of other writers, I pick up Woolf like a sponge even when I am only reading her essays. So I can't read Woolf's fiction while trying to write any myself, which I am doing basically all the time. Maybe between novels.
Great Expectations-- I didn't have them.
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius-- To whom would I complain if it wasn't? I don't have time to write a letter to the Better Business Bureau.
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books-- I am already depressive enough most of the time as it is.
Middlesex-- Parts of the intersex community were quite offended by this book, so I did not want to support it.
Quicksilver-- I went through an intense phase of reading Neal Stephenson which lasted about three weeks and carried me through about six books, and then during Cryptonomicon something snapped and I couldn't remember why I was reading Neal Stephenson and haven't been able to since.
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West-- I tried. I bounced off this so hard I think it left dents in my forehead.
The Historian : a novel-- I have never heard of this, but still uncharitably suspect that I would rather read The Novelist: a history, if it exists.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man-- Sure! Right after Ulysses, War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, the stack by my bed, the research for my novel, and... I've forgotten something else on this list, I'll get back to you.
Love in the Time of Cholera-- I read One Hundred Years of Solitude and liked it, but find the title of this one rather off-putting. I may get to it eventually.
Middlemarch-- Oh actually this was on my to-be-read list ahead of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. How convenient this meme is!
The Count of Monte Cristo-- No excuses. Seriously, none. I am very sorry. I will fix this.
The Grapes of Wrath-- Did I mention that I am a depressive?
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel-- I dunno. Should I?
Angels & Demons-- Brought to you by the author of The Da Vinci Code, which I didn't read either!
The Satanic Verses-- This has fallen victim to the thing where somehow I wind up reading only the most obscure works by a lot of major authors. That said, I really liked Haroun and the Sea of Stories, so maybe I should read some more Rushdie sometime.
The Picture of Dorian Gray-- If anyone can figure out why I haven't read this, please get back to me, as I am at a dead loss.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest-- I hated the movie. I realize this is unfair to the book, but I really hated the movie.
To the Lighthouse-- See previous Woolf note.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles-- If anyone can come up with a reason I should read this, please get back to me, as I am at a dead loss.
Oliver Twist-- My parents had the cast album of the musical. Does that count?
The Corrections-- Never heard of it.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay-- Obscure syndrome strikes again: Summerlands is a really great book.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time-- Bounced like a Superball.
The God of Small Things-- Any good?
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present-- Uh some of the assumptions in this title unnerve me just a tad.
Cryptonomicon-- Halfway! Then I started finding Turing boring, which is a sign of Serious Trouble.
A Confederacy of Dunces-- I have vague unplaceable memories of some Greil Marcus essay telling me to read this book, and I usually do pay attention to that, but I haven't got to it.
A Short History of Nearly Everything-- No.
Dubliners-- Right after Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man!
The Unbearable Lightness of Being-- Hm. Never occurred to me, but I guess I could. I mean, I have no strong feelings on the matter.
Oryx and Crake : a novel-- After The Handmaid's Tale I vowed never to read speculative Atwood again.
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed-- NO. Firmly.
Cloud Atlas-- What is this? Good title, at any rate.
The Confusion-- What is this? Unhelpful title, at any rate.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame-- PLEASE NO ONE TELL THRUD I WILL I SWEAR
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything-- How can you be a rogue economist? Do you get to hit people with the New York Stock Exchange scrolly boards? If not, why not?
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values-- Life is short.
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences-- Started this. Developed anxiety disorder (for unrelated reasons). Stopped.
White Teeth-- Never heard of it. In an unrelated note, truly white teeth are actually rather disturbing-looking.
David Copperfield-- I have a fairly major Dickens deficiency. I am reading Bleak House at the moment, though.
(Quickly, Books From The List That I Have Actually Read)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Catch-22, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Wuthering Heights, The Silmarillion, The Name of the Rose, Don Quixote, Moby Dick, Madame Bovary, The Odyssey, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Tale of Two Cities, The Iliad, Emma, American Gods, Atlas Shrugged, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Canterbury Tales, Brave New World, The Fountainhead, Foucault’s Pendulum, Frankenstein, Dracula, A Clockwork Orange, Anansi Boys, The Once and Future King, 1984, The Divine Comedy, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Gulliver’s Travels, Les Misérables, Dune, The Prince, The Sound and the Fury, Angela’s Ashes, Neverwhere, Beloved, Slaughterhouse-five, The Scarlet Letter, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, The Mists of Avalon, Lolita, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, The Catcher in the Rye, On the Road, The Aeneid, Watership Down, Gravity’s Rainbow, The Hobbit, Treasure Island, The Three Musketeers
