Summer Reading Squib
July 27, 2023 3:45 AM Subscribe
Shaming: I know what I’m reading. Better than most. Just because I can categorize books as insignificant to the human project of art creation does not mean I can’t enjoy them. And I would never ask a reader to sacrifice one bit of pleasure for the sake of shame. from
There’s No Such Thing as a Guilty Pleasure [LARB; ungated]
Shagging: This new sex writing—pro-cerebral, emotionally hardcore—opposes the inevitability of women losing themselves. It is not filled with boxes of kinks to tick off. It resists hashtags and Bests Of. It ignores Fifty Shades. This is not about pounding out pages to reinstate the status quo. This is literature created to hear the sluts speak. from The New Sex Writing: In Praise of the “Idiotic Erotic” [LitHub]
Concentrating: The consensus here is that the novel is under threat, primarily because 21st-century technology makes it hard for us to read. Ever-present distraction is impacting our capacity for “[t]he concentration, the focus, the solitude, the silence” (Roth), and the “attention” (Foer) required for “serious reading” (Roth), “serious fiction” (Parks), “deep” reading (Self), or “devot[ing] oneself to the book” (Foer). I can’t say for sure what any of these authors mean by “serious” or “deep” reading. from Technology, Attention, and the Extremely Long Paragraph [LARB; ungated]
Politicking: We reached out ... to find fun-to-read books that you won’t necessarily find in the zoom backgrounds of a typical politico or filed in the bookstore under “politics” but that do help us understand the power and politics of our time. The resulting list is a love letter to novels, poems and nonfiction titles that use beautiful writing and propulsive narrative to untangle the complex issues around environmentalism, authoritarianism, artificial intelligence, health care and more. from Forget Bob Woodward. These Are the Political Books You Actually Want to Read. [Politico]
Hoarding: Since my work is to write about books, I have some form of excuse. But there’s more to it than that. I remembered how much I love books as physical objects: their smell, their feel, the sensory reading experience they offer. I like getting them in the mail. I am interminably curious, and unrealistically ambitious. It’s a dangerous combination. from Why do I hoard more books than I could possibly read? An investigation [LAT; ungated]
Criticizing: It is an open secret in the literary world that most books are very bad indeed. It is the job of critics to fillet them, first physically (work on a books desk and your first, deeply dispiriting job will be to go through the sacks of books delivered each week) then literarily, with reviews. from Critics are getting less cruel. Alas [The Economist; ungated]
Juggling: It hadn’t even crossed my mind to pitch juggling, which seemed too obscure an idea to find an audience. But within 15 minutes of reading Schaberg’s text (I was admittedly stoned, which in hindsight saved me from overthinking), I opened my laptop and sent a brief email pitch. from Catch and Release [The Millions]
Translating: Yet, if the translator undertakes the entire process alone, they aren’t considered an artist. Many translators, myself included, know what it’s like to be excluded from elite literary circles and academia. When we express our indignation, the people inside the circle are clueless because they’ve never experienced this injustice. They were born and raised within the circle. But we’ve been watching. Now, our anger has evolved into understanding and action.
from Jack Jung: “Perhaps they regard us as barbarians at the gates” [Guernica]
The Ultimate Summer 2023 Reading List [LitHub]
Shagging: This new sex writing—pro-cerebral, emotionally hardcore—opposes the inevitability of women losing themselves. It is not filled with boxes of kinks to tick off. It resists hashtags and Bests Of. It ignores Fifty Shades. This is not about pounding out pages to reinstate the status quo. This is literature created to hear the sluts speak. from The New Sex Writing: In Praise of the “Idiotic Erotic” [LitHub]
Concentrating: The consensus here is that the novel is under threat, primarily because 21st-century technology makes it hard for us to read. Ever-present distraction is impacting our capacity for “[t]he concentration, the focus, the solitude, the silence” (Roth), and the “attention” (Foer) required for “serious reading” (Roth), “serious fiction” (Parks), “deep” reading (Self), or “devot[ing] oneself to the book” (Foer). I can’t say for sure what any of these authors mean by “serious” or “deep” reading. from Technology, Attention, and the Extremely Long Paragraph [LARB; ungated]
Politicking: We reached out ... to find fun-to-read books that you won’t necessarily find in the zoom backgrounds of a typical politico or filed in the bookstore under “politics” but that do help us understand the power and politics of our time. The resulting list is a love letter to novels, poems and nonfiction titles that use beautiful writing and propulsive narrative to untangle the complex issues around environmentalism, authoritarianism, artificial intelligence, health care and more. from Forget Bob Woodward. These Are the Political Books You Actually Want to Read. [Politico]
Hoarding: Since my work is to write about books, I have some form of excuse. But there’s more to it than that. I remembered how much I love books as physical objects: their smell, their feel, the sensory reading experience they offer. I like getting them in the mail. I am interminably curious, and unrealistically ambitious. It’s a dangerous combination. from Why do I hoard more books than I could possibly read? An investigation [LAT; ungated]
Criticizing: It is an open secret in the literary world that most books are very bad indeed. It is the job of critics to fillet them, first physically (work on a books desk and your first, deeply dispiriting job will be to go through the sacks of books delivered each week) then literarily, with reviews. from Critics are getting less cruel. Alas [The Economist; ungated]
Juggling: It hadn’t even crossed my mind to pitch juggling, which seemed too obscure an idea to find an audience. But within 15 minutes of reading Schaberg’s text (I was admittedly stoned, which in hindsight saved me from overthinking), I opened my laptop and sent a brief email pitch. from Catch and Release [The Millions]
Translating: Yet, if the translator undertakes the entire process alone, they aren’t considered an artist. Many translators, myself included, know what it’s like to be excluded from elite literary circles and academia. When we express our indignation, the people inside the circle are clueless because they’ve never experienced this injustice. They were born and raised within the circle. But we’ve been watching. Now, our anger has evolved into understanding and action.
from Jack Jung: “Perhaps they regard us as barbarians at the gates” [Guernica]
The Ultimate Summer 2023 Reading List [LitHub]
I know I should find the first essay liberating and such but really, I am so sick of this attitude where it is just validation all the way down. You aren't my friend, you are a book critic! I expect you to have wider taste and better knowledge than I do and, if you don't, I expect you at least to write about whatever dreck you're reading in an interesting or entertaining way. If you don't want to do that, find another job.
