Adolescents need adolescent fiction if they're going to make the jump from Amelia Bedelia to Marianne Moore. If you start your kid with Joyce and Beckett (thinking back to your first post), I think you may have trouble provoking a love of reading.
Okay, the Harry Potter folks made me throw down the gauntlet. I'm ready.
Most of today's novels are lousy. For me, there are fewer and fewer novels worth reading or even challenging to the mind.
During the past 3-5 years, there are only a handful of good American and British novels.
<snip>
And that's about it for me.
Okay, and Harry Potter is way overrated. I will start my future kids on James Joyce's Dubliners and Samuel Beckett.
So...why does most contemporary US and British literature suck? I had thought that you might be providing an answer, and by scanning your list, that the answer might refer to adult literature. Not only did you dodge your own question, you're also confusing the issue by comparing J.K. Rowling to Joyce and Beckett. I do agree though, that you did a masterful job of summarizing your thoughts with "And that's about it for me." Indeed.
How many children have you taught to read?
"The quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language."
I think I am inclined to disagree, at least with example. The movie was well paced and visually stunning. The acting may not have been the best and there were places where plot lacked but the holes in the plot were done to give the movie a certain feel.
I am not saying that its my favorite movie, far from it, but in most categories the movie was very good or excellent.
Myself. I was a kid once. My first books I read were One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by A. Solzhenistyn and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.
Personal experience speaks the loudest.
Myself. I was a kid once. My first books I read were One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by A. Solzhenistyn and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.
Personal experience speaks the loudest.
Thank you for expressing your opinion, but frankly I really don't give a crap what you think. Sorry for being so blunt, but I'm going to read what I want to read. I've never heard of any of the authors or books that you mentioned, so I can't comment on any of them. I bet that they may be some great books, but I'd rather read a story I can enjoy and get into.
I loved the Da Vinci Code, and Michael Crichton is my favorite fiction writer.
People reading anything is better than people reading nothing! I'd much rather see people reading what they love instead of not reading at all.
Last year, I picked up a paperback copy of the Da Vinci Code, mostly because I was planning to see the movie and thought I should at least read the book. It was the first book I had read for recreation in probably five years. I couldn't put it down! I read it completely in 2 days, something I hadn't done that since I was a kid. It made me realize how much fun reading is. Now I read 2 to 3 books a month.
So, would you rather have people not reading at all, or people reading things you may hate but others thoroughly enjoy?
The first book i ever read had to be the bible. I grew up with a religious grand-mother. Before i was in school, i was reading passages out of that book. But the most popular books that i remember from my childhood were books by Richard Wright, Alex Haley and Langston Hughes to name a few. I didn't read Mark Twain or Dickens until i got to high school. I have always wondered, what and who decides what a great novel is. ... A great story in my opinion make you wonder further than what the book provides. You start to ask questions about the plot and hunger for details that the author didn't provide. A great story will render your attention with out the feeling of being subdued. ... But if nothing else, read what interest you regardless of what others might think or say.
It's not Casablanca or Citizen Kane is all I'm saying.
Maybe I should have used another piece of crap from Emmerich or maybe a Michael Bay or Bruckheimer turd to more universally illustrate my point.
The first book i ever read had to be the bible. I grew up with a religious grand-mother. Before i was in school, i was reading passages out of that book. But the most popular books that i remember from my childhood were books by Richard Wright, Alex Haley and Langston Hughes to name a few. I didn't read Mark Twain or Dickens until i got to high school. I have always wondered, what and who decides what a great novel is. Is there this cookie-cutter shape that all great writers have to adhere to. I find it ironic that within the world of story writing we still find narrow mindedness.
A great story in my opinion make you wonder further than what the book provides. You start to ask questions about the plot and hunger for details that the author didn't provide. A great story will render your attention with out the feeling of being subdued.
But above all is personal preference. I don't really care what other people read as long as they continue to write works that interest me. On another note, i don't believe in a perfect author and i don't believe all these so called 'classics' works to be such great works. I've read a few works and found some of them to be pretty dry and uninteresting or non-relative. For example Gulliver's Travels was boring to me. The book was all over the place as if it didn't have any order to it. One page you were in a land that had very small people and then within a few pages you were with giants with little knowledge of how you got to that point.
I agree with your sentiment, but I disagree with your choices. Brown couldn't put a sentence together if his fortune depended on it and Chrichton used to be entertaining but has lately fallen into fighting poltitical and personal battles with his lousy novels, the State of Fear being the most egregious example.
This is widely argued point among literature scholars. What makes a book become Literature?
I would say simply enough, that a book is more than its plot. It is also its prose, its characters, and dozens of other small elements that make a book more than just pages and ink.
If you think modern literature sucks, you've spent too much time looking at the best-seller rack. Look deeper, and you'll find real gems hidden among the stacks.
I would say simply enough, that a book is more than its plot. It is also its prose, its characters, and dozens of other small elements that make a book more than just pages and ink.
I want a deep plot delivered by elegant prose and interesting and realistic characters. This can be sci-fi, this can be historical fiction, this can be nearly any genre, but what's important is the whole widget, so to speak.
if i send you a list of all the books i've read along with what is on my bookshelf, can you personally approve or disapprove of each so that i know what to read, what to burn, and what to burn from memory?
Hate is not a very Christian attribute but I would gladly stone to death the kind of pretentious **** that reads Stendhal or Beauvoir because it's fashionable but would sneer down their nose at you if you said you enjoyed Harry Potter. I've been in circles like that. You could draw a list of the authors they would read and the authors they would not read. I've always liked reading so I was exposed to a lot of authors I wouldn't otherwise have experienced. But it was the pretentiousness of it that got me in the end. I'm reading War and Peace at the moment, and at some stage after that I'm going to read the Harry Potter series. What anyone thinks about that is irrelevant to me.
At the same time I think you can draw up vague rules about what makes a good book. Developed characters and plot, interesting peripheral setting, etc. If you say, "I enjoyed the DaVinci Code" I'd say "Great" but if you said, "That DaVinci Code is an extremely well written, important work of contemporary literature that deserves far more recognition amongst cafe society" I'd have to stone you (though for different reasons than the previous situation).
There are no absolutes. If a book of fiction entertains it has served its purpose, even if it isn't a fascinating book.
At the same time I think you can draw up vague rules about what makes a good book. Developed characters and plot, interesting peripheral setting, etc. If you say, "I enjoyed the DaVinci Code" I'd say "Great" but if you said, "That DaVinci Code is an extremely well written, important work of contemporary literature that deserves far more recognition amongst cafe society" I'd have to stone you (though for different reasons than the previous situation).
There are no absolutes. If a book of fiction entertains it has served its purpose, even if it isn't a fascinating book.
You mean to read W&P? No, I have very little time, but I like to go to bed early when I can and read. I'm hoping to finish it by next Christmas...You must have a lot of time on your hands then.
You mean to read W&P? No, I have very little time, but I like to go to bed early when I can and read. I'm hoping to finish it by next Christmas...
'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.
Mark Twain
[THE] first books I read were One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by A. Solzhenistyn and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.