46 Comments Add your own

• 1. Christine  |  May 3rd, 2007 at 7:59 pm

  Thank god for you. I too hated Lolita. It’s been years since I’ve even attempted to finish it. I gave it a go around the middle of college. Only you’re a better person than I, for I ditched it around the middle of the book when he was rambling about his history while they were on the road and it was so boring I wanted to die. I didn’t mind the beginning, infact, I liked the grossness of it all…the perversion. But my god Nabokov, he enjoyed being verbose.

• 2. Jamie  |  May 3rd, 2007 at 8:28 pm

  OH, honey. I despise that damn thing — I think Nabakov was just trying to irritate us. You are not alone.

• 3. -R-  |  May 3rd, 2007 at 8:54 pm

  I have not read Lolita, although I did read a biography of Nabakov’s wife (Vera) that was really good. Not sure why I thought I should share that, but oh well.

  Why did you microwave an ice cream sandwich?

  I gave up on Grey’s Anatomy after the prom at the hospital. I did not want to give up on it, but I had to.

• 4. Amy  |  May 3rd, 2007 at 8:55 pm

  I adore Nabokov, but Lolita isn’t my favorite. I think it’s a wonderful book, but yes — it is gross. I don’t know how to justify that statement without spending more time on literary criticism than is good for any of us. But I will say this, J — don’t give up on Nabokov until you’ve read Pnin or Pale Fire. Brilliant.

• 5. jonniker  |  May 3rd, 2007 at 8:55 pm

  R: Jesus Christ, the HOSPITAL PROM. Why didn’t I learn my lesson then? SIGH.

  Also, I microwaved it because I hate super-cold ice cream. I know that makes no sense, but I dig it a little bit melty and easier to eat.

  Aim: I get why I should like it. I mean, I SEE IT, and intellectually, I get it. Except I refuse to, just REFUSE to.

• 6. Melanie  |  May 3rd, 2007 at 8:57 pm

  I started Lolita back in 1990-something and then put it down and never tried it again. Not my cup of tea. I have an aversion to anything that’s supposed to be a classic, which makes my literary husband crazy – “But, the Kobo Abe, honey, it’s good, and it’s LITERATURE. That? That book is pink. You are reading a pink book, and it is worthless.” Bah on literature. Pink books are good enough for me. Or murder mysteries. Whatever. As long as it is pretty much useless and won’t teach me anything except maybe words like “convo” or how to do an autopsy, I’m on it.

  Moist sounds good to me, too. Bring on the cake.

• 7. Amy  |  May 3rd, 2007 at 8:57 pm

  Also — I watched most of the second season of Grey’s Anatomy and got the hell out. That shinbone with eyes who narrates it gives me the willies.

• 8. Suebob  |  May 3rd, 2007 at 9:07 pm

  Oh good lord, “brown rose” was something I could have gone my whole life without having enter my consciousness, but now, there it is, and I am stuck with it. Thanks, J.

  Can I mention how much I love Melanie for saying that she has an aversion to anything that is supposed to be classic? I have this same disease.

• 9. vague  |  May 3rd, 2007 at 10:51 pm

  Nabokov is my favorite favorite, and, like Amy said above, Lolita is not my favorite of his books (it’s, like, my fourth favorite, after Pnin and Pale Fire and The Real Life of Sebastian Knight). I’ve taught it a couple of times (top four posts here), and your opinion is exactly in tune with most students — they respect the writer, reluctantly, but mostly they think it’s gross. Which is…fine, I guess. But, it’s not really a love story; it’s a detective story (and a story about storytelling and readers and writers and oh, I should just stop). And we’re not meant to support paedophilia, or to sympathize with HH, except in the “Oh oops they tricked me and for a minute I sympathized with HH, oh no” sense. And yeah, you didn’t want a bunch of literary criticism all up in your kitchen. But…but! I love it. Just unreserved unabashed gushing love. And it’s my fourth favorite.

• 10. jonniker  |  May 4th, 2007 at 5:32 am

  Vague & Amy: I read and loved Pnin, which is part of why I picked up Lolita.