This attitude has created a climate in which readers are so afraid of accusations of snobbery that they rush to find possible harms in the books they read so they can have cover for exercising their critical faculties. There are authors out there who have been punished harder for their "inaccurate" depictions of purple space vampire slavery than Robert E. Lee was punished for actual slavery. It's ok to just say you didn't like it!
posted by kingdead at 5:12 AM on July 27, 2023 [12 favorites]
This attitude has created a climate in which readers are so afraid of accusations of snobbery that they rush to find possible harms in the books they read so they can have cover for exercising their critical faculties. There are authors out there who have been punished harder for their "inaccurate" depictions of purple space vampire slavery than Robert E. Lee was punished for actual slavery. It's ok to just say you didn't like it!
posted by kingdead at 5:12 AM on July 27, 2023 [12 favorites]
I read the first essay not realizing this was a 'more inside' FPP, so clicked and then was like, oh no there's so much more to read. So anyway I'm going into this comment only having read the first piece. It made me SAD! I think people who are able to read 'bad' books for pleasure are the luckiest readers on earth--people who are able to set aside any guilt, any shame (or that don't feel it in the first place), and just are able to sink into a big ol' melodrama. I don't know how to do it. I'm a snob, but the absolute worst kind, because I haven't read enough of the right things to even be a snob, I don't have the opinions or the experience. All I have is this constant conscience-demon on my shoulder, clucking that maybe you should be reading something more worthwhile.
At first I was going to say, that I suppose that must have happened in college, or in the years directly afterward. Because of college, certainly. Having the chance to read esoteric books little redneck me would've never encountered, set a classist expectation in me for what was good to read (literature!) and what bad (all the stuff I'd enjoyed before--Brian Lumley's Necroscope books came immediately to mind as the sort of capital-T Trash I'd spend hours with as a kid, lying on the dusty yellow carpet in our living room because that had the best light, elbows getting red from grinding into the fibers as I held my head up, reading hundreds and hundreds of pages of shapeshifting silliness).
Yeah but no, no, I know it happened before that, because another thing that did it to me was wandering around the big remainder bookstores, the pop-up storefronts that would have all these Penguins with black or red marks on their pages, the dark signifier Never To Be Sold As Retail Ever Again, and pouring out my allowance on these very important-looking books. I didn't always know what they were, but I knew they were important and that it was necessary to read them to be a serious book-person (and because I seldom read them, this became a matter of hoarding), and because I knew their names and authors, I could impress my high-school English teachers, which led me to think I should get an English degree, which is sort of like becoming a scientist because you were able to answer the green questions in Trivial Pursuit as a kid.
But actually wait, it happened before that, because growing up, we had a two-tier bookshelf in the hall, and on one shelf was a set of encyclopedias (well-loved by me, printed in the 60s, black and white photos, big red books I'd take to bed with me), and just below that, the important books of literature. I didn't quite know what that was all about, since I was a kid, but Bulfinch's Mythology was there and I devoured that, so I assumed the rest of them must also be readable, but I couldn't make anything out of them, they didn't have fun stories or pictures that I could tell (childhood favorites like Crime and Punishment and Seven Pillars of Wisdom and the world's smallest-print edition of Shakespeare), so those were grown-up books (not the books my personal grown-ups read, with all the cowboys riding horses and the nightgowned women running out of castles), and would have to wait for later.
So here I am in the middle of my life, unable to say for certain what I would like to read, without a sort of taste that guides me to new books. There's a real psychological block between what I used to like, and my current self. I'm a victim of the high-brow/low-brow propaganda, it's in my brain and can't be tweezed out. I liked a couple of Dan Brown books because I got the references but then couldn't say well enough whether I enjoyed them, to read any of the others. Friends recommend books and some part of my mind goes screeeeeee! and backs away. And I do manage to find things to read--lots of things--but often without that pleasure of youth, of guiltless freedom, certainly without the voraciousness. I was a little goat who would eat a tin can back then. Now I understand we should only ever eat haute cuisine but I don't know how to read the menu.
I hate it so much, and wish I could just read in peace, and that I could know what I would like to read.
posted by mittens at 5:20 AM on July 27, 2023 [18 favorites]
At first I was going to say, that I suppose that must have happened in college, or in the years directly afterward. Because of college, certainly. Having the chance to read esoteric books little redneck me would've never encountered, set a classist expectation in me for what was good to read (literature!) and what bad (all the stuff I'd enjoyed before--Brian Lumley's Necroscope books came immediately to mind as the sort of capital-T Trash I'd spend hours with as a kid, lying on the dusty yellow carpet in our living room because that had the best light, elbows getting red from grinding into the fibers as I held my head up, reading hundreds and hundreds of pages of shapeshifting silliness).
Yeah but no, no, I know it happened before that, because another thing that did it to me was wandering around the big remainder bookstores, the pop-up storefronts that would have all these Penguins with black or red marks on their pages, the dark signifier Never To Be Sold As Retail Ever Again, and pouring out my allowance on these very important-looking books. I didn't always know what they were, but I knew they were important and that it was necessary to read them to be a serious book-person (and because I seldom read them, this became a matter of hoarding), and because I knew their names and authors, I could impress my high-school English teachers, which led me to think I should get an English degree, which is sort of like becoming a scientist because you were able to answer the green questions in Trivial Pursuit as a kid.
But actually wait, it happened before that, because growing up, we had a two-tier bookshelf in the hall, and on one shelf was a set of encyclopedias (well-loved by me, printed in the 60s, black and white photos, big red books I'd take to bed with me), and just below that, the important books of literature. I didn't quite know what that was all about, since I was a kid, but Bulfinch's Mythology was there and I devoured that, so I assumed the rest of them must also be readable, but I couldn't make anything out of them, they didn't have fun stories or pictures that I could tell (childhood favorites like Crime and Punishment and Seven Pillars of Wisdom and the world's smallest-print edition of Shakespeare), so those were grown-up books (not the books my personal grown-ups read, with all the cowboys riding horses and the nightgowned women running out of castles), and would have to wait for later.
So here I am in the middle of my life, unable to say for certain what I would like to read, without a sort of taste that guides me to new books. There's a real psychological block between what I used to like, and my current self. I'm a victim of the high-brow/low-brow propaganda, it's in my brain and can't be tweezed out. I liked a couple of Dan Brown books because I got the references but then couldn't say well enough whether I enjoyed them, to read any of the others. Friends recommend books and some part of my mind goes screeeeeee! and backs away. And I do manage to find things to read--lots of things--but often without that pleasure of youth, of guiltless freedom, certainly without the voraciousness. I was a little goat who would eat a tin can back then. Now I understand we should only ever eat haute cuisine but I don't know how to read the menu.
I hate it so much, and wish I could just read in peace, and that I could know what I would like to read.
posted by mittens at 5:20 AM on July 27, 2023 [18 favorites]
From the piece on criticizing: Reviewers were not merely taking a swipe at an enemy but cleansing the sacred halls of literature. Not that this stopped them from mild grubbiness themselves. For example, one reviewer called a fellow writer’s work “feculent garbage”; the reliably robust Alfred Tennyson called yet another “a louse upon the locks of literature”; while John Milton (apparently having momentarily lost paradise again) described another as an “unswill’d hogshead”.
