In the most recent episode of The Readers, “Episode 95: Catching Up on Rather a Lot & Classic Literature,” hosts Simon and Thomas asked each other about classic authors and books they’d tried and given up. I immediately thought of a few that I have written off in the past. This list of authors is, of course, wildly biased, and based on my own personal tastes and preferences.
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| Nope. Nope, nope, nope. |
I won’t read*:
- James Joyce…because I’m pretty sure Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake are pranks.
- Marcel Proust…because get bored just reading about Proust.
- Ernest Hemingway…because I couldn’t relate to anyone in the two books I read by Hemingway. They are men’s books, but they didn’t explain men.
- Virginia Woolf…because stream of consciousness drives me mental.
- William Faulkner…because of the stream of consciousness malarky.
- John Updike…because white dude’s problems.
- Philip Roth…because white dude’s problems and masturbation.
- Salman Rushdie…because I’ve found most of his books too weird to get into. I have a high tolerance for weirdness, but jeez.
- Sylvia Plath…because the thought of spending time in her head scares the hell out of me.
- J.D. Salinger…because I still think Holden Caulfield is a punk.
There are many classic writers, past and present, that I just haven’t gotten around to yet. I plan do. I plan to read Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison and Joseph Heller and Fyodor Dostoevsky. But my life is too short—and I’m not in a literature program—to spend time on literature I know I won’t like without someone to help me read my way into it.
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* …unless someone can recommend a book by these authors that will change my mind.
I don't really consider myself a man-book reader, but I do like Hemingway. Faulkner is impenetrable to me. I really liked The Plot Against America, but I really don't like Roth otherwise. I forced myself to read Midnight's Children by Rushdie, while I found it difficult, I ended up glad that I read it. Dostoevsky is enjoyable. Joseph Heller…Catch 22 was good until about half way through, then I just wanted to throw it at the wall.
Why do you like Hemingway?
I read Midnight's Children, too, just so that I could experience Rushdie enough to have an intelligent opinion of his work. I tried The Satanic Verses, but the first chapter was so demented I couldn't get through it.
Catch-22 I liked because I'm a fan of the absurd.
Also, thank you for commenting, Thomas. I've been listening to The Readers for a month or so now and I'm a big fan of you and Simon.