It makes me feel small and little on the inside, and kindles those sensations of self-doubt and social anxiety. It’s like hearing other people you know talk shit about your best friend. Noteably, these are junior high emotions.
Net-travelling today, I started with the Publisher’s Weekly Week Ahead podcast because they briefly mention Saladin Ahmed’s book. Next, I find this Genreville blog site, and from there, they reference many of these types of micro-analytical book bloggers–> which I read for a while and then sadly got up and made myself a sad chicken sandwich, and somewhere between the sad tomato and the sad mustard, I reminded myself that I am an adult. Sad-Sacks that I am.
I understand that there is a time and a place for the ultra-literary picking-apart, over analysis of books, but I hate reading them.
I am a very happy person respecting your reading tastes. I like to hear about peoples’ experiences reading outside their comfort zone, and that’s about as intellectual as I like to get on that subject, thank you very much.
When I read these story-picker-aparter posts I find my shoulders falling in, my head drooping, and if I were in a room of people, I would be That Mute Glowering Girl.
Reading gives me joy and escape, and intellectual and personal growth. I like to learn about what I’m reading, where it fits in the timeline of literature and history, about the author, about where this book fits in an anthropological and sociological sense of place. I mean, I’m not stoopid, thank you.
When I visit these other sites (I do it occasionally just to remind myself), I wonder “Do you like ANYTHING you read? Why read at all if you hate every string of words ever printed? Why do you do something that makes you so miserable?”
Today’s adventure into Crit-Land took me to a many-multi-part pick apart of both the Chronicles of Narnia and the Twilight saga.
Even though Twilight wasn’t my personal schtick, my argument is: how many hundreds of thousands of gals now call themselves voracious readers as a result of these books? Can you really argue with that?
The Chronicles of Narnia were my first fantasy books. My dad gave them to me, like little candies on the path to literacy, one at a time. They allowed me to escape to an imaginary place during a childhood of watching my dad die from a disease that couldn’t be cured. I mean, COME ON! now you’re telling me that I am too stupid to have realized, as an 8-year-old, that these other 8-year-olds tromping through an imaginary forest had very poor time-management and leadership skills? I re-read these again recently, and like Kat’s Catcher in the Rye thoughts, the experience, emotions and meta-reading of these books are VERY DIFFERENT as an adult 20+ years later. Hey all you dumb little kids, did you pick up on these minor plot inconsistencies or subtle metaphors?
And then, this same blog has an extremely popular post with statistics showing how women authors are shunned by the industry. Ok, maybe, but I find it really hard to not dismiss that entire argument when they pick apart–sentence by sentence–really!– one of the Most Bestselling Fantasy Books to Women Under 25 (my assumption there), movie notwithstanding. Ooohhh…now I’m really mad.
My point in summation: let’s pretend that I’m a 14 year old girl reading her first fantasy book ever, and I find that I really like it and I head out looking for more. Then I find these kinds of micro-pick-apart articles that suggest to me that I should have been smart enough to know that I shouldn’t have liked Twilight. End.
Please. Enough.
Emergency Book Giveaway.
Complete boxed set of the Chronicles of Narnia. Comment on THIS POST, all commenteers will be piled in a bin and one will be drawn on Monday at noon.
But the discussion–Now that you know my opinion, WHAT SAY YOU?