I have been repeatedly ANGRY about a book I read a month ago. You'd think the annoyance of giving time and attention to a promising book that turns out to be "feculent garbage" would fade after some time and a bunch of really good books.
Nah, at odd times I suddenly get goddamn pissed about it all over again. Started ranting out of nowhere about that stupid book at my poor scared husband a couple days ago. I don't mean to dwell on it! Maybe it's the betrayal (of a good premise ruined by the author who completely butchered their own idea while incidentally being THE WOOOORST at worldbuilding oh my god) that won't let me let it go.
I NEED some old-school, clever, devastating reviews of this book. I need someone to not just hate it as much as I do, but to viciously dissect it. My soul needs to be cleansed. Bring back book criticism.
"Literary" criticism would be too much of a compliment to this lengthy netflix pitch formed of focus group interests & shock gags
Think of the children! If there's any genre that desperately needs quality critiques, it's YA.
posted by Baethan at 5:29 AM on July 27, 2023 [18 favorites]
I have been repeatedly ANGRY about a book I read a month ago. You'd think the annoyance of giving time and attention to a promising book that turns out to be "feculent garbage" would fade after some time and a bunch of really good books.
Nah, at odd times I suddenly get goddamn pissed about it all over again. Started ranting out of nowhere about that stupid book at my poor scared husband a couple days ago. I don't mean to dwell on it! Maybe it's the betrayal (of a good premise ruined by the author who completely butchered their own idea while incidentally being THE WOOOORST at worldbuilding oh my god) that won't let me let it go.
I NEED some old-school, clever, devastating reviews of this book. I need someone to not just hate it as much as I do, but to viciously dissect it. My soul needs to be cleansed. Bring back book criticism.
"Literary" criticism would be too much of a compliment to this lengthy netflix pitch formed of focus group interests & shock gags
Think of the children! If there's any genre that desperately needs quality critiques, it's YA.
posted by Baethan at 5:29 AM on July 27, 2023 [18 favorites]
What's funny to me are all the embedded contradictions in this whole premise of a 'guilty pleasure'. Like right in the middle, where someone's high art is someone else's low-brow trash. And the highbrow stuff that is obviously some kind of emperor's-new-clothes gag because it is so far removed from traditional notions of enjoyment. And finally the genre schlock that has tightly crafted prose and pacing, and is stuffed full of the human condition and can make you laugh and cry and the fact that there's wizards in it somehow disqualifies it from 'true' literary merit.
Anyway, a flip side of how digital distribution and online ordering really changed our access to books is that we have a zillion more sources for critics too; anyone with a keyboard can be one. So I think the notion of there being a cohesive Informed Stance on these things is already heavily eroded.
I was absolutely enamored with This is How You Lose the Time War recently. I have no idea what category to put it in. I suspect it's my first category above and frankly that's fine. I am also thrilled that I apparently only read it because some rando Twitter used gave it a plug years after it came out, and those dominoes knocked around until there was a big post here on the Blue. Which I missed completely, but then my wife got it from the library. What a world!
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:48 AM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
Anyway, a flip side of how digital distribution and online ordering really changed our access to books is that we have a zillion more sources for critics too; anyone with a keyboard can be one. So I think the notion of there being a cohesive Informed Stance on these things is already heavily eroded.
I was absolutely enamored with This is How You Lose the Time War recently. I have no idea what category to put it in. I suspect it's my first category above and frankly that's fine. I am also thrilled that I apparently only read it because some rando Twitter used gave it a plug years after it came out, and those dominoes knocked around until there was a big post here on the Blue. Which I missed completely, but then my wife got it from the library. What a world!
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:48 AM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
I have so much more fun reading when I can look at a book some x pages in and say, "i believe this is 99% tropes and i'm bored as fuck" or "well this seems interesting but the prose is shit" or the sharpest dagger of all "i don't care about these people" and put it down and move on to the next book. I didn't used to do that! I'm not sure I finish half the books I pick up now. It's so liberating to just say ah, fuck it. Real winner's quit.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:02 AM on July 27, 2023 [18 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:02 AM on July 27, 2023 [18 favorites]
Baethan: I NEED some old-school, clever, devastating reviews of this book. I need someone to not just hate it as much as I do, but to viciously dissect it.
Often mis-attributed to German composer Max Reger, this is one of my very favorite anecdotes: in the book George Selwyn and His Contemporaries (1843), by John Heneage Jesse, an acid story appears.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:31 AM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
Often mis-attributed to German composer Max Reger, this is one of my very favorite anecdotes: in the book George Selwyn and His Contemporaries (1843), by John Heneage Jesse, an acid story appears.
When Mr. Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland, deserted the standard of Fox for that of Pitt, he sent, in justification of his apostacy, a circular letter to his former political colleagues. The reply of Lord Sandwich was sufficiently laconic: 'Sir,' he said, 'your letter is before me, and will presently be behind.'"BOOM.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:31 AM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
Doesn’t do the dissection though. I also sometimes need someone else to recognize the same problem — "The emperor has no clothes!"
posted by clew at 6:37 AM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by clew at 6:37 AM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
There is a part of me that really wants to agree with Katharine Coldiron here:
I’m happy to like what I like, clearly dividing what appeals from what has deeper artistic meaning, and let go of any further judgment.
And yet, the older I get and the more I read, the less I trust that I have any ability to divide what appeals from what has deeper artistic meaning. Do I like X because it's genuinely good, or because being able to appreciate it makes me feel smart, like a New Yorker cartoon that isn't funny but makes you feel a little smug when you get the reference? Do I like Y because it's genuinely good, or is it just good at pandering to me? Is "genuinely good" a thing at all that can be cut away from ideology and arbitrary fashion? "This appeals" and "This has deeper artistic meaning" are things that can feel true to me, but I have less and less interest in making the case that either one is a factual, objective judgment.
(Which does not obviate the value of good criticism! Even if I just want to not feel like the only person in the world who thinks the emperor looks kind of naked!)
posted by Jeanne at 6:44 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
I’m happy to like what I like, clearly dividing what appeals from what has deeper artistic meaning, and let go of any further judgment.
And yet, the older I get and the more I read, the less I trust that I have any ability to divide what appeals from what has deeper artistic meaning. Do I like X because it's genuinely good, or because being able to appreciate it makes me feel smart, like a New Yorker cartoon that isn't funny but makes you feel a little smug when you get the reference? Do I like Y because it's genuinely good, or is it just good at pandering to me? Is "genuinely good" a thing at all that can be cut away from ideology and arbitrary fashion? "This appeals" and "This has deeper artistic meaning" are things that can feel true to me, but I have less and less interest in making the case that either one is a factual, objective judgment.
