...I didn't actually read the link...

May 28, 2009 9:06 PM

It’s only natural that if you wish to present yourself as a well-read person, a certain degree of complete bullshit is required. There’s no shame in lying about what you’ve read. There’s only shame in getting caught. Then you look like a doofus, and an illiterate one at that... How to lie about books.
posted by Artw (73 comments total)

Why lie? If you claim to have read everything from Greek Antiquity until yesterday, everyone will know you are lying. The people who are also lying will know you're lying, you will know you're lying, and the honest people who have given it a go will know you're lying because there's no way in Hell you actually got through all of Kant in the same year and you're only twenty anyway!

Hey, Metafilter! I've never read the complete works of Plato, just some of the dialogues, Poetics, and the Republic. I've read most of Kant's Critique of Pure reason, but I have never touched the others. The Bible? Well, I've read most of it due to a religious upbringing but you've got me on those minor prophets.

Honestly.

Anyone who's actually going to believe that you've read Finnegans Wake five times is not worth impressing.
posted by sonic meat machine at 9:15 PM on May 28

How to Talk ABout Book You Haven't Read is actually a wonderful, hilarious, yet thoughtful exploration of how books are read, how they function in the culture, how they hold a place...really worthwhile.
posted by not that girl at 9:19 PM on May 28 [3 favorites has favorites]

I've only ever met Neil Gaiman at a signing, which I'm pretty sure doesn't count. However I once almost threw up on Jim Lee in a hotel elevator, which is pretty good as stories go.
posted by Artw at 9:20 PM on May 28

I meant, as opposed to this sadly unfunny article. Except the bit about the sadness of the Ents. I liked that bit.
posted by not that girl at 9:22 PM on May 28 [2 favorites has favorites]

H. P. Lovecraft: The basic idea is that what you don’t understand will drive you insane and/or devour you or mate with you and it’s probably wet and gibbering and full of tentacles and this is also what he thought of Black people and Jews.

This is really not entirely true. It's what you understand that will drive you insane. The stuff you don't understand is harmless by comparison, it will just eat you. Also it fails to mention his cripling fear of women and dialogue.
posted by Artw at 9:23 PM on May 28 [1 favorite has favorites]

I think it's a good idea to look down on people who have read less than you or less serious than you as laking curiosity, sophistication,or just plain smarts, while also looking down on people better read than you as being impractical, pretentious, and self important. If you can thread this needle you can be assured of your own supremacy and smoke cigarettes alone in your messy apartment smirking at a model of people your mind creates in pursuit of an unworthy adversary.
posted by I Foody at 9:26 PM on May 28 [13 favorites has favorites]

This post needs more tags.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:32 PM on May 28

not that girl, agreed.
strangely enough, i went against the whole premise of the book by reading it completely because i like how bayard wrote it along with some of his pointers. sort of like the time i bought hoffman's steal this book. i guess i am terrible at following instructions.
posted by the aloha at 9:53 PM on May 28

This is really not entirely true. It's what you understand that will drive you insane. The stuff you don't understand is harmless by comparison, it will just eat you. Also it fails to mention his cripling fear of women and dialogue.

He really didn't have much of a fear of women. He lived with his mother and after that his aunts, he corresponded with many women and in his fairly regular travels around New England he would visit with his local correspondents, both male and female, and when he was married for several years his wife deemed him a satisfactory lover. (It was the 1920s, that's how they talked.)

But yeah, he was terrified of dialogue.
posted by Caduceus at 9:54 PM on May 28

I feel bad saying this about something posted at tor.com, as I feel Tor should be commended for trying to do something interesting with what could easily be nothing but a stale corporate website, but this article reads like bland, warmed over McSweeneys. And since McSweeneys already reads like bland, warmed over McSweeneys that is double plus ungood.

The problem is that, while trying not to be a stale corporate website, they are still a corporate website and can't be anything but bland and inoffensive. Some of them are inoffensive and still awesome: Jo Walton does the lord's work in her reviews (rasfw represent, Jo) but, really, she goes about the limit they'll ever allow by occasionally acknowledging that something wasn't quite as super-awesome as an author's previous works.

