What’s really being argued here, of course, is that old cultural imperative beloved of bluenoses and busybodies: the desire to dictate what people should be reading. For Brottman, the pleasure of reading — the “value” — is real, but it can’t be prescribed or codified. And she’s conscious of how reading enthusiasts make the classics sound like the last thing anyone would turn to for pleasure. What can be done to make the classics seem pleasurable? “Maybe if people come back to them later in life when they have a context to put them in, when they feel a need for this kind of knowledge, when they start wondering what these books are about. I only recently started reading Tolstoy. I tried before, didn’t get it, wasn’t interested. Now, I can handle being immersed in this long novel. I may lose track from time to time, but something else is going on that’s important beneath all those things, something about the idea that I can’t access except by reading it.”
Related:
Dead white females, Good Evening, Senses come alive, More
- Dead white females
Can you remember the last time you curled up under the covers with Marcel Proust’s I n Search of Lost Time ?
- Good Evening
All those Oscar prognosticators, all those Best Picture wagers, and nobody has mentioned, or even noticed, Andrew Wagner’s Starting Out in the Evening .
- Senses come alive
Are Jay-Z’s synapses wired to express supreme confidence?
- Average fairy tale
Once upon a time, there was an ordinary fellow named Horace B. Ferretpooter, who became governor of an actual state, even though he had no qualifications except an inoffensive manner and a large quantity of roadkill stew seasoned with pine cones
- Pressure is on
The execs over at the Portland Press Herald are notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to talking about their newspaper to other media organizations.
- For real change, the chattering classes need to take a fall
The key word of the moment in America is “change.”
- When I'm sixty-four
It’s significant that for this twenty-something reader, the least gripping tales in Elizabeth Strout’s new “novel in stories” are those that deal with teenagers and young adults.
- Legislature moves to protect Maine journalists
“The very fact that the court would grant a motion like this, when there’s no suit pending,” she says. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
- Fade to Black
Ray LaMontagne is a pretty funny guy. But it’s a subtle humor.
- In the mood for Lust
During one of the sex scenes that have earned Ang Lee’s adaptation of Eileen Chang’s short story its notoriety, I had to ask myself: how did that foot get there?
- Fearsome Otto
My one brush with the late Otto Preminger seems like a typical encounter.
- Less
Topics:
Books
, Media, Books, Marcel Proust, More
, Media, Books, Marcel Proust, Gambino Crime Family, Less