(Which does not obviate the value of good criticism! Even if I just want to not feel like the only person in the world who thinks the emperor looks kind of naked!)
posted by Jeanne at 6:44 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
Baethan, why don't you write it yourself? It seems strange that people used to do that sort of thing without likes attached, but it happened!
posted by kingdead at 6:46 AM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by kingdead at 6:46 AM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
It’s not not getting likes that’s the problem IME. It might be *getting* likes, and therefore hates, and the whole pile on thing.
Writing it out so I’m confident of my own argument, and never publishing it; or publishing anonymously someplace little read, “The king has asses’ ears.”
posted by clew at 7:01 AM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Writing it out so I’m confident of my own argument, and never publishing it; or publishing anonymously someplace little read, “The king has asses’ ears.”
posted by clew at 7:01 AM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Baethan I want to know what the book is! Please memail me!
posted by mochapickle at 7:06 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by mochapickle at 7:06 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
> "I hate it so much, and wish I could just read in peace, and that I could know what I would like to read."
It sometimes helps me to remember that often, highbrow literature = lowbrow trash + ~100 years.
posted by kyrademon at 7:09 AM on July 27, 2023 [8 favorites]
It sometimes helps me to remember that often, highbrow literature = lowbrow trash + ~100 years.
posted by kyrademon at 7:09 AM on July 27, 2023 [8 favorites]
My only real dividing line is "do I want to read it again." Good books=yes. Sometimes they are soothing and a bit trashy. Sometimes they are beautiful and life-changing. Either way, they are worthwhile.
posted by emjaybee at 7:30 AM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 7:30 AM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
I reject the idea of a guilty pleasure. If I’m enjoying it, I’m not guilty. I’ve read plenty of middle of the road novels that I will never read again, because very few books are rich enough for me to spend my limited life rereading. If a book is truly bad or boring or whatever, I don’t finish it, but that’s because it’s not pleasurable, not because it’s not fun. Similarly, I climbed to mountain of Proust partly because I wanted to see the sights from the top (ie accrue virtue) but mostly because, page after page, when I began to flag, there would be a sentence that delighted me and lured me on. So the pleasure trumped the virtue.
Ang Lee once said — you learn some things from watching good films; you learn different things from watching bad films.
Now, I think women have a harder time as readers because so much of what is marketed as “women’s books” is also dismissed as “trash,” because misogyny. Years ago, I made a snippy comment about Romance, and a friend said “how much have you read?” Which, she has me, was little to none. She assigned me 3 books — one pretty good modern, one pretty good Regency, and one dreadful Historical, so I could get a taste of the range of quality. Reader, I read them all, and they were fine, except for the Historical, which was delightfully badly written (“how many maids are there?” “Just one, I think.” “But she’s called both Mary and Polly!” “I’m pretty sure the author changed her name and forgot to correct it everywhere.” “OMG!” “I know, right?”). Anyway, I was an ignorant jerk, but I learned something. And I did not feel guilty reading any of them.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:49 AM on July 27, 2023 [8 favorites]
Ang Lee once said — you learn some things from watching good films; you learn different things from watching bad films.
Now, I think women have a harder time as readers because so much of what is marketed as “women’s books” is also dismissed as “trash,” because misogyny. Years ago, I made a snippy comment about Romance, and a friend said “how much have you read?” Which, she has me, was little to none. She assigned me 3 books — one pretty good modern, one pretty good Regency, and one dreadful Historical, so I could get a taste of the range of quality. Reader, I read them all, and they were fine, except for the Historical, which was delightfully badly written (“how many maids are there?” “Just one, I think.” “But she’s called both Mary and Polly!” “I’m pretty sure the author changed her name and forgot to correct it everywhere.” “OMG!” “I know, right?”). Anyway, I was an ignorant jerk, but I learned something. And I did not feel guilty reading any of them.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:49 AM on July 27, 2023 [8 favorites]
I have an English degree. Some years after college, I reached the point where I allowed myself to not finish a book.
For a while that felt like a betrayal of my idea of being a Serious Reader...but then I realized that I was making myself unhappy, and tarnishing my love of reading, and though, "Forget that."
It was a very short step to admitting how much I loved trashy sci-fi and kids' books and all sorts of other Not An 18th Century British Doorstop With A Penguin Logo books. And I am totally OK with enjoying what I enjoy, so there's no real guilt anymore.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:52 AM on July 27, 2023 [10 favorites]
For a while that felt like a betrayal of my idea of being a Serious Reader...but then I realized that I was making myself unhappy, and tarnishing my love of reading, and though, "Forget that."
It was a very short step to admitting how much I loved trashy sci-fi and kids' books and all sorts of other Not An 18th Century British Doorstop With A Penguin Logo books. And I am totally OK with enjoying what I enjoy, so there's no real guilt anymore.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:52 AM on July 27, 2023 [10 favorites]
is all this something I would have to have time to read to read?
posted by philip-random at 8:09 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 8:09 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
From the first article: No pleasure should be guilty unless it does harm, in my view, and a work of art’s reputation matters only to snobs.
I couldn't agree more. There are plenty of books and movies I don't have any interest in or appreciation for, like comic book movies, say. But that doesn't mean someone who does like those should feel guilty about liking it. It's different tastes and different appreciations. And there are all kinds of ways to appreciate reading or watching something, from pure unironic appreciation, to hate watching, to enjoying intentional or unintentional subtext, and on and on.
I found the second article, about sex writing, interesting as well. One thing that it made me realize is that I stopped reading that genre well over a decade ago, since every author and title she discussed were new to me, so all my impressions and assumptions are very out of date. So, I appreciated the descriptions of how the writing in that genre is shifting over time, and what those changes mean.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:20 AM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
I couldn't agree more. There are plenty of books and movies I don't have any interest in or appreciation for, like comic book movies, say. But that doesn't mean someone who does like those should feel guilty about liking it. It's different tastes and different appreciations. And there are all kinds of ways to appreciate reading or watching something, from pure unironic appreciation, to hate watching, to enjoying intentional or unintentional subtext, and on and on.
I found the second article, about sex writing, interesting as well. One thing that it made me realize is that I stopped reading that genre well over a decade ago, since every author and title she discussed were new to me, so all my impressions and assumptions are very out of date. So, I appreciated the descriptions of how the writing in that genre is shifting over time, and what those changes mean.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:20 AM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
I read books when I want to and I think they sound interesting. I read reviews and articles about books when I want to too, which is never. I would feel guilty writing such a dismissive comment, but I just read enough of the blurb to know I should never feel guilty for anything I ever do in any circumstance.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:22 AM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:22 AM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Short of outright bigotry, I don't know if I've ever heard a phrase pronounced with more venom and loathing than when my elementary-school teachers referred to whatever old SF or fantasy novels I happened to be reading at the time (usually in lieu of paying attention in class, I admit) as "pleasure books."
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:45 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:45 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
The flip side of that is my stupid middle school English teacher, Mr. Webber, throwing my friend Matt's book report on "I, Claudius" into a wastebasket because "No kid has read that."