Wake me when somebody allowed to post on Tor's page calls Sawyer a self-promoting Canadian wanker, Brin a self-important sexist blowhard, or Card a xenophobic bigot and I'll check back in.

Note: Sawyer is okay by me, I have resolved not to harp on him anymore as he never kicked my dog or anything. So it was just an example. I'm sure I make him cry all the way to the bank.
posted by Justinian at 10:01 PM on May 28 [2 favorites has favorites]

As someone who actually takes the time to read books as opposed to drooling over whatever reality show dogshit the mouth-breathers are currently jerking off to, I officially say FUCK THIS NOISE.

Yeah I've read Tolstoy. Go fuck yourself.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:14 PM on May 28 [1 favorite has favorites]

Fuck yeah Arch. Shit yeah. Fuck that Veronica nasty raw dog style. Your awesome arch. married man now buy a big SUV...better watch out for getting hit with a frying pan like andy capp LOL. fuck that black haired goddess Arch and dont ever trust jughead dont believe his lies
posted by Damn That Television at 10:19 PM on May 28 [9 favorites has favorites]

FUCK THIS NOISE.
hmm, once i figure out how to do so, i will. i love trying out new kinky things.

Go fuck yourself.
gladly!!!! i am quite experienced at doing so.
posted by the aloha at 10:26 PM on May 28

I've read Tolstoy. My favourite story is the one about the turnip.
posted by Artw at 10:32 PM on May 28 [4 favorites has favorites]

I’m fond of reading. In fact, I recommend it.

For some reason I didn't feel compelled to read any further.
posted by inoculatedcities at 10:40 PM on May 28

I hope this doesn't encourage people to think it's okay to lie about what they've read. Lies are deadening. Don't fuck up someone's shot at genuine intellectual engagement with your ego-driven bull-shitting.

Learn to admit ignorance from time to time. Everyone is ignorant. I've learned a lot by asking questions about things I haven't read.
posted by grobstein at 10:41 PM on May 28 [5 favorites has favorites]

Yeah I've read Tolstoy. Go fuck yourself.

Isn't he that Russian communications guy in Star Trek? I had no idea he was in any books.
posted by Dr Dracator at 10:54 PM on May 28

grobstein, I would favorite that more than once if I could. It's self-interest that gets in the way of dialogue and discovery in the first place.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 10:54 PM on May 28

I used to pretend that I hadn't read books - for example, I know that I read one or two of those Pern books in junior high, but at the time I would never have admitted it.
posted by betweenthebars at 10:55 PM on May 28

You’re at a room party at a convention and find yourself in a totally indefensible position

Indeed you do.
posted by dersins at 11:12 PM on May 28 [4 favorites has favorites]

The hilarious thing about Tolstoy, specifically War and Peace, is that when people reference it as if it were the Matterhorn of literature, they're missing out on a fun story*.

True, the story goes on and on and ON and ON, and everyone has like forty-seven names, but if you power through the first two or three hundred pages so you know who everyone is, you're hooked for the rest of the trip.

A lot of those great works of literature are actually pretty good. Who would have guessed it.

*My favorite character is Vasiliy Denisov, awesomest minor fighty character in all of history.

And incidentally, Mervyn Peake was suffering from the onset of Parkinson's and mental breakdown while he was writing Titus Alone (which truly is not great), so fuck the author of this article for making light of the terrible condition of the author. That third-rate internets hack wishes he could be as great an author, painter and poet as Peake, even with Titus Alone screwing up the batting average.
posted by winna at 11:37 PM on May 28

Well, I thought the article was funny. So there!
posted by Nattie at 11:40 PM on May 28 [1 favorite has favorites]

tl;dr
posted by darkstar at 11:43 PM on May 28

Titus Alone (which truly is not great)

It's not, but it's also nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be. It doesn't cohere but there are lots of good parts.

