[titania7]

Eric wrote:
This is what I'm always battling ("ranting") against. The propensity of people not to think for themselves, not choosing their own books to read, but slavishly copying the trends, the critics, the gurus. What the Guardian and the NYT "tells" them to read. While I do like to see what is being read in the world (the world, not only London and New York), I try to go my own way.....

Eric,
I have a friend who is a philosopher and we have discussed this very issue: the tendency nowadays for people not to think for themselves. They read books that are recommended to them, have other people's opinions about the books, and generally don't allow themselves the--shall we say luxury?--of thinking. This isn't just about literature, either. In America, at least, we have become an entire nation of conformists. We let celebrities and fashion magazines tell us what to wear and TV talk shows have become the place that people turn to for input on everything from their marriages and dating lives to how to raise their children. In many ways, I believe that laziness is a factor. It's so much easier to go by other people's opinions than to create our own. I recently came up with my own term for what seems to be a growing epidemic--"cerebral sloth." The beauty of individualism has been replaced by the sheer boredom of utter conformity. Why should one read the same books everyone else is reading? I used to get so annoyed with the trend towards reading the books "everyone" reads that I made a habit of reading the LEAST well-known book by an author first rather than his most important work. If I liked the author, I would read his or her famous works after this. If I didn't, I wouldn't re-visit him or her.

Eric wrote:

.....But I must want to read the book, must be driven on to read beyond the first ten pages. I don't want to read through a 500-page novel just because there is pressure from critics, friends, TV, etc., to do so. ("Dostoevsky / Joyce / Mann / Goethe must be good, 'cos everybody says so.")

Eric,
I must feel a book has true merit to finish reading it. To be candid, there are many books I have left unfinished. If someone asks me if a book I'm reading is "any good," my answer is "Of course. It if weren't, I wouldn't still be reading it." Personally, I read because I have to. I need books the way I need water and food. There are times, in fact, that I become so immersed in a book that I actually forget to eat.

And pressure from anyone to read a certain book has a strange affect on me. Usually, I cannot bring myself to read the work, no matter what it is. I respond well to suggestions and recommendations. But pressure? No. In fact, everyone who knows me well knows that the best way to get me NOT to do something is to tell me it's something I have to do (or read, watch, hear, etc).

I don't really care how "important" a writer is. I could think a novel by Raymond Radiguet was every bit as magnificent as one by Dostoevsky. I wouldn't care what anyone thought about it, either.
We should all be entitled to have our own personal tastes in every realm of our lives. And we shouldn't have to argue about or defend our preferences, either.

Titania

PS I read your list of 50 favorite books. I wrote down a few of the names I hadn't heard of, because many of the writers you like (writers I am familiar with) are writers I like, too. Elizabeth Bowen and Katherine Anne Porter, for instance, are two of my favorite short story writers.

"The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity."
~Miguel de Cervantes