Aiculik wrote
Also, reading books makes you seem more educated, cultural, intelligent. Especially if you read "right" books.
Aiculik,
When I was younger I used to care somewhat about whether or not I came across as intelligent, cultured, or what-have-you. At this point, I honestly don't care. Don't get me wrong--if I seem to possess a certain level of erudition and if others consider me to have a good intellect, I take it as a compliment. But what I've noticed, nine times out of ten, is that people perceive other people the way the want to perceive them. Oft-times their opinion about a person has no basis in reality. This is because we judge current and future experiences according to the past. It's a human tendency that I'm becoming more and more aware of. For instance, if a man thinks that all women who are young and attractive are stupid, he will scarcely disregard this opinion even if he meets a woman who is reading
The Brothers Karamazov and is capable of talking brilliantly about its plot, characters, and psychological implications.
I think I know what you mean by "right" books, also. Those are the books people buy to *put on their shelves* but actually never do get around to reading. And, if/when they do read them, often I think they just skim them, maybe read a couple a synopses or reviews so that they can talk half-intelligently about them.
Aiculik wrote:
If a man above forty would confess that after high school he never read any novel, most people would think he's uncultural primitive. If he'd say he reads only manga, they he has some problem. But if he'd say that he reads Dostoyevsky or Proust... well, that sounds much better, doesn't it? That's often also the reason why people go to opera.
Aiculik,
I have met men over forty who
said they liked Dostoevsky, Balzac, and similar authors, yet, amazingly enough, they are rarely able to tell me which of their works they liked best. However, if I were to ask them, for example, which movies they've seen recently that they enjoyed, they will be able to name a long list
.
In regard to the opera....indeed, it is a place people go to see and "be seen." I was never more aware of that than on Tuesday night.
Most of the people were
incredibly snooty. I complimented one lady on her outfit and she looked me as if I had insulted her! And I wasn't exactly wearing a sweatshirt and a pair of blue jeans, either.
Aiculik wrote:
During my study, there were two girls in my study group that always got A for their analysis and interpretations. Oh, they were amazing. You'd think - as everybody else - hey, these really love and appreciate literature! And, as everybody else, you'd be wrong.
All they did, as they told me themselves, was that they learned to find out what they were expected to find out.
It never relly touched them. For them, it was all useless nonsense. Why they studied literature? Because they did like to read, but for them, literature was only entertaninment. Not art.
Aiculik,
You've made a good point. Although I agree that people can learn, to a certain extent, to develop a love for literature, there are some temperaments/natures that will never see books as anything other than something to entertain them during their free hours. Most of the time, these people are incapable of deep emotions and are emotionally on the shallow side.
I, on the other hand, am affected too deeply by books. As a matter of fact, there are certain books I have read that actually had a traumatic impact on me, even though I liked them. Sometimes I wish I had a less sensitive nature, that I could be more indifferent towards things. Yet life without passion has no real purpose. And literature is one of my all-encompassing passions.
By the way, the idea that anyone could see books as "useless nonsense" makes me downright angry.
Titania
"Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm
beyond words."
~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn