ts big dogs 2014 edition #1: dostoyevsky vs austen

YA discourse on twitter is wild.

I mean, I like Ash, but the piece is dumb and frustrating, lacks proper reporting, and fails to interrogate its own biases (which might have been interesting!). Also I will forgive a lot but not talking smack about Ursula Le Guin. Still -- OTOH it's just an opinion piece for the shit, low-selling men's magazine GQ.

For me this sort of opinion writing exhibits the "most journalists are assholes" category error of understanding the world. IME a lot of journalists are unreflective assholes, who hang around and partner up with similarly unreflective assholes, and tend to assume everyone else in the world is an unreflective asshole. Everything gets analysed under this greasy prism of glibness.

I blame the defeat of that Marxist Jeremy Crumblyn for this.

fwiw I don't think Sarkar thinks she's dunking on sci-fi or non fiction in this piece; she assumes ppl go to sci-fi for different reasons than litfic, and I see no evidence that she thinks the reasons ppl go to litfic are superior, just that they have value, too.

she is still wrong tho

(wrong about ppl going to sci-fi for fundamentally different reasons, not wrong about litfic having value, lol)

i don't read fiction bcz it's all made up
i like to read abt maths, science and the law (also all made up)

This is another one of these "why are men like this?" pieces.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/09/why-do-so-few-men-read-books-by-women

An old favourite of yours for stirring shit iirc

Then you get this kind of thing as a "literary challenge". It's ok as it goes but this time the writer's brother gets it.

https://www.ft.com/content/99936410-fdf8-11e8-aebf-99e208d3e521

An old favourite of yours for stirring shit iirc

― gyac, Wednesday, 18 May 2022 bookmarkflaglink

http://2h3mh837ken53kitqv1co5fh83o.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/image1-1-1024x538.jpg

Ffs! Hate when the internet spoils my joke

I did do a year of reading only female authors myself, after noticing how few I've read. I can understand the frustration at this sort of self-improvement/micromanagement of cultural tastes taking up so much space in the discourse at the expense of looking at things from a more structural pov but I do think it's a worthwhile thing to do, on an individual level.

the writer's brother is sadly behind a paywall

If you Google the headline you should be able to read it

gendering of fiction always struck me as weird and the specific gendering in that piece is both lazy and misses the mark

that being said, in very general terms women read more than men and afaik it's been like that since the early 19th century, and those men who do not read are missing out obv

I did do a year of reading only female authors myself, after noticing how few I've read. I can understand the frustration at this sort of self-improvement/micromanagement of cultural tastes taking up so much space in the discourse at the expense of looking at things from a more structural pov but I do think it's a worthwhile thing to do, on an individual level.

Agree, I think last year was the first year I read more than 50/50 books by female authors, which is ridiculous.

I remember chatting to guy in Oxfam Books, a big novel reader, who said he didn't want to read Ferrante because he thought it would be "too much of a woman's book" and it's always a shock to meet people like that in the wild

I know a guy who's a very sweet person and a talented writer, but who doesn't read any books by women except for The Shipping News, which he loves. Very strange.

haha, so weird

reminds me of something Sigrid Nunez said:

For pretty much my whole writing life, I always felt—as did every woman writer I know—we lived in a world where if you heard “women’s fiction,” you heard “lesser fiction.” Not just male readers and male editors. Women also felt that a thing made by a man was superior to that made by women. Look at publishing—it was dominated by women. Most of the editors and agents were women, and the books that were admired most and given the most attention were by men. That’s changed. But to be honest, with books written by a woman, an older woman in particular, I’m still surprised when a man says he loves the book. I would feel like it was a hard sell.

and Nunez is obv brilliant

Ursula K. Le Guin bf, GQ essay gf

— Alexander Wells (@ajbwells) May 18, 2022

I did do a year of reading only female authors myself, after noticing how few I've read. I can understand the frustration at this sort of self-improvement/micromanagement of cultural tastes taking up so much space in the discourse at the expense of looking at things from a more structural pov but I do think it's a worthwhile thing to do, on an individual level.

"I remember chatting to guy in Oxfam Books, a big novel reader, who said he didn't want to read Ferrante because he thought it would be "too much of a woman's book""

Give him the latest copy of GQ. It's for men.

