That's it! I've had enough!

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Because I have no patience with anything at all, I often become tired of memes and sayings and trends long before anyone else. I am now more tired of people bitching about the Da Vinci Code than I am of people telling me to read it or of telly programmes and magazine articles devoted to it. I find it easy to ignore the telly programmes and the magazine articles, but it's hard to switch off a conversation and people really don't like it when you say "I'd really rather not hear about how much you didn't like the Da Vinci Code for the millionth time if it's all the same to you". The same thing happened with Bryan Adams' song "Everything I do, I do it for you". Terrible song, but hearing people complain about it rapidly became even worse.

Er, that's it. Oh wait, a book related question. Okay, what books or authors will you never read or have you already read that you are tired of people recommending to you or trashing and why?

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 11 August 2005 07:55 (twenty years ago)

David Foster Wallace and Chuck Palanihookyookyook. Both praising and bashing.

― as it clung to her thigh I started to cry (pr00de), Thursday, 11 August 2005 08:05 (twenty years ago)

I should point out as well that I'm not saying that people shouldn't talk about whatever the hell they like, just that, you know, I don't have to like it.

Why those two, Pr00de? Just don't wanna?

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 11 August 2005 08:07 (twenty years ago)

Oh, they're just two I'm sick of hearing about either way, that's all. I really haven't read enough of them to form much of an opinion of my own.

― as it clung to her thigh I started to cry (pr00de), Thursday, 11 August 2005 08:08 (twenty years ago)

I could go for some time without hearing another argument (pro or con) about Jonathan Safran Foer or Dave Eggers.

I think any time an author develops camps of people who take sides and go on and on about them in blogs, magazines, etc., then it means that no one is reading them honestly and free-mindedly anymore; authors become more like celebrities than writers, and their supporters/detractors become more like trend followers than readers.

Then again, I certainly go on and on about Murakami and Pelevin every chance I get, and my celeb-like crush on David Mitchell would probably raise a few eyebrows. (Author crushes *definitely* taint reader perception.) So maybe the above just applies to the authors that don't wow me...

― zan, Thursday, 11 August 2005 17:31 (twenty years ago)

James Fucking Joyce. Shut. The Fuck. Up!

― SRH (Skrik), Thursday, 11 August 2005 17:46 (twenty years ago)

You are a dick.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 11 August 2005 19:13 (twenty years ago)

No wait, newcomers might not realise that that was a joke. I'm sorry, SRH. That was a joke.

If you think you get an earful of Joyce, you should try working in a bookshop in Dublin.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 11 August 2005 19:14 (twenty years ago)

Maybe this is a sore topic, but haven't you at least tried some Joyce, SRH, before deciding that you can't stand it?
Me, I'm a snob, and I don't care. There are a million popular fiction authors that I'll never read, and dozens of midfdlebrow bestsellers that I get less likely to read every time they're mentioned. But you can't read them all anyway, so even an absurd an unfair prejudice isn't really going to reduce the number of great books available...

― Ray (Ray), Thursday, 11 August 2005 20:46 (twenty years ago)

I like Joyce!

I'm tired of people bitching about JRR Tolkien as if there's something self-evidently bad about his writing. There isn't! The Lord of the Rings is a good book, even if little kids love it. Loosen up.

― Nobodaddy, Friday, 12 August 2005 00:19 (twenty years ago)

Maybe this is a sore topic, but haven't you at least tried some Joyce, SRH, before deciding that you can't stand it?

Objection! Badgering the witness!

I believe SRH has made these feelings known before, on another thread, which was about Joyce.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Friday, 12 August 2005 06:23 (twenty years ago)

I'm too lazy to look it up. I'm just wondering if SRH read a bit of Joyce and hated it, or has taken a dislike to Joyce based on Joyceans and the Ulysses industry. Because the second position is kind of more interesting.

― Ray (Ray), Friday, 12 August 2005 07:46 (twenty years ago)

I have read Joyce. The Dubliners (which I enjoyed), Ulysses (which I could work at enjoying, but why?), and the first page of Finegans Wake (which is bankrupt as literature). I have tried.

I'm just a dick.