  Vague: Again, I know everything that it’s SUPPOSED to be, but I don’t care. I mean, I want to care, but I really don’t. And your interpretations are ones I’ve heard, of course, but there are so many out there, I have a hard time believing there’s a right one.

  That’s actually one of the things I dislike about literary criticism, particularly of books that are widely read. There are, though many would disagree, too many ideas of what we’re “meant” to get out of certain works. There are people – many people – out there who truly love Lolita as a dark and twisty love story, and just as many who take it at face value, and just as many who believe exactly what you said- that we’re not meant to support Humbert or pedophilia, and in fact, certainly Nabokov himself said that.

  Anyway, I don’t even know why I’m discussing this, because I am the least qualified person ever on this particular book because again, if you missed it the first time, I HATED IT.

• 11. Swistle  |  May 4th, 2007 at 5:45 am

  I think sometimes books are considered great not because they ARE great, but because people said they were great for so long that now we all have to agree or else everybody looks stupid. I went on a little kick where I read a bunch of old greats, and I thought about 75% of them were bad. Actually BAD books, like badly written or with dumb plots. And I think that a lot of the stuff people say about them, such as that they’re an allegory for this or a metaphor for that, is just after-the-fact baloney.

  Is that opinionated enough for 9:00 in the morning?

• 12. winterwheat  |  May 4th, 2007 at 6:16 am

  I hated Lolita too, in large part because it was my college roommate’s favorite book, and she had been molested by her dad, and that made the whole thing 1000 times more scary and sad than it would have been anyway. As for the sex, Lolita aroused the same feeling of voyeuristic disgust in me that watching Eyes Wide Shut did. I felt like I was looking in upon a dirty old man’s (Nabokov’s, Kubrick’s) fantasies, and wanted to slap him for being self-important enough to assume audiences would find these fantasies lofty and arty (and stimulating) rather than base and embarrassing. But then I’m totally sexually repressed, so take my words with a grain of salt.

  Wetness — gross word. Overused in deodorant commercials. Why can’t they just say sweat?

• 13. winterwheat  |  May 4th, 2007 at 6:18 am

  p.s. I hated The Catcher in the Rye too.

• 14. Sadie  |  May 4th, 2007 at 6:35 am

  When I was a child and had time to be a voracious reader, I used to pick books out of my mother’s bookcase and read them, with no concept of the idea “age-appropriate.” So in seventh grade, when I was 12 years old (Lolita’s age, if I recall), I read Lolita. Not only did I READ Lolita, but I DID A BOOK REPORT on Lolita. Clearly my parents were wholly uninvolved in my schooling, yes?
  Other children were all, “This is my book report about Pony Boy,” and I was like, “Here, Mrs. Campbell, is my book report on the Annotated Lolita.” My teacher had a shitfit, demanding to know where I got ‘that book,’ and I had no real idea why; I thought she’d be impressed I read a book with so many pages. That said, I am sure I missed much of the symbolism of the book by having it read it at age 12.

  And now I want ‘moist cake’ for breakfast, which makes me feel a little queasy but still hungry – thanks, Jonniker.

• 15. Jeanne  |  May 4th, 2007 at 6:43 am

  I’ve been a lurker for a while (I think since the first Moon Cup/Diva discussion) but had to chime in with my intense dislike of Lolita. I read it a couple years ago with my “Classics” book club and it was like a train wreck for me. While I realize that it’s not a true story, the fact that there are people out there who even have thoughts like that crossing their mind is just wildly disturbing to me. That particular book club disbanded shortly after Lolita. We had read one too many “classics” that were just awful. The last straw for me was Lord Jim. I think that is the only book I’ve ever made a conscious decision to not finish. Last week I came across it in my closet and actually (horrors!) threw it in the garbage. I didn’t want some unfortunate soul at the Goodwill to spend their hard earned money on it!

  I’m not allowed to use the word moist around my sister, but I totally agree that wetness is much more disgusting. Leaky diapers, gynecologial symptoms, antiperspirant issues…

  I didn’t much care for The Catcher in the Rye either.