Project your inadequacy much, Mr. Webber?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:51 AM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
Project your inadequacy much, Mr. Webber?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:51 AM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
I NEED some old-school, clever, devastating reviews of this book. I need someone to not just hate it as much as I do, but to viciously dissect it
In the unlikely chance that it is Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, a book that easily made me so angry that I threw it against a wall at the close, I am here to report for duty.
posted by thivaia at 9:02 AM on July 27, 2023 [6 favorites]
In the unlikely chance that it is Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, a book that easily made me so angry that I threw it against a wall at the close, I am here to report for duty.
posted by thivaia at 9:02 AM on July 27, 2023 [6 favorites]
... and now having done some reading, I see that Roberto Bolano's 2666 gets compared to kale in the "guilty pleasure" piece. Which is wrong in my experience. I'm only about one-third of the way through so far but that's already more words than many novels, and I can confidently report that there is red meat in that story, lots of it, and red wine.
posted by philip-random at 9:06 AM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 9:06 AM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
I read a lot, of all kinds of books, although I have a very noticeable lean towards SFF. But whether I want a dense, chewy book or a light, fluffy book mostly depends on my mood. Both can be brilliant! And both can be terrible! Feeling guilty about any of them seems like a waste of time.
I have been known to write the occasional scathing review, although I don't usually post them publicly unless the book is a best-seller. I figure a book that has a million reviews can take it if one of them is less than complimentary.
posted by kyrademon at 9:32 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
I have been known to write the occasional scathing review, although I don't usually post them publicly unless the book is a best-seller. I figure a book that has a million reviews can take it if one of them is less than complimentary.
posted by kyrademon at 9:32 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
Cool post - thank you for putting it together!
The book I most hated was Chris Bohjalian's Midwives. I got so mad at the completely absurd premise and writing that I ripped it in half and threw it in the garbage so no one else could read my copy. I don't think the 'literary' designation makes me automatically feel satisfied - I'm still sort of irritated at the endings of Nadine Gordimer's July's People (felt like a weird cop out!) and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (felt like a gimmick?) many years after reading these books.
Genre novels which generally are a different project than the literary novel are easier: I start it, if I'm having fun I keep reading, if not I stop, no resentment needed. Some books are both deeply rooted in 'genre' and have a literary project they are trying to carry out - and for those I basically feel the heavy weight of literary novels which I want something more out of than just pleasure.
Overall I find that because reading, even my most pleasurable reading, has become work (instead of joy & escape as it was in the pre-internet age), I do feel a lot of pressure on which books I pick. I will be straight up angry if I get my brain together to read a whole book and it's not that good.
This is a silly way to feel, but it's real!
posted by latkes at 9:32 AM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
The book I most hated was Chris Bohjalian's Midwives. I got so mad at the completely absurd premise and writing that I ripped it in half and threw it in the garbage so no one else could read my copy. I don't think the 'literary' designation makes me automatically feel satisfied - I'm still sort of irritated at the endings of Nadine Gordimer's July's People (felt like a weird cop out!) and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (felt like a gimmick?) many years after reading these books.
Genre novels which generally are a different project than the literary novel are easier: I start it, if I'm having fun I keep reading, if not I stop, no resentment needed. Some books are both deeply rooted in 'genre' and have a literary project they are trying to carry out - and for those I basically feel the heavy weight of literary novels which I want something more out of than just pleasure.
Overall I find that because reading, even my most pleasurable reading, has become work (instead of joy & escape as it was in the pre-internet age), I do feel a lot of pressure on which books I pick. I will be straight up angry if I get my brain together to read a whole book and it's not that good.
This is a silly way to feel, but it's real!
posted by latkes at 9:32 AM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
I agree with your thoughts on criticism, kingdead, though I doubt I could write a proper critique of my nemesis book. A good critique is practically scholarly (or very funny). I like to know WHY a book sucks, or doesn't. I guess good critiques are basically persuasive essays but written by people who know the classics of their field, and who can probably have long, horribly intimidating conversations about Literary Theory.
Which kind of circles around to the concept of a "guilty pleasure". If the value of a book is purely personal and subjective, it's probably difficult to write a positive practically-scholarly critique when your main argument is "well I liked it".
Maybe a law of guilty pleasures: for any given book, the amount of guilt is inversely correlated with the length of time one can discuss it in a horribly intimidating Literary Theory conversation.
In the first linked piece, the author says "Why we like what we like is such an impossibly complex equation that there’s no solving it." But I posit that a branch of Literary Theory--devoted to identifying and quantifying the value in what is generally considered valueless--will, through the power of academia and extremely long paragraphs, lead to an increase in horribly intimidating conversations about guilty pleasure books, thereby decreasing guilt.
And that's why I read so much pleasant, easy fantasy. It's research.
the book that makes me very angry is The School for Good and Evil. it coulda had class! it coulda been someone! it coulda been a contender for whatever kind of prizes are given to quality YA fantasy, which it is not due to a number of glaring flaws oops there I go again
posted by Baethan at 9:46 AM on July 27, 2023 [10 favorites]
Which kind of circles around to the concept of a "guilty pleasure". If the value of a book is purely personal and subjective, it's probably difficult to write a positive practically-scholarly critique when your main argument is "well I liked it".
Maybe a law of guilty pleasures: for any given book, the amount of guilt is inversely correlated with the length of time one can discuss it in a horribly intimidating Literary Theory conversation.
In the first linked piece, the author says "Why we like what we like is such an impossibly complex equation that there’s no solving it." But I posit that a branch of Literary Theory--devoted to identifying and quantifying the value in what is generally considered valueless--will, through the power of academia and extremely long paragraphs, lead to an increase in horribly intimidating conversations about guilty pleasure books, thereby decreasing guilt.
And that's why I read so much pleasant, easy fantasy. It's research.
the book that makes me very angry is The School for Good and Evil. it coulda had class! it coulda been someone! it coulda been a contender for whatever kind of prizes are given to quality YA fantasy, which it is not due to a number of glaring flaws oops there I go again
posted by Baethan at 9:46 AM on July 27, 2023 [10 favorites]
I agree very hard with the sentiments here re any reading you enjoy is a pleasure and why should any of it be guilty?
but I would like to also posit the flip-side: there are types of books that will automatically be considered 'serious' because they are 1) non-fiction 2) dealing with an academic topic 3) etc., BUT I have read some books that fall into that category that were also 10000% a pleasure to read. because they were interesting, well written, good stories.
I'm currently reading Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner and it is fascinating!
David Quammen's Spillover is so beautifully written and engaging you might overlook the somewhat gruesome topic.
Sandi Doughton's Full Rip Nine is practically a beach read its so engrossing.
posted by supermedusa at 9:54 AM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
but I would like to also posit the flip-side: there are types of books that will automatically be considered 'serious' because they are 1) non-fiction 2) dealing with an academic topic 3) etc., BUT I have read some books that fall into that category that were also 10000% a pleasure to read. because they were interesting, well written, good stories.
