What would an insufferable snob's 12 books be?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

― cuba libre (nathalie), Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Or did we do this one already? If we have, let's talk about the genius that is El-P.

― cuba libre (nathalie), Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Lolita!

― jel --, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

'À la Recherche du Temps Perdu' - in the original French, obv.

― Andrew L, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Cantos

― Tom, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"An intelligent person's guide to Philosophy" by Roger Scruton

― DV, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

oh andrew: À la Recherche du Temps Perdu in PERSIAN, of course

― mark s, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom (if he is French or American anyway).

― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Woops, make that Absalom, Absalom!

― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"Oh, really, how can you read "White Oleander"? That was on Oprah's book club, you know, hideously popularised."

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

'Architectural Philosophy' by Andrew Benjamin, Althone, London, 2000 I assure you it's a great deal more opaque than the title implies. I shall spare you a random quote as I could be accused of rendering the text obscure by de-contextualizing it, but put it this way: any assertion that is not swiftly followed by at least one double negative employing both technical and vernacular uses of key words is a rarity. On the other hand, if snobbery is of the societal rather than intellectual sort, I recommend Debrett's, of course.

― Gordon, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A History of Shit. Its french theory about waste

― anthony, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

put it this way: any assertion that is not swiftly followed by at least one double negative employing both technical and vernacular uses of key words is a rarity

A damning statement indeed.

― Sam, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think the initial trio represent a pretty low grade of literary snob. Andrew L's Proust in French is better. The Beckett trilogy and Finnegan's Wake, I think. Something in the extremely experimental Postmodernist line, probably George Perec's A Void or Life: A User's Manual, or Walter Abish's Alphabetical Africa. The Icelandic Eddas and The Tale Of Genji (I had to come up with some nominations that would exclude me from this category).

That list in the Guardian recently (here it is!) will take some beating in this line, I think.

― Martin Skidmore, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Finnegan's

Tish!

― N., Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Are you kidding? Perec was published in paperback out here. In English of all things!

Martin Fierro in the original Spanish, bound in Argentine cow hide. Now there's a book!

― Queen G (no relation to Brad), Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

120 Days of Sodom, slightly foxed hem hem, bound in buffed girlskin

― mark s, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Depending on which bit of my bookshelf you looked at you could mistake me for being an insufferable snob, which I'm not. I'm sure this is true for many of us.

A more interesting question may be "What 12 books would an insufferable snob not have but should if they want any credibility as a connoisseur of literature?"

I'd put Raymond E Feist's "Magician" at the top of that list.

― toraneko, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hi toraneko!

Celestine Prophecy bound in the skin of a new-age sucker with crystal fragments.

― Queen G (no relation to Brad), Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think you'd do well to consult the Dalkey Archive's backlist here. (I would be all over their 100 titles for $500 special if I could ever spare $500 at a time.)

As for me, I could be quite comfortably snobby if I could manage to steal the Mary Reynolds binding of Raymond Queneau's Pierrot Mon Ami that's at the Art Institute of Chicago.

(This response limited to fiction, obviously.)

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

In answer to the orig question—

Within the Context of No Context - George S. Trow
Hopscotch - Julio Cortazar
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf - Ntozake Shange
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - David Eggers
Cock and Bull - Will Self
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
The Art of War - Lao Tzu
Vox - Nicholson Baker
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(NB I don't think all these books are bad; it's the dodecalectic that's insidious)

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

I believe Tracer Hand already had a thread about this, it was called "Insufferable Cunts" - am I right, Trace?

I just got The Trial in the mail. I expect that's one of these types of books, but it's funny anyhow cos the guy wrote on the little gift note that I should read it because of my workplace.

― Ally, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Baron Corvo 'Hadrian VII'
Ronald Firbank 'Concerning The Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli'
Sir Osbert Sitwell (5th Baronet) 'Noble Essences'
Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of Beaconfield) 'Coningsby'
Pierre Klossowski de Rola ' The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes'
Sir Anthony Powell 'A Dance to the Music of Time'
Laclos 'Les Liasons Dangeureuses'
Rilke 'The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge'
Sei Shonagon 'The Pillowbook'
Lautreamont (Isadore Ducasse) 'Maldoror'
Giacomo Leopardi 'Moral Tales'
Petronius 'The Satyricon' (in original Latin)

― Momus, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ally, snob /= cunt. (Is that how one does it, "/="?) A cunt would probably have the Irvin Welsh book, Filth.