• 16. Carolyn  |  May 4th, 2007 at 6:49 am

  I am completely with you on the moist vs. wetness issue. Moist makes me think of yummy yellow cake with chocolate frosting, Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker. Mmmm. But wetness. Ugh. Best case scenario, it makes me think of the Zoolander mermaid (merMAN!) commercial where he says something like “wetness is the essence of moisture.” But most of the time it just conjures up something gross.

• 17. jonniker  |  May 4th, 2007 at 7:41 am

  Not to continue to rant and rave, but I also disliked Catcher in the Rye. I couldn’t bring myself to sympathize with Holden, and instead, spent the vast majority of the book wishing I could take him by the shoulders and shake him, screaming, “GROW UP ALREADY. QUIT WHINING.”

  Also, in thinking about this further, I think what’s most frustrating about this – about Lolita, and Catcher in the Rye, and a bunch of other widely deconstructed and beloved books. Just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean you’re dumb, or incapable of grasping deeper meaning. There is no “right” answer to any well-known book, no matter how many smart, thoughtful people have already examined it from a frillion angles, and disliking them for any reason – thoughtful or not – is perfectly okay. I’ve been raked over the coals for my dislike of Catcher in the Rye, when really, I GET IT. I just don’t like it, thanks.

  Intellectual snobbery makes me want to poke my eyes out as much as ignorance does.

• 18. Christine  |  May 4th, 2007 at 8:56 am

  Sadie, at 12 I went through my Steven King phase and did a very long oral book report on the Dead Zone. A report that involved details about his childhood obsession with his penis. I think I called it his “mmmhmm.” OHMYGOD.

• 19. Christine  |  May 4th, 2007 at 8:56 am

  Oh, by “his” I mean the protagonist’s.

• 20. Allison  |  May 4th, 2007 at 9:19 am

  Thank you for saying that disliking so-called classics doesn’t mean you’re dumb. I loathe the majority of classic books. I think they’re boring. I’d much rather read some chick lit. And who gives a crap if I’m diminishing my brain capacity.

• 21. winterwheat  |  May 4th, 2007 at 9:39 am

  As usual, hilarious comments… reading them reminds me of the book report and oral presentation I did on Edgar Allen Poe’s The Telltale Heart. Pretty morbid for a 10-year-old (but the class was TRANSFIXED).

  I wonder if The Catcher in the Rye would have become a classic had it not spoken so directly to college and college-prep students, who at that time were pretty much all male and all privileged. I would expect women and less-privileged kids to have little patience with Holden’s brand of trust-fund anomie.

  And I totally agree with you about “getting” the intellectual value of a piece of art but still not liking it. I couldn’t stand the movie Crash because NOT ONE character was likable… well, except the locksmith, and he was a little too one-dimensionally sweet. I know people who think it was the most amazing film ever, and I get the importance of its message of tolerance, etc., but since I couldn’t empathize with anyone (except the locksmith), I simply couldn’t enjoy it.

• 22. liza  |  May 4th, 2007 at 10:15 am

  I think you should know that you are absolutely correct, in my opinion. I can’t even finish it. I read five books at once. I’m always dying for something to read. Anything. I even re-read when I get desperate. And I hate Lolita. I think it’s crap. Plus eww she’s, like, eleven.

• 23. jonniker  |  May 4th, 2007 at 10:25 am

  I have to stop hogging my own comments, but I must add something about classics of any kind – music, books, fashion, WHATEVER. In many cases something becomes a classic, as Winterwheat said, because of the time of its release and its reflection of the social climate, or because it was a pioneer in a certain style/genre/whatever. Classics are not always made classics because they are the greatest example of their kind.

• 24. Andrea  |  May 4th, 2007 at 11:20 am

  Stop. saying. moist. I’m going to vomit. I still cannot stand that word, although I must admit to some sort of tolerance when it’s used in relation to cake or chocolate anything. Wetness holds no power over me.