I'm currently reading Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner and it is fascinating!
David Quammen's Spillover is so beautifully written and engaging you might overlook the somewhat gruesome topic.
Sandi Doughton's Full Rip Nine is practically a beach read its so engrossing.
posted by supermedusa at 9:54 AM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think though that writing a 'guilty pleasure' is a skill and many don't have that skill. Propulsiveness, pacing, emotional hooks, innovative concepts, clever plot turns, surprises, fulfilling outcomes, etc, these require technique and skills. So it goes beyond just "what can I say, I liked it" to - does this book achieve it's goals on it's terms. I'm sure we can all think of the most compelling thrillers, romances, and fantasy novels we've read and loved. People can read whatever they like obviously but doing the thing the book is trying to do and doing it well is something that can be evaluated.
posted by latkes at 9:58 AM on July 27, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by latkes at 9:58 AM on July 27, 2023 [11 favorites]
Well, there are the books that are not high-brow but carefully, thoughtfully crafted - the ones that aren't ambitious but are very good at what they are trying to do - and then there are the books that really don't have much going for them at all, except that they plug right into your psyche and start pushing buttons there.
But even with those books, I think that it's fairly boring to get to "Well, I liked it" and stop there! Seriously considering what is compelling about a bad book is, if nothing else, fun at the level of amateur self-psychoanalysis. And when you look on a broader scale - I think that serious critiques of Twilight that went beyond "It's romanticizing abuse!" had a lot of worthwhile stuff to say about what compels many girls to swoon over dangerous fictional love interests (though perhaps no one did it as well as Joanna Russ in "Somebody's Trying to Kill Me, And I Think It's My Husband.")
posted by Jeanne at 10:34 AM on July 27, 2023 [9 favorites]
But even with those books, I think that it's fairly boring to get to "Well, I liked it" and stop there! Seriously considering what is compelling about a bad book is, if nothing else, fun at the level of amateur self-psychoanalysis. And when you look on a broader scale - I think that serious critiques of Twilight that went beyond "It's romanticizing abuse!" had a lot of worthwhile stuff to say about what compels many girls to swoon over dangerous fictional love interests (though perhaps no one did it as well as Joanna Russ in "Somebody's Trying to Kill Me, And I Think It's My Husband.")
posted by Jeanne at 10:34 AM on July 27, 2023 [9 favorites]
People can read whatever they like obviously but doing the thing the book is trying to do and doing it well is something that can be evaluated.
Yeah, I have absolutely read books where I was like, well, I didn't like that but it did what it set out to do and did it objectively well . The books I get irritated by are the ones where it was obvious what the author was trying for but they badly whiffed it.
I have an ideological objection to the idea of "guilty pleasures" with regard to art. At least the way people usually use it, like, I enjoyed that doughnut but the person I want to think I am would prefer a gourmet salad or something. Fuck off with that. Not everything has to be Improving. Pleasure is good for you. And I think you can definitely still have interesting conversations about why this objectively not-very-good thing brought you joy!
posted by BlueNorther at 10:36 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
Yeah, I have absolutely read books where I was like, well, I didn't like that but it did what it set out to do and did it objectively well . The books I get irritated by are the ones where it was obvious what the author was trying for but they badly whiffed it.
I have an ideological objection to the idea of "guilty pleasures" with regard to art. At least the way people usually use it, like, I enjoyed that doughnut but the person I want to think I am would prefer a gourmet salad or something. Fuck off with that. Not everything has to be Improving. Pleasure is good for you. And I think you can definitely still have interesting conversations about why this objectively not-very-good thing brought you joy!
posted by BlueNorther at 10:36 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
Something I like about Mark Kermode as a film reviewer and critic is that starts from what the film was trying to do. So he will be generally positive about, say, a movie for young children, if it meets the goal of keeping young children entertained. Similarly, a horror film gets good marks if it scares you, has an interesting premise, and decent acting/directing. Etc, etc. it’s refreshing.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:09 AM on July 27, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:09 AM on July 27, 2023 [8 favorites]
I see that Roberto Bolano's 2666 gets compared to kale in the "guilty pleasure" piece
I was ready to get my hackles up over this, but then I read the article and she seems to throw that comparison out gently. In other places, I've seen people turn the "guilty pleasures defense" into an attack on people who like things like postmodern literature, with the implication that those readers must be suffering through it for their health and only pretending to enjoy it. I truly do like kale. I don't like kale in order to spite Internet strangers! I just like it, and 2666 too. And cheesy movies! People like different things!
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:20 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
I was ready to get my hackles up over this, but then I read the article and she seems to throw that comparison out gently. In other places, I've seen people turn the "guilty pleasures defense" into an attack on people who like things like postmodern literature, with the implication that those readers must be suffering through it for their health and only pretending to enjoy it. I truly do like kale. I don't like kale in order to spite Internet strangers! I just like it, and 2666 too. And cheesy movies! People like different things!
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:20 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
Yeah funny kale actually seems like a really good analogy for Bolaño (although I can't speak to 2666- I have no real interest - but shout out to the Savage Detectives): Not to everyone's taste, some might read out of obligation, but plenty of folks genuinely enjoy especially if they've developed a taste for dark greens/formally innovative literary fiction over time, but not what you want to eat when you want to eat desert!
posted by latkes at 11:36 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by latkes at 11:36 AM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
You people! Enough of all these anonymous books! Let's have some examples!
posted by jamjam at 11:38 AM on July 27, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 11:38 AM on July 27, 2023 [8 favorites]
The worst book I've read from 2023 was Haruki Murakami's new book on writing advice. It reads as if he didn't want to write it and had no advice to impart, but someone made him do it.
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:40 AM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:40 AM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
I guess the term "guilty pleasure" has a kind of specific meaning and maybe I'm sidestepping it with a personal definition, but there are a lot of things, particularly trashy grindhouse movies but also related genres of literature, where I get into this. I'm thinking in the moment of Raymond Candler and Robert E Howard, who are writers that I really enjoy, and I get something pleasurable out of the tone and worldbuilding and characterization in their books that I haven't quite found elsewhere. I also find the philosophical/political sensibilities of some of their stories to live on the spectrum between "problematic" and "odious." I don't know how to square that, to such a degree that I feel a little trepidation sharing it on Metafilter. It makes me feel weird. A pleasure that makes me feel guilty. I think maybe that category of thought is where those books belong, or maybe an overly Catholic upbringing is coming through here. I don't know, I think about it a lot anyway.