― SRH (Skrik), Friday, 12 August 2005 08:13 (twenty years ago)

That's fair enough. Reading accentmonkey's original post I seized on the "books or authors will you never read" bit rather than the "already read" bit.

― Ray (Ray), Friday, 12 August 2005 09:18 (twenty years ago)

stanislaus on FW: "the witless wandering of literature before its final extinction". (not that he's right.)

my entry for this is probably something like "people too lazy to read tolkien but who slag him off based on the assumption that the movies have improved him". (not that they're wrong.)

― tom west (thomp), Friday, 12 August 2005 13:17 (twenty years ago)

SRH are you mad with the people who celebrate him or those who diss him? or both?

― tom west (thomp), Friday, 12 August 2005 13:20 (twenty years ago)

Wasn't the guy in "A Painful Case" supposedly based on Stanislaus?

― k/l (Ken L), Friday, 12 August 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

I'm not mad, I'm just vocal.

― SRH (Skrik), Saturday, 13 August 2005 11:41 (twenty years ago)

I will never read Barbara Cartland. I will (probably) never read Louis L'Amour. I'll probably never read the Bronte Sisters. Or Salmon Rushdie. Hmmm. Time is short. Life is short.

― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Monday, 15 August 2005 01:32 (twenty years ago)

You should read the Brontës, however.

― SRH (Skrik), Monday, 15 August 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

Then you will welcome sweet death.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 15 August 2005 15:39 (twenty years ago)

I know I should. I should read Beowulf, too, and Dante's Inferno, but I probably won't. The force that through the green fuse drives the flower, you know, the dark deniers, and all of that....

― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 01:28 (twenty years ago)

I'm past tired of the fact that the reaction of most people I know to the mention of Harry Potter is to say "Oh, you _must_ read His Dark Materials".

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 22:12 (twenty years ago)

Everyone else I know was probably tired by last year of me recommending Dog Nighttime thingy, and ditto five years ago for No Logo.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 22:13 (twenty years ago)

x post

My reaction to the mention of Harry Potter is to say "Oh, you must read a grown-up book".

― I Ain't No Addict, Whoever Heard of a Junkie as Old as Me? (noodle vague), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 00:14 (twenty years ago)

I should read Beowulf, too, and Dante's Inferno

Beowulf's short, you could blow through it pretty fast, depending on your translation. The Inferno is quite good, too, and a pretty fast read, as I remember.

― pr00de descending a staircase (pr00de), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 00:19 (twenty years ago)

My reaction to mention of Harry Potter is to say "Read this." title="Don't call me immature".

― Ray (Ray), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 08:56 (twenty years ago)

Sorry, I was being a pissed-up dick when I wrote the above.

― I Ain't No Addict, Whoever Heard of a Junkie as Old as Me? (noodle vague), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 16:41 (twenty years ago)

No no no, the pissed-up dick would be the person in the link.

― Ray (Ray), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 20:09 (twenty years ago)

Yeah I realised that, but I still felt I ought to apologise for being snippy.

― I Ain't No Addict, Whoever Heard of a Junkie as Old as Me? (noodle vague), Wednesday, 17 August 2005 20:58 (twenty years ago)

Newsflash: some of the people ~~who read Harry Potter~~ are assholes.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 18 August 2005 10:57 (twenty years ago)

"no, in ten years time you're gonna regret throwing a hissy fit over a box." is funny

that said i kinda think this person's indignation is justified but it depends on how much of an arse they were to the kid and the mother, i guess

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 18 August 2005 12:05 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

I got so sick of hearing MYSELF trash Dave Eggers that I forbade myself to even think about him. Oddly enough, it worked.

Now I'm in school and there's nothing I'm really sick of hearing people talk about, cos it's all graaaaaate. Whee!!! I have a Greek professor whose Greek mythology course (basically reading Greek lit in translation) actually seems to entertain 18-year-olds. Fuck, do I live a golden life right now. And a couple hundred miles away my country is letting the waters eat my fellow citizens... so eerie how calm and nice it is where I am... I got early up this morning to swim in an old warm echoing gym pool...

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Friday, 9 September 2005 19:48 (twenty years ago)

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