  I still love Grey’s. But I loved the “shinbone with eyes” description of Meredith. Really. That’s totally perfect. But I confess, I don’t watch because of her. I watch because of Christina and because I love Izzy, and George, and Baily! I’ve gotten some eye rolling going on more lately than usual, but I’m still loyal. The McCrap relationship? I could take it or leave it. Whatev.

  And yes, I will say I agree the Prom episode was stupid, except that’s the one in which Denny died, so it’s hard to hate the whole episode because the rest of it was so dramatic, but I just ignored the prom plot and oogled all the dresses. That I could never wear. Because they were ugly. All of them.

• 25. Leah  |  May 4th, 2007 at 12:50 pm

  I had to stop reading the comments about halfway through because it was hurting my heart. It’s okay not to like Lolita, or even hate it, especially if you “get” it. The eschewing of all things “classic” though? I just…I can’t even talk about it. It’s practically my religion.

  Question for you, Jonna: Did you read the annotated version? Because there’s a lot of stuff in the book that it’s impossible to get without notes. (And no, this doesn’t invalidate the book; it just adds another layer of experience to it.) Part of my enjoyment of the book is that there are so many squirrelly little details about history and psychology and literature and trashy genre fiction that are hidden in a story that, yes, is totally gross. (And it’s meant to be gross: consider where Humbert is telling the story from and what agenda he might have…)

  Also consider that I read lit crit in my spare time for fun. That’s certainly not for everyone.

• 26. Leah  |  May 4th, 2007 at 12:53 pm

  p.s. Didn’t like Catcher because I couldn’t identify with it, and I think it was written specifically for people who could identify rather than for those of us who can’t, i.e., as a look inside the pysche of a particular type of person (mopey, whiny, woeful teenager).

  I get it, though. It’s just not to my taste. Which is more than I can say for Nine Inch Nails, who I absolutely do not understand in any way.

• 27. jonniker  |  May 4th, 2007 at 1:33 pm

  Leah: That’s exactly how I felt about Catcher. I couldn’t scrunge up any empathy for Holden, and I agree with you – I almost wasn’t supposed to.

  And yes, I read the annotated version of Lolita, and I had the even added bonus of reading Adam’s college copy, with his hilarious college notes in the margin. It’s like I was in *class* with him.

  I don’t eschew all things classic : I hope that didn’t come across. I really love many, many classic books, even those that people have attempted to invalidate (ahem, New Yorker/To Kill A Mockingbird. *shakes fist to sky*). However, I do think that there are many classics that are classics because of their time, and not because of their greatness, and time has been far too kind to many of them.

  I also seem to recall that you cannot read modern fiction, right? Don’t you hate it?

• 28. Leah  |  May 4th, 2007 at 3:03 pm

  I wasn’t saying YOU were a classics hater; a lot of the comments here seemed to be borderline hatey, though, and that makes me sad. You were talking about personal preference, not quality, but then the comments started to become kind of bashy and I just wanted to yell STOP. Saying “I didn’t like it” is a lot different than saying “It was crap.” Nabokov is not “crap.”

  As for modern fiction, I keep trying, but I find I just don’t love it like I do the old stuff. My general distate of it is descriptive rather than prescriptive, which is to say that I didn’t sit down and decide to snub my nose at all forever and ever–I’d just read a whole bunch over the years and couldn’t stomach it and so decided to spend my time on things I actually enjoyed, which just happens to be Wharton and Fitzgerald and Hardy.

  A lot of my preference, I think, is based on how into language I am, even at the expense of plot; I’d rather read a well-written book about grass growing than a poorly written albeit gripping tale of, oh, I don’t know, the secret behind the Holy Grail (read ten pages and had to stop because it was making me ANGRY). So, basically, modern language kind of turns me off in literature. That said, I read “Bridget Jones’s Diary” a few months ago and thought it was great (because of the way it used language!), so it’s not that I refuse to read modern stuff, it’s just that 99 times out of 100 I’ll be unable to get past page 10. And that’s okay. Some people like People, some people like The New Yorker; everyone can like what she likes and there’s no problem, but when personal preference gets confused for the worth of a book (or an entire genre (however arbitrary it is)), that’s where I take issue.