I think the more common perspective is to put things like Murderbot in a "guilty pleasure" category because they're lightweight adventure lit, and I tend to agree that is not a useful category. They're fun and it's fun to read them and nobody should feel the need to qualify that.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 1:01 PM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
I think the more common perspective is to put things like Murderbot in a "guilty pleasure" category because they're lightweight adventure lit, and I tend to agree that is not a useful category. They're fun and it's fun to read them and nobody should feel the need to qualify that.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 1:01 PM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
The more common term for a work you enjoy in spite of certain noxious elements is "problematic fave".
posted by kyrademon at 1:28 PM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by kyrademon at 1:28 PM on July 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
The more common term for a work you enjoy in spite of certain noxious elements is "problematic fave".
My problematic favs are all rather high-brow though (David Foster Wallace, Heimito von Doderer... ).
I can think of problematic favs easily, but guilty pleasures really don't come to mind - I mean, I would not exactly want everyone to see my browser history after a fanfiction binge, but that's surely more about privacy than shame. I certainly don't reproach myself for time spent on fanfiction.
I do sometimes reproach myself a little for time spent on twitter. Like, I'm letting myself down, succumbing to the empty dopamine-hits of the novelty of the endless scroll instead of actually, actively engaging with something.
There is certain form of entertainment, that _is_ mostly distraction, and sometimes I might feel bad about filling myself up with empty calories and then being to full to go for something more nourishing.
But for me that is really mostly about myself, about the sort of attention I'm ready to bring to something, and not at all about genre vs capital L literature or something like that.
posted by sohalt at 2:19 PM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
My problematic favs are all rather high-brow though (David Foster Wallace, Heimito von Doderer... ).
I can think of problematic favs easily, but guilty pleasures really don't come to mind - I mean, I would not exactly want everyone to see my browser history after a fanfiction binge, but that's surely more about privacy than shame. I certainly don't reproach myself for time spent on fanfiction.
I do sometimes reproach myself a little for time spent on twitter. Like, I'm letting myself down, succumbing to the empty dopamine-hits of the novelty of the endless scroll instead of actually, actively engaging with something.
There is certain form of entertainment, that _is_ mostly distraction, and sometimes I might feel bad about filling myself up with empty calories and then being to full to go for something more nourishing.
But for me that is really mostly about myself, about the sort of attention I'm ready to bring to something, and not at all about genre vs capital L literature or something like that.
posted by sohalt at 2:19 PM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
The worst book I've read
I don't read "worst" books. I get to a certain point and I put them down, or perhaps throw them out a window into a howling storm.
I do start a lot of books that I don't finish. Sometimes because they really are the worst, but usually they just aren't promising enough to feel like they're going to be worth the effort (and time) to get to the end, especially given all the other brilliant books out there that I've yet to read and life is short, too damned short for books that just aren't compelling me.
What's the last book I tossed into a howling storm? That would be Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling), which I didn't pay for, it popped in a local freebie kiosk. And I only even touched it because I'm a Blue Oyster Cult fan, though I guess I had heard some good things about the Galbraith books. But holy wow, what a waste of life, and not just for the sordid subject matter (I don't mind a little gratuitous gore and whatnot). It was just so not very good, almost as if the writer has so much fame and power that no editor would dare suggest to them that they're over writing everything by at least a factor of two, except if you actually went to the trouble of cutting out all the non-essential verbiage, you'd eventually find yourself with nothing in your hands -- it would all be gone.
Fortunately, I tossed it before it could tarnish Blue Oyster Cult for me, that one song in particular ...
posted by philip-random at 2:47 PM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
I don't read "worst" books. I get to a certain point and I put them down, or perhaps throw them out a window into a howling storm.
I do start a lot of books that I don't finish. Sometimes because they really are the worst, but usually they just aren't promising enough to feel like they're going to be worth the effort (and time) to get to the end, especially given all the other brilliant books out there that I've yet to read and life is short, too damned short for books that just aren't compelling me.
What's the last book I tossed into a howling storm? That would be Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling), which I didn't pay for, it popped in a local freebie kiosk. And I only even touched it because I'm a Blue Oyster Cult fan, though I guess I had heard some good things about the Galbraith books. But holy wow, what a waste of life, and not just for the sordid subject matter (I don't mind a little gratuitous gore and whatnot). It was just so not very good, almost as if the writer has so much fame and power that no editor would dare suggest to them that they're over writing everything by at least a factor of two, except if you actually went to the trouble of cutting out all the non-essential verbiage, you'd eventually find yourself with nothing in your hands -- it would all be gone.
Fortunately, I tossed it before it could tarnish Blue Oyster Cult for me, that one song in particular ...
posted by philip-random at 2:47 PM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
what a waste of life
The older I get, this is how I feel about books which disappoint me. I can feel the reading years left to me dwindling, and I'm increasingly furious by books which misused my time.
posted by doctornemo at 5:21 PM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
The older I get, this is how I feel about books which disappoint me. I can feel the reading years left to me dwindling, and I'm increasingly furious by books which misused my time.
posted by doctornemo at 5:21 PM on July 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
I hated Foucault’s Pendulum and then felt guilty about hating it because everyone loves it. But it was like a boring DaVinci Code with a lot of “check out the big brain on Umberto” references. Name of the Rose was good though, if you skipped the hundreds of pages about the history of the papacy or whatever.
I tend to read all sorts of stuff of various, er, brows and I’ve finally gotten comfortable with not reading to impress (myself? Imagined professors?). Read a biography, a serious novel, a graphic novel, a beach book, whatever. At least we’re reading!
posted by caviar2d2 at 8:08 PM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
I tend to read all sorts of stuff of various, er, brows and I’ve finally gotten comfortable with not reading to impress (myself? Imagined professors?). Read a biography, a serious novel, a graphic novel, a beach book, whatever. At least we’re reading!
posted by caviar2d2 at 8:08 PM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
For me, it's movies where I resent a bad one. I only see, like, maybe six movies a year? So if I see a bad one, that is my precious, limited movie time wasted. If I read a bad book, I've got plenty more coming this month, the next one will probably be good.
posted by kyrademon at 1:12 AM on July 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by kyrademon at 1:12 AM on July 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
I've seen people turn the "guilty pleasures defense" into an attack on people who like things like postmodern literature, with the implication that those readers must be suffering through it for their health and only pretending to enjoy it.
I see this a lot. I remember a particularly vicious little burst of this back when Lucy Ellmann's Ducks, Newburyport was nominated for the Booker. My favorite kind of books tend to be big and weird and sometimes kind of formally complex. As an example: my absolute very favorite book last year was Olga Togarczuck's The Books of Jacob. It took me a couple of weeks to finish it but it was magnificent. I loved it. I LOVED IT. Those are my favorite kinds of book experiences, where it feels like the book is teaching you how to read it as you go and every paragraph feels like portal or pool you could just dive into a stay for weeks. Those are my favorite kinds of reading experiences. I mean, this is modernism, but I remember the first time I started reading books like that, Absalom, Absalom at seventeen being 17 and reading Ulysses at 18 and it felt like every page was lighting every pleasure circuit in my brain and blowing my mind at the same time. And, look, I read a whole lot of everything (I read, in fact, a whole lot), and I love a lot of it (including spy novels, gothic melodramas, Stephen King, and whatever this season's "plagiarist thriller"/Tom Ripley But With Social Media beach bestseller is), but a genuine reminder that is one person's kale is another one's chocolate fudge cake with fresh, ripe cherries and homemade whipped cream.
