Today, I learned The Kenyon Review has a blog. I have a good impression of this literary journal, but still have yet to subscribe. My impression may be unfounded, perhaps being drawn from my good impression of poet Jane Kenyon who doesn’t have anything to do with the college.
Anyway, the KR blogger Liz Lopatto is complaining about books for which she’d like a refund. Among them:
Everything Jane Austen has ever written, but especially Persuasion. I’ve never been fond of Austen’s ridiculous style, and while David Lynn has tried unsuccessfully to convince me that she’s really parodying the characters she writes about, she spends so much loving detail describing every second of their boring lives that I can’t believe him. I threw Persuasion across the room several times when I had to read it for my English comprehensive exercise, but especially when our heroine Anne, who has no flaws except that she might be plain (this changes as the book goes on, however; her beauty blooms again!), discovers Captain Wentworth really does love her. I threw the book and stomped on it when her spurned suitor, her cousin, turns out to be a “villain.” Because our Anne couldn’t possibly break the heart of someone who’s decent–oh, no, she’s too good for that. I understand Austen is considered a classic but I still can’t figure out why.
She doesn’t like Dickens or Moby Dick either. To each his own.
No, I’m not going to type “to each his or her own,” because it’s awkward. English speakers should understand that implication and avoid petty language politics.
Kenyon is also the name of my home town. It was named after the college.
I’d like to find out what books Lopatto likes. I’d avoid them.
Exactly! Amen to that!
Lars: yes, people like that are very useful as reverse recommenders. There’s a certain book/pop culture blogger I read occasionally, who makes me pray “Dear Lord don’t let her read any book of mine that ever gets published, because she will be terminally nasty about the male leads.” The answer usually comes back: “Well, that would mean that you’d successfully constructed the kind of male lead that YOU like, no?”
Hmmm. I couldn’t finish Moby Dick; but on the other hand I really like Jane Austen, except for Mansfield Park. Dickens I’m somewhat ambivalent about.
I couldn’t agree more with “to each his own,” rather than the more awkward, politically correct construction.
As for the scolds who don’t like my dislikes–well, there’s no pleasing everyone. But if Lars and Omie dislike Flannery O’Connor, Peter Taylor, and Graham Greene, they’re missing out on fine fiction.
I’ve been away and feel I missed something. They don’t like Flannery O’Connor, Peter Taylor, and Graham Greene? Lars, is this true? If so, you are tempting me to blog . . .
For my taste, Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby may be the most worthless wastes of paper ever published.
Phil, it’s in reference to “I’d like to find out what books Lopatto likes. I’d avoid them.”
If they dislike or avoid these books solely because I like them, that’s silly. That’s all I meant.