  As for the literary canon and what books are deemed important and why, it’s important to note that different things are important for different reasons. Jackson Pollock is famous not because he did something hard but because he did something first and he did it in a particular context. William Dean Howells wrote the most awful, boring books on the face of the earth, but what he was doing was revolutionary at the time, and that’s why it’s a “classic.” There are so many Salingeresque books out there right now that it’s sometimes easy to forget that when Salinger did it he was saying new things in new ways.

  Phew.

• 29. Meepers  |  May 4th, 2007 at 3:43 pm

  Moist AND Wetness are BAD and prohibited from any of my day-to-day conversations.

  Catcher in the Rye: If only Holden wasn’t such a wanker. Didn’t LOVE it or hate it to be honest.
  Lolita: Bah. Also thanks for the reminder of ‘brown rose”.

• 30. jonniker  |  May 4th, 2007 at 5:22 pm

  Leah: Yes, yes! That’s exactly what I was saying above (like, a million comments ago). Classic anything is often made classic because of the fact that they were a pioneer of *any* sort – art, music, literature. Yes.

  My modern fiction comment was commenting on the whole different flavor thing, and for some reason I remembered that classics were your thing (your vanilla, if you will) vs. modern fiction, not a value judgment. But I think you know that, because I’m never antagonistic about anything, much less BOOKS, which are magical. Heh.

  Not that anyone asked, but I have two favorite books, one modern, one old. I could read Alice Hoffman’s The River King every day until I die, alternated with The House of Mirth. I *love* Lily Bart. LOVE.

• 31. Aim  |  May 4th, 2007 at 7:45 pm

  What Leah said: “Catcher” is a classic because it was the first popular book even remotely like it. It begat an entire genre of literature. Whether or not you feel that genre was/is worthy of admiration or imitation is something else again. I agree that Holden Caulfield is one of the most insufferable protagonists to ever slouch across the printed page, but “Catcher” is important in the same way that Pollack’s drip paintings and “The Rite of Spring” are important. We take that stuff for granted now, but at the time it was revo-freakin’-lutionary, and you gotta give it up for people like Salinger and Pollack and Stravinsky (AND Nabokov) for doing it first.

  And I have to agree with Leah about “classics-haters,” not that I’m pointing fingers. As someone who gets a literary chubby for all thing 19th-century and British, I’ve been dealing for many years with people who turn up their noses at my favorite books because they don’t like the “classic” thang. The human species has been writing stuff for a very long time now, and “classic” has a wide variety of meanings. My feeling is that if lots & lots of people way smarter than me have found something valuable in a work of art, I should at least check it out before I dismiss it. Whether or not the subject matter of “Lolita” completely skeeves you, you can’t help but hold your breath when presented with his unbelievable command of the English language (which wasn’t even his first language, btw). (Again, I’m with Leah here — my favorite writers are all about language: Updike, Austen, Nabokov, Wilde, Shaw, McCarthy, Trollope.)

  Oh, Lily Bart. Oh, Ms. Wharton… Yes. J, how do you like Henry James? And how do we feel about Dickens? I recently read “Great Expectations” for the first time — my first Dickens. Considering my slavering adoration of Austen & Trollope, it’s downright weird I’d never read any before that, but then, life is weird. Currently wallowing in “Bleak House” and loving every sentence. Oh, so wonderful.

• 32. jonniker  |  May 4th, 2007 at 8:16 pm

  Amy: I love Dickens. HOWEVER, for me, his books are less about language than they are about style, plot and a strange sort of rollicking good time, even when things are at their darkest. He knows how to tell a story, but I find his sentence structure and run-ons so insufferably long and tedious at times that I really have to work to stay focused. So while I’d like to say it’s all about language for me, it’s not. He’s a storyteller, and a brilliant one at that. For some reason, his books are just pure happiness to me, because he writes with such a beautifully light touch (again, to my mind’s um, reader. Or whatever.) David Copperfield is my favorite, because it’s so beautifully jolly, even when things are bleak. Please PLEASE pick it up. It’s just a joy to read, honestly.

  With regards to the perceived classic-hating, it doesn’t bother me at all. I appreciate that people know themselves, and what they like, and hey, reading of *any* kind is good, unless Fabio is on the cover.

  I think everyone reads differently, for different things. I don’t think disliking classics is the worst thing in the world – just like there are people who enjoy all types of art, music and food, there are people who read purely for pleasure. There are art lovers that would vomit on my shoes if they realized that most museums make me want to cry with boredom. It’s not that I’m not smart or deliberately being ignorant: I’m just not a visual person, and I never have been. The most stunning works of art leave me cold, because it’s just not how my mind’s eye appreciates beauty. Books and music do it for me much more than art, and I’d imagine that many of the things that I adore in music and books would leave Art People pining for a Vermeer. The extent of my art appreciation is that of pretty colors, or maybe a nifty print at Target, and beyond that, part of me wants to screech that it’s all “crap” because it holds no meaning for me. It’s just not that interesting to me, because it’s not how I appreciate the world. (Commence stoning at any time)

  And somewhat separately, the vast majority of classics are *not* for vicarious escapist frothy fun. So if you’re a busy mom who just wants to escape to another world in the five minutes each day you have free, I get why a classic would be completely unappealing and almost hateful. Because one could hardly argue that you can just leave Lolita in the bathroom magazine basket, and pick it up for a passing five minutes while you pee, and maybe, by God, you just don’t have TIME to deal with anything else, so you read other things, because that’s what does it for you with what you have. I get that entirely.

  Frankly, I’m just happy that people are reading. I thoroughly appreciate both literary and non-literary works of fiction, modern or otherwise, and sweet Jesus knows I love me some chick lit on occasion, because it’s fast, it’s comfortable, and it’s accessible. Generally speaking, this is also the approach I take with my writing, both here and other places. There’s something to be said for comfort reading, and sometimes it’s all people are interested in or have time for, and I’m good with that.

• 33. jonniker  |  May 4th, 2007 at 8:25 pm

  Also, Vague? The idea of Lolita as a detective story rings completely hollow for me. Even in my distaste, I could see a hundred other interpretations before I could see that one. Honestly. I’m interested in this perspective, if only out of curiosity, because other than the face-value detective story, I fail to see the perspective that gets you there.

• 34. Beth  |  May 4th, 2007 at 8:42 pm

  I have an English degree (like about fifty kabillion people, of course), but all I can think of when I think of Nabokov is Sting, and Lolita says Amy Fisher to me. I probably should have done more homework when I was in college. ;^)

• 35. Mauigirl52  |  May 4th, 2007 at 8:54 pm

  Just discovered I’d missed not one, but THREE Jonniker posts; I’m all caught up now! Interesting about Lolita; I’ve never read it and now that you’ve reviewed it for us, I don’t think it’s up my alley. I thank you for sparing me the trouble of reading it someday out of guilt for having missed yet another classic book.

  Speaking of books which everyone says are classics, I have never been able to get into Kerouac’s “On the Road.” I tried, I really did. But it left me cold.

• 36. Aim  |  May 5th, 2007 at 9:06 am

  LMAO at the idea of “Lolita” sitting on top of bathroom magazine pile, along with the L.L. Bean catalog and three-month-old issue of “People.”

  And there’s a whole different topic — that reading-in-the-bathroom thing. For me, my bathroom time (at least that specific type of bathroom time) is not a leisure activity. I’m all about efficiency there — get in, get it done, get out. AAMOF, the less time I spend doing that, the better I feel about it. Is it just me??

• 37. Dana  |  May 5th, 2007 at 9:54 am

  “Lolita” also grossed me out. It’s well-written blah, blah but, as you said, BROWN ROSE. (Gives a whole new meaning to “brown noser” and ohmygawd I’m stopping now.) Nabokov was going for a certain punch and he got it.

  I hated “wetness” until Zoolander: “Moisture is the essence of wetness.” Then it redeemed itself. But then you brought up Lolita, J!

  Also agree re: classics. Many are because they were the first of their kind; they pioneered a formula which many writers have since exploited to the point of cliché.