― cuba libre (nathalie), Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm not much of a snob about my books, but I have lots of these. Y'all gotta try harder.

― Josh, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Laclos 'Les Liasons Dangeureuses' > Oh come ON, that's just a silly book about lurve.

― cuba libre (nathalie), Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tracer, your inclusion of Eggers is baffling and criminal: I only barely aspire to be a book snob and already I get sneery about Eggers fans. In fact I'd posit that Eggers is for actual 12-book people (though possibly 12-book people who would like to pretend to be book snobs, which is another category entirely).

A Dance to the Music of Time is great but sadly yes: it's a way of saying "Not only have I read a massive four-volume 3500-page opus, but I've read the one people don't usually read," leading to extra credit point for rival snobs who pull Proust on you ("Actually I found the Powell much better constructed") and for correcting people's pronunciation ("It's "POE-ell, actually").

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Epic Of Gilgamesh . . . in cuneiform.

― Ess Kay, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A Dance to the Music of Time is great

Nitsuh read my mind. I fell asleep on p. 177 of At Lady Molly's ( the "Second Movement") six years ago and never recovered. (Hope that makes me sufferable). I was thinking the Powell and also the Alexandrian Quartet but Tracer wins points for counting to 12.
― felicity, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Fie. Also, I meant "read my mind" in the sense of being responsive to the topic question.

― felicity, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Nizami - Sikandar Nama, e bara
Takakumi Ikoka - On the Carpet of Leaves Illuminated by the Moon
Philipp Blom - The Simmons Papers
Ts'ui Pen - The Garden of Forking Paths
Vorts Viljandi - Without Fear of Wind or Vertigo
Nils Runeberg - Kristus och Judas
Marcel Yarmolinsky - A Vindication of the Cabala
Pierre Menard - Don Quixote
Bertrand Vandervelde - Looks Down in the Gathering Shadow
Silas Haslam - A General History of Labyrinths
Herbert Quain - April March
Calixto Bandera - Around an Empty Grave

― Ess Kay, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Cheat. Four of those are the same book.

― Matt, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That was damned clever, though.

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(Also it ain't just four.)

Ess Kay: Have you read Stanislaw Lem's A Perfect Vacuum? Invented material ahoy.

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I forgot Charles Kinbote, how laz0r of me. (& what was the name of John Shade's biographer?)

nabisco%%: Not yet - I've had "A Perfect Vacuum & "Imaginary Magnitude" recommended, but I haven't chanced across copies of either yet. Worthwhile?

― Ess Kay, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

no one's mentioned Deleuze & Guattari yet - surely an insufferable snob's top 12 would be likely to include A Thousand Plateaus or another one....also, more philosophy. Philosophy students (in a wider sense I don't just mean people doing a paper or degree in it or whatever) are surely more than perhaps any other area likely to be insufferable snobs, and vice versa.?

― haloist, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

the philosophers I know would try to shove that distinction onto the cultural studies students!

― Josh (owner of aforementioned Deleuze), Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Some Euripides, Lucretius,Jorge Luis Borges' Ficciones, and Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet belong on a snob's shelf.

― bryan, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

the philosophers I know would try to shove that distinction onto the cultural studies students!

the philosophy students i know are too proud of being insufferable snobs to do that.

― di, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

obviously pretendas

― Josh, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think that anyone who's done any graduate study work (esp. in the humanities, social sciences, or law) is gonna have shelves of insufferably snobby books. As proof thereof, glance at the following: Law's Empire and Freedom's Law, Ronald Dworkin
The Tempting of America, Robert Bork
... And We Were Not Saved, Derrick Bell
Common Law in the Age of Statutes, Guido Calabresi
The Problematics of Legal and Moral Theory and Overcoming Law, Richard Posner
A Matter of Interpretation, Antonin Scalia

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Josh, the question didn't specify that the snob was snobby about books. Though maybe it was implied (just not to me).

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

well in that case I have no clue at all! do snobs who are not snobs about books even read? (haha behold my snobbery.) your list is on the right track at least.

― Josh, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

not nec. snobs but I submit to you books owned by a pretentious 'alternative' twentysomething (nb I do not condone this word, 'pretentious')

the stranger - camus
no logo - klein (may substitute w/ a frank-related book)
infinite jest - wallace
heartbreaking work - eggers (may substitute w/ a barely read copy of gravity's rainbow or v, or a totally read copy of lot 49, if they followed up on the fat-novel-antecedents recommendations given b/c of wallace, rather than the post-ironic-whatever ones)
cunt - muscio (if female) or nothing (if male)
...

