Sunday 18 January 2009

All these books

You know all these books people are telling you about - there are so many articles like The 100 books you have to read before you die (yeah, I really successful attempt to make somebody excited about something, lol), there are the books the folks at the Academy are talking 'bout all the time & of course, there are the books your friends have read & the books your Ma thinks you should read. And right now there is a campaign in Bulgaria (with a show on TV) - Bulgaria's favorite book. And I've been thinking these days - fuck, I've never read David Copperfield. And I even felt kind of ashamed because of it, because it's the way things are supposed to be. You have to read some books no matter if you care about them or not, which I think is the main reason for young people to not enjoy reading that much. I enjoy reading actually and I've read some books - I'm a big Salinger freak, I told ya already! - but I have no interest in reading some books, no matter how great they may be. I started Master and Margarita at least twice and I lost the interest after the first fifty pages. It just doesn't speak to me. (And I'm the guy who couldn't stop reading The Catcher in the Rye!) My point is that if society wants people to read, it shouldn't actually make people feel stupid because they haven't read a certain novel or if they happen to dislike it. There was a film I've seen last year - The Squid and the Whale (a great film by the way!) - in which the father (a writer, a total snob and a pain in the ass as well) said to his son: "Don't read that novel! It's minor Dickens!" It just felt stupid. But it reminded me of the way some people speak. I'm usually surprised that people I used to admire are such blind followers. One of my professors would say anything is great just because it's written by a writer who's a big name and must read. He pretends it without having read the book at all. He just pretends that on name recognition alone. And he wouldn't read a young immigrant writer just because he ruins the language. He has never read something he's written, not even a page, but he pretends that with such confidence, that it's simply impossible to not get angry at him. Unlike him, I don't pretend The Master and Margarita is something unworthy. I'm just saying it doesn't appeal to me. It's not my kind of a read. But he rejects even the idea of reading something & then pretends that he cares a lot about reading and about the young people not reading at all. And of course, his tirade ends with something like: "It's sad that a society of illiterates is coming to rule this country in some twenty years." That's absurd. No - not absurd. Absurds are at least charming. That's hypocrisy, which scares me even more. It's just sad that reading became something snobbish and people who accuse other people of not reading don't care.

Anyway, we could be doing some Harold Pinter the coming semester, so I'll check some of his plays tonight. I really loved a play I read some years ago. Old Times. Now I'm checking and I finally, finally got a copy of The French Lieutenant's Woman - a film Pinter penned and I've been recommended to watch. It's Meryl Streep, of course! I'll watch it tonight and could write something about it tomorrow. Another insomniac night of films! Great! Love it!

Anyway, just about my Tina Fey! I loved her speech at the Globes. She was the highlight of an incredibly dull night (for me). Anyway, she said something like that:

But I want you to know that I really know how very lucky I am to have the year I had this year and if you ever start to feel too good about yourself, they have this thing called the Internet. And you can find a lot of people there who don't like you. I like to address some of them now. Diane Fan, you can suck it! C.Letter, you can really suck it! All year you've been after me!

That got me really laughing! Well, now I'm going to watch The French Lieutenant's Woman.

1 comment:

  1. I am really surprised Master and Margarita doesn't work for you. I find it really fascinating!

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