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The Imoan Goes Berzerk Thread for 3/29
Adults Should Read Adult Books
Joel Stein is a columnist for Time magazine. His first book, "Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity", will be published in May.
Updated March 29, 2012, 10:45 AM
The only thing more embarrassing than catching a guy on the
plane looking at pornography on his computer is seeing a guy on the
plane reading ?The Hunger Games.? Or a Twilight book. Or Harry Potter.
The only time I?m O.K. with an adult holding a children?s book is if
he?s moving his mouth as he reads.
I?m sure all those books are well written. So is ?Horton Hatches the
Egg.? But Horton doesn?t have the depth of language and character as
literature written for people who have stopped physically growing.
I appreciate that adults occasionally watch Pixar movies or play
video games. That?s fine. Those media don?t require much of your brains.
Books are one of our few chances to learn. There?s a reason my teachers
didn?t assign me to go home and play three hours of Donkey Kong.
I have no idea what ?The Hunger Games? is like. Maybe there are
complicated shades of good and evil in each character. Maybe there are
Pynchonesque turns of phrase. Maybe it delves into issues of identity,
self-justification and anomie that would make David Foster Wallace
proud. I don?t know because it?s a book for kids. I?ll read ?The Hunger
Games? when I finish the previous 3,000 years of fiction written for
adults.
Let?s have the decency to let tween girls have their own little
world of vampires and child wizards and games you play when hungry.
Let?s not pump Justin Bieber in our Saabs and get engaged at
Cinderella?s Castle at Disneyland. Because it?s embarrassing. You can?t
take an adult seriously when he?s debating you over why Twilight
vampires are O.K. with sunlight. If my parents had read ?Tales of a
Fourth Grade Nothing? at the same time as I did, I would have looked
into boarding school.
---------------------
My favorite part of the article is that it's written by a dude whose most notable achievement to date is commentary on monchichis during the VH1 "I Love The Decades" series. Lots of intellectual elitist street cred there.
Re: The Imoan Goes Berzerk Thread for 3/29
Currently Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
This is annoying as sh*t. So we're allowed to "rest our brains" watching Pixar movies and playing video games, but books should always be rigorous? I read enough hard books at my job, f?ck off if I want to read a YA novel on the weekend for relaxation.
Also, it's stupid to critique a series without even attempting to read it.
(but still, I'd never be caught dead reading Twilight in public.)
What a douchebag. He reminds me of people who are so desperate to be considered well read and cultured that he looks down his nose at someone who doesn't like one of the "greats". I once told someone that I really don't like Charles Dickens, and they basically went off on me in the same tone this stupid article is written in. Also how the hell does he pass judgment and critique on a bunch of books he hasn't even read?
Are you serious???
And I'd like to bet money on the fact that that person read only one or two Charles Dickens novels. Or saw one of the A Christmas Carol movies.
Currently Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
I bet his farts smell awesome.
LOL this!
But he went to Stanford. That automatically makes him more well-read.
::imoan kicks back and breaks out her copy of The Berenstain Bears Go On a Picnic::
Currently Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
I don't think this douchebag understands the difference between children's books and YA.
Click me, click me!
You nailed it here. He talks as though it's just assumed that reading is done very little, such that you have to make all of it nutrient-rich or else your mind will be malnourished. Dude just needs to read more.
I'm pretty sure. I launched into an explanation of how I found it very hard to identify with any of his characters, mostly using characters from Great Expectations but I included stuff from Dombey and Son, and Our Mutual Friend, and the guy just stood there and was like "Well you just don't GET it", pretty much cementing the fact that this guy had hardly read any of his work. Hell, I gave Dickens a much bigger chance than I'd give any modern author, I dislike chapter 1 of a single book and I'm unlikely to ever read something by that author again. So fricking annoying.
Are you serious???
I didn't know The Hunger Games was YA until someone mentioned it last week. I haven't read it yet, but the subject matter sounded adult so I assumed.
One of my favorite books is Black Beauty. Even better if it's the version that's illustrated.
I also hate Charles Dickens. He writes like he sucks his own ***. Boooorrrrrring.
Oh, and I found this quote in the comments on the article, that I thought was pretty great:
C.S. Lewis wrote, ?Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence... But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.?
Are you serious???
This. Joel Stein is a pretentious wanker.
I totally subscribe to this method of thinking. I bet this is why I was a precocious child and am now a fun grown-up.
Besides, at the time they were issues, most of the classics were the pop culture of the era. Who is to say that the books we're reading now won't be looked at as classics in a good 100 years?
I'm willing to bet Harry Potter will be and I'm also willing to bet it won't take 100 years either.
Most of Dickens' work was published as weekly serials in the newspaper, were they not? They were written and published for the lowest common denominator of the times. They were often read aloud to the family after dinner. And not just Dickens but a shiiton of other authors and novels we consider classics and are required reading in education. They were, in essence, the YA of the era.
Click me, click me!
Currently Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
I was going to go off on this but instead I need to say...
I love you all. You've got it covered.
LOL I'll cover The Boxcar Children!
And FTR broc, I'm glad you dated this post because I think "Imoan Goes Berzerk" could become a daily TIP feature.
This is an excellent idea.
Are you guys somehow implying that I tend to vocalize my rage?!
Psssshaw!
Currently Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fantasy." ~Einstein.
When I clicked on this piece of drivel early this morning I had this thought, "Who is this? Joel Stein? The guy from Best Week Ever, 2007?"
First, Harry Potter wasn't written and intended to be a children's book. Children gravitated towards the novels, naturally. Just like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Little Women and David Copperfield.
"I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield." ~Dickens
Second, I think adults should read more, period. Read some erotica, maybe you'll get your rocks off and chill the hell out.
Last, when people ask me what I write and I say my first book was fantasy fiction, they get the look. When I tell them my second book is horror, their eyebrows raise. When I say my third book is the second of the series, they say, "Like Harry Potter?" When I say my fourth book is straight literary fiction and is about... They interrupt me and ask me to tell them more about the fantasy series.
Suck my quill, Stein.