― Josh, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It depends when they bought Mille Plateaux. If it was after reading a Sonic Youth interview, I would say "thumbs down, snob point deducted." ;-)

― cuba libre (nathalie), Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

what do you mean barely read? Gravity's Rainbow's great

― Matt, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Jimmy Corrigan the Smartest Kid in the World.

― Andrew L, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Principia Mathematica!! In the original Boolean translation obv

cult stud snobs read stuff by ME!!

― mark s, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I've got two copies of Shakespeare's complete works. They are both unread by me. I'm not sure why I bought a second copy but I'm sure it's something to do with snobbery - it is second hand and therefore LOOKS like it's been read. Ha ha ha, fooled them all.

Anyway, I did read Anna Karenina, and War and Peace and saw some Checkov plays and I reckon they're all okay - reminiscent of Neighbours and Home and Away only with funny names.

― toraneko, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Culture Industry by Theodore Adorno

― alka seltzer, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If you just throw any book on the floor a few times and open it repeatedly for a little bit it looks like it's been read.

― Ally, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

ot you could just read them , you will have to do that to go to college you stupid cruel bitch

― anthony, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, that was unnecessary.

― Dan Perry, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Cuba, no, "!=" is not equal. "snob /= cunt" would mean "snob = snob / cunt". I'm not sure what that evaluates to.

― Steve.n., Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A good Friday night! HAW HAW HAW HAW.

― Dan Perry, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I am just so hurt and angry at ally right now , and was irrational- sorry.

― anthony, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Although I think the point about the actual reading of books is well taken.

― Ms. S., Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Lashing out irrationally at a joking reply to a joking post about how used books look read = a well made point? Now I know I've seen everything around here.

Anthony: I've said it before and I'll say it again. Please go play hide and go fuck yourself, ok?

― Ally, Thursday, 23 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Although I think the point about the actual reading of books is well taken.

really? I kind of think you'd get a degree easier by reading less books...

― haloist, Thursday, 23 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i have tried to be kind and respectful towards you, but lately you have given me very little reason to. I read the thread that i was no invited to after it was closed down and forced to tears by your random cruelty. Up until that point I didnt really like you but i let you be. Now, Now Its fucking wear you stupid drunk vacous cunt. YOu only got hired for yr tits and you quit to go back to school when the little poor me secretary routine didnt work. Well FUCK YOU BITCH !

― anthony, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Excuse me for interrupting this tedious little bitchfest but i have another off-topic thing to say. In reply to Steve saying

Cuba, no, "!=" is not equal. "snob /= cunt" would mean "snob = snob / cunt". I'm not sure what that evaluates to.

"!=" comes from the C programming language and languages that derive from it (C++, Java, Javascript etc). Other languages (i can't remember which ones; i'm sure they'll come to me when i finish posting this (Smalltalk maybe?)) use "/=" to mean not equal. Others use "<>" "|=" "=/=" "not =" "(not (=" and even the incredibly sensible "is not equal to". Because these boards are not meant to be decoded by a C compiler it is entirely reasonable to write "/=" to mean not equal.

― hamish, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually, you say not equal in smalltalk with ~=. I'm sure there are languages where /= means not equal but seeing as neither of us know what they are, I think it's better to stick to != to avoid confusion.

― Steve.n., Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

/= means not equal to in Haskell.

― RickyT, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

infinte jest owns this thread

― gareth, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No, that would the thread entitled 'What books are really, like, REALLY, better off being used as doorstops'. Blaaaaaaaaaarrrr to Infinite Jest (although it is now annoying me I haven't finished reading it, that along with STUPID Tom Jones - instead I am reading Fermats Last Theorem! Despite it no doubt becoming incomprehensible VERY SOON it was a bestseller NO SNOBS HERE matey).

― Sarah, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The only other big book I can think of is WAR and PEACE also London the Biography but that is good!

― Sarah, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Thanks Ricky. i can sleep now.

― hamish, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hey, psychoboy, check your email - I didn't feel this was the appropriate place for what I wanted to say to you. But I will point out - ASKING YOU NOT TO READ A THREAD THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU REDUCES YOU TO TEARS?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Dude.

