It's not you, it's your books...
Mar. 29th, 2008 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenaOkay, I HAD to post a link to this Sunday book review (read StylesSection for fellow haters... you know who you are!) piece about the fraught dating relationships between readers. I have never broken up with someone over books, but I have certainly had my moments. They even mention several of my hotbutton books, notably:
* Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (which is about neither, points to those of you who can identify which brief romance made me read that and Jonathan Livingstone Seagull)
* Fountainhead - a total turn-off now indicating a certain fascist turn of ideology, was, oddly, a turn-on in one of my first grown up love affairs. He even called me 'Dominique Dreamweaver,' which upon reflection, was not necessarily a good thing...
* One author's description of Unbearable Lightness of Being "Uh-oh; trendy, bogus metaphysics, sex involving a bowler hat,’" is spot-on; but also reminds me that I first read the book to please T, along with Somerset Maugham's Razor's Edge. There were no messages for me except that as a female there were extremely limited roles for women in his life, and we would not be allowed to walk first on the path to life or enlightenment. That our bodies were forfeit, either as accessories to ecstasy, or as vessels in which to tie men down; and that our minds would always come second to the bodies in which they were bound.
To be fair, Unbearable Lightness is an extremely political novel bound to its time and place, the nuances of which I was certainly not able to understand at that age, and may not be entirely able to grasp now.
* I would add Kafka to the list, which while a wonderful writer with many virtues I was probably too inexperienced to appreciate at the time, is kind of a mood-killer beneath the mistletoe.
And I'm surprised no one mentions J.D. Salinger. I avoided him for years because of the kind of people who read him. Now that I've finally read Catcher in the Rye I can appreciate what it has to offer, but still remain wary of those boys who sleep with a copy clutched against their chest. (A tragic paean to endless American boyhood, in which any attempt at affection is seen as threat to his frangible masculinity.)
Of course, I can't remember the last time I had a sizzling literary affair, particularly since my taste in men as of late has run, hmmm, how shall we say? surprisingly plebeian. Most of them read in their own way, whether its an addiction to Star Wars novels, James Patterson, or smarmy business texts; but they are not heavy hitters on the literary scene and struggle to understand my own compulsion to reading.
As for myself, I'm generally considered well-read; but I consider myself to be more widely than deeply read, I'm something of a diletante with surprising gaps in knowledge. And my bookshelves at home no longer refelct my interests or current reading with any consistency since I took on a very liquid approach to literature after my move from NYC.
On the other hand there are certain literary gifts that have descended from the hands of men I would rather not admit. Ex gave me Moomins and Doris Lessing. (Who it turns out, he had hardly even read.) There was the friend who first gave me Melville. But those weren't books with any expectations attached. They were given more in the spirit of friendship: "here is a book you might enjoy," than they were as gifts between lovers, "here is a book to help you understand me."
Maureen Dowd (another thing about the times I love to hate) wrote a column several years about about gender inequality in book sharing. I probably posted about it at the time, but I've linked it again. Her central thesis is that in heterosexual relationships its rarer for women to ask men to read books than it is for men to assume women will read their recs. She thinks about this while trying to assemble an A-Z of Me reading list for her latest lackluster lover for Valentine's Day:
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed not only risky, but the height of presumption to expect someone to devote that many hours to fathoming someone else's psyche. What guy would drag himself away from ESPN's "SportsCenter" to read "Sense and Sensibility" or from beer and pizza to devour "Cakes and Ale"?
I think she has a point, but I also might add that she's going about it all wrong in assuming anyone should respond positively to an 'A to Z of Me' approach at intimacy. These things occur over time as people gradually get to know one another. There are no shortcuts to becoming well-read; and there are no shortcuts to intimacy, either. It's something that happens gradually, over time.
Of course, it doesn't hurt to know about a persons likes and dislikes; and I am notorious for overrecommending books in my enthusiasm. I will give someone a huge list of books, or a bagful, rather than more carefully feeding them one at a time and seeing what they like.
I'm also a believer that there is a right time and place for certain books in people's lives and relationships. It's very easy for me to tell with young readers whether it's time for the D'Aulaires Greek Myths or Norse Gods & Giants; or whether they've moved past Narnia to Prydain. But its harder to tell if someone's going to respond better to Coupland or Tolstoy. And when I'm enthusiastic about a book recently read it's difficult not to recommend it to everyone.
