Yeah, that's real silly. Waiting for Godot is so minimalist that half the play is in the actors' performances and interpretations of the characters. Just having students read the script then write an in-depth analysis of it is really missing the point. Dunno why somebody would think that was a good idea for a curriculum.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
62% of people pretend to have read classic novels
- Thread starter Messofanego
- Start date
- Status
Yeah, that's real silly. Waiting for Godot is so minimalist that half the play is in the actors' performances and interpretations of the characters. Just having students read the script then write an in-depth analysis of it is really missing the point. Dunno why somebody would think that was a good idea for a curriculum.
I really think that the point of the assignment was to test the limits of our ability to spin out an extensive analytical paper on something short and simplistic instead of just saying, "The human search for meaning is futile, also boots can be fiddly to deal with." I don't remember the minimum page count required for the paper, but it was fucking ridiculous. Definitely longer than the play itself in word count. The professor was actually very good with everything else and the other assignments were far more reasonable and interesting (Anthem aside.) I really think this one was just a "All right, let's see how well these kids can bullshit." He did have that kind of sardonic outlook. Or maybe he just had a really big hardon for the play.
Now that I think about it, I should probably be relieved that he picked the shortest Rand novel. >shudder<
Mrs. Manky
Banned
1984 by George Orwell – yes, for school
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – no
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – no
Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger – yes, for school
A Passage to India by E M Forster – no
Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein – Just the Fellowship of the Ring
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – yes, for school
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – no
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – no
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – no
Why you would lie about all this is still beyond me. Not to mention that there are so many other books that are considered classics that you can read if any or all of these bore you to death. I never read Great Expectations, but I did read Tale of Two Cities (for school). I have read The Three Musketeers a few times, and The Count of Monte Cristo many many many times.
And yeah, Devo, Ethan Frome is an evil story. Did Edith Wharton want us to sympathize with Ethan and his mistress over his innocent and wronged wife?
Also, some English teachers in the US have somehow managed to burn the love of reading out of many students, sadly.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – no
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – no
Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger – yes, for school
A Passage to India by E M Forster – no
Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkein – Just the Fellowship of the Ring
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee – yes, for school
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – no
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – no
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – no
Why you would lie about all this is still beyond me. Not to mention that there are so many other books that are considered classics that you can read if any or all of these bore you to death. I never read Great Expectations, but I did read Tale of Two Cities (for school). I have read The Three Musketeers a few times, and The Count of Monte Cristo many many many times.
And yeah, Devo, Ethan Frome is an evil story. Did Edith Wharton want us to sympathize with Ethan and his mistress over his innocent and wronged wife?
Also, some English teachers in the US have somehow managed to burn the love of reading out of many students, sadly.
Lucian Cat
Kissed a mod for a tag; liked it
Out of that list I've only read lord of the rings. None of the others interest me in the slightest
Well, if that's the case then mad daps to the teacher. If he wanted to test your ability to flim-flam that's not a half-bad way to do it. Does a bit of a disservice to the play, but it's for a good cause.
And I'm not surprised that your paper would end up longer than the script; there's so much analysis of Waiting for Godot that the volume of people's interpretations is approximately infinity billion times larger than the play itself. Even the play's author talked about how he just didn't understand why people wanted to make something so simple into something so incredibly complicated.
I've read LOTR, Catcher in the Rye, half of 1984 (I really need to try to get through it now that I'm older) and Avalon Landing by
.
I was also surprised how short The Man Who Would Be King actually is (and how good the movie is in extrapolating the events which aren't on the page). Don't know if I'll get around to the others, but War and Peace is on my Kindle.
William Forrester
I was also surprised how short The Man Who Would Be King actually is (and how good the movie is in extrapolating the events which aren't on the page). Don't know if I'll get around to the others, but War and Peace is on my Kindle.
Unfortunately it broke me in the process. I now know firsthand that you can take absolutely anything and produce endless reams of interpretive horseshit that can sound plausibly deep and thought out, and I never ever want anything to do with literary analysis again.
And that kind of over analysis is pretty much why now imo go read more shit with orcs and space lasers in. :d
GungHo
Single-handedly caused Exxon-Mobil to sue FOX, start World War 3
I pretended it was entitled "Abe Froman" and was about the Sausage King of Chicago in my book report. Unfortunately, my teacher never saw FBDO, and I got an F.
See, that's the kind of thing that would have gotten an A from my prof if you went on to support that Ferris' assumption of Froman's identity was an allegory for the interchangeability of the members of the moneyed classes, and that not only is personal merit irrelevant to status, but personal identity itself is a flimsy construct.
I listened to the song.
I always see it near the top of the "best novels ever" lists, but outside that never heard much about it. Most of the other stuff also prominent on those lists people know a lot about even not having read them so who knows
I myself own it, but haven't read it yet. Maybe once I whittle down my backlog...maybe
My friend wrote his master's thesis on it... so he read it and read it and read it and read it.
