OT : This week's question for the literati

In an effort to see what all the fuss is about I've recently been reading books
from the top 21 in the Big Read.

I read "Birdsong" last week and finished "To kill a mockingbird" last night.

Now, is it just me or is there absolutely nothing special about either of those
books?

"Birdsong" was quite well written, but I found I had absolutely no emotional
involvement in it. I just couldn't bring myself to give a toss what happened
to any of the central characters.

"To kill a mockingbird" was just, well, dull. Lisa (SWMBO) raves about it and
is voting it as her favourite book ever, whereas I found myself struggling to
work up the motivation to pick it up.

I can't decide if it's just me - I haven't read much fiction in the past couple
of years and I was wondering if I'd completely lost interest in it. The only
counter-example I have is that I read Michael Frayn's wonderful "Headlong"
earlier this year and enjoyed every single page of it.

So, anybody care to stand up for "Birdsong" or TKAMB? Tell me I've missed the
point, or something?

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I'm with you on this one. Saw Ruby Wax practically foaming at the gash over
"Catcher in the rye" last week. When I read that I thought of a selfish brat
who goes to the big city and gets a richly-deserved kicking...

 

andrewr wrote

Not read the first. Read the second and all it did was confirm my
opinion that it would be a hit among middle class wimmin, which it was
god knows how many years ago. It had such an impact on me that for the
life of me I cannot remember anything about it other than I do recall
reading a much thumbed paperback of that title.

 

It's nice to hear that someone else still remembers how to read literature.

[snip]

The point is all about racial hatred. The Radleys (esp. Boo) never did
anyone any harm and yet were persecuted (as in real life [tm]) because of
their race. I think the book was relatively ground braking in its day,
because the whole racist culture was taboo. However the topic has now been
done so many times (in books and other media) that it's all become a bit
passé.

I think critics jump on the "it's great" bandwagon because others do,
without thinking what the story means to them personally and perhaps
assessing it differently. That said, not all books should just be taken at
face value and read as 'just a story'; they are often metaphors for real
life and hence more thought provoking. Animal Farm is the obvious example
of this sort of novel.

 

Indeed, "Cather in the rye" is another one that makes my all-time list of books
that I've read

If it wasn't for "1984" and "Catch-22"[1] I'd dismiss the whole list as being a
waste of space.

[1] Well, from the ones I've read, anyway.

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I had to read TKAMB in school - therefore I hate it.

Birdsong I have read, but just like you I couldn't really get into it - in
fact I found it quite boring.

 

Um, I thought there were quite a few avid readers on the group.

Yes, I got that bit. I think it sunk in about the third time the author lept
out of the book, beat me round the head with a literary bit of 4x2 and
screamed, "It's about racial hatred, which is bad!".

<fx : Takes notes>

Will we get questions about this in our 'O' level exam?

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Mort (Pratchett, and number 65) is a very entertaining read, and one of the
best Discworld novels in my opinion. However, The Colour Of Magic (the
first Discworld novel) should NOT be in the list as it was, quite frankly,
boring. It would only be voted for by people who picked up the Discworld
series because of word-of-mouth, read the first book and decided it was
quite funny but stopped reading at that point.

I can't help but feel that some books are only in the list because it's the
/only/ book that the said person has actually read. There should be a
filter on the list to say that your vote will only be counted if you've read
at least 100 books (aimed at adults). I also notice that a lot of the books
have been made into dramas or films. I wonder how many people only read the
book after they watched the dramatisation (or voted for the book on the
basis of the film).

The most enjoyable series of books I have read are The Amtrak Wars by
Patrick Tilley, The World of Tiers by Philip Jose Farmer and although a
written as a saga aimed at late teenage children, the Dark Materials trilogy
by Philip Pullman. None of these books try to be anything other than a damn
good read, and they succeed in spades.

 

After a while it started making me laugh, because it put me in mind of a rant
by my O level history teacher.

He was complaining about new marking methods and an essay that had been written
in response to a question about, "Describe a typical day in the life of a
factory boy".

He had deemed this essay worth about 3/20, but the person who had marked it had
given the author a point every time he mentioned his, "dripping sandwiches".

I kind of felt that Faulk's was going for the same effect with lice, becaue
they got so many mentions. There's only so many times you can say to yourself,
"So, they had lice in WWI, eh? That's terrible." before it starts to become
funny.

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Slider wrote:
[snip]
Bad form I know, but

^ Sorry ;-)

 

Fair enough, sadly this isn't the case on the Internet in general.

What's an 'O' level[1]?


[1] Yes that's right, I'm a member of the small "under 30" group of UKRMers.

 

I'd agree with you there, "Mort" is my favourite of the Discworld series and
COM was too early for the series to have gained its identity.

However, the fact that TPs fan base have 30-40 books to spread their votes
over, compared to say J K Rowlings 4 (at the time of voting) makes it a bit
unfair, but does show what a huge following "Mort" must have to make it to the
list.

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Bloody hell. Someone else who has read them. Shame Tilley started to
run out of ideas and brought the series to a rather abrupt halt.

 

Well, we're obvioulsy in the grey area between "good" and "like".

I like both books. I thought the first, pre-war section of Birdsong
was an excellent evocation of a love affair. The rest was less good,
but I still enjoyed it.

TKaMB is obviously much older, and in some senses has to be read with
a view as to how it must have seemed when published. But I still
think it's a good evocation of how children become aware of issues in
the adult world.

 

I reserve my bile for the "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall", (1983 'O' Eng.
Lit. AEB), for that very reason.

Although it did make laudenaum sound kinda crazy. However I did like
W.H. Davies – "Diary of a Supertramp" (same year, same paper)

 

<SNIP, "Birdsong" and "To Kill a Mockingbird"

I prefered the war sections, I found the leap from polite society to hot
monkey-love too sudden and too unbelievable in the first section. However, I
bow to your greater experience of such things.

Bits of it were good, I especially enjoyed Scout's epiphany at the end, when
she finally stands in Boo Radley's shoes, but the rest of the book feels as dry
and as dusty as the town it describes.

It was well themed, but I found those themes hammered home a little too hard in
places.

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Bearing in mind that I absolutely loathed Catcher In The Rye, I rented a
DVD of Igby Goes Down last weekend, which is about a rich kid who goes to
the city, shags about a bit and gets a kicking.

Surprise surprise, I absolutely loathed it. Not a bad soundtrack, though.

Latest reads: Barry Trotter and the Unnecessary Sequel (not too bad really)
and London Orbital (inspired by Drummond and Gimpo in '45')

I thought TKAMB was wank as well, but I last read it for GCSE English and
the only thing I enjoyed about anything from that course was Jenny Agutter
starkers when we watched Walkabout.

 

Nonsense. Mort is funny for a bit, but Pyramids is the _only_ Discworld
book that remains truly funny after 10 years.

He's one of the most overrated writers alive today, though I thought
differently when I was a teenager.

 

I'll elbow my way in to agree with you there, oggers. Pyramids is all
the more charming for treading its own path, as it were and not being
just another rehash. I did/do like Guards Guards too, mind.

Indeed - although I wasn't a teenager when his books first appeared.

 

I think it's you.

Well I found it gripping to be honest, quite compulsive reading and I
found it hard to put the book down.

You should have read it when you were in your early teens, I suspect it
made a lot more sense then.