This is a good piece on the resistance young men have for reading, changes in the market, etc.

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/theres-no-hype-machine-for-selling-literature-to-dudes

I think there’s a difference between not reading women (which is dumb) and reading things that only suit your “quiet, tasteful sensibilities” (Nathalie Olah, in the link above). I think that’s ok! Being middlebrow or boring in your reading is literally no one else’s business

And the weird snobbishness (which obvs people here don’t have) about video games. I’d feel desperately sorry for someone who spent more time reading Tom McCarthy than playing Zelda. (Although having bad taste is also ok!)

Trying to get people to voluntarily read anything that doesn't appeal to them is a losing battle. Lots of readers have very narrowly defined ideas of what they want from books and they never break out of whatever narrow niche they fell into.

The best you can hope for from niche readers is that the very habit of picking up books and reading them to the end will permit them some day to accidentally read a book outside their chosen niche, enjoy it, and discover a new niche to add to their old one. If this happens more than once, they may eventually start looking for such 'accidents' and become an adventurous reader.

I've been part of a book club for about ten years now. The host for each month chooses the book. I've read stuff I never would have heard of, let alone thought to pick up, otherwise. It's been a great experience (witness its longevity).

"Trying to get people to voluntarily read anything that doesn't appeal to them is a losing battle. Lots of readers have very narrowly defined ideas of what they want from books and they never break out of whatever narrow niche they fell into."

Lots, not all. Just in this thread three posters talked about their efforts to read more women, and what that might have done for their reading. I certainly see quite a bit of that on book Twitter. Reading women, engaging with more translated literature.

"And the weird snobbishness (which obvs people here don’t have) about video games."

Yes, did overlook that as I haven't touched a game for 20 years.

Ah well.

A champion emerges. pic.twitter.com/PjzAit2mFY

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) May 19, 2022

And the weird snobbishness (which obvs people here don’t have) about video games. I’d feel desperately sorry for someone who spent more time reading Tom McCarthy than playing Zelda. (Although having bad taste is also ok!)

C was a pretty bad book, but I reckon it'd make a semi-decent point'n'click tbf

What about bad books vs good video games?

_And the weird snobbishness (which obvs people here don’t have) about video games. I’d feel desperately sorry for someone who spent more time reading Tom McCarthy than playing Zelda. (Although having bad taste is also ok!)_


realisation this post prompted in me: im far more interested in - and enjoy - bad books than i do bad video games.

now imagining a YouTube account called The Angry Literary Nerd doing shticky screaming at a book videos

This is not good.

The latest episode of The Backstory with Andrew Neil is out now.

This week, @afneil talks to @AyoCaesar about why she’s “literally a communist”, her support for Jeremy Corbyn and how she deals with the abuse she gets on Twitter.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

— Tortoise (@tortoise) May 26, 2022

thread drift taken to delirious new heights

I have not read this thread, but this strikes me as a not very helpful use of the poll feature. Why compare in this way?

I started to skim the content and realized people here say interesting things whatever prompt they are given.
(I stick by the oddness of the comparison. I think you are challenging something outside literature.)

(outside the form of the novel assuming it transcends time and place and more or less writers had/have a common idea of what they want to achieve)

I have not read this thread, but this strikes me as a not very helpful use of the poll feature. Why compare in this way?

― youn, Saturday, 28 May 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Most polls don't lead to much interesting discussion. This was a bit different, maybe you could read it?

Or just read this:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/28/books-by-women-that-every-man-should-read-chosen-by-ian-mcewan-salman-rushdie-richard-curtis-and-more

"Howard Jacobson: Middlemarch by George Eliot
Not every page of Middlemarch is a masterpiece of impassioned intelligence, where action is imbued with thought, and thought is shaped by feeling; but every other page is. No man or woman can be considered educated who hasn’t read it at least twice."

Or just read this:

I started to skim the content and realized people here say interesting things whatever prompt they are given.

― youn, Saturday, May 28, 2022 7:35 AM (five hours ago)

No man or woman can be considered educated who hasn’t read it at least twice.

Okay, Casaubon

Real car crash of a piece. Just schizophrenic in the way it's put together lol.