Kadayi
Banned
I've read a few classics over the years, but as with anything it's really a case of whether the writing gels with you, and if it doesn't I've never been afraid to not just give up. I got on better with Brave New World than 1984 for instance.
Certainly never lied about what I've read, but at the same time after a while it's hard to remember exactly what happens. I read CiTR years ago and enjoyed it immensely at the time but in truth I honestly couldn't tell you what it was about beyond a disillusioned kid. Of human bondage I remember being a particularly good book, though the protagonist seemed to not lack for people to help him out, and The Iliad is pretty nuts, if nothing more than for the realization that Achilles was a bit of a c*nt tbh.
Recently have been trying to give the Brothers K a listen via Audiobook. It's really interesting, but the unfamiliar names are a real sticking point and I can't help but feel that swapping the names out for some more distinguishable to western ears would make it more accessible.
Certainly never lied about what I've read, but at the same time after a while it's hard to remember exactly what happens. I read CiTR years ago and enjoyed it immensely at the time but in truth I honestly couldn't tell you what it was about beyond a disillusioned kid. Of human bondage I remember being a particularly good book, though the protagonist seemed to not lack for people to help him out, and The Iliad is pretty nuts, if nothing more than for the realization that Achilles was a bit of a c*nt tbh.
Recently have been trying to give the Brothers K a listen via Audiobook. It's really interesting, but the unfamiliar names are a real sticking point and I can't help but feel that swapping the names out for some more distinguishable to western ears would make it more accessible.
It isn't about brainpower or IQ, it's about a lack of curiosity about the world around you. Saying "I'm not interested in that" is not a good reason for ignoring it. Saying that, or saying that you dont want to read books, is saying you don't want to understand things. Fiction in particular is valuable for understanding people and the world we live in because of its unique power to show the inner lives of other people, to let you understand what it would have been like to be someone born in a completely different time and place. It gives you perspective and helps you understand your own life better. Dismissing all of that without even looking at it or making an effort to understand it is a better definition of stupidity than just low IQ, I think.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
I've definitely heard Joyce referred to as "the greatest novelist that nobody reads" before.
Edit: I agree that reading great literature provides something valuable that you cannot get from virtually any other aspect of human life, but I've never been of the belief that it's important unto itself "just because". I'm not likely to look at someone who only reads Twilight, Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Dan Brown, chick lit, mystery novel #27954A, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, etc. in a very different way that I would look at someone who doesn't read at all.
Edit: I agree that reading great literature provides something valuable that you cannot get from virtually any other aspect of human life, but I've never been of the belief that it's important unto itself "just because". I'm not likely to look at someone who only reads Twilight, Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Dan Brown, chick lit, mystery novel #27954A, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, etc. in a very different way that I would look at someone who doesn't read at all.
Heh. May give 1984 a go, then.
So are Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird. None of those would take more than a couple of days, even for a slowish reader. A regular reader could probably get through any of them in an afternoon.
Edit: On reading and its utility:
I thought of another way to express it. Reading books is rewarding because, as stated by the previous two posters more eloquently than I had said it, it gives you a window into the minds of other people, increasing your understanding of not only them, but also yourself (incidentally, that's why books about awful people, like Ethan Frome, can be among the best).
With that understood, it's also true that reading books takes a lot of effort for most people, not only because of the time it takes, but because it takes a good deal of concentration, as well as mental effort to understand the story. That makes reading something like being faced with a puzzle box with a cookie inside.
Now, the difference between a stupid person and a normal person is not that the stupid person takes too long to figure out the puzzle. You're certainly lucky if you can open the box right away, but anyone can get there eventually. No, the stupid person is the one who just stares and stares at the box, thinking "I don't want that stupid cookie anyway..." That's what you're like if you say "I don't like reading books, and I never want to."
With that understood, it's also true that reading books takes a lot of effort for most people, not only because of the time it takes, but because it takes a good deal of concentration, as well as mental effort to understand the story. That makes reading something like being faced with a puzzle box with a cookie inside.
Now, the difference between a stupid person and a normal person is not that the stupid person takes too long to figure out the puzzle. You're certainly lucky if you can open the box right away, but anyone can get there eventually. No, the stupid person is the one who just stares and stares at the box, thinking "I don't want that stupid cookie anyway..." That's what you're like if you say "I don't like reading books, and I never want to."
Not Spaceghost
Spaceghost
This stuff also extends to other forms of media too. I've met countless people who claim to have seen films like "Psycho" and "Citizen Kane", and oddly enough "Highlander" and "Blade Runner" are also on the "YEAH I'VE SEEN THAT BUT IM TOTALLY LYING TO SAVE FACE" list as well. It happens with video games too, I've met people who claim to have played a few series like "Metal Gear Solid", "Resident Evil", and "Silent Hill" despite it becoming clear quickly that they've never touched them.