"Boy In Darkness," on the other hand, which is related to the trilogy but usually not published with it, is a masterpiece, and should be better known.
posted by doubtfulpalace at 11:52 PM on May 28 [1 favorite has favorites]

Color me sad by the whole concept. When I really connect with a book it's a very personal experience. I love those rare moments when you stumble across someone who has similarly connected. If I found out the person was just bluffing it would feel like a betrayal.

Strike that "feel." It would be a betrayal. I'd smack him down like a lit professor on the sexist taxi driver in 2666 .
posted by kanewai at 12:13 AM on May 29

Totally with you winna. I see Tolstoy as essentially an easy read, only with a vast network of secondary characters and overarching themes whose tentacle-like projections run through the subplots, secondary subplots, manifestoes, asides, and tretises, creating this singular dynamic whole.

And his prose is really quite readble. I'd go so far as to say modern. Tolstoy as a writer will give you "just enough" description, but not any more -- a quality that I also admire in Hemmingway. It's such a necessary balance.

Finally, he always builds strong, solid characters. You can't not feel for these people, because they are REAL. And Tolstoy himself was a very apt observer of the human character.

It is not a surprise that he became a pacifist, much to the chagrin of Lenin. Having written The Definitive Tome of the Great Patriotic War! Borodino, the Burning of Moscow, the catastrophic retreat of the French. Add to that his own time in the Caucasus, and any literary man would think -- who are these souls that we're sending off to die? Your soul is no more valuable than theirs. Some lives are cut tragically short, and for what?

Tolstoy's pacisfism went on to anger commies, inspired Ghandi, and give birth to the modern notion of passive resistance.

Here's to you Tolstoy!
posted by Afroblanco at 12:21 AM on May 29 [3 favorites has favorites]

I once fucked Tolstoy.

Don't judge me, I was lonely.
posted by Kattullus at 4:21 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

This is really not entirely true.

Considering that you're saying that about something in a book titled How to Lie About..., doesn't that go without saying?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:48 AM on May 29

From the article: You’re at a room party at a convention and find yourself in a totally indefensible position, surrounded by unyielding fantasy experts perseverating on Anne McCaffrey. They all want to know what you think of Rengades of Pern.

FYI, if you're ever actually in this situation (and I can't imagine it), Renegades of Pern sucked. So did anything written by her son and any of the Pern novels, starting with Masterharper, where she used them as vehicles to argue with her fans.

Now that I've told you all that, I'm sure you're relieved. Nerd social disaster averted!
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:05 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

These tips also work for indie rock, except instead of a taking a picture of a kitten out of your wallet, you just take a dump on the floor.

"What do I think of Okerville River? Well, I think their early stuff was better and [zip] am [trou drop] a bit worried that they ungh will get over produced when they ack its a fighter hit [fart] the mainstream oh jesus I'm never eating cheese again. Wait, what are you staring at? I thought we were talking music?"
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:37 AM on May 29 [4 favorites has favorites]

With anti-intellectualism at an all-time high, I'm surprised the author meets any people that even claim to, you know, read books.
posted by Enron Hubbard at 5:38 AM on May 29

I have also read Titus Alone, but I'd never admit it in front of anyone but you nerds.
posted by rusty at 6:32 AM on May 29

I actually had a thing for Russian lit. and took a few college courses, so I've read Tolstoy (several works, thankyouverymuch), Tugeniev, Dostoyevsky, etc. I was a compulsive reader for most of grade school, most of high school and part of college. Thing is, i've forgotten a lot of what i've read so I can say "hey, I read that too" but have to cop to forgetting most of the details. Now I hang out with people that have read all the greek classics, which I have barely touched, so I have to admit to not having read things. So, i'm well read but can't remember most of it. I forgot why I wrote this post now. Thank you very much.
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 6:46 AM on May 29

I must say if I ever found myself at a party where I was forced to discuss the works of Terry Pratchett, Isaac Asimov, Octavia Butler, Neil Gaiman, Frank Herbert, Ursula LaGuin, H.P Lovecraft, Neal Stephenson, and J.R.R. Tolkein, I would strip off my clothes and fly out the nearest window because obviously I would be having a nightmare. Who the hell has the unmitigated gall to look down their nose at someone else just because that person hasn't read the complete oeuvre of Frank Herbert? At the parties that I attend it is rather the reverse-- someone would look disdainfully at you if you mentioned casually that you had read Frank Herbert.

