[ SECRET POST #1485 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1485 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[image possibly triggery for self-injury]


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Notes:

Friending meme is still going!

Secrets Left to Post: 06 pages, 134 secrets from Secret Submission Post #212.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 1 and again 2 - repeat ], [ 1 - what ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom.livejournal.com]

22. http://i54.tinypic.com/2ew1jxk.gif

[(Anonymous)]

make it two

[dethtoll.livejournal.com]

make it three and also IMO a huge chunk of the books that lit wonks these days jerk themselves into a stomachache over are actually quite shitty

[(Anonymous)]

I know what you mean anon. More "recent" classics, I'm good with (1984, Catch 22, Great Gatsby), but I have such a hard time getting through Austen/Bronte/ACD books. I get kinda frustrated with myself, and force myself through old books anyway.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Nah, there's plenty of people not really interested in that era. You're definitely not alone, anon!

[(Anonymous)]

I feel the same, OP.

[chixb4dix.livejournal.com]

I feel you OP. I always think I should force myself to read classics. And they always bore me to death. Why should I care about the oh-so-deep inner life of some wealthy white emo-guy hundreds of years ago? TOO DEEP MAN, TOO DEEP.

Oh well, some of them are just crap and I think a lot of people lie about having read them.

[kallanda-lee.livejournal.com]

Me too, anon. I also have concentration issues that makes reading books a chore, anyway. I read Frankenstein by Shelley, and some Verne books, and I find the language terrible tedious...

[(Anonymous)]

I try and read those classic novels now and then, but rarely do I end up liking them. I hate every Jane Austen book I've ever read, and thought Wuthering Heights was meandering and pointless. Don't worry OP, they are basically useless unless you want to be smug about how well-read you are, you genuinely enjoy them, or you're in a literary degree where you have to know about them.

[calaidi.livejournal.com]

Eh, I haven't read most of them. I tried, but they were pretty boring. Besides, Wishbone did a lot of the classics anyway, and it was a lot more interesting watching that then trying to read them.

[havemy-heart.livejournal.com]

I like a few classics: Dracula, Frankenstein, some Robert Louis Stevenson and a few others. I will agree, however, that things like Austen and Bronte are really dense and not easy to read.

[caelith.livejournal.com]

It only seems that way 'cause Google and Wikipedia are readily available to anyone who wants to fake knowledge.

[(Anonymous)]

Similar, but not identical, to your position: I did read a lot of books by age 10. Western books, classics in my own country - but only in my own country and a small part of the rest of the world (no one really speaks our language). It is very annoying to me that it sometimes seems you are 'expected' to have read stuff like Pride and Prejudice, while no one in the English speaking world seems to have heard of the classics that had an impact on your culture and life. 18th and 19th century English literature is nearly impossible for me to get through, but it seems that those are the 'standard classics every educated person has read' according to some parts of fandom.

[lunarkitten.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way. I love to read and I'm the only person at work (bookstore) who hasn't read a bunch of classics. It's not that I haven't tried, I just can't get into them. I feel like the only girl who isn't in love with Jane Austen.

There are some I enjoyed that I read for school, such as Frankenstein and Animal Farm (okay, that one I read for fun when I was ten), but other than that... literature bores me. And I hate feeling ashamed to say that.

[(Anonymous)]

Another bored teenager who thinks they know better than generations of literary scholars. Yawn.

News flash: something doesn't need to have vampires and aliens in it to be a good book. These books are in the literary canon for a reason: they're the bases of western society. Just because you want to skip class and piss of your parents gives you no justification to ignore them.

And if you've tried to read these books but couldn't get into them? While I applaud your efforts, you're probably just simply too stupid or immature to understand them.

[(Anonymous)]

What, fandom is composed of privileged kids steeped in and blind to their own classism? Say it ain't so!

[roaringmay.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one who enjoys some of the ~literary canon? Not all of it of course; Jane Austen is a pain in the ass (I love C. Brontë though, or even Dickens)... But most of what I come across i actually quite enjoyable :|

...Granted, I study this stuff so it's better I do care about it lol

[childings.livejournal.com]

Aside from Thomas Hardy I couldn't stand any of the 19th century literature I was forced to read in school.

[oflittlebrain.livejournal.com]

what makes a "classic" anyway, OP?

(hint: sometimes there aren't that many books available from a specific time period and they just have to choose the ones that are representative. also the canon is pretty obviously selected by white men sosososo like)


tl;dr classic =/= necessarily good, you shouldn't feel too bad about this.

[(Anonymous)]

Good for you OP. Life's too short to read books you don't like and get nothing out of. When I was ten I was reading Animorphs and Everworld and loving it, and learning to love reading can lead to a much better relationship with literature down the road than slogging through classics you can't stand that make you and to swear off books forever.

Shannon Hale, who writes some very nice YA fantasy, says it all much better than I do.

http://www.squeetus.com/stage/shannon_ramblings.html

[(Anonymous)]

I see having a good knowledge of the classics as equivalent to having good hygiene. If you don't want to take a shower, then, okay, that's totally your choice. But a lot of people are going to look down on you for it. Having a basic knowledge of the classics is having the shower; a broader knowledge is like styling your hair, a deeper knowledge is like having a great perfume. People will respect you more for it without understanding their reason to. You have a choice as to bow to society's expectations.

[citrinesunset.livejournal.com]

Eh, a few of my favorite books are 19th century, but I've come to find it's not my favorite literary period, either. And when it comes to classics, I enjoy the modernist and postmodernist periods much more.

But I think there's some difference between enjoying classics and appreciating them. If you don't enjoy a book, you don't enjoy it. But reading it can still have some value, and it can still be good to understand why it's considered classic (even if you disagree). It might depend on why you're reading it in the first place, I guess.

[arcadiaego.livejournal.com]

You'd be amazed how many people are faking. Plus everyone has gaps in their knowledge. I'm good on 19th C English lit for example, but am utterly crap on the 'classics' of the last fifty or so, which probably makes me a lot more ignorant than you! There is a lot of worth in being familiar with various ideas of the 'canon' and understanding why various authors are important, but you don't have to *like* the stuff, neccessarily. If you can use words like canon in context in the first place you're probably reading something that's worthwhile anyway. :D

[blackshadowcat.livejournal.com]

Aw, that sucks. :( If they're not to your tastes though, don't feel the need to force yourself to read them. If you're really feeling left out, there's always Sparknotes or Google.

I've read enough to not feel left out, but jeez, why is everyone so judgy towards those who haven't?

Newsflash: Not everyone has the same tastes. You can understand a book and get why other people like it while not finding it very interesting yourself. It doesn't mean you think you know better than others, just that you personally didn't feel like using up time (a precious commodity) reading it.

Of course, a lot of the classics are written in very different styles with a wide variety of plots so I think anyone could find at least one that they like. I just don't think they should have to if they'd rather spend their time doing other things.

[(Anonymous)]

Nah, OP, lots of people haven't made it through very many "classics", latter-day or otherwise. I desperately want to get through a lot of classic books, but have been put off by the sentences or grammar of a lot of them (Jonathan Swift, periods exist. Seriously. They're free! You can use more than two a page!). It's not stupidity or any kind of thing to go "I recognize this is a classic, but I can't read it." I found out that long and complicated sentences were easier to follow when I read them out loud to myself.

The people who came up with the lists may have been onto something, or not, but taste is subjective, theirs and yours. There's lots of forgotten gems from old times that nobody reads anymore, and lots of crappy books that became "classics" for no good reason. Don't beat yourself up, read what you want, and read summaries of what you want, too. Lots have people have barely read any books on the list.