It may not say anything about your level of intelligence, but since literature is one of the most powerful tools for understanding the human condition, if not the most powerful, not being interested in it certainly does seem to imply that your curiosity about the world could, at least, be stronger. Don't take it personally.
You don't like stories? Because Literature has all of those things and more.
Literary snobbery exists. Just as Maths geniuses are stereotypically thought to be more intelligent than a writer such as Tolstoy. The celebration of creativity isn't all what you make it out to be.
Perhaps it is just the association of books. And books to learning. And so those who read, are associated to learning; in other words, are perceived to be of the learned ones.
But this hardly works when categorizing those who read genres such as chick-lit, or romances. So I suppose, snobbery comes into play, depending on the works we are talking about. You can buy the perception of being 'intelligent' by reading a great work, and so those of us who want to be perceived as clever, will, for social reasons, lie.
Let's just say that there's more information than I can possibly consume at my fingertips without needing to touch a single piece of literature. That isn't to say I don't read or will never read, just that it's not really much of an interest to me as I enjoy consuming information in other ways than reading literature.
One reason I don't read much is that I have trouble devoting myself to a novel. I enjoy absorbing random bits of information at my own leisure without devoting myself to 10+ hours of reading.
Oh, it's perfectly fine not to read a lot - far too many books to read out there anyway. It's just not common to find someone outright dismissive of it.
Each to their own though. Those who are curious, will eventually find themselves curious about human beings too, and commentary on the human condition, i.e. non-fiction, as well as fiction.
Literature has no barriers though*, and all are welcome. I'm reading The Dead, By James Joyce now. I read it every now and then. And I read it for entertainment - not for it's literary worth. I've got a bunch of books to read, and a lot of short stories to read for deadlines and such, but here I am reading The Dead, By James Joyce. The funny thing is, I put it down, at least 4 or 5 times, before one day, actually finishing it. And now it's one of my favourite reads.
Well, I read a lot, I guess. But I'm kind of a writer, a poor one, but a writer none the less. So that's my excuse. Cause you know. I like reading. A lot. ;-)
But even so, I put down tons of books. I hardly ever force my self to read. You could try reading a couple of short stories here and there.
*with obvious exceptions. ;(
I read it, and understood it
because it was an edition with hundreds of pages of endnotes explaining every single little thing.
isn't it like thicker than a phone book?
Monocle
Member
It kind of might. Books let you get inside other people's heads and participate in their inner lives. They're a direct line to the minds of authors, and possibly the best tools for stimulating and amplifying your imagination. By rejecting literature you're turning your back on inconceivable riches. It's an act of mental castration, really. You're stunting your own ability to engage with humanity.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
It doesn't necessarily say anything about how you might score on IQ tests, but it does suggest something, to me, about the kind of intelligence you might have. You mention "history, music, astronomy, technology" - which indicates a preference, to me, for the factual and discernible. Even music is arguably the most "logical" of the arts, given the degree to which it is dependent upon rational strictures - mathematical relationships between notes and rhythms, movement and structure, etc.
Art, however, is not just about "the human condition", as some have said, but about the non-obvious ways in which disparate parts of the universe are connected. It's the primary record a society leaves of what it was truly like to BE in that time, perhaps the closest thing to a time machine that is truly possible. It's the human innovation by which an essentially meaningless, indifferent cosmos comes to take shape. And literature is the form of art that forces the brain to creatively "flex" to the greatest extent, for it relies entirely upon arbitrary cognitive associations and the imagination, without anything visual or aural to ground one's experience with it. Not enjoying that doesn't fundamentally make you dumb, but I have a hard time not seeing it as indicative of the level of one's creative engagement with the world. Perhaps that's my own bias, but there you go.
Rhomega Beta
Member
It seems to be one of the longer books, and covers a lot of time compared to other books.
Inspired by Thug Notes, I picked up Crime & Punishment and Don Quixote for free on the Kindle store, and Nineteen Eighty Four for less than $6.
Hmm, which one if you don't mind me asking? I had to slog through a single chapter in college and while it drove me nuts, I wouldn't mind taking finishing the book off with a guide.
The Penguin Annotated Student Edition. Only problem is that, well, they are endnotes, so you have to page back all the time or use two bookmarks. And it's a paperback and very heavy, so you have to be careful with it so it doesn't fall apart. Mine held up during the first read-through, though, even if I carried it around a bit.
AbortedWalrusFetus
Member
I've read a decent handful of the books on the list, but as I have no way to affirm that is true please feel free to assume that I am lying : (
Really though, I imagine that the people who lie about this lie because they haven't read ANY classics and they don't want to come off as ignorant so they pick some to like. I would imagine that people who have read a few or even a significant portion of the classics tend not to lie about them as much.
Really though, I imagine that the people who lie about this lie because they haven't read ANY classics and they don't want to come off as ignorant so they pick some to like. I would imagine that people who have read a few or even a significant portion of the classics tend not to lie about them as much.
- Status