True story: When I first moved in with my husband, he was a tiny bit worried about what his friends would think if they saw my copies of the early Stephen King novels on the book shelf. It wasn't that he wanted me to hide them exactly, but he did prefer that they were shelved in the bedroom and not out in the living room.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:59 AM on May 29 [3 favorites has favorites]

Hm. A lot of you seem to be taking this article seriously, in whole or in part. I read it as a joke, 100%. And I thought it was pretty funny. But that's just me.

*goes back to reading volume 7 of Artamene in the original French*
posted by brain_drain at 7:37 AM on May 29

The level of snark in that article is rather off-putting.
posted by HumanComplex at 7:40 AM on May 29

Usually, if I have not read a book that someone wants to discuss, I have no problem just saying "No, I haven't read that yet. How was it?" Sometimes it's a good way to get recommendations for new stuff.

But I will lie and say I haven't read a book that I've read and disliked, just to avoid being a "your favorite book sucks" type person.

"Don't spoil it for me! I'll get around to it really soon!"
posted by Cookiebastard at 7:47 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

No one talks about having read the *entire* works of Frank Herbert, as they are generally considered awful except for Dune. Also the winning conversational strategy is to diss the sequels by his son. Which do sound bad, but I'm pretty sure only a fraction of the people complaining about them have read them.

(I'm a fan of the movie, mind, so I'm not going to mess about with any fashionable dissing of it. Nor would I actually bring up the subject myself since people always think I'm saying June or something. But if it is brought up then I am always up for a Dune conversation. )
posted by Artw at 7:48 AM on May 29

I'm with Secret Life of Gravy, this is a literary scene I'm astonished by. I'm picturing some snobbish, impeccably-dressed woman dismissively turning her nose up at me because I haven't read The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch. What?
posted by naju at 7:55 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

I thought it was pretty clear that it was an article by a person who has read all those books, and was just being silly. Maybe the jokes fall flat for you, but to argue that it's not just un-funny but actually somehow pernicious for recommending lying about having read books is like getting upset at someone for writing a recommendation that the Irish sell their children as food.

No, I'm not saying it's on the level with Jonathan Swift, nor that it's somehow incredible biting satire. Just that, like Swift, or any satire, great or horrible, it isn't really saying what it purports to be saying. The quality or lack-of-quality of a satire doesn't affect the core fact that it's satire.
posted by Bugbread at 7:57 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

Well, as a scif-fi/fantasy nerd who frequently talks about these books, I thought it was pretty funny, especially when he goes into specific authors.

You guys seriously think that someone who writes for a blog run by a publishing company actually wants you to lie about reading books instead of reading them? Metafilter must've woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
posted by natabat at 8:55 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

Also, Tim Powers is really a nice guy. Helped me change a flat tire once.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:07 AM on May 29

You’re at a room party at a convention and find yourself in a totally indefensible position, surrounded by unyielding fantasy experts perseverating on Anne McCaffrey.

If this is a) in the UK b) more than an hour after the con has started I'd be too drunk to care
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:17 AM on May 29

I am an awful person. I have read both Moby Dick and A Confederacy of Dunces twice. I get them all mixed up in my head and keep expecting Queequeg to harpoon Ignatius J. Reilly in the Office Rebellion scene. How awful is that?
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:18 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

I don't know bout Sci-Fi lit conventions, but the lack of booze at US comics conventions is truley horrifying to me. That said, once the correct pub has been located you can just hang out there (note to anyone going to the NY Comicon next year: Most likely I'll be in the Landesdown on 10th and 43rd. It's a shit pub but it;s where everyone will be.)

I, um, have actually read a fair chunk of the Pern books. Hey, we only had a small local library when I was a kid, everything on that shelf is getting read. See also Clan of the Cave Bear.

