Seven things

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Magnificent Octopus has tagged me with seven bookish questions:

1. What book (a classic) do you hate?
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy). You know, it's really rather unfair of me, too, I'll freely admit that. I read the book for a graduate course in Victorian literature at Temple University. Spring semester 1988, I think. Class met in the early evening at one of the satellite campuses. A lot of eager English lit types, the sort who turn in single-spaced papers with quarter-inch margins in order to say all they feel compelled to say while remaining within the professor's strict weekly two-page response requirement.

The week we were to discuss Tess, he opened as always, with a leading question about our response to the novel. For whatever reason, the class was silent, almost guiltily so. Didn't they read it? I wondered. He asked again. The absence of pseudo-erudition became most uncomfortable. We can sit here all night, people, the professor sighed.

Well, I offered with a light laugh and a glance around the room, that Angel is rather a slow one, eh? Who knew he'd be such a pill?

I was being a smartass. The lone journalism major among this set of English prof wannabes, I turned in papers according to conventional standards -- double-spaced, one-inch margins -- and I actually read the books. Every book. Every page. Of course I realized that Angel was a creature of the conventions and limitations of his time, but wasn't it fun to call him out on his double standards from the relative comfort and social tolerance of the late 1980s?

I guess not.

The professor spent the next two hours using my remark to demonstrate how utterly "some people" missed the point of the novel, how "limited" readers are when they can only frame their responses from their own experience, and so on. And my classmates? Who hadn't even read the feckin' novel? What a bunch of sycophants they turned out to be: Oh, yes, professor. Some people. So limited. How foolish.

They had nothing to say about Tess or Angel or Victorian mores. No, better to talk about a reader's flippant comment than the actual text, especially if you haven't read said text. I remember it all as if it happened last night.

I hate Tess of the d'Urbervilles because isn't it much more acceptable to say you hate a book than to say you hate a person?

2. To what extent do you judge people by what they read?
Where once I judged -- sharply! -- what people read, now I am often just so grateful to see that people read at all.

3. What television series would you recommend as the literariest?
"LOST" comes to mind simply because of the number of books referenced, but if by "literariest" you mean "like a good book," then I recommend both the Wallander series featuring Kenneth Branagh and the Sherlock Holmes series featuring Jeremy Brett.

4. Describe your ideal home library. 
Mine.  


5. Books or sex? 
Both, of course.

6. How do you decide what to read next?
The book chooses me. Oh, I can acquire and stack and list and plan and organize and commit, but the book chooses me.

7. How much do you talk about books in real life (outside of the blogging community)?
More than most readers have an opportunity to do, I suppose, since I am steering two readers through high school, but less than I would like. In a perfect world, it is what I do all day long: Read. Talk about what I'm reading, what others are reading. Read about what I'm reading, what others are reading. Write, often about reading. Read some more. Sleep.

Pages Turned, Girl Detective, Semicolon, would you folks like to answer the same seven questions?

1. What book (a classic?) do you hate?
2. To what extent do you judge people by what they read?
3. What television series would you recommend as the literariest?
4. Describe your ideal home library.
5. Books or sex?
6. How do you decide what to read next?
7. How much do you talk about books in real life (outside of the blogging community)?