I don't think that you ought to read everything on this list and nor do I think that you should have read them already; I hope that you haven't, in fact... If, as a result of these recommendations, someone sets off on a reading journey that he or she wouldn't normally have taken, and that journey ends in the sort of blissful, allconsuming absorption we all used to feel closer to the beginning of our reading lives, then I'll be happy.That's so refreshing to hear after a long spate of "must" lists - 100 Classics You MUST Read, etc. I feel like the last 5 years have been all about books i MUST read, albums I MUST hear, sites I MUST see. I'm all for recommendations, but isn't there still room left for individual, independent discovery along a path no one has yet laid out? MUST we plan everyone's route through the entire world?
Just the title tells me the entire thesis, and I can supply my own examples. I'll take, as example, Guns, Germs, and Steel, which I've never read: Western Europeans were the first to develop practical firearms and advanced metallurgy, not to mention having had intense filthy population density that simultaneously inoculated and protected them from disease. As they met other ethnographic groups, they invariably had superior weaponry or technology, or that group was susceptible to some disease the Europeans had--which, the author is keen to point out, is mere happenstance and does not indicate any inherent Europen racial superiority. I paid attention in history class, I read wikipedia, I can think of about a dozen examples off the top of my head and could come up with a thousand if given a week.A fine example of a shallow, casual understanding of a subject successfully blocking out a deeper, more nuanced understanding of said subject.
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This is problematic for several reason. The first is that, no, I won't like it, and I don't want to borrow it, but I have to borrow it now because if I don't you'll think I'm either ungrateful or condescending or both. So now I've got this stupid book I already hate, which raises the second problem: your expectation that I am going to read it and then talk with you about it. "I haven't got 'round to it yet," doesn't work indefinitely, and “I’ve only flicked through it” raises the same issues as problem one (i.e. ungrateful and condescending). So you read the fucking thing and, yes, it’s as vile as you imagined it would be, but do you go and tell this person, this generous and considerate soul who believes they are doing you a favour by lending you this ridiculous piece of excrement? No, of course you don’t: you smile, you swallow, and you choke out “Yes, it was actually rather interesting, but not really my cup of tea,” which is basically you admitting to them that “I am an asshole.” So, circuitously, what has occurred is that you have dedicated several hours of your lifetime ration of tolerance and understanding to an enterprise that has resulted in nothing more than yet another person considering you a prick.
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:06 PM on March 1, 2009 [37 favorites]