Infinite Jest should be burnt, as should everything relating to David Foster Wallace, including his fans. Ugggh. The most insufferable person I've ever had to spend time with was a huuuge David Foster Wallace fan. And by "huuuuge" I mean he probably skimmed through like half of it and then decided to rip off DFW. At least when I read Bret Easton Ellis, I acknowledge it's smug and boring and obsessive and not very good, DFW is like the indie Bret Easton Ellis.

― Ally, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

heh, i think it was probably something that person said that made me try infinite jest! i got bored with it, it is very much one of those books. i got girl with curious hair too, i liked some of that, and some of it was unspeakably irritating (the last story particularly). a triumph of style over content (although that is not an insult in my book)

― gareth, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It's not relevent to this thread, but I've never, ever met a person who only owned 12 books. Even non-readers seem to have at least 50. Odd.

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo, Saturday, 25 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

my freshman year roommate had less than 12. he became an english major.

― Josh, Saturday, 25 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No no no! You're all wrong. These are the 12 books of an insufferable snob. There are no others:

Gene Fowler Schnozzola: Gene Fowler's Story of Jimmy Durante
Rex Stout Murder by the Book
Carl MacDougall Stone Over Water
Randolph Caldecott The Queen of Hearts
Jerry L. Walker (ed.) Favorite Pop Rock Lyrics: Sung by the Beatles, the Supremes, the Monkees, Donovan, the Doors, and Many Others
Robin Wood Arthur Penn
Smash Hits RSVP Book Number One
Thorstein Veblen The Theory of the Leisure Class
Willard Van Orman Quine From a Logical Point of View
Nelson Algren Who Lost an American
Leigh Brackett No Good from a Corpse
Penelope Eckert Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identities in the High School

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 26 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Pfft. No reprint of the original pressing of The Ballad of Reading Gaol by C.3.3? Philistine.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 26 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It was stolen, along with QwestDex Metro Denver A-Z: The Yellow Pages (which I suppose has become too chi chi among pseudosnobs anyway; I'm glad it's gone).

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 26 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Josh, I will prove that I am the insufferable snob by pointing out that your roommate didn't have less than 12, he had fewer than 12.

I am the king snob; no one can defeat me.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 26 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

quine can suck it

― Josh, Sunday, 26 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

eight years pass...

First, I see an insufficient emphasis on the "insufferable" quality of the snobbishness being referenced.

For example, would a Wittgenstein snob be more insufferable than a Quine snob, or vice versa? I would go with Quine, as the lesser known philosophical idol. People who attend state universities are too familiar with Wittgenstein. A fully blossomed Quine snob could outsnob any of Ludwig's numerous accolytes.

Is a Bauhaus snob more insufferable than a Faberge egg snob? I'd go for Bauhaus, as it's aesthetic is the more rarified.

Which raises the simple question in my mind, is an ignorant snob who merely owns for the sake of obvious status more insufferable than a fully expert snob who lords his expertise over the great unwashed? For the pure flaming quality of insufferability I'd choose the latter.

― Aimless, Monday, 5 July 2010 18:26 (fifteen years ago)

I have a lot of forgiveness for real book snobs as reading a dense and difficult book is often an actual accomplishment (unlike being a film snob or music snob, neither of which take the same investment of hours and mental energy). I save my distaste for [the many] book snobs I've met who have never actually read the books + authors that they're snobby about.

― Mordy, Monday, 5 July 2010 18:30 (fifteen years ago)

(Not that you can't invest a lot of time + energy into music or film, but that it's much easier to fake it.)

― Mordy, Monday, 5 July 2010 18:32 (fifteen years ago)

Others use "<>" "|=" "=/=" "not =" "(not (=" and even the incredibly sensible "is not equal to".

What are the last two from?

― Gravel Puzzleworth, Monday, 5 July 2010 18:34 (fifteen years ago)

just read this thread -- wth re Ally + anthony???

― Mordy, Monday, 5 July 2010 18:35 (fifteen years ago)

xp LISP, ex: (not (= 1 1))

― ᶠᶸᶜᵏᵧₒᵤ (LOLK), Monday, 5 July 2010 18:40 (fifteen years ago)

and i think "is not equal to" is applescript

― ᶠᶸᶜᵏᵧₒᵤ (LOLK), Monday, 5 July 2010 18:41 (fifteen years ago)

Excellent work everyone. And lolz I didn't know Powell existed until I was halfway through Proust.

I suspect the truly insufferable London book snobs chat to each other in Cecil court and are furiously negotiating the buying and selling of 1st editions. They don't read 'em, of course.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, 5 July 2010 19:55 (fifteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.