And, yeah, 2666 is a weird kale example. Save the center crime/murder catalog, which I thought was constructed quite deliberately to manufacture a reader response, I thought it was kind of a page-turner.
posted by thivaia at 7:55 AM on July 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
I see this a lot. I remember a particularly vicious little burst of this back when Lucy Ellmann's Ducks, Newburyport was nominated for the Booker. My favorite kind of books tend to be big and weird and sometimes kind of formally complex. As an example: my absolute very favorite book last year was Olga Togarczuck's The Books of Jacob. It took me a couple of weeks to finish it but it was magnificent. I loved it. I LOVED IT. Those are my favorite kinds of book experiences, where it feels like the book is teaching you how to read it as you go and every paragraph feels like portal or pool you could just dive into a stay for weeks. Those are my favorite kinds of reading experiences. I mean, this is modernism, but I remember the first time I started reading books like that, Absalom, Absalom at seventeen being 17 and reading Ulysses at 18 and it felt like every page was lighting every pleasure circuit in my brain and blowing my mind at the same time. And, look, I read a whole lot of everything (I read, in fact, a whole lot), and I love a lot of it (including spy novels, gothic melodramas, Stephen King, and whatever this season's "plagiarist thriller"/Tom Ripley But With Social Media beach bestseller is), but a genuine reminder that is one person's kale is another one's chocolate fudge cake with fresh, ripe cherries and homemade whipped cream.
And, yeah, 2666 is a weird kale example. Save the center crime/murder catalog, which I thought was constructed quite deliberately to manufacture a reader response, I thought it was kind of a page-turner.
posted by thivaia at 7:55 AM on July 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
latkes: this was a real skill of JK Rowling's, back when she hadn't gone insane. She could build a plot, and a well-built plot drives people crazy for the next one.
One of my favorite comfort reads is a triple-decker medieval epic translated from Norwegian, so the amount of guilt I put in my pleasure is skewed to different places. I like to waste time reading academic texts and Wikipedia -- this is not a humblebrag, I promise. It's not getting me a damn degree even in internet arguments. When I do like a trashy romance, I can warmly accept it. (And I stan Chuck Tingle, even if I can't follow his muse into a whole bunch of places.)
The pleasures I do feel guilty about are a) fanfic and b) the works that have Problems but wormed their way into my heart before I knew that. For example, I only recently realized that Walt Kelly's Pogo, one of the first things I read period, appropriated a lot of AAVE in a way that was not okay. (It was certainly not the only way that dialect worked in that strip, but -- well, that's a whole different topic.)
posted by Countess Elena at 1:04 PM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
One of my favorite comfort reads is a triple-decker medieval epic translated from Norwegian, so the amount of guilt I put in my pleasure is skewed to different places. I like to waste time reading academic texts and Wikipedia -- this is not a humblebrag, I promise. It's not getting me a damn degree even in internet arguments. When I do like a trashy romance, I can warmly accept it. (And I stan Chuck Tingle, even if I can't follow his muse into a whole bunch of places.)
The pleasures I do feel guilty about are a) fanfic and b) the works that have Problems but wormed their way into my heart before I knew that. For example, I only recently realized that Walt Kelly's Pogo, one of the first things I read period, appropriated a lot of AAVE in a way that was not okay. (It was certainly not the only way that dialect worked in that strip, but -- well, that's a whole different topic.)
posted by Countess Elena at 1:04 PM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
> "One of my favorite comfort reads is a triple-decker medieval epic translated from Norwegian"
(OK I have to ask -- making the possibly-wrong assumption that there can't be *that* many triple-decker medieval epics translated from Norwegian, do you like the Archer/Scott translation from the 1920's or the Tiina Nunnally from the 1990's?)
posted by kyrademon at 1:18 PM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
(OK I have to ask -- making the possibly-wrong assumption that there can't be *that* many triple-decker medieval epics translated from Norwegian, do you like the Archer/Scott translation from the 1920's or the Tiina Nunnally from the 1990's?)
posted by kyrademon at 1:18 PM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
Nunnally’s, for sure! It says a lot for Sigrid Undset, though, that I was able to become fascinated with the book even in the older translation with its high archaic language.
posted by Countess Elena at 3:17 PM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 3:17 PM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
For me, it's movies where I resent a bad one.
I also feel this, kyrademon. It bugs the hell out of me, especially when I get to see something in a theater.
This keeps me away from some tv series, because the time investment is so much larger.
posted by doctornemo at 9:00 PM on July 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
I also feel this, kyrademon. It bugs the hell out of me, especially when I get to see something in a theater.
This keeps me away from some tv series, because the time investment is so much larger.
posted by doctornemo at 9:00 PM on July 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
It feels like we’ve gotten to the point where the pushback to the notion of a “guilty pleasure” is worse than the notion itself. Perhaps it was overused, or became a proactive shield against being judged, but it’s a perfectly valid distinction for many pieces of entertaining but wholly disposable and forgettable media.
Per the earlier Ang Lee quote about learning certain things from great movies and certain things from awful movies, there’s absolutely a vast number of serviceable movies from which you can learn essentially nothing. For every Bong Joon-Ho and Neil Breen, there are dozens of Weses Ball and Davids Dobkin who put out mid-budget movies of absolute… competence.
posted by Molten Berle at 12:57 AM on August 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
Per the earlier Ang Lee quote about learning certain things from great movies and certain things from awful movies, there’s absolutely a vast number of serviceable movies from which you can learn essentially nothing. For every Bong Joon-Ho and Neil Breen, there are dozens of Weses Ball and Davids Dobkin who put out mid-budget movies of absolute… competence.
posted by Molten Berle at 12:57 AM on August 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
I was discussing Cocaine Bear with a friend yesterday. We agreed it was an excellent example of an entirely okay movie with no agenda beyond keeping one interested from scene to the next. And thus very refreshing ... unless a few moments of extreme gore and terror fails to refresh you.
In olden times, we would've called it a b-movie. We need more b-movies.
posted by philip-random at 12:12 PM on August 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
In olden times, we would've called it a b-movie. We need more b-movies.
posted by philip-random at 12:12 PM on August 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
« Older "The Tech World That May Have Been" | Dip Hop Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
I’ve finished each of Sylvia Moreno Garcia’s novels in one or two sittings. But I suspect this crowd would dismiss that as “genre fiction” that somehow didn’t count.
posted by eviemath at 4:49 AM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]