• 38. Gentry  |  May 5th, 2007 at 2:45 pm

  Oh AIM, you beat me to the punch. I can’t read any Nabokov without throwing it down after three paragraphs and gouging out my own eyes in self hatrid because this man writes better in his non-natal language than I ever could.

  And I don’t think Lolita was written to be “liked.” It’s 100% icky and the only redeeming quality is the prose and story arc. I lump it in the same category as Joyce’s Ulysses. No one likes that one either. It’s a throughly unenjoyable book (well, except for the first and last chapters). But at the end of the day, don’t you feel better for having read it?

  Although I think I’m the only one (besides Joyce and his editors) who did read it. And that was only because I had to or they wouldn’t give me my masters.

  Also, I think you have to be slightly insane to like Catcher. (Which is why I loved it *and* identified with Holden).

  Having said that, Crime and Punishment is my all-time fave because I so identify with Rodya Roskalnikov.

  (And Miss Havisham, too, come to think of it. But I think Dickens is boring to read, but great once it’s under the belt).

  Enough of this hoity toity talk. I’m going to go flip through French Elle.

• 39. Leah  |  May 6th, 2007 at 12:37 pm

  Dickens? No thanks. Get it, don’t care for it. There’s something cheap, for me, in knowing exactly who a character is the second I read what his name is. That, to me, smacks of gimmickery, and I don’t like it. At least not in Dickens.

  I liked what you said about the classics not being typical escapist books for typically busy people. Considering that I spend eight hours a day being paid to read contemporary lit and serious modern nonfiction, it makes sense that my comfort reading would tend toward the overwrought and old-timey end of the spectrum.

• 40. SueB  |  May 7th, 2007 at 8:08 am

  My anti-classics stance is more of a gut reaction to being told what to do, rather than a hatred for the actual works themselves. I must admit that when I do pick up one of the so-called classics, I often find myself enjoying it and thinking “Oh! Duh! THIS is why it is a classic.”

  My real joy, however, comes in finding books that I have never heard of and that are really great. The surprise factor is so wonderful. Miguel Street by VS Naipaul was one of those.

• 41. Heather B.  |  May 7th, 2007 at 8:24 am

  Would you mind it terribly if I started using “McFuckyou” on a regular basis? I promise to credit you for it.

• 42. Heather B.  |  May 7th, 2007 at 8:24 am

  P.S. I’m listening to Chocolate now. LOVE that song.

• 43. H  |  May 7th, 2007 at 12:12 pm

  “Intellectual snobbery makes me want to poke my eyes out as much as ignorance does.”

  AMEN!

• 44. Bianca  |  May 7th, 2007 at 10:05 pm

  I have to admit I loved Lolita, and it is because of the beautiful writing for me, and also the fact that somehow, for me at least, Nabokov managed to take a pedophile and make him pitiable to some degree instead of just loathsome.

  I tried to pass it on to my grandmother, tho, and she hated it.

• 45. Top Fashion Tips&hellip  |  November 14th, 2007 at 7:45 pm

  Top Fashion Tips

  I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting

• 46. Jonniker. » Comfort&hellip  |  November 26th, 2007 at 8:05 pm

  [...] Don’t get me wrong — I love literature. I adore many classics. (No, I don’t love Lolita.) But there are some modern writers for whom this style is natural (Margarat Atwood, Salman Rushdie … hell, even Michael Chabon), and there are some for whom it appears contrived out of some sort of insecurity or desire to prove to the world that they are smart. Smarter than you, in fact. Booker Prize-smart, and do you want to make something of it? And it’s so unnecessary, you know? If it doesn’t fit you, write in a way that does. I’m quite certain that no one would consider Carl Hiaasen to be great literature, and yet there are moments of hilarious brilliance on nearly every page of the very first novel of his I picked up. (Skin Tight, if you’re interested. It was a TwoBusy recommendation, and a good one at that. Yes, yes, it’s frothy and fluffy and it’s basically a murder mystery, but it’s very smartly written and illustrates my point nicely.) [...]

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