Anyway, I write pretty regularly about my reading here. What are you reading, lately? And do you need any recommendations?
* Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (which is about neither, points to those of you who can identify which brief romance made me read that and Jonathan Livingstone Seagull)
* Fountainhead - a total turn-off now indicating a certain fascist turn of ideology, was, oddly, a turn-on in one of my first grown up love affairs. He even called me 'Dominique Dreamweaver,' which upon reflection, was not necessarily a good thing...
* One author's description of Unbearable Lightness of Being "Uh-oh; trendy, bogus metaphysics, sex involving a bowler hat,’" is spot-on; but also reminds me that I first read the book to please T, along with Somerset Maugham's Razor's Edge. There were no messages for me except that as a female there were extremely limited roles for women in his life, and we would not be allowed to walk first on the path to life or enlightenment. That our bodies were forfeit, either as accessories to ecstasy, or as vessels in which to tie men down; and that our minds would always come second to the bodies in which they were bound.
To be fair, Unbearable Lightness is an extremely political novel bound to its time and place, the nuances of which I was certainly not able to understand at that age, and may not be entirely able to grasp now.
* I would add Kafka to the list, which while a wonderful writer with many virtues I was probably too inexperienced to appreciate at the time, is kind of a mood-killer beneath the mistletoe.
And I'm surprised no one mentions J.D. Salinger. I avoided him for years because of the kind of people who read him. Now that I've finally read Catcher in the Rye I can appreciate what it has to offer, but still remain wary of those boys who sleep with a copy clutched against their chest. (A tragic paean to endless American boyhood, in which any attempt at affection is seen as threat to his frangible masculinity.)
Of course, I can't remember the last time I had a sizzling literary affair, particularly since my taste in men as of late has run, hmmm, how shall we say? surprisingly plebeian. Most of them read in their own way, whether its an addiction to Star Wars novels, James Patterson, or smarmy business texts; but they are not heavy hitters on the literary scene and struggle to understand my own compulsion to reading.
As for myself, I'm generally considered well-read; but I consider myself to be more widely than deeply read, I'm something of a diletante with surprising gaps in knowledge. And my bookshelves at home no longer refelct my interests or current reading with any consistency since I took on a very liquid approach to literature after my move from NYC.
On the other hand there are certain literary gifts that have descended from the hands of men I would rather not admit. Ex gave me Moomins and Doris Lessing. (Who it turns out, he had hardly even read.) There was the friend who first gave me Melville. But those weren't books with any expectations attached. They were given more in the spirit of friendship: "here is a book you might enjoy," than they were as gifts between lovers, "here is a book to help you understand me."
Maureen Dowd (another thing about the times I love to hate) wrote a column several years about about gender inequality in book sharing. I probably posted about it at the time, but I've linked it again. Her central thesis is that in heterosexual relationships its rarer for women to ask men to read books than it is for men to assume women will read their recs. She thinks about this while trying to assemble an A-Z of Me reading list for her latest lackluster lover for Valentine's Day:
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed not only risky, but the height of presumption to expect someone to devote that many hours to fathoming someone else's psyche. What guy would drag himself away from ESPN's "SportsCenter" to read "Sense and Sensibility" or from beer and pizza to devour "Cakes and Ale"?
I think she has a point, but I also might add that she's going about it all wrong in assuming anyone should respond positively to an 'A to Z of Me' approach at intimacy. These things occur over time as people gradually get to know one another. There are no shortcuts to becoming well-read; and there are no shortcuts to intimacy, either. It's something that happens gradually, over time.
Of course, it doesn't hurt to know about a persons likes and dislikes; and I am notorious for overrecommending books in my enthusiasm. I will give someone a huge list of books, or a bagful, rather than more carefully feeding them one at a time and seeing what they like.
I'm also a believer that there is a right time and place for certain books in people's lives and relationships. It's very easy for me to tell with young readers whether it's time for the D'Aulaires Greek Myths or Norse Gods & Giants; or whether they've moved past Narnia to Prydain. But its harder to tell if someone's going to respond better to Coupland or Tolstoy. And when I'm enthusiastic about a book recently read it's difficult not to recommend it to everyone.
Anyway, I write pretty regularly about my reading here. What are you reading, lately? And do you need any recommendations?