I'm keeping the picture of a kitten though.
posted by Artw at 9:24 AM on May 29

The Ship Who Sang is pretty good, btw. And even the Pern stuff has a stealth sci-fi element to it which I kind of dig.
posted by Artw at 9:25 AM on May 29

Who the hell has the unmitigated gall to look down their nose at someone else just because that person hasn't read the complete oeuvre of Frank Herbert?

I'm not too proud of the fact that I read the Dune Trilogy when I was 12. I think I was talking a break from history though -- Red Star Over China had been kinda taxing, and even at 11, I was beginning to get the idea that it was a little Mao-apologist.

Also. The movie sucked compared to the book, even if you haven't read it. He was right, there. Sting is an ass.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:29 AM on May 29

I don't know bout Sci-Fi lit conventions, but the lack of booze at US comics conventions is truley horrifying to me.

Freind of mine told me about an US SF lit con that had a fan room with free beer.., that still had beer on the second day! This side of the pond if they tried that it would look like the Mongol Horde had been through five mins after the doors opening.

I, um, have actually read a fair chunk of the Pern books.

You now, you be married and that... otherwise... (not that there's anything wrong with that.) I imagine only someone like Sophie Knsella has a more feminine readership.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:37 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

Well, first you successfully reproduce, then you admit to Pern books.
posted by Artw at 9:41 AM on May 29

True, the story goes on and on and ON and ON, and everyone has like forty-seven names...

What is with the predilection of Russian writers to wrap narrative in dialog? They can't just say Ivonovich went to see Karinivkoviskilyovitch. They have to write that "Guderianovich saw Illyakotsky at Molitovny's suaree, and told him there 'I say there, Illyakotsky -- did you know that Ivonovich went to see Karinivkoviskilyovitch?'"

Drove me nuts.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:43 AM on May 29

Also. The movie sucked compared to the book, even if you haven't read it. He was right, there. Sting is an ass.

Grrr.

Well I still love it. Me and John Hodgeman. 3rd Stage Guild Navigator FTW!
posted by Artw at 9:47 AM on May 29

The movie sucked compared to the book, even if you haven't read it.

Whatever. It's the best movie David Lynch has ever made.
posted by dersins at 9:51 AM on May 29

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you damn something with faint praise...
posted by dersins at 9:51 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

This article is brilliant.
posted by jeffamaphone at 10:09 AM on May 29

I'm just enjoying watching MeFites deride something for being too snarky and for encouraging people to comment on things without reading them.
posted by Artw at 10:32 AM on May 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

I'm gonna beat* somebody with a rolled up copy of The Dosadi Experiment for suggesting that Herbert's nonDune stuff sucked.

* where "beat" is meant to mean "think rude thoughts about"
posted by waraw at 10:41 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

That's a weird masturbation fantasy.
posted by Kattullus at 10:43 AM on May 29

I'm just enjoying watching MeFites deride something for being too snarky and for encouraging people to comment on things without reading them.

Oh, hey -- topic. I actually got a couple laughs out of the article, but haven't been in a room full of sci-fi fans since puberty, thank g*d.

"But Science Fiction can address the human condition!" Yeah, but you can also address the human condition without having to invent 70 planets, an interstellar drive, an intergalactic government, three languages and 6 species of aliens, none of which are as interesting as earth-bound creatures than can be dredged up from ocean trenches.

Frank Herbert wrote exactly three words that caught my attention when I was thirteen: "Nodes of existence." That made me think for a minute, and it stuck with me.

I will admit at this point that I have actually read Stranger in a Strange Land as recently as six years ago. I'm not sure if this is cause for shame. Please instruct.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:45 AM on May 29

I have to admit to never having read anything by Herbert that wasn't Dune related. I'm kind of sketchy as how much of the Dune sequels I've actually read - I remember getting some from the library, but I'm damn sure I didn't finish any of them.
posted by Artw at 11:05 AM on May 29

...they had nice art, so I think I may have looked at the covers a lot...
posted by Artw at 11:09 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

The Green Brain.
posted by metagnathous at 11:33 AM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

Artw - Isn't the whole point of the post to learn to comment on something without reading it?

