Comments on: Let’s Talk Books

By: Sister Wolf

Sister Wolf — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:53:47 +0000

So many fans of The Awakening! Wow. Do people like it because of its theme? It can’t be the writing. It’s not like I don’t respect the theme. I like The Golden Notebook, The Yellow Wallpaper, and lots of other feminist lit.

Dreiser? I think I tried to read An American Tragedy, and couldn’t take it.

Insomnia, please do read Naked Lunch again! It’s still good!

Mark, don’t be silly. Middlemarch is the best novel ever written (in English, that is.) It is exquisite, and unforgettable.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:15:05 +0000

I wish people would stop pretending to like Middlemarch. And Judy Blume books rule.

By: insomnia

insomnia — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 04:41:33 +0000

I actually liked the Awakening. Of course maybe this is because we were forced to read–and discuss–Sister Carrie (by Theodore Drieser) immediately before it. Directions for assembling a Barbeque Grill would seem enlightening after reading ANYTHING Drieser wrote. As horrible a book as THAT was, you really should consider context somewhere, eh? “Hate” is a pretty tough word to use on someone’s artistic output, isn’t it–I mean, Kate Chopin was dead by 1900! Then again I really enjoyed many of these writers so maybe I never trancended the whole college-cool book thing. Ha! Someone help me! I’m gonna read Naked Lunch again!

By: onparkstreet

onparkstreet — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:05:50 +0000

I remember being mildly horrified by all those Judy Blume books as a kid. What’s the deal with all the body fluids? I don’t wanna read that stuff as a 13 year old. I am trying to avoid the whole fluidy-teenagery thing for as long as I can, okay, Mz. Blume?

I didn’t understand the college-cool books. I’m an immigrant to the US and I have no way to relate to a certain hipstery disdain of suburban America. I just lack the emotional make-up, or background, to ‘get it’.

By: Sister Wolf

Sister Wolf — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:34:32 +0000

Megan64, I always meant to read Crash. But now I’m letting my self off the hook on that one!

Alias Clio, I used to rely on well-read men for suggestions. I still take their advice, unless they love Faulkner, in which case I figure we have different literary tastes.

By: alias clio

alias clio — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:56:54 +0000

I think the reason I hated the college cool books so much was that they were always being recommended to me when I was in my early 20s by some college-cool man, somewhat older than I was, who would earnestly suggest that they were essential reading if you wanted to understand the world.

Everyone has their pet peeves about the opposite sex. Mine was intellectual patronage from men.

By: Megan64

Megan64 — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 02:26:47 +0000

Oh I forgot the book I hate…Crash - the J.G. Ballard one. What a load of shite that was. Okay I get it…car crashes are sexy and subversive. Please.

By: Megan64

Megan64 — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 02:24:26 +0000

I too liked the Awakening. I don’t think teenage boys should have to read it though…it’s really more for brooding girls. I always wanted to write a paper about it entitled, Why Free Bird Is a Song By a Woman.

By: kristinab

kristinab — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:50:58 +0000

shoutout to kate chopin–sorry to say i liked the awakening when taken in its literary context. unfortunately, half of the population seems to still qualify as a special interest group–women writers–which is a goddamned crying shame, and if i were forced to pick my favorites i’d have to go with erica jong, sylvia plath, betty friedan (oh yes i did!), and/or naomi wolf…

By: Zandy

Zandy — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:15:33 +0000

I absolutely loathe anything ever written by Ayn Rand. Its gotten to the point that i purposefully deface her writing when I come across it.
I also mildly hated The Handmaids Tale, which seems to have made me the target of many a feminist.