The article was more tongue-in-cheek than I was expecting. At first I wondered what kind of world the author lives in, where he might find himself in a room full of people who even recognize, much less have opinions on, Pern.

And then I looked around.
posted by kanewai at 4:43 PM on May 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

Isn't the whole point of the post to learn to comment on something without reading it?

No, not really. Funny that, eh?
posted by Artw at 4:57 PM on May 29

Sawyer is okay by me, I have resolved not to harp on him anymore as he never kicked my dog or anything.


I think you were closer with "self-promoting Canadian wanker" I have encountered him once or twice. There is something about him that makes me want to kick him really hard in the shins. Twice. There is literally no one else I have met in my life who produces such a visceral reaction in me. I cannot explain the remarkable shmoeness the guy radiates.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:51 PM on May 29

Something about sitting on sfwriter.com sticks in my craw. Also, for full disclosure, I tried to interview Sawyer for a short-lived series, oh... a dozen years ago or so... and after agreeing to do it he never replied. I don't mind, it just doesn't help his case with me. Also, what I've read of his didn't grab me.
posted by Kattullus at 10:21 PM on May 29

My brother would be repulsed to learn that I’ve never read Dune. I’ve gotten around this gap in my reading by watching the movie and proclaiming that it was nothing at all like the book. No one has ever questioned this statement.

Okay, yeah. I've totally done that.
posted by lunit at 11:04 PM on May 29

I think you were closer with "self-promoting Canadian wanker"

"When I meet someone at a convention who tells me they’re trying to break into science-fiction writing, I ask a seemingly unrelated question: “Have you read anything by me?” It seems self-absorbed, perhaps, but it’s actually a useful little test. See, I’ve been lucky enough to win the field’s two top awards—the Hugo and the Nebula, both for best novel of the year. If you want to sell in this market, you need to know what the market considers to be the best work. When people say no, they haven’t read any Sawyer, I smile politely and walk away—because they can’t really be serious about breaking in."

Robert J. Sawyer
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:27 AM on May 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

I found this hilarious too. It's a satire of course, and really as much about fandom as much as it is about books and reading. For example, since I am Japanese, I'm expected to have read, and know how to explain the nuances of, every recent manga out there. Well eh, I don't like, and have no interest in reading, most recent manga (classic manga from the likes of Moto Hagio, another story). More than once I've been given this look like 'what's wrong with you? how can you not like this Great Example Of Your Culture???' I will remember the kitty pics trick.
posted by thread_makimaki at 4:50 AM on May 30

Ok, you guys sold me. Back to referring to Sawyer as a self-absorbed Canadian wanker without remorse. Even if it ticks off John Scalzi and almost got me banned whatever.com.

HOMINIDS: Worst Hugo winner ever, or only second worst?
posted by Justinian at 10:03 AM on May 30

I admit I haven't read it and then change the subject to a book I have read. Am I doing it wrong?

Why is it that we're not allowed to admit gaps in our cultural knowledge? If someone is going to turn down their nose at me because I haven't read Finnegan's Wake, they can go right ahead and I won't have to waste my time discussing the 9bajillion06 books that I *have* read.

I will admit to judging a person by their bookshelves though. Not necessarily in a "Good" v. "Bad" kind of way but in a more "I can see your books, and therefore, I see INTO YOUR SOUL" kind of way. Which is, admittedly, probably creepier.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 7:36 AM on May 31

You know what creeps me out? When you go over to someones house and CAN'T SEE ANY BOOKS.
posted by Artw at 9:31 AM on May 31 [1 favorite has favorites]

(or there is a little glass cabinet of leather bound books that look like unread classics. Shudder. Those are dead books, never to be touched, never to be read, never to serve their true function as books. Makes me want to run screaming to a shelf full of tatty second hand paperbacks)
posted by Artw at 9:35 AM on May 31

Robert J. Sawyer interview
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:41 AM on June 12